Amber Full Beta 1.0.1

[jack1974]

No all characters have same amount of scenes. If you think one has less scenes the only solution would probably to count them if you press F1 while playing will display the file/line played in case could be useful?
In any case if you stop romancing when there are only 2 characters, the "missing scene" could be the 10th scene which is correct, since you chose to stop the romance with one of the two. The important is that all the scenes play when you choose one character (and I think that works for sure).
I have to say that didn't test well in VNMode, maybe I'll try again in the next days.

[SimonStardust]

Ah, I guess I now know why I initially thought that Daniel has one scene less. His scenes are spread differently across the game than the others. My mistake. ^^

[jack1974]

Good to know, to be honest I supposed that if he had one scene less, someone else would have noticed but you never know, some bugs seems capable of hiding themselves well

[myoksy]

very much not my genre, so take this complaint with a grain of salt ; )

it would be helpful to see the level requirements for jobs on the offer screen - I just accepted a task where I needed a skill level of 25 for the recipe, when the char had something like 7. no way I would have been able to fulfil the job.

[jack1974]

You mean, like this?

Will be on next update!

[myoksy]

nice, and you're nearly there - you should also display the current level ; )

another thing: is there some help planned? I am mostly missing an easy way to see what is included in the collective categories like "Basic Fuel"

[jack1974]

True I will do that (also in the crafting screen).
For the help with an ingredient: it's enough to click on any ingredients to automatically search all the shops for the item - I think I put this info in the tutorial at the beginning ?

[myoksy]

iirc not in the tutorial. at first when I got a job I tried to memorize what resources I need and used the shop interface to get the stuff.

it was by chance that I saw the small help in the crafting display about the quick buy function - this one is only shown when one has not enough items.


couple of unrelated opinions:
- item quality
the 0..100 scale feels overblown and doesn't fit in the setting, imo - too technical and fine-grained, no one should be forced to think about the difference of 31% vs 32%. I would prefer e.g. a five-step model, internally mapped to a few percent values (like 10, 30, 50, 70, 90 or so). item quality could be displayed with a star(s) overlay


- energy and time
my biggest complaint. the dynamics of this system is imo not a good one. I fooled around with the game for a couple of hours and it still doesn't feel natural and I am not able to predict energy and time usage. if I had a say I would get rid of one of the two resources and drop energy altogether and only keep time. to give the player a tactical choice a boost point could be given when sleeping early - usable for one action giving better results (e.g. 50% more collected items or one star better quality when crafting).
as I don't have a say at least show the time and energy usage for the actions (collecting and crafting use both, looking for a job takes time, waiting/sleeping/eating uses time and gives energy. did I forget something?)
kind of related to time: the background story emphasises that different resources can only be collected at different time of day, the game play seems to ignore this.

[jack1974]

The stars to display the quality is a good idea to quickly see the item quality.
For this game I will keep the 0 to 100 scale though since changing this now would need to rewrite too many things (like the tasks, etc). But it's a good system to keep in mind for future crafting games
As for the energy, I did that because if I allowed to do too many things in one day (as originally was) the game would be even more grinding. I tried to make progress go much faster than originally planned, and even if you don't have much control on the energy thing, in the long run doesn't matter since basically you have 450 days to finish the main plot task. Doesn't make sense right now to change how the energy work.
Same thing for the resources to be collected at different times of the day, I had that originally, but then each day would last too long

[myoksy]

would need to rewrite too many things (like the tasks, etc)

one class to remap percentages to the fixed steps. you do code object-oriented, don't you? : P

and even if you don't have much control on the energy thing, in the long run doesn't matter since basically you have 450 days to finish the main plot task

it's not so much about control but more information, thus something like "action will take 4 hours and 20 energy" would be nice.

but this could be totally genre-related, I am very much not in the target group for this game : D