Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 66] [CSDev]

[Pretentious Goblin]

I encountered a problem where the game pre-selected available Chosen, with no option to select another. I would still like the option to Examine captured/surrounded Chosen during the final battle.

Is Empathy supposed to let friends kill each other, to spare each other so you can capture them, or to buy you an extra turn? It's not clear what it's supposed to be used for. My tactics go out the window in the final battle, it's a good thing it's very forgiving. The game doesn't prepare you for all of the unique mechanics. For example, what does it take for rivals to kill each other when one is surrounded? There seems to be some kind of requirement. And can friends do that to each other, or only in the final assault? Most importantly, I wasn't clear on how long I have before the final assault is ready. Is it tied to extermination? Is it based on turns the Forsaken spend not surrounded/captured?

Also, how do I capture an uncorrupted Chosen in the final battle? I had no way of reducing her Resolve, and when she was the only one standing at the end, she ran away.

 

[tpk]

I encountered a problem where the game pre-selected available Chosen, with no option to select another. I would still like the option to Examine captured/surrounded Chosen during the final battle.

Is Empathy supposed to let friends kill each other, to spare each other so you can capture them, or to buy you an extra turn? It's not clear what it's supposed to be used for. My tactics go out the window in the final battle, it's a good thing it's very forgiving. The game doesn't prepare you for all of the unique mechanics. For example, what does it take for rivals to kill each other when one is surrounded? There seems to be some kind of requirement. And can friends do that to each other, or only in the final assault? Most importantly, I wasn't clear on how long I have before the final assault is ready. Is it tied to extermination? Is it based on turns the Forsaken spend not surrounded/captured?

Also, how do I capture an uncorrupted Chosen in the final battle? I had no way of reducing her Resolve, and when she was the only one standing at the end, she ran away.

empathy only buys an extra turn, but it works again each time you capture the one who is about to kill another chosen.

yeah, the final battle is just 'stack trauma and go for the highest resolve damage'.

overall, they kill each other when the extermination is complete (when they usually leave) and the resolve of the one who is captured is low enough. rivals kill if they have 50%, but if they are enemies they will kill right away.

they kill ONLY in the final battle (at least for now).

the battle lasts until the extermination is complete, or you defeated them all.

you capture chosen by making the resolve hit 0%.

you reduce resolve with late-game upgrades called taunt+, attack+, slime+, and threaten+. each has a requirement to do so.

the last one flees unless you capture her in the last turn.

you can't capture uncorrupted chosen, as in "technically you can, but is incredibly difficult". this is if an uncorrupted chosen is one that does not have the last tier vulnerabilities broken yet.

 

[anonymoustoyouall]

Is there a list of custom clothes and weapons that receive additional support from the game? For example, when you make a custom Chosen, if you give them "claws", the descriptions are much more verbose than if you give them "yo-yos." If I knew how to decompile/read Java script, I would try to figure it out myself, but Java remains the most confusing programing language to me.

 

[Redypsrebyc]

Even if you aren't breaking vulnerabilities, you're still building up Evil Energy. I guess you can lose that EE by repeatedly buying Commanders which don't accomplish anything, but because the challenge in the game comes from meeting a deadline, there has to be some sort of fail state related to spending your resources poorly.

Yes, but there's two (related) issues with that:

1, it doesn't really matter what you actually do for that purpose. Just skipping every turn will give you the EE, flattening all play less than the threshold to be basically equally bad, as far as outcomes go.

2, in fact, as you mention, putting in any 'effort' (in the form of commanders) into a round that doesn't break vulnerabilities leaves you worse off than the zero-effort equivalent.

This is of course not 100% true, as a modest, weak-side-of-the-knife round will still contribute some angst...but on the other hand, if there's at least one strong-side-of-the-knife match in the past, the amount of angst contributed by a weak round will probably be relatively so insignificant as to make no difference.

The upgrade that lets you get EE for aborting a round early while they're captured does add an additional wrinkle there, also.

 

[CSdev]

I encountered a problem where the game pre-selected available Chosen, with no option to select another. I would still like the option to Examine captured/surrounded Chosen during the final battle.

This is something I hadn't considered. I agree that the player should be able to examine Chosen even when it isn't possible to do anything with them. I'll see about fixing that.

Is Empathy supposed to let friends kill each other, to spare each other so you can capture them, or to buy you an extra turn? It's not clear what it's supposed to be used for. My tactics go out the window in the final battle, it's a good thing it's very forgiving. The game doesn't prepare you for all of the unique mechanics. For example, what does it take for rivals to kill each other when one is surrounded? There seems to be some kind of requirement. And can friends do that to each other, or only in the final assault? Most importantly, I wasn't clear on how long I have before the final assault is ready. Is it tied to extermination? Is it based on turns the Forsaken spend not surrounded/captured?

tpk's answers about the mechanics are all correct. As for the design philosophy, I initially considered having lower-stakes battles which use the same rules earlier in each loop in order to prepare the player for it, but I couldn't make it fit a needed gameplay niche, and I didn't like the idea of detracting from the specialness of the final battle. It's intended that a player who's corrupted the entire team heavily will find it very forgiving, so that by the time the player is actually playing in hard mode or the campaign mode and going up against a lightly-corrupted team, the challenge is at a more appropriate level.

Also, how do I capture an uncorrupted Chosen in the final battle? I had no way of reducing her Resolve, and when she was the only one standing at the end, she ran away.

The Attack+ (or Tickle+) upgrade makes the associated move do a small amount of resolve damage even against a completely uncorrupted target, and the Antipathy upgrade will cause the Chosen to start with less than 100% resolve if they have rivals or enemies. The resolve damage multiplier for an uncorrupted Attack+ is 1%, while the resolve damage multipliers against corrupted targets range from 3% to 6%. The Antipathy upgrade can cause the Chosen to start at as low as 20% resolve, so defeating an uncorrupted Chosen who hates her partners is about as tough as defeating a fully corrupted Chosen who starts with full resolve.

Is there a list of custom clothes and weapons that receive additional support from the game? For example, when you make a custom Chosen, if you give them "claws", the descriptions are much more verbose than if you give them "yo-yos." If I knew how to decompile/read Java script, I would try to figure it out myself, but Java remains the most confusing programing language to me.

Yes, but there's two (related) issues with that:

1, it doesn't really matter what you actually do for that purpose. Just skipping every turn will give you the EE, flattening all play less than the threshold to be basically equally bad, as far as outcomes go.

2, in fact, as you mention, putting in any 'effort' (in the form of commanders) into a round that doesn't break vulnerabilities leaves you worse off than the zero-effort equivalent.

This is of course not 100% true, as a modest, weak-side-of-the-knife round will still contribute some angst...but on the other hand, if there's at least one strong-side-of-the-knife match in the past, the amount of angst contributed by a weak round will probably be relatively so insignificant as to make no difference.

The upgrade that lets you get EE for aborting a round early while they're captured does add an additional wrinkle there, also.

Spending days where you start a fight and just give up immediately definitely doesn't feel good right now, but judging whether you're going to get a return on your investment when buying a commander is an important part of the gameplay. I think it'll work better once there are other things to do with your timeslots.

 

[delusions]

i might've been the only person playing it this way, but with forsaken male characters, they automatically turn into/get referred to as women even with shifting turned off. was that changed with this most recent update?

 

[DigitalDreamer_]

do i have to create console game to make worst graphic game ?

 

[Vango.Bango]

I really wish I could learn how to play this game. It's completely beyond me lol

 

[crazy221]

Would it possible to extract the source code with the text? I've already gotten a couple endings and I don't want to do it all over again for a few differences, but i really like the writing and would like to see what combinations and endings i missed.

 

[ddwdq]

So I've spent a bit of time playing this game and I honestly have to say that it's probably my favourite text-only game I've ever seen.

Only big criticisms I have are the same things that others have already mentioned:
- tutorial needs work, doesn't explain the mechanics well enough. The "Guide.txt" in the folder helps but when I first started the game I expected the tutorial to tell me everything I needed and I ended up completly lost with no idea what to do.
- early game is a bit too tedious and especially punishing if you don't know what to do. Punishing players for buying commanders when they're lost is pretty terrible. Obvious solution (to me) seems to be making the commander free and to offer some permanent upgrades to capture-time and capture-attempts while also keeping "pay-per-deployment" upgrades for higher tier stuff. The 1EE cost to create the command becomes more or less irrelevant once you get going but it just really stumps the early game when you're lost.

Overall really really great work though.

 

[RottenCitizen]

Would it possible to extract the source code with the text?

Yes. Use any Java bytecode decompiler, preferably one that can read .jar files directly.
In Java ecosystem most of the optimizations are done on the JVM side, so source code to byte code translation is almost 1:1. So, unless source code was obfuscated, it can be easily restored from bytecode. Of course some bits will be lost, like comments, source-level annotations and such.

I've used something called jd-gui-1.6.6.jar, I don't remember where I got it.

BTW, the code sucks. But it doesn't matter, because it gets the job done, and this game, with its general idea, writing and mechanics is awesome. So I still have huge respect to CSdev. I really wish that most of this ugly bytecode is auto-generated but I know better.

 

[Blaq Mask]

I really wish I could learn how to play this game. It's completely beyond me lol

I was the same way at first. You get it eventually. The most important thing I learned was learning how each trauma worked. Early on you can only use pain and disgust to make them vulnerable to surround. Fear only activates when a different chosen is surrounded, and exposure only activates when the other three are active.

 

[Kuchai]

Very confused on how you get Drain effectiveness leveled up. Seems to be the only one I can't raise unless through sheer dumb luck.

Edit: Nvm figured out it's from Detonating from being captured by a Commander.

 

[Kiriel]

Hey CSdev, when my forsaken gave birth, it says that the resulting abomination slides out of Forsaken@(character string). Possible error?

Copy pasted same text from the game.

Spoiler: Sample Text

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I'll throw my hat in as another person who was completely lost on how to succeed on this game before reading Pretentious Goblin's play-by-play; the very run after I've got it figured out with an almost entirely corrupted group by day 35, fully on my way to an easy win. Organizing those posts into an article on the blogspot page and pinning it as an official guide would not be unwarranted.

Of course, now that I've actually been able to progress properly into the game and see some of the late stage scenes... Good God some of these descriptions are severe. On my second run I'll have to limit myself on breaks to see how much that changes the scenes if I'm mostly breaking INN and DIG. Certainly not a criticism, I knew going into it that there were gonna be things here that would be a bit much for me and one of the benefits of a fully text based game is the ability to skim those descriptions. As others have said, the weaving of game mechanics with porn is basically perfect, better than I've seen in any other game.

 

[TheAtheistGamer]

So I have no idea how I make my corrupted chosen one to make them fight each other. Nor do I understand how increase certain stats as I tried to increase their hostlity towards humanity but it hasn't really increased. Unless its not yet a function...

 

[tpk]

So I have no idea how I make my corrupted chosen one to make them fight each other. Nor do I understand how increase certain stats as I tried to increase their hostlity towards humanity but it hasn't really increased. Unless its not yet a function...

not sure what do you mean by "hostility towards humanity" but if you mean that you already have a forsaken and can't use her, is because they aren't completely implemented yet. according to the dev is going to be one of the next updates.

 

[shad12ow]

Just want to drop by and say, man, this has one of the more unique game I've played for a long while. While the concept is not entirely new and groundbreaking, but I like the vibe it presented. Not to mention that the writings are quality (for me anyway).

My only complaint (minor ones, I assure you) is how the data is presented and all. I'm sorry if I can't really point my finger on it, but it just feels that the data is being presented in a weird way, if that makes any sense?

But nonetheless, it's a good game. Good job~!

 

[TheAtheistGamer]

not sure what do you mean by "hostility towards humanity" but if you mean that you already have a forsaken and can't use her, is because they aren't completely implemented yet. according to the dev is going to be one of the next updates.

I see. That is a shame...I hope the next update comes out soon then. Cause things are getting interesting.

 

[CSdev]

i might've been the only person playing it this way, but with forsaken male characters, they automatically turn into/get referred to as women even with shifting turned off. was that changed with this most recent update?

I wasn't able to replicate this bug. During my test just now, male Chosen stayed as male even after getting raped when the shifting setting was turned off. Which scene was incorrectly causing them to shift?

So I've spent a bit of time playing this game and I honestly have to say that it's probably my favourite text-only game I've ever seen.

Only big criticisms I have are the same things that others have already mentioned:
- tutorial needs work, doesn't explain the mechanics well enough. The "Guide.txt" in the folder helps but when I first started the game I expected the tutorial to tell me everything I needed and I ended up completly lost with no idea what to do.
- early game is a bit too tedious and especially punishing if you don't know what to do. Punishing players for buying commanders when they're lost is pretty terrible. Obvious solution (to me) seems to be making the commander free and to offer some permanent upgrades to capture-time and capture-attempts while also keeping "pay-per-deployment" upgrades for higher tier stuff. The 1EE cost to create the command becomes more or less irrelevant once you get going but it just really stumps the early game when you're lost.

Overall really really great work though.

I'm just worried about making the tutorial too long, since I don't want to discourage people from actually trying the game. I'm wondering if a better solution would be for the game to give more specific tips after each battle. For example, if you buy a commander and it doesn't achieve any vulnerability breaks, then the game could advise you to focus more on upgrades instead of commander purchases.

Yes. Use any Java bytecode decompiler, preferably one that can read .jar files directly.
In Java ecosystem most of the optimizations are done on the JVM side, so source code to byte code translation is almost 1:1. So, unless source code was obfuscated, it can be easily restored from bytecode. Of course some bits will be lost, like comments, source-level annotations and such.

I've used something called jd-gui-1.6.6.jar, I don't remember where I got it.

BTW, the code sucks. But it doesn't matter, because it gets the job done, and this game, with its general idea, writing and mechanics is awesome. So I still have huge respect to CSdev. I really wish that most of this ugly bytecode is auto-generated but I know better.

This is my first serious coding project, so I'm very much still an amateur. I know that some of the earlier things were coded poorly enough that they might cause me trouble further down the line, but I don't want to take the time to fix them just yet, since there are more pressing things to add. It feels a bit like building the plane's landing gear while we're already in flight.

Hey CSdev, when my forsaken gave birth, it says that the resulting abomination slides out of Forsaken@(character string). Possible error?

Copy pasted same text from the game.

Spoiler: Sample Text

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Thanks for catching this bug. It'll be fixed in the next version.