That was the quickest/best turnaround ever ^^ I just started playing and saw it in the side bar and had to come say Yay and Thank you ^_^
I just moved to the Wall Market (I think that’s what it’s called) and it said I went to Platform #1. I am seeing the right pinned cards for the Market, but the location card says Platform #1 as well…
edited by Katbeth86 on 9/13/2012
You’re very welcome! It was a good point and a good suggestion; we were happy to do something about it. :)
Ahh, I edited with a bug while you were replying, sorry.
Should be fixed now. Thanks!
We’re coming down the home stretch of Day 1/Afternoon…!
You know what that means: new content for everybody coming very, very soon!
[quote=Gordon Levine]DIRECTED FEEDBACK FOR DAY 1/MORNING
(although as always we’re happy to hear whatever feedback you have in whatever way you want to give it!)
1.) Did you play through the game in Opportunity or Pinned mode? Why did you choose that mode? Why did you like it better (if you did)?
2.) Which of the subplots did you choose? What did you like about them? What would you have liked more of?
3.) There are several places where “Must” cards are used, most significantly during The Ministry of Black Powder. Did you find the “Must” cards enhanced your experience? Or did they detract from it?
4.) Balancing Zero Summer between “too grindy” and “not game-y enough” has been a challenge. Did you feel the mechanics properly supported the narrative, or did the mechanics get in the way?
5.) It’s also been a challenge to balance Zero Summer between “too wordy” and “not enough details.”* Did you feel like the game was too wordy? Or too light on descriptive details?
6.) What plot points did you like best? What would you like to see more of? What didn’t you see that you were looking forward to?
7.) Have you won any money at Tall Saul’s? Because I know a certain design team who could really use some NorteAmericano dollars. You know. For design team stuff.
* Also balancing between “finishing the damn storylet already” and “maybe a fourth adverb is what this run-on sentence really needs.”[/quote]
Just a reminder that we’re still looking for directed feedback answers. Thanks very much!
Sorry. I should have done this already, but I’ve been out of touch for a few days.
1.) Did you play through the game in Opportunity or Pinned mode? Why did you choose that mode? Why did you like it better (if you did)?
Pinned mode. mostly because it was the default, but also because it seems to be less grindy to me. not sure if it’s actually less grindy or just seems so though.
2.) Which of the subplots did you choose? What did you like about them? What would you have liked more of?
I’ve already mentioned that I took the Harvestmen and mission plots. I liked them both, but as I’ve already mentioned, I think they’re too easily accessible compared to the other plots. making them harder to access will serve the same purpose as making the others easier.
One point I want to make here is that plots should probably give better directions about where you are supposed to go next. In the mission plot, specifically, there’s a point where you are chasing someone (no names here, because spoilers), and you need to change your location. and nowhere in the plot, as far as I’ve been able to see, are there directions about where you are supposed to go.
3.) There are several places where “Must” cards are used, most significantly during The Ministry of Black Powder. Did you find the “Must” cards enhanced your experience? Or did they detract from it?
I love the “must” cards. they’re really cool, and give a very nice feel of urgency to the plot. However, I think that these cards should be visible even if you don’t meet the requirements for them to fire. especially when you are sent to the train station in the Ministry plot, and if you don’t have the required qualities, you can’t actually see anything, and the automatic response from the player is “wait, did I read it right? am I in the right place? what now?”.
If making the must card itself visible isn’t an option (and I can see why it might be a problem), then maybe add a “placeholder” card to the game that shows when you are in the location with the required Ministry quality but without the required styles, that will say something like “you can’t seem to find anything here. maybe you should come back later”. that way, the player knows they’re in the right place, but can understand that he’s missing something before he can continues.
and, of course, the placeholder itself doesn’t get played, because as soon as the player enters the location with the required qualities, the “must” card fires. the placeholder should, of course, have a play option that does nothing to prevent a “stuck” card in Opportunity mode.
4.) Balancing Zero Summer between “too grindy” and “not game-y enough” has been a challenge. Did you feel the mechanics properly supported the narrative, or did the mechanics get in the way?
I didn’t find it at all grindy. the mechanics seem to mesh seamlessly into the narative
5.) It’s also been a challenge to balance Zero Summer between “too wordy” and “not enough details.”* Did you feel like the game was too wordy? Or too light on descriptive details?
I like wordy, so I like the way the game is now. but it’s kind of on the limit for this sort of media.
6.) What plot points did you like best? What would you like to see more of? What didn’t you see that you were looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to the rabbits. I also like the main plot and the Harvestmen very much and want to see how it continues.
7.) Have you won any money at Tall Saul’s? Because I know a certain design team who could really use some NorteAmericano dollars. You know. For design team stuff.
I haven’t won any money. but I haven’t tried very hard
[quote=Gordon Levine]DIRECTED FEEDBACK FOR DAY 1/MORNING
(although as always we’re happy to hear whatever feedback you have in whatever way you want to give it!)
1.) Did you play through the game in Opportunity or Pinned mode? Why did you choose that mode? Why did you like it better (if you did)?
2.) Which of the subplots did you choose? What did you like about them? What would you have liked more of?
3.) There are several places where “Must” cards are used, most significantly during The Ministry of Black Powder. Did you find the “Must” cards enhanced your experience? Or did they detract from it?
4.) Balancing Zero Summer between “too grindy” and “not game-y enough” has been a challenge. Did you feel the mechanics properly supported the narrative, or did the mechanics get in the way?
5.) It’s also been a challenge to balance Zero Summer between “too wordy” and “not enough details.”* Did you feel like the game was too wordy? Or too light on descriptive details?
6.) What plot points did you like best? What would you like to see more of? What didn’t you see that you were looking forward to?
7.) Have you won any money at Tall Saul’s? Because I know a certain design team who could really use some NorteAmericano dollars. You know. For design team stuff.
[/quote]
Pinned. I switched to opportunity mode once, but got bored with the grind cards not being available on cue in the order I wanted.
I first picked Harvestmen and Mission. Got bored with Harvestmen and unwound it, and started Cutting your Spurs instead. I loved the balance of morals involved in Spurs— and the ending came as a shock. Sort of a ‘what have I got myself into’ moment. (Yes, I was eating cheese.)
Harvestmen didn’t catch my interest as much because, well— I was hoping for something supernatural. I was like, “Oh, is that all it is?” and kinda wandered off.
The Must cards enhanced my experience in every place but one: That one place was the start of the fight with John the Biter. I like how when you’re in the fight, you can’t really backpedal, but you should choose a card from your pinned list to start it. Everywhere else, it was great.
A tiny bit grindy, but you get used to it. I do worry about the pace of growth in your styles in later installments, though.
The amount of prose was perfect. Keep it.
Well, we’re getting introduced to what and who is IN Amarillo. But what’s out there? I’m lusting after seeking the mysteries behind the Noise. the White Noise.
Do you mean in game? I couldn’t find the table, though I did get the card and two Blue Chips. (I also got a Dollar from the bankers.) Out of game, I’m flat broke.
A few notes: I loved the Skunk Brothers thread. I did accidentaly set the theme to Roadkill when what I really wanted was His Knobs— it wasn’t clear it was a one-time choice.
In addition, there were a few issues with certain subplot cards, where they won’t appear until some of your styles reach certain levels. (Some of the Mission cards are guilty of this one.) If you can’t see the next mission step, you’ll end up casting around town and not finding anything… subplot cards should always appear even if your styles are below par!
Dear friends: keep an eye on your inboxes tomorrow evening. We plan to release a big chunk of new content…!
Glad to hear the ending gave you a start. Of all the text we’ve put out, I think I’m most proud of the two cards at the end of Cutting Your Spurs D1-M.
The game will only get less ‘grindy’ over time. We’re targeted at a certain number of Actions per Date/Time block, not a certain number of Style points gained. We also plan to include more content parsimony structures in our subplots going forward. D1-A, for example, will include four of them to handle ~150 Actions. Hopefully that will feel better to play!
:)
D1-A might disappoint you in this regard, although I understand we might have something planned for D1-E…
I’m sorry to hear you got into trouble with the first Skunk Brothers tier. I’d be very happy to reset your Qualities such that you can repick. I’ll look into clearer language about the choice going forward. It would really stink to spend the rest of the game lamenting a Quality you misclicked on the very first time block of the very first day.
All of the subplot cards are intended to display when you reach their tier and before you reach the Style prerequisite. If some of them aren’t, that’s our bad. I’ll audit the D1-M content sometime before the competition and tidy that up. Thanks for the catch!
[color=#222222]Day 1/Morning is NOW LIVE for ALL USERS![/color]
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[color=#222222]We’re excited to let everyone have a crack at our first major content update. Our closed beta testers have done a great job polishing it, and we’d like to take this opportunity to say THANKS! to all of them![/color]
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[color=#222222]Patch notes for Day 1/Morning can be found below. [/color]
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[color=#222222]As always, if you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to post here. The entire Zero Summer team is watching the thread and eager/excited/twitterpated to hear from you![/color]
GENERAL RELEASE PATCH NOTES: DAY 1/MORNING
Day 1/Morning
Day 1/Morning is now available! This content bloc contains more than 75 new Storylets and will take players ~350 Actions to complete. Day 1/Morning will take players up through 14 in their Styles.
[/li]Our first main plot, The Ministry of Black Powder, begins at Burrow and Briar.
[/li]Players will have the opportunity to pursue three different subplots: The Harvestmen, in which the Protagonist investigates a series of unorthodox murders; Cutting Your Spurs, in which the Protagonist falls in with some of Amarillo’s most notorious organized criminals; and Hallowed Ground, in which the Protagonist discovers the people and passions behind Amarillo’s premier charity.
[/li]Keen-eyed and lucky players will have the chance to begin a liaison with Ms. Chanticleer, the owner of Butterloaf Bakery; penetrate the mysteries of Little Japan, home to Amarillo’s most marginalized citizens; increase a certain rabbit-related Quality they may have gained during the Opening; and other mini-plots. Most of them can be accessed through rare success results. Do be sure to explore the world, though; not everything can be see at each location.
[/li]Players will also be able to volunteer at the Skunk Brothers Farm. The Skunk Brothers: makers of fine American whiskey since 2016! There is a second portion of this planned for Day 1/Morning. It isn’t currently implemented because time is surprisingly inflexible. We’ll let you know when it’s in – should be circa the middle of next week.
[/li]Absolom the Tinker, while generous, is unfortunately not able to sell you a Bottle of Cornskunk '16 at this time. This branch will be playable at a future date TBD.[/li][/ul]
[b]Mechanics Notes
[/b]
All ‘grind’ branches have rare success results attached. This is to reward players for choosing to play them (instead of punishing them for not exclusively playing The Skunk Brothers Farm and grinding for its associated Quality.) The rare success rates on those branches are currently 20%.
[/li]Open users and closed beta testers will both be part of our initial Opportunity deck release. The Opportunity deck is intended to provide players with a high Action-to-Style-Increase ratio. It includes both general ‘grind’ cards (A Gunslinger in Amarillo, Small-Town Cityslicker, etc.) as well as Ally cards. Every Ally Quality has an associated card you can draw from the Opportunity deck. Most Ally cards have a way to raise one of your Styles and another, more unusual effect.[/li][/ul]
-The “Time to Move On” quality isn’t reset at the start of the next block, yet the “Advance Time” card still only has 3 as its requirement. It still isn’t possible to advance because you do need The Postmaster’s Right Hand 2, so…intentional?
-The “Assisting Doc Roslyn” quest definitely feels grindy, especially because it’s a Must card. And also I’m really neurotic about missing a grind branch on the Doc card from how many points I’m getting in it. D:
-The final paragraph of the “Final Analysis” branch could use a few commas, maybe…
-I think Doc Roslyn is my new favourite character. : D
-The description of Doc Roslyns Patent Nostrum: “Don’t overdue it”
I’m afraid that will be all for now, as I have obligations pending elsewhere. I’ll post again later!
That’s a bug. We’ve fixed it downstream. Thanks!
I didn’t get the “must” card for the new ally qualities on logging in.
Can’t get it to trigger at all, even after advancing time to afternoon
@Tamir: thanks for the heads up. Fixed. :)
not sure if this is intentional or not, but when helping Doc Roslyn in the Harvestmen plot, I got my Doc quality up to 18.
Should be a cap on boosting it, if styles are supposed to be limited to 17 during the day1 afternoon.
We can’t put a systemic cap on Qualities – we’d have to cap them on every branch. It’s not a problem if players get their Styles above the current supported cap. There just won’t be any more content until the next bloc. Also, the ‘grind’ branches DO have a cap… so there’s a natural cap included there. :)
In the “afternoon” content, the Mission story has missing quantities where the storylet requires it to discuss the “Aiding a Deputy” quality. Even in the “Qualities” menu, the number is missing.
Having gone through the afternoon storylets, all in all I enjoyed it. I appreciated the fact that we got to know the people of amarillo a bit more. Something I noticed though, on the grind cards I’m posiitive I hit a few rare successes, (As I got two different successful texts) yet nothing out of the ordinary seemed to happen. While appreciate the extra story, I diid feel confused as there no longer seemed to be items associated with them. I also found what I believe is a bug on the Warren Card. which I’ve screen capped below.
I assume this is supposed to link to an image file? I’m not entirely sure if this is on your end or the storynexus end. A similar thing happens with the failure result as well.
I got that too.
I’ve got “Aiding a Deputy 2” now, and the story needs “Aiding a Deputy” (with no number), and I can’t select it, so I can’t advance in the plot
Also, I saw today that you moved the skunk brother’s farm to being a pinned card. I can see some reasons for this, but it completely removes all the usefulness from opportunity cards.
there are currently, as far as I can tell, only 5 opportunity cards (1 for each style, 1 for warren, 1 for Miz Nils), and the ONLY benefit from them is style increase, which you can get just as easily, at least up to around 15, from the skunk brothers. there’s just no reason to spend actions on opportunity draws right now. the only card worth getting I’ve seen there so far is the one that starts you on a mini plot, and that one is locked for now anyway.
edited by Tamir Buchshtav on 9/20/2012