Speck Oppression
Energize movable collectors by carefully corralling excitable sparks. Fully energize all the collectors in one room, and it's on to the next. Florian Himsl's Speck Oppression eventually gets a lot more complicated, but those are basics.
Rudimentary physics, a simple rule set, and sharp presentation all come together nicely here, adding up to an intriguing little time waster. Success usually requires a combination of strategic thinking and careful trial-and-error experimentation. If you liked Gravity Pods, you might find that Speck Oppression scratches a similar itch. On word of caution: the incessant spark sounds may drive you slowly insane.
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On a related note, Himsl and artist Edmund McMillen recently released Coil, one of the more fascinating and disturbing Flash games I've played. Like a twisted version of Nova's Life's Greatest Miracle, it begins with the player piloting a sperm into an ovum and just gets weirder from there.
It's beautifully done, and employs some brilliant programming. But it might give you nightmares.
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I haven't really been able to figure out the rules for Speck Oppression. I get the basics and I've beaten quite a few levels, but I can't quite figure out how I'm beating them. I don't really understand what makes the meter go higher (especially when you have more than one collector). It just doesn't seem quite "scientific" enough for me. Although it has been fairly enjoyable.
Fletcher wrote:
Some of these color schemes are murdering my brain.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
I would just restart the level until I got a sane color scheme. Some don't let you know what is actually happening.
I just played coil. That was one strange "game". The picture you took is of the only level I felt like I really was enjoying myself.
Fletcher wrote:
My eyes...they burnses.
*Legion* wrote:
Coil is so wierd it is beyond belief. That being said, play it.
*Legion* wrote:
The meter measures the charge of a collector. However, since a collector loses charge quickly, you have to make sure it's continually bombarded by sparks. So in effect, the meter goes up as long as the number of spark hits per second is kept high.
With multiple collectors, I believe the meter is the minimum charge out of all collectors.
Yeah, I'd just discovered that restarting the level picks another random color scheme.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
I'm really enjoying this game, however, I'm stuck at level 11, can't figure out how to get the 6 collectors enough sparks : (
[My Little Pwny] Grad
That's where I got stuck too.
My next line of attack will be 3 in each of 2 corners, and if that doesn't work, 2 in each of 3 corners.
Fletcher wrote:
Speck Oppression is cool, but f*ck Coil. Really. I get what I'm supposed to do on the second level, but actually accomplishing it is maddening.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
I feel I've tried everything at this point, best I did was 2 rectangles with 3 in each, got it to 90% then the sparks started to explode.
arg I want to see what lvl 12 is like!
[My Little Pwny] Grad
Level 11 was the hardest map in the game imho, and takes some out-of the box thinking, it's also one of the few levels that only have one solution...
Take two lines, and place them vertically, so that you have 3 generators on one side, and 3 on the other. Then, take all the others, and arrange them horizontally across the width of the map, so that you end up with 6 individual boxes.
Then it gets tough.. you have to carefully edge the boxes smaller and smaller, and make sure that you have a somewhat even numebr of specks inside each box. If you lose more than 3 or 4 specks it can be basically impossible to finish, because the number necessary to generate enough energy is almost exactly the same as what can be effectively generated if you save and use every speck in an optimal setup. If any generator doesn't have at least 3-5 specks in it, you will probably lose more energy than you can gain.
If you lose a couple specks, restart, or just box the rest in safely, and go take a walk, because it will take a LONG time to generate enough energy.
...Also, youtube has videos of this level.