How To: Star Craft 2 Brutal Completionist

Walk-throughs are still a work in progress that will be updated frequently.

So tonight marks the end of my long journey to complete all Star Craft 2 missions on brutal. I think it's time to start writing how I did it. Unfortunately I didn't video capture my games, but I will be going back, showing key strategies on how I beat each mission. I promise they won't be like the million other videos that show the entire missions with no commentary. I will assume since you're interested in strats on brutal, you understand macro and microing. If you're not, I suggest running though SC2's challenges.


Disclaimer: I am no SC2 expert. Use my strats and builds at your own risk. If they don't work for you, well, sorry. I am not including achievements, as I completed all of them on hard. All complete missions are current as of patch 1.2.1. Oh yea, lots of spoilers ahead. Fair warning.

Brutal Preparation
The main advantage to this is to get all research points and as much credits as possible so you don't have to worry about collecting the research in your brutal games. Like I said, I am no SC2 god so I did a bit of prep time. I started a new campaign, which I had to start over in the middle of due to SC2 getting patched (thanks Blizz). Give yourself plenty of time and know when they're going to patch. Once SC2 is patched, you have to start a new campaign in order to collect achievements.

I ran though it on normal, but you can also run though it on casual.  I chose to go with helping the ladies just because their missions were easier, but you're going to have to do both for the brutal achievement so it doesn't matter which ones you choose. I also chose to deal the Nydus Worms at the end, which, from what I read is harder than the air, but I actually handled it better than on hard (but that might have been possible because I was going for the hard achievement).

Tip: Save your games and save often! This will save you time and headaches. Saving your game right before a key decision or event is crucial. 

Once you complete the campaign you are now free to complete your missions in any order. You should get a a screen like this: Click the hi-lighted "Continue"

Which brings up the list:

This is the order I ran the missions in:

1. Liberation Day
2. The Outlaws
3. Zero Hour
4. The Evacuation
5. Outbreak
6. Smash and Grab
7. The Devil's Playground
8. Welcome to the Jungle
9. The Dig
10. Whispers of Doom
11. A Sinister Turn
12. Echoes of the Future
13. In Utter Darkness
14. Ghost of a Chance
15. The Great Train Robbery
16. Safe Haven
17. Cutthroat
18. The Moebius Factor
19. Supernova
20. Engine of Destruction
21. Media Blitz
22. Piercing the Shroud
23. Maw of the Void
24. The Gates of Hell
25. Shatter the Sky
26. All In

Tech Build

Protos Tree
Ultra-Capacitors
Orbital Depots
Automated Refinery
Science Vessel
Tech Reactor

Zerg Tree
Fortified Bunker
Planetary Fortress
Predator (In hindsight I would probably have taken Perdition Turrets but they were effective patrollers)
Regenerative Bio-Steel
Psi Disruptor

Armory Upgrades
Not going to list them all, but here's the important ones you should have:

Marines (Stimpack/Combat Shield)
Medics (Stabalizer Medpacks) *don't get Advanced Medic Facilities - Research makes it worthless
SCV (Duel Fusion Welders)
Terran Building (Fire Suppression System)
Siege Tank (Maelstrom Rounds/Shaped Blast)
Banshee (Cross Spectrum Dampeners/Shock wave Missile Battery)

Liberation Day
Video: N/A (not needed)
Strategy: Don't die.
Walk though: Seriously, just don't die. Micro your heart out.

The Outlaws
Video: N/A (not needed)
Strategy: Mass M&M.
Walk though: Once you get around 10 marines and 4 medics, head for the next base. Make sure your medics are well behind your marines as they are a priority target. Once you take over the second base start making more M&M. Never stop making M&M.

Charge the base once you have a comfortable ball (around 30 or so). Go up the left hand side. Blizz thought it would be cute to put a siege tank to the right of their fortress. Stay to the far left of the fort to bring it down. If you're low on forces, bring them back up.That tank will utterly destroy your forces if you get in range. When you're prepared to attack, spread out your ball so you don't get decimated in a few hits.

I ran out of resources completing this mission because I wasn't aware of the tank at first. Zerg with high numbers and this shouldn't be a problem.

Zero Hour

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Strategy: Hunker down and Mass M&M and upgrade. Ignore saving the stranded marines.

Walk though: 100% defense. Bring all of your forces up to the second tier and salvage your 2 front bunkers. Put your guys in the bunkers all ready there. Mass SVC's like they're going out of style. You need lots of minerals quickly.

Remember to upgrade when you get the chance. Build 2 more bunkers in between the existing ones, effectively blocking the ramp. Mass M&M behind them (and about 5 SCV's) as well as leave about 5 marines, 3 SCVs and 2 medics on each side where the turrets are.

SCVs are a favorite target of the air zerg so you're going to have to keep and eye on them and replace if necessary. You'll want to build one more turret on each side and one more barracks with a reactor to pump out your army quickly.

Towards the end, bring some guys down to guard your mining SCVs.

Just keep producing your M&M and SCV's and this should be a cake walk.

The Evacuation

Strategy: Mass infantry and escort with later defense.

Walk though: I'll be honest. This one took me a few tries. I was so used to defending the 3 choke points straight away; can't do that here. Use what you learned in the last mission: keep producing SCVs, upgrade and keep producing your infantry.

I created a second barracks with a reactor to pump out marines. Use the first barracks to alternate medics and firebats.

You won't be able to defend the 3 points straight away so just focus on escorting for now. Always stay ahead of the escort. You’ll see on my second escort I let my guys piddle around and I lost the transport and one evacuee. Keep massing your infantry and when you have enough, you can start placing bunkers and leaving some to defend (about the third transport). Also, having a few SCVs to repair the transport and bunkers isn't a bad idea.

First escort: bring all you have and stay ahead of them. Once it reaches the ship, bring your guys back to the base. Remember to pick up the extra minerals.
Second escort: Should have a new barracks and upgrades up by this point. Take all the guys you have and do the same thing, but this time leave them at the top.
Third escort: Escort should be easier this time as you have more guys. Leave them at the top, or bring them to the first or second defense point.
Fourth escort: Should have all three areas well defended and a small escort. Remember to keep bringing SCVs.
Fifth escort: At this point put the rally point of your barracks to the transport and keep the guys you have out ahead of it. It should be pretty easy at this point, even with the Nydus Worms.

Tip: If you choose to use the bunkers, place the guys that weren't lucky enough to get in it in front of the bunker. They will go down fast if the zerglings get to them. Also keep an SCV or two for repairs.

This mission is a bit hard at first, but gets way easier as the mission progresses.

Outbreak

Video: Coming Soon

Notes: This mission was just annoying. The days and nights are shorter, giving you less of a window to destroy the infested buildings. I played it safe and it cost me time. This mission took me just under an hour to complete. It can definitely be done sooner. This mission tests your macro abilities. Make sure you are producing SCVs and Supply Depots as you go.

Strategy: Build heavy defense and mass Hellions.

Walk though:

Tip: Use the “Hold” command (“H” on your keyboard) for your firebrats so they don’t go running off into a huge pile of the infested. Silly firebrats.

Start off building a bunker at each entrance point right away. Place a firebrat and 2 marines in each, leaving the SCV there for repairs. Once day breaks, head north to clear out the buildings. Start here because there are no defenses in these northern areas.  Once 30 seconds hits, direct your guys back to your base and replace defenders if you used them on the infested buildings. Once you’re able to produce Hellions, keep them in production. Building a second refinery will help keep production up.

Tip: It’s always a good idea to upgrade your infantry.

Day 2: You should have 2 bunkers at each point. Make sure you have room in between them to get your Hellions out.

Night 3: Build two bunkers at the southern entrance and place defenders there. Once they start coming from that point they don’t mess around.

Keep this up and just repeat the day/night attack/defend method. There is a mineral crop to the North East you can use if you’re getting low on minerals. I didn’t use it on this mission, but if you do, you’ll need to put some defenders there.

Tip: Take advantage of the mercenaries.

Smash and Grab

Video: Coming Soon

Strategy: Build a small base defense and mass MM&M (marines, medics and marauders).

Walk though: You’ll be attacked by zerg periodically though this mission so you’ll want to have at least 1 bunker filled with marines and a marauder. Having a turret out isn’t a bad idea either. Leave a few marines and a medic out as well for good measure.

Add a Tech Lab to the existing barrack and build an extra barrack with a Tech Lab. You want to have a good mix of marines medics and marauders, with mostly marauders. Don’t worry too much about how fast the zerg are advancing on the top of your map. Once you have a respectable ball (~20 MM&M) you can start advancing. Once you get to the bridge, stop and direct a marauder to take out each cannon on the other side. They will not get attacked so this is the easiest way to clear them.

The only thing to watch out for is the Psionic Storm once you start advancing. Send a sacrifice (poor marine) to get the High Templar to use his Psionic Storm, then move in (obviously after the storm dissipates) and focus fire him down. Keep advancing to the bottom of the Protos base. You can either wait here and get more numbers or just head right in. This base shouldn’t be too much of a problem clearing out. Just make sure you have enough of your ball to survive the three statues at the end.

The Devil's Playground

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Welcome to the Jungle

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The Dig

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Whispers of Doom

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A Sinister Turn

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Echoes of the Future

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In Utter Darkness

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Ghost of a Chance

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Breakout

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The Great Train Robbery

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Safe Haven

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Haven's Fall

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Cutthroat

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The Moebius Factor

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Supernova

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Strategy: Mass Banshees, resource hop the bottom of the map, ninja relic at the last second.
Walk though: This was the one that gave me the most trouble, but once I figured it out, it became cake. The main idea of this mission is to create as many Banshees as you can and swoop in just before the fire gets to the relic.

Create a Medivac, a Science vessel and a Viking, then start massing Banshees. Make a few more marines if you feel like it.  Send the Banshees ahead of your base to clear out the next mineral area in between base rushes. Use the Medivac to transport your ground and SCVs.

Keep base hopping and massing Banshees and a few vikings. Once you reach the far right of the map, bring all your buildings as far right as you possibly can (remember to clear it first with Banshees). If all of your structures are destroyed, game over.

I had 13 Banshees 5 Vikings and a Science Vessel at the end (could have had more but I was sloppy). This is where the video starts. I also had like 4 Medivacs (wtf? don't make that many) with some marines leftover from defending my bases. I felt sorry for them and didn't want to watch them burn.

The key here is to wait. While you're waiting it's a good idea to use your Banshees to take out the cannon directly north. Just send them in stealth and they'll be fine, then head back down to heal up. The perfect time to charge is when you see two hybrids near the artifact. As soon as the second one starts to burn, charge in with whatever you have and focus down the tower. There will be a hybrid still alive as well as a few other units, but they're not going to do enough damage to wipe you.

Engine of Destruction

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Media Blitz

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Piercing the Shroud

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Maw of the Void

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The Gates of Hell

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Shatter the Sky

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Belly of the Beast

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All In

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Make a Simple ActionScript 2 Button in Flash CS5

For the sake of simplicity I will show how to make a very simple button. I'll not go into detail with the up/over frames. Let's start by creating some text:

You don't want this text acting like text so you're going to turn it into a graphic. Go to Modify -> Break Apart.

This will leave your text looking like this:

Repeat the same action Modify -> Break Apart. This turns your text into graphics AND eliminates the need to embed your fonts (neat!).

Go back to Modify -> Convert to Symbol. You'll get this window:

Make sure type is Button, name your object (start_btn) then click Export for ActionScript. Make sure what you have looks like the above picture. Now, double click your text and it should open up another timeline for your graphic. Name your current layer "text" and lock it. Create a new layer above it and name it "overlay".

What we're doing is creating a "click area". If we didn't add this, it would be difficult or even impossible for the user to move their mouse over the physical area of our text. Use the rectangle tool and create a rectangle covering our text. It doesn't matter what color.

With this shape still selected, go to your Properties window and change the Alpha to 0%.

Now go back to your main timeline. Make sure your movie clip is selected and go back to your properties window and give it an instance name. In this case we named it clickBtn.

Now for the coding. In your main timeline create a layer called "actions". Click on the frame and open your actions window. Here's all the code you need:

stop();

clickBtn.onRelease=function()
{
//add stuff that happens when clicked
gotoAndStop("play");
}


In this case I told my button to go the frame labeled "play".

And you now have a cool button!



[download] .fla source

Breakout!

Weapons of choice: Flash & PhotoShop CS5, AS3

So how do I break out of a breakout? It's a bit harder than I thought. I have to keep this game in line with my epic RPG, but how? I did the first thing I always do when starting a new project: research. I try as many breakout games as I can find. Commercial ones, free casual ones and ones made by the gaming community.

My findings: it's really really hard to find a good breakout game. Some good points are: having more challenges than getting rid of all the pieces on the board and adding bonuses that change the mechanics.

Awakening
The title is called Awakening because you are awaking the hidden knowledge inside this temple and at the end of it, one party member will activate a latent special ability (although you'll not see this or even know there's a party there).

Backstory
During the adventures of Sanctuary, our adventurers come across ruined temples in search for answers to the crisis happening in their world. One temple has a door that can not be opened unless you obtain three special runes that are neatly placed on the wall beside it. The catch is that you can't just grab them. They are slightly out of phase with reality and must be activated before they are collected.

Mechanics
Balls of energy (blocks) - Each ball released will send down a positivity or negatively charged ball of energy. If a ball is collected by the paddle, one of three random events will happen. If a positive charge is collected, a good thing will happen and likewise if a negative ball is collected something not very desirable will happen.
Paddle - will be controlled by the left and right arrow keys. It will start out with a ball of energy on it's surface and will be released by the up arrow.
Runes - Each rune will be sitting on a shelf. Each shelf must be hit to activate the rune. Once hit with the ball after it is activated it can now be collected. Once each rune is collected the game is over, even though there may be blocks still left on the board.
Score - the score will be kept track of by a dynamic text box and mostly hidden. When the score changes, it glows for a few seconds, taking on the behavior of the blocks.
Lives - lives will be taken care of similar to the score.

Graphics

This is my weakest point in game creation (and the hardest I'm working on). For this game I will create all custom graphics from PhotoShop. Since this is a ruined ancient temple, I decided to make the background a wall. This wall was created using nothing but PhotoShop filters. I left the purple tone in it because well, this is not an ordinary temple and wanted to convey more than just a mundane ruined wall. It could be the minerals or crystals inherent in the rock.

Originally I was going to let this be the background to place my objects but quickly realized no matter what I put on it, my objects were washed out due to to varied texture and colors this wall has. My solution was to use the opening frame's overlay which is just a black rectangle shape with transparency. This way you still see the wall behind it, but it forces the user to focus on the important stuff.

Click - why can't I stop playing it?

Click by ~AeryithV on deviantART

I laughed when my sister said this about this most simple game, but I couldn't help but sport a big smile. It's really not an intended game, it was a sand box to test the functionality I have in my Flash game. The only reason I put this on my blog is that I feel I took what A Theory of Fun and Game Design was saying. Strip down a game to it's simplest mechanics, and if it's still fun, it's a good game.


My three year old son just had to play it every time he saw me working on it. I added some background color, took care of some extra coding stuff, added a silly noise and he would play this for hours on my laptop while I work on my game.


I think I hit the mark with this simple but still somewhat fun mechanic of what I am building in my Flash game Swift Tales. I'll go into more detail about my game in another blog, but I am building Swift Tales with ActionScript 3 and Flash CS5.

Save Transparent .tga for kgPanels in PhotoShop

Saving alpha channels with targa files is fairly easy. Here I am creating a simple UI for my warlock.

NOTE: When making custom panels for this addon, remember the size of each panel must be in the powers of 2, not exceeding 512. For example, my panel is 512 pixels by 256 pixels. As long as the width and height are in powers of 2, you will see your art. Sizes can be 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 and 512.

Here's my finished panel, but I need to add an alpha channel before I can save it. I would suggest to put your finished work on one layer. Hold your Crtl button down and click on your Layer 1 area in your layers panel. This will make a selection of whatever you have in that layer.

Next, you want to click on the Channels pannel next to your Layers pannel.

At the bottom of this panel you want to click on 'save selection as channel' button.  This will create your alpha channel. Click on the eye next to it. You should see a pale red area where your transparency is.

You should now be able to Save As, select Targa, and look, Alpha Channels can now be checked (keep it checked).

Now when you bring it in to Kgpanels, you will see it with it's transparency.

My Gaming Roots

Commodore 64

I figure this blog better start out with a bit of explanation of why I like to make games. Simple answer: I love playing them and they have amazed me since the first time I played Pong on Atari at my babysitter's house. My Dad introduced me to programming when I was 10 (1990), and I was programming my own games in Visual Basic on my Commodore 64. I still have fond memories of storing my programs on my cassette tapes.

I joke I was so poor growing up I used to have to make my own games. That's kinda true though. I didn't get my first true gaming console, the Nintendo NES until 1992. Before then, I would follow my brother to his friend's house down the street. He was lucky enough to have an NES before us. I would just sit and watch them play. I was the little sister, so I didn't get much chance to play, but I didn't care - I just wanted to watch.