Image Transcription:
A 3-panel CTRL+ALT+DEL comic by Tim Buckley.
The first panel shows a blond man wearing a green sleeveless shirt, long brown pants, sturdy brown boots, brown bracers, and a belt and sash, standing against a forested backdrop with a signpost to his right reading “START”.
The second panel shows the START signpost is far to the right edge of the panel and the blond man has turned and walked directly into a rock wall with an onomatopoeic WHUMP!
The last panel shows a brown-haired, bearded man in green shirt, blue pants and glasses, sitting on a cream-coloured couch next to a blond-haired boy wearing a blue shirt and black shorts. The man is holding a controller for a video game console. The boy says “Why do you always start every level in every game by turning around and running backwards?”. The man replies “because one time a game hid a secret behind the start position and my OCD decided I have to suffer for the rest of my life.”
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Good bot
Beep boop
One time my friend was playing some shitty 3D platformer made for kids that was distributed with cornflakes or some other shit and when he turned around and gone forward he just fell through the floor to limbo, lol.
Chex Quest!
No, not that one :) It was in Poland and it was some newer game, I think from late 00’s or early 10’s.
As for Chex Quest, it is actually on my backlog, as I have lately began to play all kind of old first person shooters and related games :)
Hey now, that wasn’t a shit 3D platformer, it was just a silly Doom mod 😀
Mega Man X6, Inifnity Mijinion’s second part of the stage, also hid an armor piece and the heart tank by “going left” instead of right. Found that by complete accident one day, rubbing a cloth on the controller and dashing left
I had no idea that Tim Buckley was still alive
I’m amazed that his reputation is still intact, and that he still gets a loyal following. I would’ve thought he’d take the money he’s made and find a corporate art job somewhere by now.
Why, I’d rather be beloved for my angry alcoholic blender.
Did he do/say something that should have trashed his reputation? I used to read Ctrl+alt+del like 15 years ago (I recent found my signed copies of the first two hardcover collections) but I haven’t followed in forever.
I could be wrong but I think it was just a combo of people growing tired of his copy+paste art, overdone humor, and the fact he used his wife’s miscarriage for content in a humor comic. I don’t wanna tell someone how to grieve but it doesn’t really seem like a subject for a funny comic strip.
There were some serious allegations made that he’d sent a pic of his dick to an underage girl, leading to something crazy like 60% of people being banned from his own forums.
Yep. Also gotta check under every stairwell and waterfall. And if a NPC is telling you to hurry, it means it’s time to check every nook and cranny to make sure you haven’t missed some loot.
Screams in trunic
if there isn’t a giant red flashing countdown, take your time. but even when there is, look everywhere.
I’m always blown away by time to complete times. I will easily spend twice as long simply for this reason. It’s usually not even loot worth grabbing!
“We have to hurry, my family is being attacked by ogres, please, make haste! Why do we keep stopping for every rock and corner?”
“There’s a chest with a bronze ring worth 4gp back behind that waterfall, your family can wait!”
I believe it was Deus Ex where you could fail the first mission if you took too long exploring.
As anxiety inducing as it would be, I think it would be nice if occasionally a game would come out where the entire thing was timed. Take too long and the bad guy will complete their evil plan and win.
I’ve been thinking a real-time fantasy RPG could be super interesting. Like there’s a huge battle that takes place on, say, day 3 or something, and if you’re not there on that day then you just miss it.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker is entirely real time (as in, like you suggest, events are on a schedule and you can’t do them all in one run). I can’t speak for the sequel as I haven’t played it.
I personally found the mechanic infuriating (modded a workaround), but you may like it if you like crpgs.
You just made me realize why I stopped playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It would have events that said something like “come to this mountain top for the portal to open” and I’d end up missing it and being beyond frustrated. My brain has been programmed by years of video games to try to complete everything and not accept that some paths are closed off. It’s also a reason I couldn’t get into Disco Elysium. I felt like I had to try every dialogue option available, which isn’t how those types of games are meant to be played.
I blame early Sierra and Lucas Arts adventure games.
I share your exact experience. I had the same frustration with Disco Elysium too, though I enjoyed the writing so much I ended up playing through regardless lol
Yes! Freakin’ Secret of Monkey Island…
The new Monkey Island is definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already!
Wrath of the righteous has less time constraints but definitely has some in there still. (People were not happy with how tight some of those were in kingmaker cuz they wanted to explore everything.)
First large battle happens after a few days and you’re basically dragged there the night before if you weren’t there. There are things you could have explored before that change things etc.
The best ending requires you to finish on an exact date.
Anyways this is to say definitely play WotR it is an amazing game. Much better than kingmaker.
Thanks for the WotR review, I’ll definitely give it a try now. I was genuinely afraid to try it because of how time-focused Kingmaker was lol
Oddly enough I think the concept still holds water, but perhaps for action rpgs? The strategic aspect of crpgs just didn’t mesh with timed events for me I guess
I think it would work if designed better. (Which WotR is.) Kingmaker tried but it was also basically expected you do pretty much everything in order to be able to keep up. If you’re going to put in time constraints it’s gotta have A: choices that matter and lock people out of things and B: a much more relaxed XP curve so people don’t feel forced into doing ALL OF IT.
WotR had a section where each thing you looted lead to more soldiers being killed, which is a great example. Most of the game isn’t that urgent at all, but does lock you into choices that actually affect the entire story which is cool.
Fallout 1 had a timer. XX days til your home vault dies of dehydration.
This mentality has mutated into a principle of doing anything other than main quest in open world games for me. In the latest zelda game I spent way too long trying to figure out how to unlock the map by traveling to different vantage points, climbing towers etc, before deciding to do a little bit of the main quest and the map is almost the first thing you do.
That’s why I’m playing it twice!
I’m like 100 hours deep in RDR2 because of this shit. I spent like 3 real life days trying to find a god damn badger. Now it wants me to win 3 hands of blackjack by hitting 3 times? Aghhhh!!
badger badger badger badger badger badger!
mushroom mushroom!
When BotW first released, as soon as I got the paraglider, I thought to myself “If this game is truly fully open world, I’m going to try to get the Master Sword before doing anymore of the main quest”.
The forest was literally the last area of the map that I went, haha.
It has honestly made open world games very difficult for me to focus on.
“I’ve completed 376 side quests and I’m at level 100 in all skills, I wear full enchanted Dragon Glass armour and I wield The Sword of Gods. It’s time to finally find the lvl 1 goblin tribe that assaulted the village of DewWeather and start the journey of finding whoever sent them”
I do the same, but I just like exploring and wandering around. That’s where the fun lies in for me in open-world games: unlocking the full map, interacting with NPCs, doing random sidequests, finding hidden stuff, seeing cool locations. Going through dungeons and fighting bosses usually feel like a stressful chore that I have to get through if I want to advance the story.
Yeah, it’s the same for me, but I don’t mind the bosses and dungeons. It’s just that as soon as something is defined as the main quest I stay away. I had the full overworld and sky in Tears of the kingdom before fighting the first main boss just because of that. I also had close to maxed out gear. It made the main quest bosses quite underwhelming.
Funny that you mentioned Tears of the Kingdom, I actually spent a few weeks fully exploring the surface and the depths before doing the first temple. Zelda is one game where I think avoiding the main quest makes a lot of sense considering how the game just ends if you complete it.
I used to do this too, but now I’ve realized that today’s games have way too much unnecessary crap and I end up way over powered. I’ve reverted to beelining the main story until it gets too hard and then exploring. This has it’s own pitfalls, like some games including key items in those side areas, but usually I would have had to explore the areas twice anyway due to needing a late game skill.
I’ve just stopped caring about main quests. The exploration is what I like, so why care about my lost kid or whatever
I guess I should try to learn that as well. I got a bit underwhelmed by the main quest bosses in the last zelda game because of that.
I’m sure it works for a lot of people, but for me it’s kind of ruined pacing in games. Either you end up overpowered for the main game by doing too much side content, or you end up finishing the main game too early and end up unable to experience the side content in the way it was meant to be enjoyed. Side content tends to be more fun if it is interspersed with the main game, so that there is a steady progression for both, and so that any time-gated side stuff doesn’t pile up and end up feeling tedious. But when it’s left to the player to manage that balance, they are unlikely to hit a sweet spot. At least, I usually fail to do so. Can’t plan an optimal route through the game without reading through a bunch of spoiler-packed guides ahead of time, which destroys organic exploration and feels like work anyway.
I get that. If the game makes it interesting enough I’ll deviate from this and explore. It’s gotta be fun though. If I find the side content repetitive or unrewarding then I cruise!
Original armored core had one of the best weapons hidden like this
That’s one of my favorite things about the older games. I’m glad AC6 brought back hidden weapons, I just wish there were more parts to find overall.
I’ve been overwhelmed by how many weapon options there are anyway. It’s crazy!
Final Fantasy III/6: Always wait until the very last second to complete a timed escape objective.
Try this in Shadow Complex lol
No regrets, just do it.
“There’s plenty of fish in the sea!”
The beginning of every Far Cry game I have to sit there and not do anything and see if I “beat” the game.
You wanna know the definition of insanity?
The definition of insanity… is
The original Crash Trilogy has a few levels that do this too
Thats not OCD. OCD is a debilitating condition.
Sure, but a person with OCD could also do this as part of their OCD. I’ve struggled with what I am pretty sure is OCD, and I relate a lot to this. I can’t even enjoy big open world games anymore because I feel like I need to explore every corner, find everything, talk to everyone. It becomes stressful.
You think Tim “I wrote loss” Buckley cares about using a mental illness wrong?
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Donkey Kong Country (GBC) and Abe’s Oddysee/Exoddus (PS1) for me! It’s a habit that carries through and helps even in modern games though.
A CAD comic that’s not terrible?
still fit in a dumb “ocd” comment
Is that a common thing in his comics? I know most people misuse the term ocd.
Also, somehow his art style got even more boring over the years. It looks like wikihow art.
idk i dont read his comics
Next you’ll be telling me he’s not a nonce any more.
People don’t even remember that anymore. He’s infamous for loss to zoomers, his noncing blew over.
The reason why it was ever popular was that it always wasn’t just Loss or “us gamers, amirite” or “don’t fuck with us we train hours on dumb shit” edgy shit. I distinctly remember there being a few good ones in the past when I used to read webcomics regularly.
I use to read webcomics when CAD was probably at it’s peak. At least back when Little Gamers and VG Cats were at their peak. CAD always came across as try hard or something. The comics reminded me of the sort of people I avoided at LAN parties.
Probably. It’s been idk 15 years since I read webcomics and the only thing I remember from CAD was the three I mentioned, mostly cuz they’ve been memed to death. And those are the worst of the worst my god.
I wasn’t exactly looking at these very deeply then just killing time in school with restrictive internet filters in place.
Aladdin.
