Kaesa: good catch! That requirement shouldn’t have been there and has been removed. Let us know if you run into any other problems. Have fun!
Whew! It’s been a great week for our Access Code. Thanks everyone for clicking and spreading it around! We can’t say exactly how many players we had use it, but we CAN say it nearly doubled our expectations. So that’s pretty great!
We’re also hard at work at our first Nex-locked content. Here’s another preview from an early part of it. Enjoy!
(Yes I spotted the extra comma. Don’t judge!)
edited by levineg85 on 10/6/2012
Howdy,
We have a Facebook page!
We’d be very grateful if you’d go and Like it. This will be one of the main ways we reach out to you guys once the Zero Summer community gets a little bigger.
And as an added enticement: once we reach 100 Likes, we’ll release a special miniplot for everyone!
But you’ll have to check out the page to see what it is. :)
We’ll continue releasing Like rewards at major milestones – 250, 500, 1000 – so be sure to recommend our page to your friends!
Thanks as always for playing!
edited by levineg85 on 10/8/2012
One thing we plan to add in the Day 2/Morning update is an expanded selection at the Wall Market and more opportunities to earn currency.
We would love input from you about what you’d like to be able to buy. Style-boosting items aren’t currently supported by the platform, so please dig deep and be creative!
(Current brainstormy things around the ZS roundtable include new Allies, ways to reduce Menaces, admission to some very exclusive locations, a private consultation with the Ashling…)
Something extremely cool we’re doing with our first Nex-locked content: modeling an extended combat scene with a specially designed deck.
What’s so special about the deck? It’s stacked with three kinds of cards: ‘attack’ cards (which let you increase your win-condition), ‘defend’ cards (which let you reduce your lose-condition or reload your weapon), and ‘damage’ cards.
And what’s so cool about THAT, you might ask? The attack cards can’t be played unless you have bullets in your gun, and the damage cards can’t be discarded. The scene will require you to balance your win and lose conditions, carefully cultivate reloads and rests, and keep your hand clear of ‘damage’ cards – while making sure not to hurt yourself too much in the process!
We are VERY excited to release this content. Stay tuned! It won’t be long now…
We’ve just posted a poll to our Facebook that we’d like your input on!
Specifically: which of the characters from Pohoee’s party would you like most to see reappear in Day 2?
(Certain individuals are absent from the poll because they’re guaranteed to make an appearance. :) )
Get thee to the polls!
edited by levineg85 on 10/12/2012
…I am a sad panda, because I do not have a Facebook account and never will, because Mark Zuckerberg is a horrible person and I do not want to support him by bolstering his hit count. :-(
Oh well. Know that Zero Summer has my support in spirit.
Aw, thanks! You can feel free to let us know who you’d like to see here. Options are An Amateur Astrologer, An Excitable Engineer, The Governor’s Aide, and Very Old Johnson.
Oh, okay then! Amateur Astrologer, definitely. His story seemed the most supernatural and mysterious.
You really dig the supernatural stuff, don’t you. :)
We’re half way to 100 Likes on Facebook and releasing the Mosquito Hawks content. Please go to our Facebook page and share it with your friends if you think they’d be interested in Zero Summer – or if you’re interested in getting the Mosquito Hawks ASAP!
We’re also done editing our first Nex-locked content… which you’ll see tomorrow (or whenever the next FBG release launches)!
All’s quiet on the Story Nexus forums. Same with the Zero Summer office. We’re all waiting for the Nex tools to drop…!
When they do, you’ll get some great new content for Zero Summer. More than 20 unique storylets! A chance to see life just after the Longest Day! A new narrator with a fresh perspective! Dialogue trees! And a chance to tangle with a great and terrible monster on the midwest’s own I-75.
We can HARDLY WAIT to share it with you folks!
To the FBG powers that be: we would like our monetization turned on, please. :)
Played through your excellent game a few days ago. So far, its the best of the player created worlds I’ve played. Well done!
Good things:
- Writing is top notch, especially later on. More longwinded than other SN games, but you use that to your advantage; your extra time spent on description sucked me into the game world.[/li][li]Rare Successes - The small chance to get some delicious story quality made the grind cards the first thing I used. What would have been a chore always felt exciting…at least until I got the rare success for the first time, then they were back to being grindy.[/li][li]Untold History - As much as I burn to know what’s happened on the Longest Day, and how exactly the world has changed, not knowing gives more reasons to engage with the story[/li][li]Characters - Loved the Doc, Sermon on the Mount and the retired judge I went to the party with. The postmaster’s right hand is intrigueing too. Some characters I find a bit meh, like the enigmatic leader of the jackrabbits, but I’m sure other people may dislike the characters I’m interested in.
Constructive Criticisms
- There were several times where storylets would finish and I found myself at a loss about what to do next. Turns out, I needed to move to another area, or go home to the Jackrabbits. I think it would really help if stoylets that require travel finished with a line clearly indicating where you should go to continue the story. That would save a slow trawl though all the locations I had to do several times.[/li][li]Morality system is a bit simplistic[/li][li]Several features aren’t doing much at them moment, like White noise menace, some of the qualities from the rare successes, most of the locations. But I’m guessing a lot of this is will change as time goes on.
@Argent Citadel: thanks for your feedback! We’re glad to know you’re enjoying the writing and that the rare success mechanic is working more or less as intended.
Long-term plans do include a clearer way to present “where do I need to go next?” Maybe some kind of sign-post feature. But that’s down the line; right now, our priority is implementing the next two blocs of content.
Have you played through the end of Day 1/Evening? If not, you might see what we’re up to with White Noise. And in a near-term sense: starting on Day 2/Afternoon, failure on the majority of branches will raise one of our three Menace Qualities, of which White Noise is one.
As for the rare successes: we have plans for all of them. But Zero Summer is a long game, and we’re only getting started. :)
Still running through the nex locked content, but I’ll post what I have so far. I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but I can’t avoid them completely.
Loving it so far.
Typos:
2nd part of Robert’s conversation: “And but he also didn’t want to…” the “And” probably shouldn’t be there
In the “Aim for the Neck” option of “picking a target” (saying as little as I can to avoid spoilers), “it would be much less of a target” makes no sense. feels like it should go “it would be far less dangerous” or something similar
same card, “aim for the wings” “wings be impossible to miss” should probably be “wings would be impossible to miss”
Thanks Tamir! Glad to hear you’re enjoying it – we had a blast writing it. And now an announcement for everyone… :)
Dear friends,
Thank you.
Thank you for being interested in a game like Zero Summer. Thank you for taking Zero Summer seriously and for spending your time with us when we took you seriously – both your feedback and your tastes as a reader and a gamer.
Our motto is “Entertain and Edify – In That Order.” Zero Summer is fun. But it doesn’t pull any punches – not emotionally or artistically. We believe people have an appetite for wordy, literate games that respect their audiences, games that aren’t all about violence, that don’t offer easy answers.
Thank you for believing that, too.
Today we’re releasing Zero Summer’s first paid content: “New England in November” and “Fifty Miles South of Lexington.” It offers more than 20 unique storylets set just after the Longest Day.
You can unlock “New England in November” and “Fifty Miles South of Lexington” through Absolom the Tinker, who for a limited time is available in the space between Days 1 and 2. (He’s also still findable at the Wall Market in Amarillo.)
We’re asking you to pay 45 Nex for this content. That’s about 2 Nex per storylet. Less than 25 cents.
More than half of that goes to the Zero Summer team. It’ll help pay for content – not just the content you’re unlocking, but for all the free content we’ve released and will continue releasing. The rest will go to Failbetter Games, who developed Story Nexus and showed us all that wordy, complicated games like Zero Summer and Fallen London could find a big fantastic audience like you.
Thank you for supporting us with your time, your interest, your feedback and enjoyment.
Please take one step further and support us financially. Help us demonstrate that wordy games work – that Zero Summer works. There will never be a more important time to show your support than right now.
Yours truly,
The Zero Summer team
And as for how to buy Nex, it seems like there are two ways right now:
1.) Go to Fallen London, log in with your Story Nexus ID, and click the Nex tab.
2.) “Like” one of our storylets. When it asks you to tip, it’ll lead you to a screen for buying Nex. We haven’t tried this option, but it takes you to the same screen as Fallen London, so… :)
Enjoy!
Warning: spoilers
Finished the content now, and it was great.
I loved the fight scene. it was very well made.
One thing though. there was a point where I got stuck with no bullets, and had to discard 5 or 6 attack cards and take 5 o 6 menace points without being able to do anything, since no reload card came up.
I’d suggest adding an always card that lets you take some menace points and reload, or give you a gunslinger check to reload, and give you menace if you fail.
Just makes more sense to me, that when you’re out of bullets you’d stop whatever you where doing to reload, even if it means exposing yourself to danger. and it gives another one of Liz’s stats a use.
I ended up winning it, but my menace stat got over 4 at some point there, so it was tense.
edited by Tamir Buchshtav on 10/20/2012