Second-Round Playtesters: Iced Oolong

[hierophant]

Please note the character creation page text has been updated to reflect Iced Oolong’s focus on a single specific protagonist (as opposed to e.g. Fallen London, where players create an inspecific avatar):

Please enter an account name to the right. In Iced Oolong, you play A MAN WITH NO NAME, a gunslinger with no gun lost in the American southwest. You’ll take the reins and explore the new frontier as you struggle to uncover his past and determine his future. Please note: the account name on the right is not your character’s name. His name, like so much else, is lost – and up to you to rediscover.

Also, in case you’re curious, Wikipedia has a brief summary of the specific trope we’re drawing on.
edited by levineg85 on 8/31/2012

[littlethe]

Sorry I’m late to the party! Been busy with school, and then I got sick. : ( Anyway!
Here are my stream-of-consciousness observations as I played through. Some of them are typo reports, others are comments:

1. From a certain perspective card: “A woman wearing an apron – it reads Butterloaf Bakery – cries: fresh hot bread from the oven! Beside him”
2. From a certain perspective card: “Or: was it”
3. You appear to be missing a “close bold” tag in “The Love Song of Amarillo, Texas” card. The quality changes listed at the end are also in bold.
4. Possible idea: If the man with no name isn’t supposed to be a direct player avatar, perhaps it would be better to take a page from Cabinet Noir and use first-person instead of second?
5. Apologies if this seems nitpicky (I’m very, perhaps overly, twitchy about this), but you capitalize an awful lot of things. Many games do this to make game terms stand out (and thus make things easier for the player), but I’m not sure…does FL capitalize “quality”, “storylet”, and “action”? Most games don’t capitalize “stat”, “quest”, or “turn”.
6. Now that the three storylets that give the three styles can be played in any order, the Cityslicker one, which is a continuation of the Gunslinger one (“Your shirt, too, is…”) reads a bit strangely.
7. It seems to me that the text for the second branch on the Paladin/Man in Black card seems to have been changed? The choice now feels much less black-and-white, and I had a harder time choosing. (I still chose the Paladin choice, though.)
8. Going Home card: The first branch is improperly capitalized: “No Way but Forward”
9. Doc increases when taking the second branch of the “The Boiling Sky” card. To my knowledge, this is the only branch in the prologue that used to be a stat test that does this. Intentional?
10. A Certain Kind of Rain, “Eyes Wide Open” branch: You’re missing a conjunction in “You suppress a shudder burn the images into your mind.”
11. The image for “You have gazed too long into the abyss; your White Noise is changing…” is broken.
12. Things seem a bit…wordy, in general. Perhaps it’s just whiplash from experiencing Cabinet Noir’s more minimalist style, but many storylets really do have walls of text, I notice. This is probably a side-effect from this being the prologue and a highly detailed, fantastical story, however.

(I wanted to do a bullet-point list, but Word’s formatting doesn’t jive with the forum’s and I don’t know how to make lists in BBCode. Hmph.)
(Oh dangnabit, it appears that much of my feedback is out of date. Oh well. I will try to be swifter next time.)

Now onto the structured questions…

1.) The Opening changed in a lot of small but we hope impactful ways. Did you notice any changes you liked or disliked particularly?

Yes. As I mentioned above, I feel that the “morality” choice was more interesting and had more depth. The use of the opportunities deck to introduce the three qualities in any order the player desired was interesting, though I didn’t really mind the original approach. I didn’t really mind the fact that the “Seer of Rabits” sub…thing was a branch in the first place, though. In fact, I think that making it its own card is kind of strange. I believe some of the choices regarding one’s interaction with Warren and the Jackrabbits were tweaked – I think I was able to choose a more “suspicious” route this time, which is more in keeping with my personality.

2.) Several players complained during the first iteration of the Opening that they felt like they ended up doing things they really wouldn’t have done (e.g. drinking bad booze.) Do you feel more empowered/less disempowered by this updated Opening?

Eh, I dunno. I don’t think I really noticed that much; then again, I play lots of JRPGs, so I’m used to not seeing the main character as “myself”. I think it’s probably better than the original, though.

3.) What did you like best? What are you hoping will happen next, or be explored down the line – setting, theme, character, it’s all fair game.

I really want to know what’s up with that rabbit carving. The bats and whatever the Wall is also look interesting, but I do not doubt that those will be part of the main story…

4.) Have you seen the rabbit? Do you tremble – with excitement? with fear?

Excitement. : )

Anyway, this continues to look good. I look forward to seeing the new content.
edited by Little The on 9/1/2012

[hierophant]

Another preview from our upcoming release, this one featuring three new characters: Doc Roslyn, Amarillo’s best and only surgeon; Very Old Johnson, who’s pretty much as advertised; and Miss Elena Villalobos, the Postmaster General’s right hand, about whom much is spoken but little known. Rumor has it that Very Old Johnson knew her in younger days. And from where the Postmaster General’s sudden interest in Amarillo? It’s well-known she depends on Miss Elena to resolve all the little problems a public figure can’t publicly address. What problem, then, has come to Amarillo?

edited by levineg85 on 9/1/2012

[valanthos]

Definitely lack a Key of Dreams.

[hierophant]

A new preview for the upcoming Iced Oolong release. This one goes out to the Harvestmen fans – and is, I think, self-explanatory.

Thank you everyone for your great feedback on our revamped Opening!


I know it’s been a longish wait on new content. We’re as excited (and impatient!) as you are! We can hardly wait to release Day 1/Morning, a content bloc that covers 75+ Storylets and will take ~500 Actions to play through.

That’s why our closed beta testers will have access to it sometime this week.


For everyone else, we’ll release the revamped and touched-up Opening to the general public. Keep an eye out here for it!

[tamirbuchshtav]

Hey.
Don’t know if you are still looking for beta testers, but if you are then I’d like to join.
Character name is Tremir
Email is tremir@gmail.com

[hierophant]

@Tamir: we’re accepting new beta testers through the end of the week. I’ve set your Qualities; you should be good to go! :)

Closed beta testers will discover their Motes of Inspiration have become somewhat more inspiring.

[kitsune]

I figure I better hop in on this, now that everything seems to be worked out ^_~

My name will be Kitsune and email is Wisest_One88@Yahoo.com

[hierophant]

@Kitsune: drop us an email at zerosummer@outlook.com whenever you’re ready. I’ll get your Qualities set. :)

[sarsmos]

I’m kind of confused. I used one of the motes. Is the result what you meant? I completed the opening but all I’ve gotten is a lost mote… The rules of the game card:Time pinned card is still the only card there.

[hierophant]

@Sarsmos: Motes of Inspiration are supposed to trigger a Storylet called “Mote of Inspiration,” which refreshes your Action pool (but does nothing else). That’s all the extra content for today. :)

Did you have a different result?
edited by levineg85 on 9/5/2012

[katbeth86]

I can’t get back into the game… I can’t find the link anywhere and itisnt included in the last Closed Beta Update

[hierophant]

That’s concerning. The link is oolong.storynexus.com/s . Let me know if that works for you!

[hierophant]

Sarsmos and Katbeth:

Are your issues resolved? :)

[katbeth86]

[quote=Gordon Levine]Sarsmos and Katbeth:

Are your issues resolved? :)[/quote]

I appear to have actually made them worse. In fixing the linking of my story nexus account to my existing Facebook Fallen London account, I think I lost my Iced Oolong character, I created a new one, still named Katbeth, but that means I need to beta qualities given back to me again… Sorry.

[hierophant]

@Kat:

You shouldn’t be sorry – we are! If you let me know what your character name is now, I’d be very happy to set your Qualities. I would also be happy to set your Qualities to how they looked at the end of your original playthrough of the Opening so you don’t have to go through it again. Just let me know. (If you’re interested in skipping the Opening, let me know whether you went with Warren at first, whether you got Paladin or Man in Black, and whether you looked at the rabbit.)

[becks]

I’m Becca, one of the staff writers for Zero Summer. My palette of nerdery consists of classic SF and fantasy (Clarke, Norton, Heinlein, Cherryh), tea, video game and pen and paper RPGs, illustration, historical reenactment, and most recently being very serious about writing.

Gordon pitched Zero Summer to me as a literary way to write a game, and given how much I like worlds with quality backstory and characterization, I was on-board. My Zero Summer playlists include the Tanahill Weavers, Mumford and Sons, the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and Coheed and Cambria. Direct literary influences for this project include William Gibson’s more recent work, Haruki Murakami, the Japanese genre of I novels, and Heinlein’s juvenile novels.

Consider this an Ask Me Almost Anything. Naturally we’re keeping the Big Secrets to ourselves (like what exactly is in Absolom’s pack?), but otherwise we’ll be pretty open about the plot and setting.

[katbeth86]

[quote=Gordon Levine]@Kat:

You shouldn’t be sorry – we are! If you let me know what your character name is now, I’d be very happy to set your Qualities. I would also be happy to set your Qualities to how they looked at the end of your original playthrough of the Opening so you don’t have to go through it again. Just let me know. (If you’re interested in skipping the Opening, let me know whether you went with Warren at first, whether you got Paladin or Man in Black, and whether you looked at the rabbit.)[/quote]

My new character name is Katbeth, and I have no problem replaying the beginning again, I still find it fascinating, I will just need the qualitie that allows me to play, and possibly the motes of inspiration as well.

[hierophant]

@katbeth: you’re all set – enjoy!

[hierophant]

Dear friends,

A few things:

[ul][li]Iced Oolong is now ZERO SUMMER!

[/li][li]The Opening is now open to the general public.

[/li][li]Day 1/Morning, our first major content bloc, is now open to closed beta testers. (We’re not currently accepting new beta testers. We may take more in the future, though.)

[/li][li]This thread will be deleted soon. Instead, we ask that you use this shiny new thread for feedback/questions/general Zero Summery chitchat.[/li][/ul]
Thanks for all your time, attention and support! It’s been a pleasure and a privilege so far, and we hope you continue on this journey with us.

Best from all of us,

-Gordon