Tag: guide

Sir TapTap writes guides and Walkthroughs for games, usually for niche,indie, or mobile titles it’s hard to find quality info for.

Pokémon Rumble Rush Guide – Quick Start & Event Info

Pokemon Rumble Rush is out now! It’s a continuation of the Pokemon Rumble series, and is on Android and iOS. This is a very early work in progress guide I’ll be updating as I play, so check back often! There will be much more info soon. I’m also working on a Search Spreadsheet that you can contribute to!

As always, post in the comments if you have any questions, info to share, or just comments about the game! We’ll also likely be playing the game in our Discord Server.

Updates

2019-05-17: More info added to gameplay section. Method to find boss pokemon to catch detailed.

2019-05-16: Added a quick-facts video. Added IAP section detailing the IAPs, so you can find what they do with less digging than ingame. Note the Points/Dollar feature is completely wrong in the IAP menu. Created more spreadsheets to be added to mobile-friendly tables in the guide soon

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Pokemon Rumble Rush Game Info

Title: Pokemon Rumble Rush
(Pokemon Scramble SP in Japanese)
Official Site: Japanese
Platform: Android & iOS
Language: Japanese, English, German, French, Korean, Chinese, Spanish
Release date: 2019-05-15
Developer: The Pokemon Company
Price: Free to Play™ with IAP. No ads.
Genre: Beat ’em up
Filesize: 400 MB installed and updated
Cloud Save: Yes (must link to Nintendo Account)
Always Online: Yes, strictly
Gambling Element: ?
Battery Drain: High, with power save options

Pokemon Rumble Rush Quickstart Guide

Quick Facts Video Guide

Is it Kanto Pokemon only?

Long term, no, there are Johto and Alola pokemon shown in the official site. However, the first area of the game is Kanto only and it will likely be a bit of time before later generation pokemon appear. There aren’t even all 151 Kanto pokemon yet it appears.

What’s It Play Like?

It should be familiar if you’ve played a Pokemon Rumble series game before. In basic combat your pokemon automatically moves towards pokemon, and you can tap to attack or long press to charge a stronger attack.

You catch pokemon through a special Search feature, each search stage has specific pokemon to catch, and strength of Pokemon is determined by a Pokemon GO-esque system with the single CP stat for pokemon strength. Pokemon each have a single move, randomly selected from a list of possible moves when the pokemon is caught.

Does it have Nintendo Account features?

Yes, you can use your Mii (huzzah) and Cloud Save features by linking your Nintendo Account. Linking your Nintendo Account with Pokemon Rumble Rush is permanent. For most people, this isn’t a problem, but if you have more than one account, share accounts, etc, be mindful of it.

How Can I play it?

It’s currently regionally restricted for a region-test launch. It will likely release globally soon, between a week and a month. Despite being limited for the launch, the app includes multiple languages and will auto select one based on your devices country. You can’t manually pick a language.

Android

If you’re in Australia, simply use the Google Play Store to download it. Outside of Australia, you’d have to either spoof your location (Google Play no longer allows changing Country without your IP address indicating you’ve moved countries).

There are Pokemon Rumble Rush APK links out there, but I can’t vouch for the validity of any and won’t link any here.

iOS

Oddly, it’s not out for iOS quite yet. It just launched in a test market, so the iOS version will likely be out soon, likely with the same temporary regional restriction.

It uses too much battery!

Go to the Menu, Options, Game Settings, and set the Graphics option to Power Saving. If that’s not enough, also reduce the Resolution (clarity of image) and Imaging Speed (framerate) in the More menu.

Gameplay

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Shakedown: Hawaii Quickstart Guide

Shakedown: Hawaii launched this week on Nintendo Switch, PC, and Playstation! I really enjoy the game so I thought I’d publish a little mini-guide to how to get the most out of the game. Look for a little more fleshing out over the next few days.

As always, if you have questions or anything to say at all, please drop a comment at the bottom of the page; I read every one!

Updates

2019-05-17: The first content/bugfix patch released today! Features:

  • More guidance to finish main story to get money early on
  • More Shakedown Scenarios (even more variety!)
  • Car Repossession (earn extra cash for your Subprime Auto locations)
  • Weapon Pawning (earn cash and clear out inventory)
  • Shop Icons added to the map
  • Expands some building interiors
  • Character upgrades can now be unequipped
  • Faster property and multipliers purchasing
  • Salary can now be increased quicker
  • Police chases improved
  • Horns/sirens added to vehicles
  • Bug fixes (nearly all reported bugs have been fixed)
  • More detailed info on the official site

General Tips

Secret? Hold L+R to change characters…I never noticed.

Relax! Shakedown: Hawaii is one of the chillest games you’ll play and there’s nothing you can really do wrong to meaningfully screw yourself over. No permanent negative choices, no missable achievements, nadda.

The property management aspect takes a little time to get used to, but you can safely mess with it at your own speed early own and know that buying the ‘wrong’ property doesn’t matter long-term. Eventually, you want everything anyway.

Once you unlock the ability to Shakedown businesses, it’s not a bad idea to make a sweep of the map and clear most or all of them early on. It’s fun, it’s varied, there’s no extra prerequisites, and it’s free extra money every day.

There’s no need to rush the main story, but it does unlock a lot of stuff, and many of the early missions serve as a gradual tutorial. If you don’t know what to do, you should usually just go to the next mission.

Sidequests are often unlocked by buying a certain amount of properties, which is a major part of Shakedown: Hawaii, so don’t neglect it.

For some reason, only one of the 3 Veterinary Clinics actually lets you buy character upgrades (Kee Replacement for double jumps etc). It’s the one in the south-east of the map just below the river and just east of the weird bottomless pit things.

Combat

Restore your health with heart drops from enemies, buying snacks in various stores, or hopping in an Ambulance (seriously).

Some late Shakedowns have very large amounts of heavily armed enemies. It can be best to use a car as a weapon/armor in these cases; if the car is destroyed you are not instantly killed!

The cops matter a lot less than in Grand Theft Auto; you can easily get Cop Cloaking Devices by beating cops to shake them off, and half the time they don’t even respond if you’re driving down the sidewalk mowing down dozens of people. Which, by the way, is a great way to get early-game cash.

Gold Medals in challenges are usually pretty easy, but if you’re having trouble note that cars give a large amount in most challenges, but only if they’re destroyed. Don’t hit a car unless you’re going to destroy it. Keep moving as well, and take any easy shots you see.

Shopping

Cosmetics in Shakedown: Hawaii seem super expensive at first, but as you Shakedown properties, it’s less of a big deal. If possible, Shakedown a store and buy the property before buying anything with your pocket cash

You’ll eventually be able to pay yourself a salary, turning your “business” cash into pocket cash.

Most enterable businesses have weapons behind the counter you can take with impunity.

You don’t lose weapons when you die, so you should rarely need to buy any. Just spread out your weapon use and you’ll be given plenty during missions and Shakedowns.

Properties

The biggest addition over Retro City Rampage is the property/business management side of things. You can buy every building on the map (eventually), and there’s some (just some!) strategy into what to buy and when. The best way to find what to buy is to use the Business tab in the main menu rather than the map.

Generally, when you have the money to buy something you should buy it; money is best used on getting more money due to compounding returns. If at all possible, buy all of (this is easiest with low-count properties, like fast food joints; Subprime Auto is the easiest one to get very early.

Go for the “Premium” businesses (red color, icon is two buildings) in the For Sale tab; Natural Gouge Fine Foods under Grocery are particularly cheap yet high income.

Later on, once you’re earning at least 100,000+ per day, you might start looking into houses. Houses start out with terrible income and low-ish prices, but the point of houses is to simulate the real estate bubble. As you buy houses the purchase and rent prices will exponentially increase; slowly at first, but by the end each bought house significantly raises the earnings from the rest.

Note that once you unlock multipliers, they must be bought per-property. Buy multipliers for your highest-value properties and don’t forget to stack them after you unlock more! Multipliers are unlocked by progressing the main story Missions (M).

Shakedown: Hawaii Achievements

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SteamWorld Quest Guide, Card List, and Walkthrough

SteamWorld Quest: The Hand of Gilgamech is the latest game in the SteamWorld series, and it’s out for Nintendo Switch today! It’s a Fantasy Card Battle RPG! I made this guide to help players find all the items, secrets, and handle all the bosses! It’s still slightly a work in progress (the game came out today) but I’ll keep updating it. You can help me finish by helping out with the cards spreadsheet!

If you have any particularly good decks or strategies you like to use, let everyone know in the comments! Also see my Video Content on SteamWorld Quest. Also feel free to stop by my Discord Server.

Updates

2019-06-18: Added a nice searchable, sortable table of weapons and effects. Thanks to everyone who helped with the spreadsheet! Added preliminary card table. Need to tidy it up.

Added some official art to pretty things up. Added secret locations to some of the areas in Walkthrough.

SteamWorld Quest Quick Start Guide

General
  • You might think grinding wouldn’t matter much for a card battle game, only letting you get new cards. However, cards’ affects are based on your characters’ base stats, which grow significantly each level. If you’re stuck, don’t be afraid to grind, even one level can make a large difference.Copernica art
  • Don’t worry about missing things; you can replay chapters later on, getting the opportunity to fully revisit the story, treasure, and enemy formations even if you miss something.
  • Difficulty can be changed at any time; feel free to adjust it up or down at will!
  • There’s no real penalty for losing; you’re shot back to the last Gilgamech statue you healed at but you’ll have to try again of course.
Battle

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Escaped Chasm Guide & Endings Walkthrough

Escaped Chasm is a brand new, Pay What You Want game on itchio by Temmie Chang. You probably know her from Undertale, but this game is an unrelated project by Temmie herself!

I believe this guide is complete (the game’s fairly small), but as always if I missed anything please let me know in the comments! Or just let everyone know what you thought of the game.

Escaped Chasm Mini-Review

Escaped Chasm is a tiny but very engrossing little game. For the price of free and the light time investment of ~20 minutes for a playthrough, it’s very much worth a playthrough.

The game’s heavier and sadder themes may be a surprise to those already familiar with Temmie’s work, which makes the early impact of the game quite the hook.

While short the game makes great use of it’s time and leaves you feeling for our Lonely Protagonist. Some Temmie-Brand bits of humor are dotted throughout,

Gameplay Spoilers
especially in the Developer Room!

While something of a prelude to a more complete game that may or may not happen, Escaped Chasm is a very intriguing romp through a puzzling world. Here’s hoping we’ll eventually see a follow up to answer the many questions the game leaves us with.

Escaped Chasm Walkthrough

Note there’s no save feature, it’s short and meant to be played in one go. Turn off Dash in the options before playing, it causes a bug and does not increase your walking speed.

The game doesn’t have combat or what would normally be considered puzzles, so play at your own pace and figure things out before resorting to the guide. I’ve written the fastest way to finish each day (for replays) and noted extra items to collect here.

You can hold down the Z key to speed up dialog you’ve already seen. Do not press X when at the Diary Menu, it ends the game. If the game crashes when you watch the TV, turn off dashing in the options menu. You can also control with the mouse instead of the keyboard.

Day 1

All you have to do to finish this day is check on Melody (her snake) and read your diary, then you can go to bed.

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Tap Tap Fish AbyssRium: April Spring Tea Party Event 2019 Guide

This is a guide for Tap Tap Fish – AbyssRium, with only the April Spring Tea Party Event (2019) information. See the main guide for other events and general game information. Feel free to add any of my guides to your homescreen for easy access, and offline loading of guides you’ve used (on supported devices)!

Note with this update, there’s 10 more Fusion Fish in the main tank (some required for the event!). The Christmas, Freshwater, and Halloween Tanks all had their (terrible) level caps removed as well!

Video guide:

Theme: Teaparty
Total Cost: A Metric Buttload (full breakdown), 500,000 minimum
Required fish: 135
Estimated dates: April 1st – April 30th
APK: (Don’t download if you don’t know what that means) 
More complex fusion efficiency guide because this event is an over complicated mess

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Tap Tap Fish AbyssRium: May Wonderland Event Guide

This is a guide for Tap Tap Fish – AbyssRium, with only the May Wonderland Event (2019) information. See the main guide for other events and general game information. Feel free to add any of my guides to your homescreen for easy access, and offline loading of guides you’ve used (on supported devices)!

 

Updated 2019-05-03: May Wonderland Event is live. Video Guide. Note that cheating the clock doesn’t work for almost anything anymore including ads.

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Tap Tap Fish AbyssRium: March Circus Event 2019 Guide

This is a guide for Tap Tap Fish – AbyssRium, with only the March Circus Event Wonderland Event (2019) information. See the main guide for other events and general game information. Feel free to add any of my guides to your homescreen for easy access, and offline loading of guides you’ve used (on supported devices)!

This event comes to the Abyss Tank along with 10 new Fusion Fish. It’s on a slow rollout like all events, so it may take up to a week to arrive on your device. Just wait. It also comes with 10 new fusion fish, see the main guide for how to unlock those.
APK. If you don’t know what this means, don’t install it.

Total Cost: Very High (375,000 candy)

Costumes

Close the main menu and tap the Painter’s Palette icon to access these, like every other event.

  • Clown Costume
    • 1000 Candy
      • Required for a fish
  • Circus Stage Dye
    • 200 Candy
      • Required for the Hermit Crab, buy this immediately
  • Magical Sea Theme
    • 500 Candy

Circus Event 2019 Hidden Fish

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Pokecord: Discord Pokemon Game Guide & Command List

My Discord Server started playing Pokecord and it’s not exactly well documented, so I thought I’d make a guide with basics and commands to help people get going!

The game has several undocumented commands not listed in the official command list on their website, so check out the full(er?) list here!

Updates

2019-05-13: Found an Evolution Spreadsheet since many pokemon have non-standard evolutions in Pokecord.

2019-05-08: Thanks to @DocSigma for pointing out the undocumented p!shrink command! Added it to the list

2019-05-03: Pokecord now has a “real” pokedex and a 50 credit reward for pokemon caught after this update. Use p!collection to see the “old” pokedex. Updated the command list.

Pokecord Basics

How Pokecord works is it pulls Pokemon data from Bulbapedia. Each pokemon has base stats, IVs, a Nature, Moves, and can potentially be Shiny (presumably at the standard astronomically low rate).

Pokemon can be traded and fought (1 v 1), and there’s no penalty for losing a fight and no reason not to catch or trade anything. There’s no winning or losing the game, so you can play as casually or intensely as you like.

Pokecord isn’t a perfect Pokemon clone however. Some important points to note: Pokemon do not have teams or abilities in Pokecord (right now). Your ability to earn money is limited to dueling (a pittance), voting for Pokecord daily on Discord Bots (kinda…icky), or selling pokemon on the ingame market (which is pretty weird).

Where To Play Pokecord

You can play on any Discord server that has Pokecord enabled. You can either invite the bot to your own server, join our server (we’re well moderated!), or join the official pokecord server (expect catching spawns to be incredibly competitive).

Spawns seem to be a combination function of time and how many messages posted, meaning a more active server means more pokemon—but also more competition to catch those pokemon. On fast, popular servers, mobile users have a pretty strong disadvantage compared to keyboard users.

Quickstart

Once the bot is in your server, pokemon will start to spawn based on time and number of posts. Type p!start to get started, then p!pick (starter name) to select a starter.

When a pokemon appears, the first to correctly p!catch it gets it. There’s no limit to how many pokemon you can get, so there’s no reason (other than politeness) to not catch a pokemon. In a server with friends, consider letting other players catch pokemon you already have (alternately, catch them and trade them to who wants them for free).

It helps to add all pokemon you’re planning to duel with to your favorites list, so you don’t have to go through the whole pokemon list every time. Pokemon are always referenced by number not name in commands, so this will help you find the numbers quickly.

Pokemon level just by chatting in a server with Pokecord active; only your active pokemon gets experience this way though, so be sure to p!select who you want to raise. Without an Everstone (in p!shop), Pokemon that can evolve via level will automatically evolve at that level with no cancel prompt.

Duels are very buggy but there is no harm in losing, so do them as much as you want. See the Duel Commands section below for pitfalls.

What’s Missing/Different In Pokecord

As far as I can tell these are the major differences/omissions from Pokecord

  • Teams/battles for more than 1v1 pokemon
  • Status/stat changing moves do not work at all
  • Pokemon gender, meaning some evolutions are presumably random? and some moves likely do not work
  • You can’t cancel evolutions manually, you must buy and hold an everstone
  • Held items only exist for evolving or preventing evolution
  • Abilities are also completely omitted
  • There is no breeding of pokemon
  • Mega Evolutions work differently and are semi-permanently activated out of battle. Use p!mega to toggle Mega Evolution state rather than having them hold the stone in battle.
  • Aside from selling pokemon (Team Rocket, anyone?) there’s no effective way to get money at a reasonable scale
  • Any pokemon can be a random spawn, including baby pokemon, legendary pokemon, starters, and evolved forms that aren’t usually available.

Competitive Gameplay

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The Axiom Verge Randomizer (And How To Play It)

First, there was the Link to the Past Randomizer. Then, the Super Metroid randomizer. And now comes Pozzum’s Axiom Verge randomizer! Since SirTapTap.com basically started out with an Axiom Verge Guide, I definitely had to check it out. (Thanks to the dev for stopping by our Discord too!)

What Is The Axiom Verge Randomizer?

If you’ve never played a Randomizer before, the basic concept is to randomize some major gameplay aspects of a classic video game to enhance replayability and provide a new challenge for players who have already beaten, 100%, or even speedrun the base game.

Randomizers make particularly exciting things to speedrun, livestream, or race due to the unpredictability. I’ve streamed the Link to the Past Randomizer in the past and I’ll be streaming the Axiom randomizer tuesday!

In the case of Pozzum’s randomizer, it’s the item locations that are currently randomized. As a Metroidvania with multiple movement-based upgrades, that means how you get about the existing map can change drastically based on which items you get early (or late!).  You can also randomize the enemies, if you enjoy death.

According to Pozzum, the project is briefly on hold while they build a new PC, but it’s still being worked on. Check the Releases page on Github to see the latest changes, and report issues so Pozzum can address them.

What It Does

Basic features of the current version (0.6.1.1):

  • Creates a separate randomAV.exe file to play without breaking the base game
  • Randomizes all item locations
  • Items, especially early on, are placed somewhat to keep the game possible
    • About 25% of seeds currently are impossible to complete however
  • Option to remove temporary one-way segments in Zi and Ukkin Na from the base game
    •  This reduces the potential of impossible-to-escape situations
      • (Base game fun fact: the 1 way Zi fall isn’t actually one0way; if you savewarp you can return, a common speedrun strategy)
  • Option to randomize enemies too
    • This could get painful fast
  • Option to generate a list of spoilers for hints/etc
  • Optional Practice mode which gives all weapons/upgrades in early rooms to allow you to try out odd combinations to get used to gear you wouldn’t normally use early game

How To Get The Axiom Verge Randomizer

You only need two things: a current Steam copy of Axiom Verge, and the randomizer itself, which is free on Github. Epic Games Store’s version of the game will be supported soon, but doesn’t work currently.

Note the program generates an alternate  executable file for AV rather than altering your “clean” copy directly. Your “clean” game and randomizer share save files though, so be careful with them. You can copy and paste your save folder if you need more save slots or want to protect your pre-randomization saves.

If you don’t have Axiom Verge on PC, it’s actually free on Epic Games Store from now until Feb  21st 2019, so grab it quick! As said above, it won’t work yet, but you should be able to get it soon. Use that time to practice the base game.

Step by Step Install
  1. Install Axiom Verge from Steam
  2. Download the randomizer
  3. Extract the randomizer somewhere you can find it (desktop etc)
  4. Run AxiomRandomizer.exe
  5. Let it move it’s files to Appdata when it asks (avoids permissions issues)
  6. The app will ask for your Axiom Verge installation file, you can find it by right clicking Axiom Verge’s entry in Steam, going to properties >  Local Files > Browse Local Files… then selecting Axiomverge.exe
  7. Now you’ll get the Randomizer’s main UI and can make a seed!
  8. The first time you run it, you’ll have to manually run “randomAV.exe” within the Axiom Verge folder (find it via step 6) to get it to run, the run button in the randomizer won’t work the first time because of security stuff.
  9. Start a new save file and you’re playing AV Randomized!

What To Know

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The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince Guide

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince just launched, so here’s a spoiler-free walkthrough for achievements and 100% completion! I loved the game (impressions video here) so I figured I’d help others enjoy it as well!

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince Game Info

Title: The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PS4
Language: English, Japanese
Release date: 2019-02-12 (English)
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software, localized by NIS America
Price: $40 at launch
Genre: Puzzle/Platformer

Updates

2019-02-14: Walkthroughs for Full Moon with the Prince, Chapter 5 and final boss added! Walkthrough complete!
2019-02-13: Chapter 4 walkthrough added. Added most enemy info.
2019-02-12: The game is released! The PS4 theme is free today

General Tips/FAQ

  • First and foremost, this is not a “Guide Dang It” game! Don’t worry about missables (there are none) and you should be able to beat most of the game without a guide, so try your best and come back if you get stuck or need something specific
  • You don’t have to complete a level/survive to keep Collectibles. If you touch a Petal or give a Flower to the prince, it’s saved even if you leave the stage
  • Try clearing a path of enemies before taking the prince along when possible
  • For Pacifist challenges, jump over small enemies in the way and you’ll usually be able to avoid them. Sometimes you have to be patient to wait for opportune enemy placement.
  • For Speed challenges, making a clean run through a level without any KOs or major mistakes is usually enough. You’ll usually be good on these your second playthrough if you remember what to do.
  • Mushrooms cary your momentum from when you jump; press jump after moving in a direction to jump much farther in that direction. It’s much harder to change course mid-jump
  • Drop gingerly off ledges with mushrooms below; it’s pretty easy to take fall damage from some of the spots
  • In certain circumstances, you may need to select Retry from the menu to return to your last checkpoint if you’re permanently separated from the prince or otherwise mess up a puzzle. Don’t worry, it doesn’t restart the whole level, just the checkpoint
  • If you’re really, really stuck, you can skip stages after 10 minutes (but there’s a walkthrough below, so you shouldn’t get stuck that long…)

Walkthrough (Spoiler Free)

Here you’ll find video walkthroughs of every level in the game with all story cutscenes removed, so no spoilers! Click the links to skip right to the relevant level or use the embed to see the whole chapter. I’ve also noted which levels have achievements specific to them.

Each level has 5 Petals to collect and some have one Flower; see the Stage Select menu in the game to see which you’re missing from which stages. I recommend a full playthrough before going back to re-collect Petals, you can do it at any time so no rush, and it’s more fun if you try to figure out the puzzles at least once yourself.

 The Forest of No Entry

Chapter 1

Full walkthrough video:

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