SMB3 does not use its unique tools to build new kinds of puzzles or present alternate paths through a level they just make the challenges a little easier.
This is extraordinarily wrong!
There are secrets that you need specific power ups to get to.
Raccoon/Tanuki are used to fly to secret areas or break blocks with the tail
Fire is used to melt blocks in the ice world
Frog can swim against strong currents
If you start some levels with an invincible star from the map, it will cause some blocks to drop a star instead of a coin, letting you chain invincibility through the whole level
Tanuki and Hammer aren’t necessary for anything in the main game, but they are for some e-reader levels where they can break blocks that can’t be broken normally
Interesting. Optimizing the factory for your immediate current needs sounds very tedious, because those needs change all the time. I instead optimize for expandability and adaptability. The factory game genre isn’t for everyone, but if you are interested in some tips:
My solution is usually something like:
really long line of basic resources (usually a belt of smelted copper and a belt of smelted iron, eventually adding more stuff and adding more belts of iron and copper as supplies are needed)
when I need thing 1, I make a little package that builds it, drawing resources from the line with splitters so the excess can continue down the line
thing 2 is an independent little package farther down the line
When it’s time for thing 3, I build copies of the packages for building thing 1 and thing 2 as necessary to feed the construction of thing 3, again as separate feeds splitting off the main resource line
when it’s time for thing 4, its again independent of the production of things 1-3, except they are splitting off the same main resource belt
If the resources on the main belt are insufficient to feed all of those machines, one of three things needs to happen: 1. Add more raw resource processing until your belt is full and backed up at the beginning 2. If that’s not enough, upgrade the belt 3. If you don’t have a belt upgrade available, build another main resource line and use splitters to rebalance it onto the main line
This construction allows for easy expansion without having to destroy anything. I typically don’t disassemble anything unless it’s actually a problem for some reason or I need the space. This is especially important because you often need some basic components like the level 1 belts even into the late game.
Also, once you unlock robots, you can literally copy-paste, just select an area to upgrade all belts/arms/etc. in, and a lot of other neat tricks that drastically speed things up.
And one last peace of advice: Overproduce everything and let belts backing up balance out the resource distribution. Then if you discover that belts that previously were backed up are now sparse, figure out why and optimize it, usually by adding more production of whatever the missing resource is.
Ultimately throughput is all that matters. Loss of throughput because you don’t need something isn’t wasteful. Loss of throughput because you aren’t producing enough of something is a problem to solve. Things that don’t affect throughput don’t matter and aren’t wasteful.
That’s funny, I love Slay the Spire, but I have mixed feeling about Balatro.
Balatro is addicting in that once I start playing I don’t want to stop, and yet after playing for a few hours I couldn’t say for sure I had fun at any point the whole time.
Playing Balatro feels like exploring the backrooms to me - just infinite bland nothingness.
Yeah I’ve seen people try to balance things perfectly in factorio, but my strat is always to overproduce and let belts getting backed up balance out the throughput.
I don’t know if you could have chosen a worse example. The sexual ads in cyberpunk are part of the worldbuilding and statement about society and capitalism. They absolutely are necessary to the story.
I don’t think anyone would have complained if it was $30-$40. They could have sold well at $60 with some people complaining about it and others defending them for the choice.