Change Request.



When you build some special handling for pebbles (are those the only items with more than one produced item with a single raw ingredient?) you should also enforce an even number as job offer. I don't think your crafting screen can handle decimal numbers ; )

Yes good idea Even if in many cases players could have existing items previously crafted that meet the requirements.

Is it possible that additional XP are dumped when reaching a new level? I noticed this when I finished two jobs at the same day - the first one was enough to fill the level progress bar, so the second one should give the char XP "in the background". After leveling up over night the bar was completely empty. I WANT MY 18 (+/-) XP BACK!!11!eleven!

No, I keep all the XP you earn when you level up, but if the amount is small it's hard to notice
[code] if AmberSkills["EXP"]>LevelUpXP[AmberSkills["Level"]] and AmberSkills["Level"]<30:
$AmberSkills["EXP"]-=LevelUpXP[AmberSkills["Level"]]
$AmberLevelUp=True[/code]

http://i.imgur.com/Itc4ctx.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

Implemented the "Pebble Fix" For the quality instead I checked and would have to check too many things, so sadly for this game I'm going to keep the scale to 100. However for the Jobs I'm going to have always a multiple of 10. It's hard to remember "Make a Rune of quality 63", while 30-40-50-60 is better.

No, I keep all the XP you earn when you level up

found it - it's a displaying issue: the bar can look filled but actually the needed XP for the next level are not reached.



and while trying to figure it out I triggered the next display thingy: if the bar "overshoots" the status shows the current level but not a completely filled bar but the overshooted amount ; )

Implemented the "Pebble Fix"

yeah!

However for the Jobs I'm going to have always a multiple of 10.

also yeah! (do I repeat myself?)



completely unrelated observation: the char often complains that she's not allowed to become a witch or sorcerer and is unable to perform magic. the game title makes no sense as just realized : P

No it makes sense: Amber can craft "magical items" (as something that would make someone living eternal life should be called) but she cannot even cast a simple "magic spark" spell

I give up. I can't do it. I can't play through the crafting game again.



There's this big problem. If you want to complete the good ending, you don't have to reach one goal. You have to reach all of them. All skills to 300. XP to level 30. Gold to upgrade your shop to level 3 rooms. Endlessly craft/do the same jobs over and over to get there. Queen of Thieves was grindingly harsh too, but at least I could run the shop for XX days if I got really tired of it. Not so in Amber, you have to make the most of every single day, or you'll fall behind and be unable to complete the game.



Young age works well, because your goal can be reached in several ways. Everything gives XP. Adult age is a complete chore to do over, because no matter what, you have to do everything, every time. Only real choice is what order do you want to do everything in.



It's probably too late to make any big changes, but here's what I might do:



- Getting romance endings is a goal that can be reasonably reached every time, but I'd really like to know in good time what skills should be focused on to complete each romance, so I don't have to do everything blindly. That would give me a clear goal to work towards, and that would be that. Have the romance as the end goal, focus on maybe 2 skills to raise, make it obvious what you need, and give more time to get there. The problem here is you don't lock into a romance until pretty late in the game, so it's a little hard to communicate clearly what you should focus on. I'm not sure what the exact solution would be, but it would in any case make for a shorter game where you wouldn't have to complete everything 100%. As the game is right now, I'd just stop playing after reaching the romance CG and not bother with the rest of the game. The ultimate ending with your partner(s) is just a bit of text anyway, right?



- Different victory conditions. Get to level 40 OR get 3 skills to 300 OR upgrade the entire shop to max/build the super duper room OR earn 300 reputation OR craft the McGuffin (that doesn't require everything maxed out, but where you also don't automatically get handed everything you need because story reasons, but actually have to use gathering, shopping, and crafting ordinary items to make). Numbers chosen to illustrate, not seriously thought through. Especially the last option, crafting the McGuffin, would have been so much simpler if you hadn't gone for quantity as a goal. Not to bring the whole thing down, but making 200+ recipes was really not such a great idea. Fewer, but more essential, recipes would have made for much more natural gameplay, where progression felt like it mattered. Now I look at each new recipe unlocked and think, "Great, another item I'll never craft." If the McGuffin required 50 iron ingots, 25 beryl thingies, 10 platinum settings, etc., the goal would be much more integrated with the actual crafting gameplay, instead of getting 4 unique recipes and being handed 80% of the ingredients without doing anything to get them.



As it is, doing the good end once, I can live with, it was a chore, but also a challenge. Doing it again just saps my will to live. Sorry for the rant and being all negative (I try to be constructive when I can), and I know most of your customers will probably just play VN mode and ultimately not care, but the gameplay has ended up too grindy to do more than once.



In my opinion. (TM)

No worries, I actually agree with you. I was thinking how to make the adult age less grindy without having to do major changes as well!

A solution could be simply to have XP/skills increase quicker during adult age. Also, I could easily reduce the recipes if needed. That wouldn't be a problem at all. I could remove all the talismans/amulets/runes, or simply cut some tier (have like maximum tier 5).

I made the mistake (one of the many) to design ALL the recipes without trying in the game itself (but on the other hand, I needed the recipes to do it so, was a sort of catch-22 ).

And the final recipe can be easily changed to be like you said 50 ingots/25crystals/etc. Beside the plot ingredients maybe (or I could remove those).

OK I just made an update. I couldn't make any big changes at this point, I tried but then more bugs would pop-up...

However I believe now it's much less grindy, I increased the XP/skill point you get while crafting and removed a lot of (admittedly useless) recipes/items, which hopefully will be an improvement!

Sadly not sure what else I can do beside this. I played a bit and progress seemed to be faster now...

I wrote this up while you were posting, so maybe it's not so much use, but here it is anyway.

No worries, I actually agree with you. I was thinking how to make the adult age less grindy without having to do major changes as well!

Thanks, I didn't want to sound like an ass, but I tried doing more testing, and I just couldn't, so I had to sit down and figure out where things went wrong for me.

Also, I could easily reduce the recipes if needed. That wouldn't be a problem at all. I could remove all the talismans/amulets/runes, or simply cut some tier (have like maximum tier 5).

Honestly, I don't think I've ever crafted anything higher than tier 4, so getting rid of the higher tiers, and making sure you can reasonably get all the essential lower tier recipes (buying some of them with reputation would be fine, if there's a way to make sure they show up regularly), would be great in my opinion. Then you could also naturally lower the requirements from 300 skill to less than that, maybe 200, I'm not sure.

And the final recipe can be easily changed to be like you said 50 ingots/25crystals/etc. Beside the plot ingredients maybe (or I could remove those).

They're kind of written into the story, so I guess you could keep them, but yeah, I'd really like to see the McGuffin made with common/uncommon items that you obtain through regular gameplay. That would go a long way to help integrate the normal gameplay of shopping/gathering/crafting with the final quest, because as it is right now, you only need to find those fuel items, everything else is handed to you. That kind of makes a mockery of all the work you've done unlocking a bunch of recipes with no real use.

Haha no worries you didn't sound like an ass. I am VERY objective with my games as you've noticed. I like compliments of course, but constructive feedback is what can actually help me improve.

Anyways, as you've seen I did an update, I removed a bunch of honestly useless recipes (lol at the time I spent doing them and money paid to the artist to draw! but maybe they'll be used in a future game somehow).

With the changes to XP and skill increase (all concerning adult age, since the young age I think it's well balanced and I don't want to touch it) I believe now should be more bearable, should go on average twice as fast vs before.

Regarding the recipes you should unlock them more in order of level (of course what is already done, is done) already from some versions ago. Unless there's a bug somewhere...

Lol wait, there WAS a bug indeed when discovering a new recipe! I am fixing it now, so it will ALWAYS unlock the recipes from the lowest to highest ranks

Regarding the recipes you should unlock them more in order of level (of course what is already done, is done) already from some versions ago. Unless there's a bug somewhere...

Yeah, I was just talking about if you required specific items to make the final McGuffin, you'd need to make sure there was a way to guarantee that you could find the recipes somewhere, without relying on too much RNG.

Yep, just updated 0.8.7a

Now I even display the recipe tier in the "new recipe" screen (I used it to test and making sure the lowest available recipe is discovered). I can't believe this thing wasn't working until now!! lol

upgrade the entire shop to max/build the super duper room

there's more gameplay when in the adult stage? maybe you just motivated me to actually finish the apprenticeship



@jack, a quick question: has the skill level an impact besides opening up more recipes?

In adult stage there's the shop builder (you can see a screenshot in the game page).

No the skill level has no other use (I wouldn't know what else to use it for, since the item quality is influenced by Energy).

hmm, thought so. and - I think - a reason why the game rubs me the wrong way: it gives me not the impression to accomplish anything, the char does not get better or stronger and I have no feeling of progress. both the level and the skill are just numbers without positive and perceptible effect on the game play.



a few ideas, absolutely not well-thought out:

* item quality will some percentage of the skill level better (so specialising could be a viable tactic)

* gathering results in higher quality/more items by some percentage of the char level (currently gathering as tactic feels not worth it)

* a higher char level could result in shorter gathering/walking around/crafting times



unsorted notes:

- amount resets when using quick buy in auto crafting

- raw materials reset when using shop in manual crafting

- opening the screen "Unfinished Tasks" takes in-game time?

- it is not clear when it's possible to take a day off or study. and jobs are always offered in either both places or not at all - probably triggered by the energy level, but it feels so arbitrary

- the needed energy is intransparent. mixing 7 minor starter potions uses 12 or so, a whole day studying 5, but even a short gathering trip over 20

- waiting from dusk 'til midnight and sleeping gains 30 energy, taking a day off only 20 or so

- selling is frustrating. is it a real end product and can be sold directly? or is it a rare raw material only found one in a blue moon? is the selling price worth it? what were the ingredients again? did I buy them for more than the buyer is offering me?



Somehow the game feels not polished, this is a new experience for me with your games - even in beta*. Another point is the loose connection between game mechanics and story line, I like your games because they are story-driven. This one? Not so much. The gaming activities are not really results of the unfolding narrative, it's more a picture story interspersed by mouse-click orgies. (The last half-sentence was unnecessarily harsh. Sorry.)



My opinion alone, even when Franka claims trademark rights on the phrase.



* please don't get me wrong, I am not trying to diss you

Well I think probably at this point it's best for me to stop working on this. I don't think I can make it "better" even if I spent the next 3-4 months working on it. It was an experiment as I said, I never did such a game before, and probably won't do it again

By such a game I mean a completely new genre. Indeed I am selling it as dating sim with OPTIONAL crafting game.

Sometimes you need to know when it's pointless to keep going, especially as in this case there isn't even something "clearly wrong", but the whole idea of a crafting game without any other gameplay element. If I had time to add RPG element, where you would get the ingredients looting the monsters, would be already better probably.



Anyway, nevermind. Experiment failed. Please play it as dating sim. It's still worth the price even if you just play it like that I think.



In future, only VN/Dating sims and RPGs. No more experiments from me ever, the risk is too high compared to the rewards!

you may stop working at it, but fixing typos is not real programmers' work, isn't it?



there's a text line currently reading "Mother ws always there when [..]". you should throw in an "A", vowels are cheap nowadays ; )

Yes of course I'll fix typos And even bugs if there are any left. But I won't keep working in the sense of trying to add/tweak gameplay/features. It would be a very bad business decision for me (and luckily, most of the players wouldn't even care since I think 90% are playing in VN mode )