Play-testing "Heroic"

StoryNexus
41

Just ran across the Crooked Captain! :thumb: In addition to the new-content squee, the option for a crooked ranking police officer seems to really add to the world for me–makes it feel more shadowed and less four-colour? I think there are a few words missing on the “Leave A Warning” Storylet; on the main card, it reads “Let him u[/u] his actions will not be tolerated.” and in “A Twist On The Formula” it runs “You empty the morgue u[/u] lure the Crooked Captain down.” (Also, “The approach is hardly new, wait til he’s alone and appear out of nowhere with a vague threat.” - I may be completely off, but I really want to replace that comma with a semi-colon.)

That said, thought the response on the “Turn Away” option for that Storylet was lovely. And the “Get A Confession”.

For the “Speak With A Certain Captain” card, I’m getting the same result on the “A Tentative Alliance” and “He’s Worried About The Fox”; both give me x1 Favours Among The Law. (The Certain Captain is currently my Ally.) Just figured I would mention in case anything else should be changing.

Some minor stuff:

On “Stop A Mugging → Pitiful” the last word isn’t capitalized on “Criminals Are A Superstitious And Cowardly lot”. On “Looking Around A Villain’s Lair” there’s missing capitalization on “Stripping The Place bare” and “Hang On, If you Just Rejig this Doo-Dad…” On “Check Out A Warehouse” there’s missing capitalization in “The Guard is Asleep.”

On “Time For Some Field Training -> A Night Of Reconnaisance”, I think there should be a second “s” in reconnaissance.

On “Talk To A Scientist -> A One On One Discussion”, I think metalurgy should be metallurgy. Also, in the response text for “A One On One Discussion”, the response text reads “The Omnidisciplinarian is relieved to find someone that can keep up with them.” Given that they’re specifically referred to as “he” in the other three options on “Talk To A Scientist”, I thought it seemed a bit odd?

On “The Golem Has A Hostage -> Make Your Escape” the response text reads “But The Golem escapes.” and on “Try Some Hacking -> There’s A Mobster’s etc.” the response text reads “you catch The Fox watching you.” The capitalization of the “The” seemed odd, since other text refers to “that Certain Captain” (“Foil A Robbery -> Organise an Ambush”), “the Indebted Pathologist”, and (on “Laying Low -> Time Passes”) “the Fox”. I realize superhero/villain types might get a capitalized “The”, I just figured I should flag it since it seems inconsistent.

L&c,
F

42

[quote=Torrain]Just ran across the Crooked Captain! :thumb: In addition to the new-content squee, the option for a crooked ranking police officer seems to really add to the world for me–makes it feel more shadowed and less four-colour? I think there are a few words missing on the “Leave A Warning” Storylet; on the main card, it reads “Let him u[/u] his actions will not be tolerated.” and in “A Twist On The Formula” it runs “You empty the morgue u[/u] lure the Crooked Captain down.” (Also, “The approach is hardly new, wait til he’s alone and appear out of nowhere with a vague threat.” - I may be completely off, but I really want to replace that comma with a semi-colon.)

That said, thought the response on the “Turn Away” option for that Storylet was lovely. And the “Get A Confession”.

For the “Speak With A Certain Captain” card, I’m getting the same result on the “A Tentative Alliance” and “He’s Worried About The Fox”; both give me x1 Favours Among The Law. (The Certain Captain is currently my Ally.) Just figured I would mention in case anything else should be changing.

Some minor stuff:

On “Stop A Mugging → Pitiful” the last word isn’t capitalized on “Criminals Are A Superstitious And Cowardly lot”. On “Looking Around A Villain’s Lair” there’s missing capitalization on “Stripping The Place bare” and “Hang On, If you Just Rejig this Doo-Dad…” On “Check Out A Warehouse” there’s missing capitalization in “The Guard is Asleep.”

On “Time For Some Field Training -> A Night Of Reconnaisance”, I think there should be a second “s” in reconnaissance.

On “Talk To A Scientist -> A One On One Discussion”, I think metalurgy should be metallurgy. Also, in the response text for “A One On One Discussion”, the response text reads “The Omnidisciplinarian is relieved to find someone that can keep up with them.” Given that they’re specifically referred to as “he” in the other three options on “Talk To A Scientist”, I thought it seemed a bit odd?

On “The Golem Has A Hostage -> Make Your Escape” the response text reads “But The Golem escapes.” and on “Try Some Hacking -> There’s A Mobster’s etc.” the response text reads “you catch The Fox watching you.” The capitalization of the “The” seemed odd, since other text refers to “that Certain Captain” (“Foil A Robbery -> Organise an Ambush”), “the Indebted Pathologist”, and (on “Laying Low -> Time Passes”) “the Fox”. I realize superhero/villain types might get a capitalized “The”, I just figured I should flag it since it seems inconsistent.

L&c,
F[/quote]

Thanks for the list, I’m a terrible self-editor. And yes, The Fox, The Golem and various other folk of the “super” persuasion do get capitalised The’s, like The Flash. That one dropped one with The Fox was a mistake.

43

I took Child of Circumstance / Wunderkind / There’s a Conspiracy.

  • “I didn’t ask for this.” My first choice and I’m playing Adam Jenson![/li][li]“Wunderkind”. Huzzah, I’m Tony Stark now! This is all I ever wanted in a game sniff[/li][li]And I have a Polarity Reverser? Now you have me in fits of giggles. I love how referential and genre savvy this start is.[/li][li]A thought on Try Some Weight Training: I first got a failure of ‘needing ice’ and it seemed odd to be told “that’s no good” regarding the exercise when I just got enough points to level up Brawn. Maybe adjust the text to be about doing well until you push yourself too far or something similar?[/li][li]The Petrelli boys are knocking over a bank? I must have missed that episode of Heroes.[/li][li]You Need To Rest doesn’t seem to have a requirement of Wounded!. In this case players could collect the card and leave it in their hand until they acquire some wounds. Do you want this to be possible?[/li][li]After playing many many cards, I still don’t know how I’m supposed to further ‘Uncovering Something Huge’. [/li][li]I just love how I make the computer go faster![/li][li]The Crooked Captain absolutely had it coming. Of course I’m envisioning Batman’s interrogation technique here.
44

[quote=Lily Fox]I took Child of Circumstance / Wunderkind / There’s a Conspiracy.

  • “I didn’t ask for this.” My first choice and I’m playing Adam Jenson![/li][li]“Wunderkind”. Huzzah, I’m Tony Stark now! This is all I ever wanted in a game sniff[/li][li]And I have a Polarity Reverser? Now you have me in fits of giggles. I love how referential and genre savvy this start is.[/li][li]A thought on Try Some Weight Training: I first got a failure of ‘needing ice’ and it seemed odd to be told “that’s no good” regarding the exercise when I just got enough points to level up Brawn. Maybe adjust the text to be about doing well until you push yourself too far or something similar?[/li][li]The Petrelli boys are knocking over a bank? I must have missed that episode of Heroes.[/li][li]You Need To Rest doesn’t seem to have a requirement of Wounded!. In this case players could collect the card and leave it in their hand until they acquire some wounds. Do you want this to be possible?[/li][li]After playing many many cards, I still don’t know how I’m supposed to further ‘Uncovering Something Huge’. [/li][li]I just love how I make the computer go faster![/li][li]The Crooked Captain absolutely had it coming. Of course I’m envisioning Batman’s interrogation technique here.

There’s always the chance that you could reduce your Wounded! to 0 through another source and then be unable to play the card. I’ve had several people (including myself) have their hands become full of unplayable cards in that manner. I don’t want to combine all the sources of Wounded or Rubbing People The Wrong Way into a single card or storylet, so for now those cards will have to work that way.

I do often worry about the amount of references I make, but I enjoy adding them in so I’m glad you enjoyed them so much.

So far the only section of Uncovering Something Huge that’s playable is Investigating: The Police. Once you have the Quality for investigating the Police to 8 (I just double checked, I did write that on the storylet, I’ll add it to the Quality too) you should get another Pinned card to resolve that part of the plot.

45

Wounds cards: Oh, yeah.

Uncovering Something Huge: Ah, I might have forgotten that.

46

In regards to the Uncovering something huge, If you you fail the card that unlocks at investigating the police 8, Are you supposed to be unable to restart your investigation? Because I did that, lost all my investigating and can’t seem to progress again.

47

Ah. No. I’m not seeing a reason as to why that is. I assume you’ve tried clicking the Uncovering card again? Also, can you tell me your Unravelling A Conspiracy value? I think it was an error in assigning Quality changes. If it’s 1 or higher, that’s why you’re not getting the card. And if that’s the case, the issue should now be resolved for future players, but if you give me your player name I’ll set the Q to 0 and you should be able to proceed.

48

New content! Thank you. I’ll note anything I’m getting as I play through.

  1. I like your beginning to the Conspiracy obsession. Feels important enough that I can care about it, but also as though there’s going to be lots more content on it.

  2. It’s nice to have a card that gives you more than one option. My qualities are a little unbalanced - the ‘Nimble As A Cat’ response had very nice imagery.

  3. Why does a private company need so much security?

  4. We can listen to the Overworked Physician now, great! I quite like her name and I’m interested in her story.

  5. I like that there’s another option on the ‘You Need Information’ Card.

  6. And…one set of 20 actions has run out. Gonna try again soon - this time grabbing that Certain Captain as my ally. Seems like he ought to be useful in this obsession.

  7. And…restart.

  8. The Leave A Warning card is new - I hate to mention this, but in the A Friendly Visit option you write ‘wait til he’s alone’ and as far as I can tell, it’d be 'wait ‘til he’s alone’ because 'til is a short form of until. Oh, I like the pure denial in the success text of the Get A Confession option. And the option not to bother him manages to suggest guilt as well - it’s all good.

  9. Got That Certain Captain as an ally. Have talked to him about the whole situation; I’m curious to know what he would’ve said had I accused him, but that’s pretty heavily out of character so I’ll have to hope someone else will tell me hinthintHeroicplayers

  10. And the Certain Captain Wants Your Help card now says that he’s asking specifically for you. I feel special.

  11. The Golem can escape now? Well, that’s new. A good option though - happens pretty often in superhero stories.

  12. Okay, I got to 8 for Investigating, stole documents and gave 'em to the media (would also like to know what happens if I asked the Certain Captain for help, but you can’t have everything) and I guess that’s the end of it all for now? I still have the ‘Uncovering Something Huge’ card pinned. Dunno if that’s on purpose or not.

Lily - Funny thing, that was exactly was I thought about Wunderkind. We should be friends.

49

Ah. No. I’m not seeing a reason as to why that is. I assume you’ve tried clicking the Uncovering card again? Also, can you tell me your Unravelling A Conspiracy value? I think it was an error in assigning Quality changes. If it’s 1 or higher, that’s why you’re not getting the card. And if that’s the case, the issue should now be resolved for future players, but if you give me your player name I’ll set the Q to 0 and you should be able to proceed.[/quote]

No problem, that certainly explains it, my current Unravelling a conspiricy is at 1. My player name is Matt Goerwell, Cheers!

50

Unraveling conspiracy at 2 and I can’t get any further content border?

51

Interacting with the Captain gave extra depth to the game, which is shaping up quite nicely if you don’t mine me saying.

I enjoyed investigating the corruption of the police department, but it did feel like there weren’t enough ways to improve that quality, and consequently I was more than a little dismayed when I lost the entire thing after failing a challenge.

It is already feeling like there may be too many cards that just train a quality, although I enjoyed the addition of the multiple-quality patrol card. Is there a reason that lifting weights and sparring with the Fox are seperate cards (and the other four as well)? I could imagine a card like “Hit the gym” that had two actions, possibly with some broad level brackets (“lift some weights”, “spar with the Fox”, “switch on the danger room” or whatever) that would fill that role.

I’m enjoying the interplay between clues, terrified criminals and friendly coppers, but I did wonder why you chose to pin the options to spend cash and krypto…sorry, glowing rocks. Not because I think it’s bad you understand, just interested.

52

[quote=Ambrose Smith]Interacting with the Captain gave extra depth to the game, which is shaping up quite nicely if you don’t mine me saying.

I enjoyed investigating the corruption of the police department, but it did feel like there weren’t enough ways to improve that quality, and consequently I was more than a little dismayed when I lost the entire thing after failing a challenge.

It is already feeling like there may be too many cards that just train a quality, although I enjoyed the addition of the multiple-quality patrol card. Is there a reason that lifting weights and sparring with the Fox are seperate cards (and the other four as well)? I could imagine a card like “Hit the gym” that had two actions, possibly with some broad level brackets (“lift some weights”, “spar with the Fox”, “switch on the danger room” or whatever) that would fill that role.

I’m enjoying the interplay between clues, terrified criminals and friendly coppers, but I did wonder why you chose to pin the options to spend cash and krypto…sorry, glowing rocks. Not because I think it’s bad you understand, just interested.[/quote]

Most of the stat improvement cards were made during the early days of my SNing, when my first impulse for anything new was to make a new card all especially for it. I’m going to go back and combine a few, and look into making another higher level multi-stat challenge card.

I kept them pinned so that if you wanted to use them for the cool effects you don’t have to wait for them to pop up. You’ve probably also noticed that each different type is associated with one power source. Though there may be occasional uses for the others in various storylets, you might find them better put to use as Menace reducers.

53

Yes, for now that is the content cap. I’m going to work hard to create 4 sections to each Obsession (possibly with branching endings) in time for the World of Seasons competition, so new/tweaked content should be added regularly.

54

[quote=crownoflaurel]New content! Thank you. I’ll note anything I’m getting as I play through.

  1. I like your beginning to the Conspiracy obsession. Feels important enough that I can care about it, but also as though there’s going to be lots more content on it.

  2. It’s nice to have a card that gives you more than one option. My qualities are a little unbalanced - the ‘Nimble As A Cat’ response had very nice imagery.

  3. Why does a private company need so much security?

  4. We can listen to the Overworked Physician now, great! I quite like her name and I’m interested in her story.

  5. I like that there’s another option on the ‘You Need Information’ Card.

  6. And…one set of 20 actions has run out. Gonna try again soon - this time grabbing that Certain Captain as my ally. Seems like he ought to be useful in this obsession.

  7. And…restart.

  8. The Leave A Warning card is new - I hate to mention this, but in the A Friendly Visit option you write ‘wait til he’s alone’ and as far as I can tell, it’d be 'wait ‘til he’s alone’ because 'til is a short form of until. Oh, I like the pure denial in the success text of the Get A Confession option. And the option not to bother him manages to suggest guilt as well - it’s all good.

  9. Got That Certain Captain as an ally. Have talked to him about the whole situation; I’m curious to know what he would’ve said had I accused him, but that’s pretty heavily out of character so I’ll have to hope someone else will tell me hinthintHeroicplayers

  10. And the Certain Captain Wants Your Help card now says that he’s asking specifically for you. I feel special.

  11. The Golem can escape now? Well, that’s new. A good option though - happens pretty often in superhero stories.

  12. Okay, I got to 8 for Investigating, stole documents and gave 'em to the media (would also like to know what happens if I asked the Certain Captain for help, but you can’t have everything) and I guess that’s the end of it all for now? I still have the ‘Uncovering Something Huge’ card pinned. Dunno if that’s on purpose or not.

Lily - Funny thing, that was exactly was I thought about Wunderkind. We should be friends.[/quote]

Glad you like the content. Yeah, I’ve decided that each Obsession has one permanently Pinned card. When they’re finished, a player can have one place from which to access the next branch of their story at all times. Of course, resolving one particular section has its own Pinned card to make it more obvious as to when you can percieve.

55

Ah. No. I’m not seeing a reason as to why that is. I assume you’ve tried clicking the Uncovering card again? Also, can you tell me your Unravelling A Conspiracy value? I think it was an error in assigning Quality changes. If it’s 1 or higher, that’s why you’re not getting the card. And if that’s the case, the issue should now be resolved for future players, but if you give me your player name I’ll set the Q to 0 and you should be able to proceed.[/quote]

No problem, that certainly explains it, my current Unravelling a conspiricy is at 1. My player name is Matt Goerwell, Cheers![/quote]

The issue should be resolved now, sorry for the inconvenience!

56

Having played it a bit this morning, I feel there’s a number of options that could be looked at. The build up of stats seems rather random, and the large collections of starting items to get anywhere reminds me of Night Circus more than Fallen London (much prefer latter).

Numerous times when I was waiting for cards, I’d be left with 2 cards that were just space wasters; and they always bug me. If the card can’t be used for a significant purpose (Healing Card when No Injuries) can it have a minor effect? (Like gaining part of a Clue). That gives the feeling of getting somewhere, rather than dropping unwanted cards.

57

Another thing that seems to be happening is Resource Wasting. I’m swapping Clues/Law/Feared away for a minimal increase - and having to work really hard to regain any of them. It feels like fighting up hill without any real rewards. After 100 tries (5 days real world) I have huge stats (10/8/8), Investigation on excellent (4) and still meandering around after the Fox looking at the cameras and playing Solitaire because I don’t have enough Qualities to do anything else.

Needs roughly one “YES!” per two days (50 turns) to make people want to play on.

58

Why would refilling your hand takes an action?

59

@Pint Box - It’s the way SN is designed, a core mechanical element. Actions are spent to draw a hand and to perform Pinned cards. It doesn’t cost any actions to play cards from your hands, so you effectively get 3 actions for the price of one with hand cards.

60

I wish there was more of an introduction for the Fox. She just kind of materializes with no real set up. Maybe just sort of a welcome card before choosing your power source and motivation an’ all that.

Also is there a set location? Is it Trench City? A more grounded setting would be preferrable. I mean Gotham City is as much of a character as the people that live in it.