Others Finding Color in the Ashes [Alpha v2.41] [MooncatcherStudios]

[Soulcatch]

After which day should one get the Dryad as a character?
Or is my save just bugged? I though I'd start over eventually, and I might, it just occurred to me that by the time I encountered that problem, my save was on the then newest version.

Up to version 2.02, the dryad shows up in events while hunting / patrolling. If you dont encounter her twice in a row, shes guaranteed to show up the third time. It's very RNG. In 2.1 onward, she's a fixed location on the new patrol map and very easy to get. 2.1 introduces a lot of QOL requests people have been asking for, as well as completely new gameplay loop for patrols.

 

[Wofes]

Thank you! That gives me a bunch of stuff to check. I'll try to have it patched ASAP.

No, thank you for the game! Also, there was a moment after opening the inn projects when an error occurred as well, but strangely enough most often happens in the morning

 

[UnDeaD_CyBorG]

It's all RNG until next build, friend. Keep patrolling and you'll eventually run into her.

I've run into her plenty.
But the quest says I need to research Heartwood, and I finished that research before I got that quest, so I can never finish it. I'm probably mid winter, and I've been told I should have her as a companion already.

 

[Soulcatch]

I've run into her plenty.
But the quest says I need to research Heartwood, and I finished that research before I got that quest, so I can never finish it. I'm probably mid winter, and I've been told I should have her as a companion already.

You need to research heart tree. It's a separate research you need to ask her for. Once youve done that, youll need to ask her for a heart tree seed, then plant it in the greenhouse.

 

[Eterai]

Is there content with the Forge right now? Someone, who I assume is to be the Blacksmith, appeared weeks before I ever repaired the forge and I have not seen her reappear.
Do I need to get the Gardener, first?

 

[blast540]

how the fuck do you restore the greenhouse i have fought atleast 40 encounters i have the heartwood i cant plant this shit cause i dont know how to restore the greenhouse i have red everything it says lucy needs to perform some ritual how tf do i do it its driving me crazy

 

[randrew]

In v2.02,

• is there any story content after getting Lucy/Elsie/Willow/Ailis to 400/400/300/100 max affinity/interest? (I'm assuming I've exhausted the current state of v2.02?)
• does forging materials (consuming iron ore) produce anything?
• is there a use (in v2.02) for the half-key or broken wight blade?
• once the army leaves, does it ever come back? Or does the player lose the opportunity to purchase power-ups from the army once they're gone?
• if the player has low food, a hosted visitor/group consumes the remaining food before feeding Lucy. The first couple times this happens, the player can see "oh, whoops, better watch out for that." Mid-game (before it's trivially easy to keep food stocks always maxed), it could be nice to have an ability/tooltip that warns "hey, if you host this visitor/group, Lucy will go hungry."
• grinding for the materials needed for the fey armour/weapon (at least, once the army is gone and no longer able to barter) is somewhat frustrating, and (IMHO) unrewarding because the armour/weapon available for purchase from the army merchants (esp. once enchanted) seems better... I see that the fey armour/weapon growth is recurrable in the greenhouse, and that seems to give levels to the items, but (in the current game state) that doesn't seem to significantly change the effectiveness
• The fifth inn upgrade name (I don't recall exactly -- hot springs?) doesn't match the fifth inn project name (temple) -- in either case, I assume neither of those things are implemented yet?
• Mana potion description (when hovered during enemy encounter) says "Mana potions heal 1D6 hit points..." -- I'd have assumed mana potions regenerate/refill mana? I haven't actually used them, but I'd have thought the Health potion would be for healing hit points and the mana potion would be for regenerating mana.
• When selecting an item to use during enemy encounter, hovering over the item does not indicate what the item does (and the Items inventory overview in the top right is inaccessible during the encounter); I like that the potions when hovered show a tooltip indicating effect, and would be glad for the same for items
• The Help/Info button below the music button shows three Resources/Actions/Combat buttons... which don't show anything? I'm guessing these are yet-to-be-implemented; if so, will look forward to it.
• I soft-locked myself for a while once the army showed up, where I didn't have enough room to host any guests (crippling my gold-earning ability) and didn't have enough gold to buy more rooms. If I played again, I'd know what to avoid; it was just annoying that selling kegs (was? seemed to be?) the only way to slowly recover.
• It wasn't obvious to me that clicking the [X] while an experiment was running would cancel the current experiment and not refund any spent resources (gold, reagents, etc.) -- similarly in the greenhouse, clicking the [X] will reset the plot and lose any progress on the current growth, with no confirmation/"are you sure?" dialogue. Sure, once I'd done it once or twice I realised my mistake, but it was still irritating/surprising.

Overall, good content for an alpha game. I was curious/hoping to see if Lucy orgasming while highly fractured would have different outcome/dialogue/visuals. Felt like the mid-Fall thru Winter season stage of the game was relatively grindy; it feels like there's more to manage (still have to manage wood/food/alcohol/materials/reagents/temperature, while also having more clicks to manage cellar/tower/greenhouse/forge) but less to do?

 

[randrew]

how the fuck do you restore the greenhouse i have fought atleast 40 encounters i have the heartwood i cant plant this shit cause i dont know how to restore the greenhouse i have red everything it says lucy needs to perform some ritual how tf do i do it its driving me crazy

I think once you have the seed, you need an empty slot in the greenhouse; click the [X] in the upper right of one of your two existing slots (once you've harvested it) to empty out the planter/trellis/apiary and then you can plant the heartwood seed.

 

[Eterai]

how the fuck do you restore the greenhouse i have fought atleast 40 encounters i have the heartwood i cant plant this shit cause i dont know how to restore the greenhouse i have red everything it says lucy needs to perform some ritual how tf do i do it its driving me crazy

You read the research fully and she gave you her seed? Just plant it in one of the 2 slots in the Greenhouse. You have a 4th option to choose.

 

[Vendiagrand]

Is there a reason why you can't accept adventurers twice? I still have 2 out of 3 rooms and the required resources but the accept button is greyed out

 

[Soulcatch]

Is there a reason why you can't accept adventurers twice? I still have 2 out of 3 rooms and the required resources but the accept button is greyed out

The UI might be misleading, you are USING 2 out of 3 rooms.

Is there content with the Forge right now? Someone, who I assume is to be the Blacksmith, appeared weeks before I ever repaired the forge and I have not seen her reappear.
Do I need to get the Gardener, first?

The forge lets you make coal and iron and thats it right now. Next update (2.2) will bring the rest of the functionality. The associated NPC, Ailis, can be recruited after day 200 by patrolling in the winter.

 

[Soulcatch]

In v2.02,

• is there any story content after getting Lucy/Elsie/Willow/Ailis to 400/400/300/100 max affinity/interest? (I'm assuming I've exhausted the current state of v2.02?)
• does forging materials (consuming iron ore) produce anything?
• is there a use (in v2.02) for the half-key or broken wight blade?
• once the army leaves, does it ever come back? Or does the player lose the opportunity to purchase power-ups from the army once they're gone?
• if the player has low food, a hosted visitor/group consumes the remaining food before feeding Lucy. The first couple times this happens, the player can see "oh, whoops, better watch out for that." Mid-game (before it's trivially easy to keep food stocks always maxed), it could be nice to have an ability/tooltip that warns "hey, if you host this visitor/group, Lucy will go hungry."
• grinding for the materials needed for the fey armour/weapon (at least, once the army is gone and no longer able to barter) is somewhat frustrating, and (IMHO) unrewarding because the armour/weapon available for purchase from the army merchants (esp. once enchanted) seems better... I see that the fey armour/weapon growth is recurrable in the greenhouse, and that seems to give levels to the items, but (in the current game state) that doesn't seem to significantly change the effectiveness
• The fifth inn upgrade name (I don't recall exactly -- hot springs?) doesn't match the fifth inn project name (temple) -- in either case, I assume neither of those things are implemented yet?
• Mana potion description (when hovered during enemy encounter) says "Mana potions heal 1D6 hit points..." -- I'd have assumed mana potions regenerate/refill mana? I haven't actually used them, but I'd have thought the Health potion would be for healing hit points and the mana potion would be for regenerating mana.
• When selecting an item to use during enemy encounter, hovering over the item does not indicate what the item does (and the Items inventory overview in the top right is inaccessible during the encounter); I like that the potions when hovered show a tooltip indicating effect, and would be glad for the same for items
• The Help/Info button below the music button shows three Resources/Actions/Combat buttons... which don't show anything? I'm guessing these are yet-to-be-implemented; if so, will look forward to it.
• I soft-locked myself for a while once the army showed up, where I didn't have enough room to host any guests (crippling my gold-earning ability) and didn't have enough gold to buy more rooms. If I played again, I'd know what to avoid; it was just annoying that selling kegs (was? seemed to be?) the only way to slowly recover.
• It wasn't obvious to me that clicking the [X] while an experiment was running would cancel the current experiment and not refund any spent resources (gold, reagents, etc.) -- similarly in the greenhouse, clicking the [X] will reset the plot and lose any progress on the current growth, with no confirmation/"are you sure?" dialogue. Sure, once I'd done it once or twice I realised my mistake, but it was still irritating/surprising.

Overall, good content for an alpha game. I was curious/hoping to see if Lucy orgasming while highly fractured would have different outcome/dialogue/visuals. Felt like the mid-Fall thru Winter season stage of the game was relatively grindy; it feels like there's more to manage (still have to manage wood/food/alcohol/materials/reagents/temperature, while also having more clicks to manage cellar/tower/greenhouse/forge) but less to do?

1. If you've maxed out affinity, you've likely seen what's there. More coming soon!
2. No, but it will be useful in 2.2 onwards. While making coal or iron, however, it does raise the minimum temperature in the inn so it still somewhat useful.
3.No, but there will be in either 2.2 or 2.3 - depending on quickly I can get it added.
4. Once the army leaves, you lose the opportunity to interact with them in the current build. Eventually you will get access to everything again (in the Spring updates).
5. Lucy never goes hungry, you can always get her to conjure some food. She just doesn't like it.
6. Both fey armor and weapons have unique enchantments on them, but it's okay if you prefer the other weapons. A larger balance pass will be done eventually.
7. The shrine / hot springs aren't implemented yet.
8. Thanks for the spot on the mana potion, ill get the typo fixed.
9. Yeah tooltips need a pass. I'll be sure to get those added soon.
10. The help button is getting a rework - I got a chunk into it and then needed to divert my attention to another system. I'm prepping a steam demo right now and so a bunch of things are getting implemented at the same time. There is a road map on my patreon page that gives an idea of what's coming, but the game is very much still in Alpha and so lots of stuff isn't implemented or incomplete.
11. Balance is WIP but thanks for pointing that out. I reduced the number of rooms the army needed a few builds ago to help solve this, but I'll keep an eye on it.
12. Totally understandable. Likely when I do a polish pass on the UI I'll be fixing a bunch of things like that.

Thanks for taking the time to leave all that feedback. A bunch of it is just the result of the game being alpha, but I still like to know where the friction is. It all helps me get the game into a better spot.

 

[Vendiagrand]

The UI might be misleading, you are USING 2 out of 3 rooms.

I I mean like this,I accepted one person and the counter went from 3/3 to 2/3 and I can't accept another person

 

[Soulcatch]

View attachment 5192519 I I mean like this,I accepted one person and the counter went from 3/3 to 2/3 and I can't accept another person

Understood. If you can get me a screenshot of that happening I can look into it.

 

[acowasto]

I may be looking into it too much, but I believe Lucy is fucking around with the military.
I mean, her desire suddenly dropping from 120 to 58, while she's saying in the morning that "she's sleepy, because someone didn't let her sleep at night" while I am quite certain MC wasn't in her room that night. There goes the wholesome gameplay feeling for me, I suppose.

Gameplay wise, it's a bit... overwhelming at start with all those things to care about. And the progress, especially statistic wise, is rather poorly visible and hard to assess. I see little difference between having 10 and 50 points on basic statistics, with those rolls being done off-screen. But once you get a hang of it, it turns into rather relaxing managment game with a bit of RNG based combat. Which can roll you 5 and 6 on the dices, allowing you to defeat foes you shouldn't be able defeat in the first place, or to get your arse eaten by furball, because you rolled 1 and 2's 5 times in a row while wolf rolled above 9.

Upgrading stuff via caravan seems like a good way to limit rushing, but from logical point of view, it makes zero sense to prioritize the cellar and tower first when starvation is a possibility. Garden should be a first thing in upgrade tree. And shouldn't give that much food.

Would be nice to actually have some information on dialogue options about increasing or decreasing Lucy's Fracture, sometimes by a big amount. It took me some time to realize that being taught about magic by Lucy can break her pretty badly, just as prolonged flirting, while talking about random stuff can calm her down a bit.

I found out that best way to deal with Lucy is to... avoid her unless interaction is necessary. Or you may block yourself from reciving visitors. Like she simply can't hide in her room for the rest of the day.
Kinda... counterintuitive in my opinion, to "caring" of her.

 

[Soulcatch]

I may be looking into it too much, but I believe Lucy is fucking around with the military.
I mean, her desire suddenly dropping from 120 to 58, while she's saying in the morning that "she's sleepy, because someone didn't let her sleep at night" while I am quite certain MC wasn't in her room that night. There goes the wholesome gameplay feeling for me, I suppose.

Gameplay wise, it's a bit... overwhelming at start with all those things to care about. And the progress, especially statistic wise, is rather poorly visible and hard to assess. I see little difference between having 10 and 50 points on basic statistics, with those rolls being done off-screen. But once you get a hang of it, it turns into rather relaxing managment game with a bit of RNG based combat. Which can roll you 5 and 6 on the dices, allowing you to defeat foes you shouldn't be able defeat in the first place, or to get your arse eaten by furball, because you rolled 1 and 2's 5 times in a row while wolf rolled above 9.

Upgrading stuff via caravan seems like a good way to limit rushing, but from logical point of view, it makes zero sense to prioritize the cellar and tower first when starvation is a possibility. Garden should be a first thing in upgrade tree. And shouldn't give that much food.

Would be nice to actually have some information on dialogue options about increasing or decreasing Lucy's Fracture, sometimes by a big amount. It took me some time to realize that being taught about magic by Lucy can break her pretty badly, just as prolonged flirting, while talking about random stuff can calm her down a bit.

I found out that best way to deal with Lucy is to... avoid her unless interaction is necessary. Or you may block yourself from reciving visitors. Like she simply can't hide in her room for the rest of the day.
Kinda... counterintuitive in my opinion, to "caring" of her.

Lucy's morning dialog is just broken at the moment, she's not doing anything with the army. Old bug that needs to get fixed.

You get 1 extra dice for every 50 points in a stat, and you only roll them during combat or certain hunting events. otherwise your stats just give you flat bonuses to the amount of resources you gather or the how capable of repairing you are. Once you pick up a few combat abilities and some better equipment the dice quickly weight in your favor.

You can't starve, if you run out of food, Lucy will just conjure some for you. She doesn't like doing it, but it's not the end of the world.

Anything that excites or scares Lucy, or any time she spends mana, it worsens her fracturing. Anytime she is relaxed or physically exerted, her fracture decreases. The only dialog that increases her fracturing is talking about the ashlands, or asking her how to fight fractured monsters. Everything else either has no effect or a lowering effect. If you flirt with her, her fracture goes up - tea, rest, and calm talks make it go down.

 

[Vendiagrand]

Understood. If you can get me a screenshot of that happening I can look into it.

Oh my mistake, my dumbass realized that only one party appearing means that is the only party that appears for that night,I was just getting one party constantly, I just got two

 

[LtDkAngel]

Quick question does this game only have auto save at the end of the day? Cause I can't find a way to save other then that!

 

[Soulcatch]

Quick question does this game only have auto save at the end of the day? Cause I can't find a way to save other then that!

Right now it saves at the start of every day and keeps 3 days of saves. Manual saves are coming.

 

[Cookie7]

I cant wait for a color version, like in monochrome fantasy - so that way my eyes dont fucking bleed.

View attachment 4187964

I agree that staring at a white screen hurts your eyes, but the story is about a world WITHOUT colors due to corruption (or something like that), so it would be a bit silly to color it. Maybe we can bring the colors back in terms of the story in the future?