Okay I played through a third time (I am going for all the different endings although now I am stuck because there is no card to end the game yet after I slaughter all the villagers) and I found these:
From the description for Survival: “In the middle of the desert of in a filthy crypt, you can look after yourself. "
From “Load, draw, aim, re-AAAGH!” - " A bolt slams into your arm shoulder and blood pours down your arm.” arm shoulder?
Just a couple of things before breakfast…
Ashton - Well that shouldn’t be happening and I can’t, immediately, see why. Have you seen the card ‘Turncoat’s Cut’? What is your current Prologue value?
Ahh… praise be to nature, human ingenuity and the purveyors of Carte Noire.
More typos, yay! I really have an awful eye for this sort of thing, so thank you very much for correcting me. xD No, seriously. :)
‘Lost in the Storm’ shouldn’t have been visible but I forgot to add a Key of Dreams requirement. (That’s what I get for developing and writing while distracted by my roleplaying group.) That card is one of several opportunities I am making to add variety, choice and flavour to the town. I’ll also note that Lost in the Storm as crownoflaurel saw it was unfinished, missing its other option.
I think I’ve been erring on the side of too little context. It’s not explained/suggested that this raider attack is different. Yes, when the raiders’ fire is spotted, there should be a comment about it being unusual. I’ll fix that.
Thanks again for feedback, it’s all very helpful. It does feel somewhat unprofessional that I’m asking my core audience to test and pick out typoes, but that said there’s only me writing this. I’m my own worst editor.
Hey there! Started playing this today and am enjoying it so far. I enjoy how you’re going for something narratively less abstract (than Fallen London) by having the Prologue events (values 5 and more) and better defined characters overall.
Just spotted something that doesn’t make sense though: I have Prologue 6 and the Opportunities still deal The Fungus Farm. Possibly also Lost in the Storm but I’m not sure since I had it in my hand before and now it’s locked with Key of Dreams.
Leokhorn - Thanks for playing, and for posting. :) Yes, I do like well defined people and places and this trend will continue throughout the rest of the setting.
Ah. I was hoping no-one would have Lost in the Storm in their hand anymore. Well, I just finished that card properly so will unlock it… once I’ve finished the other cards.
There is an unfortunate element of opportunity cards, by design of StoryNexus, in that they cannot be stopped from being drawn once their minimum requirements are met (without a change of location). If I added an upper limit to their requirements, they would be drawn but unplayable and stick in your hand. So they must remain, disturbing the sense of progression but hopefully not too much. Once the prologue is over and the player (possibly) leaves Ketai, cards like that won’t be drawn anymore.
I don’t have access to the authoring tools but I have seen discussions on this and I find the way Opportunities work in SN a bit limiting for the authors. While I totally understand the lack of Discard as an easy way out for players (“oh hey, bad event? discard”), it would be nice if invalid cards could be automatically removed. Or at least discardable by the player only then. Oh well, maybe it will end up being fixed somehow :)
Oh, just reached the To Be Continued card!
Also just noticed you added a variant to Lost in the Storm, nice! Though I’ll note the card tooltip says “can only be played in City of Phire starting area” and yet I managed to play it, and the game mentioned I had “moved to Ketai”. Not sure if that’s normal or not.
EDIT (was meant for previous post): Typo in The Agony of Defeat : You don’t need to die with these of these wretches.
Also (SPOILERS, in case the warning is needed), I did reaaaally bad in the event. Mostly, I kept failing Modest challenges for all the abilities I had focused on… and finally succeeded on a High Risk challenge of Persuasion, which I had barely tried to raise. Oh luck :|.
I have no idea if this fits your vision of how things should go, but on my end it felt a bit depressing as it seemed as if I had no part in the result: it’s only the virtual “die” of SN that decided this it seems. Of course, I’m saying this during my first playthrough where it’s not always obvious what I could have done differently.
edited by leokhorn on 8/12/2012
The progress of developing Tides of War has been adjusted, so that Enemy at the Gate does not immediately close off further preparations. It’s up to the player if they want to try their luck and progress immediately, or if they wish to spend more time and actions to improve the chances of victory.
The Fungus Farm’s payment has been reduced to 3 tips to reflect the reduced Actions cost (as opportunity cards don’t technically cost actions). This is effectively three times the reward-per-action than when it was a Pinned card.
I’m also adding further opportunity cards as time goes by.
This comes from the area the prologue is set in is technically not considered Ketai, but ‘City of Phire starting area’. The technical area ‘Ketai’ will have copies of those opportunity cards, though.
I did see Turncoat’s cut. Now I’m stuck with no pinned cards, just Lost in the Storm and Fungus Farm (which I just played so now I don’t have those either). Prologue value is 27.
edited by Ashton Whitney on 8/12/2012
Found the problem and fixed now.
Anyone who had lost the battle would end up without a To Be Continued card. Now they do.
Well, it’s there, but it doesn’t actually work. I’m still stuck. Doing it just costs me an action.
UGH >< Sorry about that >< click click click click click There, sorted, fixed, tested.
Okay, I’ve completed another play through. I like the new cards- they give flavor to the setting, and knowing more about the villagers raises the stakes in the battle. More typos for you:
From the dice game card: “Scrimshaw dice rattle around the lid and irons tips are exchanged.” and ““Two tips gets you in. Win, you get the pot.” That an acceptable offer, with a little nudging.”
The grave marker card is missing a period on the last sentence.
Lost in the storm: “With the right preparations - a rap tied around your nose and mouth, a see-through veil over your eyes”
Refusing to kill Martha: “Eeverything goes black.”
I really like your new Opportunities. It really makes things varied now and gives more to discover, which is always a good thing :)
It would be nice if even the “fluff” events raised Qualities a little though. If just a single change point. It wouldn’t make them worth repeating, but would feel even more rewarding. Maybe talking to people raises Persuasion a bit, while exploring around gives Knowledge or Survival.
Examples: “Tips?”, “Obelisk”, grave ones, …
Typo: The captain’s watch
(…) and the Tears of Sentir trail behind, it glimmering like diamonds(
(misplaced comma it seems)
Keep an eye out, more cards are being slowly added. :) Yet again, thanks for the typo reports. Maybe I should stop making them >.>
Huh, interesting point about everything adding to qualities a little. That shouldn’t be too hard or game-breaking.
You could say Fallen London has spoiled me in that regard as I don’t think there’s ever an action not linked to some stat change. Maybe if I had never played FL it wouldn’t bother me. Or maybe it would IF such storylets consumed Actions (which they don’t right now, not directly at least).
Overall, I’m now wondering if it’s a good idea. Doing things differently could lead to a fresh take on things after all.
I… I think I’ve finished the prologue, beyond some polishing and balancing. 0.0 The lessons learned here will of course go into future expansion into the main story and development of my other planned SN story, The Voyage of the Pioneer.
It does trouble me that my learning troubles and errors have been so public and again, thank you all for your patience and keen-eyed reports. I shall have to find some way to reward you all, once you have established characters which you don’t kill off every few days.
Good job! It’s definitely got much more to discover and, as such, ends up being even more interesting. Every new Opportunity has me going “ohh, what’s this?” You definitely have what’s required for an explorer like me to keep clicking ;)
In case you are indeed going for always-use-an-ability actions, just noting Liara’s chat action has none yet.
Just discovered the caravan card… and went right for it. Why did I expect anything else, really? sheepish… Anyway to possibly get an alternate result with a very high Knowledge/Survival ability? (possibly still paying tips for it)… or at least have this come back at a later point in the story? :)
Good call on allowing to cancel out of the big event. It’s just as “meta” as it can be in FL, but I think SN-based games work better when giving that narrative control to the player for some reason, even if it’s not realistic.
Strangeness: the Archers action on that card has “You need Martial 1 and Martial no more than 8”
Why the upper limit? What happens if I’ve somehow trained beyond? (I don’t know if it’s possible) am I locked out of an appropriate action or is there a higher level one replacing it?
Again on the “does not make much sense” side of things, it’s possible to start the big event with Opportunities left, which is part of how SN works, and even deal new Opportunities, leading to the same issue: they don’t really fit the context of the big event.
Ideas: change location when the player starts the event. This clears Opportunities, right?
Or add a hidden (?) action on these cards only available during the big event. Something following the same theme but linked to the event.
I do not believe either of this is necessary, but it could be a nice touch.
Big event results this time:
Wins x x
Loss x x (low risk) x x
Barely made it again. One more success than last time, and on expected ability this time, but still quite a few failures on Moderate and Chancy challenges. For info, my Qualities at that point were:
Athletics 4
Knowledge 7
Martial 7
Persuasion 4
Survival 7
Is it meant to be a barely won thing for most players but the most patient/careful? I didn’t go for the big event right away, but… I didn’t want to keep doing the same activities over and over either. Admittedly, reaching the 10th level of “that” Quality does make you want to go further. Mh… I realize it might be more important to keep raising it than actual Abilities. OK, I might have been impatient again.
Liara’s chat - Ah, thanks. Missed that one. I’d gone through the list of opportunity cards but had forgotten there was a chatty action in a pinned card.
Caravan - Yeah, there’ll be the opportunity to buy in bulk further in the story. Caravans on the roads are a regular thing, and most urban locations have dedicated merchants which will be available when usable/equip-able items come in.
Upper-limit strangeness - A left-over of my initial fumblings with SN. I hadn’t properly thought through the effects of limits and hard-scripted them when they should have remained… theoretical recommended boundaries. Anyway, I’ve removed them now.
Opportunity cards - I could technically move the battle to a new location but, frankly, I’m afraid I’ll break everything.
The conclusion - “Is it meant to be a barely won thing for most players but the most patient/careful?” Pretty much, yes. It’s a real balancing act making the battle a challenge whatever happens. The average player should win or lose by the skin of their teeth. As with most FL storylines, it comes down to how many actions a player is willing to expend raising their abilities.
I’ve had another play with City of Phire, and I’m impressed. The writing is solid, but it’s the structure and polish that caught my eye.
The design is smooth and flows logically. I understood what I was doing, and what the situation was. And I wanted to know what happened next. And I can tell you’ve put in a lot of work on smoothing the edges off. Having a simple resource for trade also worked well.