Amber Full Beta 1.0.1

[jack1974]

how often does this happen? I think I'm rather late in the game and I never saw something like this before (the time jump to afternoon makes it rather easy to notice).

Depends how many romances you kept active I think, if I remember correctly.

kind of related: this late in game I feel a little bit lost, the story does not really guide me anymore. that I could make suddenly the special healing potion for the condition I'm not allowed to mention because BobTheMob would be mad at me* came as a surprise - and at the moment I have more or less nothing to do, the skills are 300+, the shop is maxxed out, it seems I am not able to buy the recipe for the last ingredient of the blight potion.

presumable the story happens in the background and sooner or later something pops up, but it would be nice to have some confirmation that the game is still on the right track - maybe a line in active events ("I am looking in my free time for more leads on how to cure the blight." or - for the love-interest stories - something like "<whatshisname> request for a life prolonging potion consumes most of my leisure time."

*

Because you power-leveled doing 500 jobs a day
I will add a textbutton with a deadline after the scene where you get your "main plot goals" (being vague on purpose). Similar to the Alchemy exam, when says "the exam is in XXX days". Once clicked I'll display some text based on the situation. If your skills are ALL already at 300, then you only need to wait for some days to pass

[myoksy]

Depends how many romances you kept active I think, if I remember correctly.

interesting, I only kicked one out when the game forced me and the skip happened after I finished the love interest story line

I will add a textbutton with a deadline after the scene where you get your "main plot goals" (being vague on purpose). Similar to the Alchemy exam, when says "the exam is in XXX days".

good idea!

[Madance]

Jack, only the light plus, as far as I can tell

[jack1974]

You were right, I forgot a line on that ending thanks!
Also, by mistake on previous version the main plot event scene where you get the "mission to find a cure" would trigger ONLY if you enabled Ruby's path!!!! that's why some people didn't seem to have anything else to do Now that scene will always trigger! Otherwise the game would play endlessly

Haha good thing that I noticed that, it would have been a very weird bug.

[jack1974]

Added the "time left to complete main plot" thing. I still need to get some typos but I think I'll do an update today since fixed many bugs

[jack1974]

Made another big update today, hopefully one of the last regarding coding/gameplay
There was a really fun bug I added a few updates ago, where the main plot

Spoiler:

(where you're asked to find a cure for the Blight)

wouldn't trigger unless you had Ruby's path enabled!!! Seems EVERYONE playing in crafting mode had it enabled. I just noticed it by mistake

[winter32]

Yes I'll remove "plot items from inventory"
That recipe SHOULDN'T appear. If you started the game before the latest version though you might have unlocked it. But on a new game (from scratch) that recipe shouldn't show up. I'll check it though.

Ah yes, i started it with game at version 0.8.6 i think, i saw some mention about the recipe removal in the patch notes for the subsequent version, but didn't connect the dots. That'd explain it.

Btw does this mean the crafting requests are based on what recipes you have unlocked? If so, that would explain why i get mostly the low level ones -- i simply didn't unlock/buy many higher tier recipes, because there was zero in-game incentive to do so. Perhaps the town folks should be asking for stuff based on your skill level no matter if you actually know the recipe for it, and if you don't have the recipe then tough luck, and an actual reason to try to get it?

Well there's no easy solution to that anyway. The ONLY thing would have if you can get resources only through specific thing like... hunting enemies. Maybe that will come in a future game, but not this one.
Really many problems of this game are just because of that, and are impossible to solve without some other gameplay mechanics (which obviously I won't add because would be impossible right now).

I think one thing (aside from low level requests) that plays a significant role here is the 'rest state' bonus to crafting -- unless you make gathering trips like, every day, and exhaust yourself this way, it's super-easy to keep yourself fully rested which in turn makes it super-easy to craft even the supposed "hard" high quality stuff even from very basic, mid-quality components. It's especially easy for the metalworking/jewelcrafting/enchanting, because the near-perfect tools you get give significant bonus to quality of the product, too.

On different note, when it comes to the romances, the screen that pops up and asks you to decide who you want to no longer romance it's an interesting idea, but the follow up (inviting the person and telling them you want to stop dating etc) feels really weird early after the time skip, where the game narrative tells you that you've barely (if at all) kept in touch with these people for the past two years (and double so if you didn't have any really romantic interactions with them in the early game) I didn't know what to expect, and after that scene started I more expected Bernard get concerned if i got high on the potion fumes and hallucinated a romance that never was, than throw a hissy fit about it that he did. Similarly for Daniel, although in this case at least there was no hissy fit. Maybe it'd be better in these early cases just silently drop the path without any extra scene, after the selection is made..?

[jack1974]

Btw does this mean the crafting requests are based on what recipes you have unlocked? If so, that would explain why i get mostly the low level ones -- i simply didn't unlock/buy many higher tier recipes, because there was zero in-game incentive to do so. Perhaps the town folks should be asking for stuff based on your skill level no matter if you actually know the recipe for it, and if you don't have the recipe then tough luck, and an actual reason to try to get it?

Yes it's based on the recipes you know. Doing what you say would surely anger people
However in the last update the recipe variety is much bigger. From 0.8.6 (the one you started) to this latest update it plays very different, unlocking more recipes early, removing many unneeded recipes (talismans, figurines, etc).

On different note, when it comes to the romances, the screen that pops up and asks you to decide who you want to no longer romance it's an interesting idea, but the follow up (inviting the person and telling them you want to stop dating etc) feels really weird early after the time skip, where the game narrative tells you that you've barely (if at all) kept in touch with these people for the past two years (and double so if you didn't have any really romantic interactions with them in the early game) I didn't know what to expect, and after that scene started I more expected Bernard get concerned if i got high on the potion fumes and hallucinated a romance that never was, than throw a hissy fit about it that he did. Similarly for Daniel, although in this case at least there was no hissy fit. Maybe it'd be better in these early cases just silently drop the path without any extra scene, after the selection is made..?

I am not sure honestly if would be better to not just show anything at all!

[winter32]

I am not sure honestly if would be better to not just show anything at all! :oops:

I only meant it for the scenes which happen soon after the time skip because that's when it felt out of place as there's little to none actual romancing that'd happen at that point. Only speaking for myself though, maybe the general perception is more in favour of keeping them ^^

[myoksy]

when one finds the recipe for Daniel's path it's announced as lvl 6 one, but actually the elixir is lvl 7 (like every other plot-recipe, afaik)