Droid Productions

[Love of Magic & Morningstar]
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Dec 30, 2017
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Im playing on pc and have overall no issues, i think its just the rendering.

E.g.:

The face of MC (Bottom left corner, left of the text box) look really clean/sharp and good, in contrast to the picture of Katies face. The demon lord (battle) and Thorman also look sharper and cleaner.

Meanwhile i feel like there is a small quality drop at the special images (e.g. tentacle Molly).
With the picture of MC's Mom, Chloe and mysterious father being the worst contender.

mmmm maybe im just petty? Or is there a difference between these examples?
Hmm... it's possible an export setting. Tentacle molly, for example, is a Spine animation... it's possible it's reducing the size of the texture for unity when exporting. Something to check out, perhaps. Thanks for the heads up.
 

bosp

Active Member
Jan 3, 2018
647
1,316
Now that I'm busy writing book 2, I decided to sit down and make a teaser for it. It touches on the key new aspects of the game; kingdom management, allies, your army, and the need to become truly the Winter King. MC's days of being a deadbeat student in Edinburgh are coming to an end.

Deadbeat student... yeah he did not graduate but there is still that renowned university in Lagos he can get his diploma from on account of his life experiences :p

Joking aside, have you thought about revamping MC stats and the combat system?

Don't get me wrong, I love the cards game combat but our MC has matured to god status and it did not reflect much (only Power 2) on his card game abilities or his health stats.
He's got a 3 billion gallons mana pool and a soul-sucking sword that is completely useless (outside of the "narrative combat").
He can still be pawned by a defiler if you play drunk. :p
Our MC god definitely needs some beefing up.

For all of the key conflict moments (boss fights), you used Deux ex Machina solution - dropping out of a card combat game and resorting to the narrative.
It works fine but it's not an ideal solution in the long run.
 
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Droid Productions

[Love of Magic & Morningstar]
Donor
Game Developer
Dec 30, 2017
7,080
18,147
For all of the key conflict moments (boss fights), you used Deux ex Machina solution - dropping out of a card combat game and resorting to the narrative.
It works fine but it's not an ideal solution in the long run.
The problem is I need to deal with both hardcore players and casual players. So... I can rubber-band the enemies, but that's prone to under/overcompensation. Otherwise I end up with enemies that totally thrash casual players, or that fall in one-hit to players who min-max Elsewhere.

One thing I'm doing as part of the opening sequence is bumping up stats a little, so I have a baseline. But the real solution is likely to balance enemies so the key moments are aligned with your stats.
 
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bosp

Active Member
Jan 3, 2018
647
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The problem is I need to deal with both hardcore players and casual players. So... I can rubber-band the enemies, but that's prone to under/overcompensation. Otherwise I end up with enemies that totally thrash casual players, or that fall in one-hit to players who min-max Elsewhere.

One thing I'm doing as part of the opening sequence is bumping up stats a little, so I have a baseline. But the real solution is likely to balance enemies so the key moments are aligned with your stats.
Balancing combat is a biatch, I know, but I think even the casual players would thoroughly enjoy the feeling of accomplishment after defeating a boss.
Maybe adding a sword option as a multiplier to boost attack/defense so players can choose to use it or not?
 

Droid Productions

[Love of Magic & Morningstar]
Donor
Game Developer
Dec 30, 2017
7,080
18,147
Balancing combat is a biatch, I know, but I think even the casual players would thoroughly enjoy the feeling of accomplishment after defeating a boss.
Maybe adding a sword option as a multiplier to boost attack/defense so players can choose to use it or not?
Yeah, that's coming in. But again, it'll use your Sword stat, so if you're someone who's skipped anything that's not on the calendar (those players make up a decent chunk), they're still going to get creamed :D
 
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bosp

Active Member
Jan 3, 2018
647
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It never gets easy, does it?

They won't get creamed if they play their cards right (pun intended) :p

You can give them a Barrier spell button to boost shields.
 

Droid Productions

[Love of Magic & Morningstar]
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Dec 30, 2017
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I suspect I'll just need to bite the bullet and set up the auto-scaling for real fights. Will take a while to tweak into submission, and I need to make sure it doesn't wander off into Rainman land..
 

noone1234

New Member
Jul 4, 2017
12
9
Did anyone else have a small visual glitch with the black rose. On my last playthrough from scratch I noticed if you had a black rose in your room when Emily was in it, the rose was over her avatar instead of behind it on the table.
 

Droid Productions

[Love of Magic & Morningstar]
Donor
Game Developer
Dec 30, 2017
7,080
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Did anyone else have a small visual glitch with the black rose. On my last playthrough from scratch I noticed if you had a black rose in your room when Emily was in it, the rose was over her avatar instead of behind it on the table.
Yeah, sorting issue. Fixed, I just need to push it to steam... waiting to see if there's any other small issues to deal with.
 

vneotpolemus

Member
Sep 22, 2019
200
386
I finally finished book one and damn. Amazing to see the game come so far. I've never been a patreon but I've followed development on and off since March and dropped into the discord occasionally. I remember joking around in discord about Janice coming to visit and the MC trying to keep her away from the all the weirdness, talking about achievement names.

Just little things, but seeing it all come together was a little like watching someone else's kid growing up. Even though Droid did all the hard work we were along for the ride. I even technically got to make a contribution to the game (an achievement name :p).

Congratulations to Droid, you've done a hell of a job! Look forward to seeing book two.
 

anon1012

Newbie
May 25, 2018
70
98
Just noticed that when I went into Elsewhere on the morning of Day 99 with Emily she had the Dragonslayer ability ready in every fight and could just oneshot everyone. Is this intended?
 

Droid Productions

[Love of Magic & Morningstar]
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Game Developer
Dec 30, 2017
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18,147
Just noticed that when I went into Elsewhere on the morning of Day 99 with Emily she had the Dragonslayer ability ready in every fight and could just oneshot everyone. Is this intended?
Yeah, she can't oneshot *everyone*, but yeah, she's quite OP at that particular part of the game.

At the same time, don't rely on her; she'll not be available for most of the rest of book 1.
 

HSHS1111

Active Member
Feb 8, 2019
889
1,396
So, in preparation of book 2: Do ingredients carry over? Do they serve a purpose there? Does money carry over. Does money even serve a purpose now that we theoretically have access to the royal treasury? I'm assuming gems are here to stay. So is the best course of action to invest in gems and build out three different decks?


Edit: Just got to the end a second time. It didn't create another "End of Book 1" save. The old one still has the date from when it was created. It also doesn't have a delete button. I can easily find the file on disk and delete it there but maybe you want to change the behavior here.
 
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rahkshi01

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2018
1,761
1,722
I think I might be bugged I went through on a second playthrough and I am at day 101 and I still can't find a black rose in elsewhere!!! Last time it dropped easily now none at all a little help Droid Productions.
 

Adry Lemon

Member
Jul 17, 2020
235
299
So, in preparation of book 2: Do ingredients carry over? Do they serve a purpose there? Does money carry over. Does money even serve a purpose now that we theoretically have access to the royal treasury? I'm assuming gems are here to stay. So is the best course of action to invest in gems and build out three different decks?


Edit: Just got to the end a second time. It didn't create another "End of Book 1" save. The old one still has the date from when it was created. It also doesn't have a delete button. I can easily find the file on disk and delete it there but maybe you want to change the behavior here.
Everything from that last save will carry over, if ingredients will have a use in book2 i don't know.


I think I might be bugged I went through on a second playthrough and I am at day 101 and I still can't find a black rose in elsewhere!!! Last time it dropped easily now none at all a little help Droid Productions.
Black Rose "drop chance" is RNG afaik
 

cakeny

Well-Known Member
Jul 23, 2020
1,034
824
The problem is I need to deal with both hardcore players and casual players. So... I can rubber-band the enemies, but that's prone to under/overcompensation. Otherwise I end up with enemies that totally thrash casual players, or that fall in one-hit to players who min-max Elsewhere.

One thing I'm doing as part of the opening sequence is bumping up stats a little, so I have a baseline. But the real solution is likely to balance enemies so the key moments are aligned with your stats.
Shouldn't enemies be easy if you min/max? Them dying in one hit makes sense. That's the whole point of grinding.
 
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anon1012

Newbie
May 25, 2018
70
98
The problem is I need to deal with both hardcore players and casual players. So... I can rubber-band the enemies, but that's prone to under/overcompensation. Otherwise I end up with enemies that totally thrash casual players, or that fall in one-hit to players who min-max Elsewhere.

One thing I'm doing as part of the opening sequence is bumping up stats a little, so I have a baseline. But the real solution is likely to balance enemies so the key moments are aligned with your stats.
Shouldn't enemies be easy if you min/max? Them dying in one hit makes sense. That's the whole point of grinding.
I agree

I have to admit I might not have gone full Min/Max but I tried and with stats around 45/50/65 and pretty decent gems (Mainly Lightning and Pure Damage) the MC still felt really weak for some reason. It was basically impossible for me to go into Elsewhere without Dylan to heal.

As I mentioned before I thought Emily keeping her 1k/hit ability might be a bug but after spending some time in Elsewhere using her ability it actually felt pretty nice not having to slog through fights.

I think thematically with the MC being a walking Nuke it would only make sense that someone who invests time into going to Elsewhere and leveling instead of just spamming the Gym etc. would be a lot stronger than most enemies.

What would the expected stats for someone towards the end of Book 1 be if they Min/Max vs. not Min/Maxing? Are the stats I had just a lot worse than I thought?
 
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Adry Lemon

Member
Jul 17, 2020
235
299
Min/Max at the moment means a Cluster/Rage, Shield/Rage or some form of a Denial poison/fire/ice with lightning

Pure damage falls behind and isn't anywhere near "top dog"
 
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