The problem with initial thoughts is that for a complex game, initial thoughts will generally be either that of wonder or that of frustration. Until the player can get over that "hoop" and can see the bigger picture, complexity is directly contrasted by accessibility.
We can see this with the stringent dating requirements. Here they are:
1- You have to had purchased the character.
2- The captain and the girl to date have to be resting.
3- Neither the captain nor the date can be incapacitated.
4- You have to have your base located at where the girl's next story event takes place.
From an accessibility standpoint, this is pretty bad. What else do you have to do, blow on the cartridge? From a complexity standpoint, it makes good sense. Apart from our evil money scheming agendas, assigning these characters to be both resting is strategically challenging. Moving your base to that location also keeps the map strategy of the game fresh... The more you're forced to move around, the more unique challenges will beset you (however unique a limited enemy palette can conjure, I suppose). At least these requirements are realistic. You don't have to wait for the celestial bodies to align in order to get a date, at least not in this game. But perhaps it's too much to remember. Perhaps at some point, our bottom line does matter. So what do we concede on?...
1- Nope.
2- This takes away the strategic oomph of assignments.
3- Almost a no go, since characters can actually take damage during stories, we'd have to remove *that* part first, and these requirements are quite insignificant in comparison.
4- Not only is there strategy, but a sense of realism. Many characters give...quests...and tell you to go to different places, so story wise and strategy wise, this requirement is here to stay.
Perhaps we could remove the second requirement. Just something to consider.
How do you feel about the game so far?
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Agree with the sentiment! I havent even gotten into an H-scene yet, but am already struggling with surviving the waves, let alone finish the dates. While I appreciate the challenge, the shooting mechanics are complex; and the random events like misses can really screw you over since recovery may take 2+ days.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm veering with your suggestion of removing the resting requirement... would make things a whole lot easier. It makes more sense too from a narrative/ chronology standpoint too as characters sent to guard may be present in the mission anyways; its always so weird downed characters appearing as NPCs in your date.
The resting requirement is a bit odd, but there should still be a way to make sure you don't kill someone who's assigned to be on guard duty that night.
ReplyDeleteSolution 1 - "Both resting" requirement is relaxed to "neither is on guard duty or unconscious".
Solution 2 - Scene is played out after the shooting stage rather than before, but the condition is relaxed further to "neither is unconscious". (You could be strict and require all characters appearing in the scene to be conscious)
Solution 2 could also include new scenes where both characters must be assigned guard duty.
The tutorial is pretty barebones. BASICS aren't that clear as to what they do, and I can't always tell why some characters hate me. Weapon, character, and skill choice takes a labyrinth of tooltips to sort through. You almost have to remember the names of any characters who shred shields, and bring one every time. The risks/rewards and general difficulty scaling is also pretty mysterious at first look. And it's unlikely that there's going to be a big fancy fan guide anytime soon for a small indie title...
By the way, it seems like there's one character who is still undateable. Just the one. Unless she's Hudson's sister or something and I missed that part.
Solution 1- I don't like the idea because it merely eases the difficulty of the requirement. The general problem with the requirements are that there are simply too many to keep track of.
DeleteSolution 2 is erm... well, for one thing, it's not compatible with the stories. The dating stories take place at midday, and the fights take place at dusk, so changing it around would require a major rewrites and implicates every story. Not sure how you're getting the idea that someone assigned to guard duty can get incapped directly before guarding though.
Erm, I'd like to offer a defense against the labyrinth of tooltips. AD3 borrows some roguelike elements. Many roguelikes are about discovery and learning the mechanics, but they're also a lot like walking up a hill, only to get pushed down by a new bully that you've never seen before. The player's next actions in your average roguelike involve creating yet another stone axe, and climbing up the hill, and getting pushed down by the bully because the player didn't know that the bully could also fly.
Damnit. The point is that AD3 has a limited selection of monsters, weapons, and powers, and just throws them all at you at once. You can still play it like a roguelike, by learning slowly and dying often, but the option is given for a player to also just sit there and read through the labyrinth, one tooltip at a time. Whereas in a normal roguelike, you'd normally see a t-rex by, say, day 25, in this game, it's possible to see them day 1.
There's definitely an extent to which you can gleam before you just have to start diving into it though. It's hard to appraise the value of the goods on the station, just as it is hard to appreciate how much more difficult these difficulty modifiers are.
As for a big guide on how to play, look no further than the Lieutenant, educational, and hopefully funny to boot.
Beatrice is not romanceable. She just doesn't like the Captain. She might become an expansion character though, but until then, she's just your average grunt/cook.
Well, there should be some way for Beatrice to hook up with *someone*, then... :-D
DeleteI guess we agree about the issue of the learning curve being not all that curvy, here. So that's settled. It's definitely a learning wall, though probably not the world's highest. But it's an unpleasant thing to run into right off the bat.
The Lieutenant is more like reading a manual for a board game when it's 10x faster to have someone who's already played before play and explain things on the fly. It's also really annoying that the info sheet has face icons that are hardly legible instead of names. And when characters fail to default to weapons they're proficient in, it's kind of a pain as well.
Characters really need summaries, like "medium accuracy. Can melt shields" or "high accuracy, healing, team buffs" or "low accuracy, healing, weak overall". The number of info sheets you have to go through is prohibitive - you need weapons, powers, and character stats all at the same time, and these are all in very different places.
This is definitely ambitious for what it is and for being mostly a solo project. It could use some smoothing out is all.
It's certainly an ambitious project but there's just a lot about this game where it feels unrewarding. If you're trying to go for a roguelike approach the problem is that in this game there's no real reward or discernible way to just pick up the game and do well.
ReplyDeleteLike another person here mentioned this all kind of has a high learning curve. The night guard section is pretty unintuitive. Even now it feels like I'm throwing shit at the wall and hoping SOMETHING sticks. It's variable risk with low reward.
I think the concept and writing are pretty good, but the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. I'll keep playing and hopefully figure out a more efficient/effective way to play.
"no discernible way to pick up and play"- A more in-depth tutorial may be necessitated and some mechanics may be simplified so as not to overwhelm the player (as if we didn't do that already).
Delete"there's no real reward"- The rewards are the story scenes and ultimately the hentai scenes, but I can agree with you in the sense that these hentai scenes confer no mechanical advantage to the player.
The only guys that get to level up are the bad guys. It's a survival game. In most RPGs, you will walk away from an encounter being a little stronger than last time, on average. In an FPS, you walk away back to full health. In AD3, encounters always end with *you* being weaker. Player skill will alleviate this corrosion, but eventually your team will die (or you just win the game). Compare this to your average RPG where player skill is not as necessary as simply grinding because you can rely on easy encounters to bring you up to maximum level, where no skill is necessary. You're free to grind in ad3 for more ammo or whatever you need... but yes, it's intentional that in the long run, you need to actually get stuff done, lest you perish from the ever increasing enemy difficulty.
Why so masochistic? Well, it actually ties into the survival theme very well. AD1 and AD2, and pretty much every other dating sim relies on giving you a time limit of say, a month, to level up your dude and get with the girls. In AD3, there's no time limit, but there is a skill limit. You can stay on the station as long as you want, as long as you can keep your enemies at bay.
And yeah, I will definitely take the time to respond in long form to every question here, because I'm defending design decisions that I actually love. I think any new player will soon realize that this game always tests you at your skill limit. If you take a scratch on day 1, you'll feel the effect of that scratch until the end of the game. There are no levels or missions in AD3; you don't get to ever start off fresh aside from restarting the whole game. You don't die from a single grenade and restart at a checkpoint at 100 hp. You die only from many, many mistakes, and the best Captains can keep those mistakes to a minimum. Yes, the game is difficult, but it's also refreshingly fair.
So then if you intended for the game to be such that it's easy to die/lose, restarting a new run should be relatively quick and painless. Instead I have to run through the gauntlet of beginning choices again before I can get to the actual game. On top of that there's no way to tell what is needed to progress in a girl's story so those critical points might end up being allocated in the wrongs stats. If the reward is supposed to be the hentai it would be nice if we had a quick way to restart a run instead of running through the opening hoops again.
DeleteErm... You can press control to skip dialogue, if that helps any. I agree with your point that it should be less tedious to have to restart a new game, but at the same time...what can we really do about that? We want dialogue choices to matter; you can't just skip them. Sometimes it's even fun to just try different options out. If you have a viable solution, I'm all ears, heh.
DeleteShort of skipping ahead to where you have control over the schedule and base location, I guess I'll just keep skipping. That said, after the umpteenth time of deciding between scolding or thanking Zoe for the cookies the choices become inconsequential narrative-wise and simply become buttons I need to press to progress.
DeleteI still think that there should be some indicator of what stats a girl needs (like you had in AD1 and 2) so I'm not building myself into a dead end.
So there's fun and then there's frustrating. I get the appeal of games like this but with the wax mechanic, overpowered monsters, weak team members, fickle guns, and grindy nature this is more of a climb up a sheer cliff than an uphill battle. I never feel like I'm doing well and I've tried a bunch of different approaches at this point. It may very well be that I just can't figure it out for myself but as it stands the gameplay is just too unforgiving.
ReplyDeleteThe tipping point for me was getting to part four of Larissa's story and then hitting the stat wall. Okay, sure, not enough bravery. There was no indication that would be a stat I needed but I figure I can get enough points. Cue sitting around for 4+ days and still not advancing her story. At least give some clue as to what the threshold might be or what stat is even needed. My experience has gone from feeling out the mechanics and making choices to "well I hope I don't fuck myself over".
Awesome work otherwise. The writing is a step up from AD2 and the characters feel a lot more distinct this time around, but holy balls the gameplay is aggravating.
Hmm... Perhaps a possible solution to your little problem is the hot cold system. Let's say you need 10 charisma to flirt with someone for example. If you have 0 Charisma, then the game will go "Cold". 5 Charisma would be "Warm". 8 becomes "Warmer".
DeleteI would try getting this implemented as soon as possible but... Maybe I'll observe further and only update the game if really necessary.
On a side note: There is a game-breaking bug that I tried to hunt down, but it's occurs very rarely. It has something to do with reloading interactions, but I don't know exactly how. To anyone whose game crashes during battle, wait ten seconds or more before refreshing, and you won't get the half save penalty.
So far, I'm enjoying my experience--but this is coming at the cost of a lot of frustration.
ReplyDelete-The chance of the sonic vibey thingy breaking down the wax to new rooms is needlessly complex. Why bother giving it a percentage (even if the percentage goes up with every failure)? Wouldn't it have been better to just give certain rooms a fixed percentage with a fixed energy cost for each one? I can't quite see the pros of the current system, as constantly draining the sonic battery doesn't have any downside as-it-is: it's almost always back up-to-speed the next day.
-Dating is needlessly complicated. Complexity is nice... if it serves a purpose. Otherwise, it's just going to frustrate players and any potential rewards (story progression, bow-chika-bow-wows) won't be fully appreciated. At the very least, drop the requirement that both characters must be resting. Incapacitated, I can understand. But resting...? Eh. That puts you into way too many situations where you're in a bad situation in-game and need to choose between dating and survival--and when you're in a tactical sim/dating sim, that doesn't seem like something you wanna do. If the point is to have a dating sim, the dating is gonna suffer. If the point is the dating sim, the tactics will have to take a backseat. Choose one or the other.
-Having to constantly re-select the loadout for every character on guard duty is Annoying (note the capital "A"). It would be nice if the game could remember what I had selected for each character beforehand.
-I can appreciate the choice to not have level-ups or anything of the sort in this game, but I'm curious as to what edge I'm supposed to eventually get over the enemy waves as I progress through the game. To use your example of this game being inspired by roguelikes: even in Nethack, your character can level up and increase their parameters (health, mana). Some things are fixed (carrying weight, food), but at least you can eventually deal more damage to greater foes. It won't guarantee your victory, but it's an edge. I don't feel like I've got any such advantage going for me in these waves, making the game feel really one-sided. Roguelikes can get away with being crushingly hard because their strict rules and simple (but based on lateral-thinking) mechanics mean that, when combined with losing all progress on a wipe, you are that much more armed against what the game can throw at you because of experience. Barring, y'know, plain-old bad luck. The emphasis on realism in this game is dragging the experience down: as it stands, the battles feel like an eventual downward spiral into death.
As a side-note, when can we expect the voices to be patched into the game? It feels like a serious loss to have this game promoted as being fully-voiced and yet have to play it silently on release.
"So far, I'm enjoying my experience--but this is coming at the cost of a lot of frustration."
DeleteThe end goal is to frustrate you, but only in a good, slap your butt with a wet towel kind of way. Beating a hard game is emotionally rewarding.
"-The chance of the sonic vibey thingy breaking down the wax to new rooms is needlessly complex. Why bother giving it a percentage (even if the percentage goes up with every failure)? Wouldn't it have been better to just give certain rooms a fixed percentage with a fixed energy cost for each one? I can't quite see the pros of the current system, as constantly draining the sonic battery doesn't have any downside as-it-is: it's almost always back up-to-speed the next day."
The sonic emitter tests the Captain's ability to appraise the risk and reward that slightly changes with every attempt to destroy wax. If you had 90 energy and really needed ammo, it would be worth it to go towards the barracks. If you had no energy, it would be bad to go to the barracks, because you can get stuck there with higher level enemies. There's a clear distinction. Some places may heavily decrease in difficulty, and you'll want to use your energy to go to those areas. The pro of the system is that it's quite tactical- You have to measure the distance, the risk, and the reward to best efficiently spend your energy.
"-Dating is needlessly complicated. Complexity is nice... if it serves a purpose. Otherwise, it's just going to frustrate players and any potential rewards (story progression, bow-chika-bow-wows) won't be fully appreciated. At the very least, drop the requirement that both characters must be resting. Incapacitated, I can understand. But resting...? Eh. That puts you into way too many situations where you're in a bad situation in-game and need to choose between dating and survival--and when you're in a tactical sim/dating sim, that doesn't seem like something you wanna do. If the point is to have a dating sim, the dating is gonna suffer. If the point is the dating sim, the tactics will have to take a backseat. Choose one or the other."
DeleteI don't think it's needlessly complicated. I can agree that it's complicated, heh, but my points in the main post reflect on why I like having these complications around. It forces the player to make tighter tactical decisions. I am coming around to the fact that it's just a bit too much though, so dropping a few requirements in favor of not overwhelming the player, even at the expense of realism may be necessitated. The issue will be resolved in the next patch based on the vibes we're getting here.
"-Having to constantly re-select the loadout for every character on guard duty is Annoying (note the capital "A"). It would be nice if the game could remember what I had selected for each character beforehand."
Good point.
"- the battles feel like an eventual downward spiral into death."
Copy pasta'd response due to similar question...
The only guys that get to level up are the bad guys. It's a survival game. In most RPGs, you will walk away from an encounter being a little stronger than last time, on average. In an FPS, you walk away back to full health. In AD3, encounters always end with *you* being weaker. Player skill will alleviate this corrosion, but eventually your team will die (or you just win the game). Compare this to your average RPG where player skill is not as necessary as simply grinding because you can rely on easy encounters to bring you up to maximum level, where no skill is necessary. You're free to grind in ad3 for more ammo or whatever you need... but yes, it's intentional that in the long run, you need to actually get stuff done, lest you perish from the ever increasing enemy difficulty.
This game always tests you at your skill limit. If you take a scratch on day 1, you'll feel the effect of that scratch until the end of the game. There are no levels or missions in AD3; you don't get to ever start off fresh aside from restarting the whole game. You don't die from a single grenade and restart at a checkpoint at 100 hp. You die only from many, many mistakes, and the best Captains can keep those mistakes to a minimum. Yes, the game is difficult, but it's also refreshingly fair.
"As a side-note, when can we expect the voices to be patched into the game? It feels like a serious loss to have this game promoted as being fully-voiced and yet have to play it silently on release."
When we can afford to have them recorded.
I'm going to have to urge you to reconsider your stance on the battle system; what with everyone besides myself has brought up in the comments, it looks like your priorities in making detailed and difficult combat has been a little misguided. At the very least, we should have more tangible rewards for getting metaphorically punched in the face by this game, besides "you can keep playing!". Frustration is one of those things you don't want to put into a game under any circumstances: if we're not having fun playing a game, we're not going to want to play. I can put up with one-hit kill spells and MC deaths causing game overs in Shin MegaTen games because those games give me lots of ways to avoid those. I can deal with the abysmal survival rate in Nethack and Shiren the Wanderer because finding new ways to deal with enemies are fun in those games. (You also get tangible rewards for surviving in all of these games, so that even when the game's enemies get harder/you get caught unawares, you've got *something* to fall back onto.) Far from feeling like The Dark Planet has raised stakes and consequences, it just feels like too much trouble to deal with.
DeleteI'm also *very* disappointed at how the voices are not in this game. This was never mentioned in the OffBeatr page; in fact, you even had a fully-voiced trailer, a cast listed for all of the characters, *and* even mentioned that the captain had already been cast. At no point was there any mention that the game would not be voiced, and at no point did you mention on this site that the lines hadn't even been recorded yet. Not cool.
I don't have any money to pay the actresses yet. I chose to finish the game and later pay them with the profits.
Delete"Frustration is one of those things you don't want to put into a game under any circumstances: if we're not having fun playing a game, we're not going to want to play. "
So basically you're saying
"I play games to have fun!"
For some, frustration can be fun. Overcoming obstacles can be fun, for some.
Look at what's available on the market.The stories of your porno vids are all basically p2w, and you can play bejewelled to fuck girls now too. I don't like how most dating sims are all about concentrating all your energy on one girl per run. It's nonsensical dialogue savescumming trash. That's why the mutiny system is here. I want these characters not to focus on fucking all day. Why? Maybe because it adds realism, whereas porn is so forced. There just has to be a secondary gameplay element to dating sims other than pick a choice, meet and fuck. Why? Because the passage of time has to be simulated to make it believable. The design continues to evolve, and the result is a creation that's...anti-consumer, but I love it.
I don't want to make this game easier, but in the interest of keeping a business alive, we will do so, and then we will implement those voices.
You're very disappointed that there are no voices. "Not cool", you say. I apologize for overpromising, and I look forward to completely fulfilling the rewards, however regrettably late they may come. You know, maybe you could claim false advertisement, that I did not fulfill the voiced ad3 production by early 2015. Maybe I should have set the campaign pledge minimum to 10k or so, just to make sure I would have money to even pay them. Maybe...I outright lied to ensure that I could make AD3, with or without the voices... Or maybe I just couldn't keep my budgeting and scheduling down. I do know one thing, I put everything I had into this game, and if you can't respect that, well then I shouldn't say anything cause mama told me not to say such things.
I don't have any money to pay the actresses yet. I chose to finish the game and later pay them with the profits.
Delete"Frustration is one of those things you don't want to put into a game under any circumstances: if we're not having fun playing a game, we're not going to want to play. "
So basically you're saying
"I play games to have fun!"
For some, frustration can be fun. Overcoming obstacles can be fun, for some.
Look at what's available on the market.The stories of your porno vids are all basically p2w, and you can play bejewelled to fuck girls now too. I don't like how most dating sims are all about concentrating all your energy on one girl per run. It's nonsensical dialogue savescumming trash. That's why the mutiny system is here. I want these characters not to focus on fucking all day. Why? Maybe because it adds realism, whereas porn is so forced. There just has to be a secondary gameplay element to dating sims other than pick a choice, meet and fuck. Why? Because the passage of time has to be simulated to make it believable. The design continues to evolve, and the result is a creation that's...anti-consumer, but I love it.
I don't want to make this game easier, but in the interest of keeping a business alive, we will do so, and then we will implement those voices.
You're very disappointed that there are no voices. "Not cool", you say. I apologize for overpromising, and I look forward to completely fulfilling the rewards, however regrettably late they may come. You know, maybe you could claim false advertisement, that I did not fulfill the voiced ad3 production by early 2015. Maybe I should have set the campaign pledge minimum to 10k or so, just to make sure I would have money to even pay them. Maybe...I outright lied to ensure that I could make AD3, with or without the voices... Or maybe I just couldn't keep my budgeting and scheduling down. I do know one thing, I put everything I had into this game, and if you can't respect that, well then I shouldn't say anything cause mama told me not to say such things.
Here is what I think about the game.
ReplyDelete+ the writing is very good.
+ characters are great and the design is too.
+ the gameplay and combat system is fun.
- The combat system is very unrewarding and too difficult.
- you run out of ammo too quickly and find to little of it.
- health, morale, sp and everything else on the workplan thing increase to slowly and you don't have time to get you characters up to good health until you can battle again
Overall this game is good but it needs to be nerfed badly.
I have to agree, combat is really fun but at the same time too difficult, with health etc. recharging too slowly, while you get seemingly nothing for beating the enemy, that is killing everything in 2-3 attacks.
DeleteIn order to beat the waves you have to use every stat and a bunch of ammo that you don't regain soon enough. I'm having trouble getting over day14-15 with enough ressources.
I like the dating-system very much and the stories that occur with it, but for a game that is about story and dating (at least what i think it is) it is too hard to get to the point of seeing the whole story. I don't want to start over every time just to get lucky with a wave to get to another day.
That said, i don't mind combat being difficult, but this is Halo 2 Legendary lvl.
It is more grinding than playing.
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DeleteEasing the difficulty is...being considered.
DeleteYo, how do i buy the game if i wasnt a backer?
ReplyDeleteMake an account at andrograde.com
DeleteGo to hentaicook.com. Play the game, get to the store (which is in options), and buy either individual characters or the entire story set.
yup found out but ty anyway, now i just wanna find out why i dont hear voices and sounds :P
DeleteSame problem. Very odd considering you can hear the voice actresses in the offbeatr video.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSo far I'm not enjoying it too much. The combat is detailed, but unnecessarily so. I feel a more streamlined approach to the combat would decrease the frustrations I'm having. It's simply tedious. You have to memorize all the girls' abilities, the guns they can use, balance all their times while simultaneously dating them. Speaking of which, some of the dates are just confusing. I have no idea how my stats are effecting the dates, and there's no way to go back and retry a portion due to the save system. The save system, by the way, is horrid. Every 5 days is a LONG time, and penalizing the player for "save scumming" is just annoying.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm being penalized for making different decisions than the "right" ones, and that there's no way to know what skills you'd need to successfully advance a character's story.
I'll continue to play and grind through the gameplay, but I much preferred AD2's dull and simple gameplay to AD3's overly complicated and annoying gameplay.
Same. Was expecting cool scifi dating sim with tactical gameplay. Instead got a game that punishes me for every choice I make. I haven't really kept up with all the blog posts but was there any indication that this would be more of a survival game than a dating sim? Because this final product was definitely not what I was expecting.
DeleteTo the devs: do you think it might be possible to add a lower difficulty mode? I got the game primarily for the story/hentai but now it feels like the survival aspect is keeping me walled out from all of that content.
It was hinted that this game would focus a little more on survivability than in the previous games, but jeez i haven't even seen an h-scene in 2+ hours of playing it :/
DeleteGonna have to piggy back off these sentiments and say I feel the same way. I appreciate all the work you guys put into it and I don't regret putting down cash to support you but until gameplay gets tweaked I'm just gonna leave this alone. Dark Souls, Super Meat Boy, FTL, and Binding of Isaac are games that crush your soul while you have fun. This game just does the former.
ReplyDeletePersonally, i like the concept, the art is really good and theres alot of interesting systems, however, the game in general needs to give us more feedback, for example, i make a choice in one of the events, but the game doesnt tell me who i improved relationship with by making that choice and who got pissed at me, same with items, im not getting any messages if i find an item or not. Also kinda dissapointed the voices arent in, that was a huge part of what made this game interesting to me, hope they will be added soon. Also the part about the guns resetting after each fight is very tedious
ReplyDeleteAre there any plans to remove the save penalty? If you're worried about people not replaying the game, i can tell you i played through AD2 plenty of times to get all the scenes and play through the story again. I've only bought one character so far and i enjoy the combat system but the main problem i'm having is the save penalty just pushes me away from wanting to buy anymore stories because it makes the game way too tedious. I feel like im paying for any other RPG instead of a dating sim which many people wanted.
ReplyDeleteSeem to be having trouble with Loading and Resuming, played a little for the first time earlier today and anytime I try to get back to my came it just freezes. If i refresh I can start a new game but I can't load at all. Anyone else encountered or got a fix for this?
ReplyDeleteOtherwise from what little I've gotten to play, just have to throw my vote in there to lower the difficulty. I feel the game should be accessible to those who are mostly interested in the story/narrative/dating aspects of the game as well as those who are super into the rogue-like, survival tactical aspect.
Are you playing on incognito mode in chrome? I found out that playing in incognito doesn't let me save and it freezes my game during a battle. hope that helps
DeleteInteresting but nope. Using Firefox and not in any private mode or anything. May have to try running it in Chrome.
Deletehehehe... my fault. I seem to didn't check b4 doing some bits of changes. I'll fix that one.
DeleteHey, thanks Jungl3Curr1, seems to have fixed it for me!
DeleteI really tried to play this and go through the story without expecting any sex scenes unlike the first and second. Its really complicated. I don't know what is going on in the story as well as it's really hard to fight the monsters every turn. Its really hard for me to understand the whole system of the 4 guards things and how i should impliment it to have a successful gameplay...
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting to know how long all of you survived. I'm at 16 days.
ReplyDeleteThe farthest I've gotten is 11 days, but I'm stuck in a downward spiral: depleting ammo, no energy to break down wax, and I'm stuck in the slum and their 0% drop rate.
DeleteSeven days. After day five, all hope was lost and it was all a matter of the aforementioned downward spiral swallowing me.
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ReplyDeleteOn first sight, I'm liking the game so far, the stories are nice, the combat is well thought out and the art looks very nicely done.
ReplyDeleteBut let's be honest, it's not all sunshine and lollipops.
But I'll get to those later, I'll fully explain all the aspects of the game and my pro's and con's for them.
Stories:
I'm liking the stories, they're well written and you actually need to pay attention to the dialogue, it does really help you out in a lot of situations. So the eye for detail and plot is very well done. The thing I don't like is when you fail a story, you get no feedback as to if your stats are close or not, you may think this is not an issue, but you said it yourself, the game becomes harder and harder as the story goes further. So it's kinda annoying that you get so little feedback other that "stat x is too low".
I mean I get you want the game to be hard, but if you can't say if you need 1 more of the stat or 5 more, it means quite the difference cause you can either decide to go back the next day, hoping your stat is sufficient but with the risk you waste another day where you could've used the person you date for something else while letting someone who might need the rest more, rest.
On the other side if you just wait 5 days, it could mean you wasted 4 days cause you only needed 1 more day to hit the stat minimum.
Other than that, the stories are well made and nothing else to note about that.
Combat:
I like the addition of combat and the fact it gets harder does in fact strengthen the survival dating sim. Personally I like the combat getting harder and harder, though I find it a bit annoying how useless your characters can be at times and how random fights can be. I mean I tried using my weaker combat personal in areas where resistance is minimal as to effectively use them and give my good combat folks the rest they need/deserve after raiding the barracks or mall.
But if you then get like the hardest possible combination in an "easier" area, it just feels like "Here, you already take a tactical look at the game and decided to put the less combat effective ones in the easier areas, but just to bust your balls, have 2 t-rex's and 2 healers (with a moose and some added rats) while your people can't even dent a pack of butter"
I like the variable in terms of how hard an area can be, but seriously it can't be that you get something this hard which I would qualify as a an above average challenge is the hardest areas.
Also I guess a lot of people bought this for the hentai or want to buy this for the hentai but just get scared off by the combat.
Maybe an option to disable the combat but not being able to get all the hentai in a less combat focussed mode?
Art:
Very well, don't earned enough hentai to fully judge it, but I liked what I've seen so far.
Some context for my comments:
ReplyDelete- I've been a fan since AD1.
- I greatly enjoyed AD2. The writing, the artwork, and the surprising replayability were all top notch.
- I love challenging roguelike games. Faster Than Light is at the top of my list.
- I've been a loyal backer of AD3 and have followed this blog religiously for years.
With all that, it's needless to say I was thrilled to hear of this week's release. I loaded up the game as soon as I could and, 60 minutes in, all my enthusiasm evaporated.
AD3 is just not fun.
So much of what made AD2 great has been lost -- the simple mechanics that were easy to grasp but led to a nigh infinite set of adventures through brilliant balancing; the narrative elements that were laughably fantastical (werepumas!) but not mockingly ludicrous (moosemen in space...?); and the accessible yet progressively challenging dating sequences. Those qualities are nowhere to be found in AD3.
I haven't even had the patience to play long enough to explore the story and the artwork, which I know from the blog has improved signficantly since AD2. The daily battles are simply too much of a grind.
Hentaicook, please listen to your fans. The pains we're expressing are not isolated to the parametric difficulty of the game. It's the crippling complexity of the game design. We know you've put an incredible effort into this project, but the mark of a great creator is one who knows what to keep and what to put aside. You mastered that balance with AD2. I want to believe you can do it again with AD3.
I don't think the moose bots are ridiculous. The T-rooster might be, but only for a lack of imagination on my part. Bioshock Infinite has animatronic statue presidents that shoot at you. In AD3, Walt Digknee woke up from cryostasis and started making these Mike Moose robots. In my humble opinion, I find the Mike Moose bots to be more believable than the presidents, hehe.
ReplyDeleteAs for the difficulty, we're working on it.
I think they're both ridiculous. At least in Bioshock, you have the option to dodge.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Deleteshame on you
DeleteBuh?
DeleteWell, as you can see from the response, I was right in my judgement when I said this game was far too difficult. I don't even need to play it to tell you that -- They're doing a good job on their own. :)
ReplyDeleteI challenge anyone to at least complete a story before the balance changes are made! If you guys do so, you'll be hailed as hardcore champions of ad3! :D
ReplyDeleteI just got a new life goal
DeleteSorry, I don't have the time, nor am I a masochist.
DeleteSo, got a new goal for me?
Deletehttps://gyazo.com/586cd441c3f41cda3e99a036ef4f5c75
I think i was at day 18 again before system deleted my save game cause it froze on combat screen, while i was reloading the gun.
ReplyDeleteFunny cause i kinda ran out of ammunition, had no power to move a room so i was trapped, and isabel refused to kissy kiss with me at 21+ reputation
And the funniest yet, all the stuff i bought via shop, HP/Barricade boosts, are gone with those saves..
Wow dude, that sucks... And to think, people try and pay to win at this game, and still can't win. It shows the level of glitches and difficulty.
DeleteFirst off, I just want to say that I've been a fan of your work since the original AD1 times and I haven't stopped since. I gladly gave you my cash and patiently waited with abated breath as time passed and you kept working hard at this game. I came for the hentai but stayed for the gameplay XD In the end though, I must admit, this game really pushes the limits of any player.
ReplyDeleteNow for my initial impression.
As a strategy enthusiast, I was all for the upgraded combat and newly made interactive and focused shift to action. With your superb writing, story telling, and lovable and colorful cast of characters, I was having a blast exploring each branch and getting to know these wonderful females. It was a rather hard challenge to test choices and going back to see which ones produced the best results. I really wanted to see if there was a way to get that sweet sweet scene of sex at the end in addition to surviving.
Then I started getting really fucked.
These nightly monster waves were unforgiving. One mistake generally made a uphill battle turn into a downward ass over head spiral that I struggled to recover from. I understand that you wanted a difficult rogue-like element and I respect that. I was willing to tackle this shit continuously, letting my past runs where I failed teach me more and more until I refined my technique and got this damn game done right.
That was about a few dozens of playthroughs ago. Not going to lie, I'm feeling really abused. It doesn't help that trying to find that perfect balance of guard shifts, story advancement, and just surviving has made me a little numb to the whole thing. I reached that point where I only advance little by little and I'm fed storylines that never complete or reach a point where I can't do anything more. It sucks to see 3+ hours of hard thinking go poof with no reward and it sucks even harder when I have to do it all over again because damn it, I paid for this game and I will enjoy it.
In the end, I just want to get a god damn playthrough done. I don't even care about the hentai, I just want to be able to sit back and relax as I proudly say, "Yes, I did fucking survive this time! Fuck you aliens!" but it's a crawl toward the top.
Right now I'm on day 25, my furthest yet. My rifles are depleted, my magnum is nearly gone, I got a dozen injured people and morale is low. I'm holed up in the hospital with nothing but flimsy pistols and special abilities keeping the hordes at bay. Whether it's a combination of dumb luck or just pure skill, I've somehow managed to keep things going this far. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get my ass kicked but fuck it if I'm not going down swinging.
Once again, I want you to know that I paid for this game and that I'm going to enjoy it. I don't regret it at all giving you my money (Even though no VA's, GOD DAMN IT I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT) and I'll always be a fan of your work. Thank you for all the diligence you put in.
PS, I caught a random bug. Whenever Isabel tells you in her morning report about a possible mutiny happening soon because of angry troops, she doesn't actually tell me who. All she says is undefined and her own name which is really weird. Granted I knew who my little troublemakers were by checking by myself but I just thought you should know.
Thank you for submitting the bug to me and I apologize for not checking that function properly.
DeleteThat will be fixed in the balance patch.
No save scumming?! Wtf?!
ReplyDeleteAlright, I just reached the true ending (for all you non-believers: https://gyazo.com/95163b5dc1884c0d1946f088d424a1e3 ) and completed one of the girls' story, so I think it's time for me to leave my 2 cents.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'm really happy for you that you finally released this project, I've known you since my time on the HP forums and I've always been a fan of your works, especially (but not limited to) the Aching Dreams series!
That being said, after such a long wait and backing you with $400 I have mixed feelings with this game. I'll try to be as short as possible:
- The game is hard as FUCK!! Some might say too hard, but I have to say I like the challenge, and having reached the true ending I gotta say I feel like a god right now lol. I fucking hate those louies though, worst...enemy...ever!
- Ammo. For some reason it hardly comes in. I had playthroughs go bad while I was camping at the barracks. Hard enemies = more ammo wasted so less gained. It might be a design choice for saying more risk, more gained, but in the long run it's pretty unforgiving. By day 20+ you'll have to do some serious ammo conserving, which IMO actually fits with the survival story. I can see how people don't like it, even though it was ok for me.
- The combat overshadows the dating. As much as I initially wanted to focus on the dating when first playing this, the game said NOPE which made my first playthrough end on day 5 or so. The only successful playthroughs I had were the ones where I ignored the dating as much as possible, or only focusing on one girl. Again, might be a design choice, but I understand other people's frustration. Compared to AD1 and AD2, this game loves to give you blue balls.
- The story and writing. Dear lord I loved it. So far I've probably only seen and read 10% or so but it has improved a lot on the previous games. Larissa's story and dialogue had my laughing a few times, so I'm really curious on experiencing more.
- The artwork. Dude, you really improved a lot on your drawings. While the guns look like shit (sorry man, as an ex-military man I have to say this haha), the characters look awesome and not over-sexualized. Ignoring Stella that is, but that fits in with the story. I really liked the backgrounds as well, and most of the battle sprites as well. Maybe some more backgrounds depending on which area you were in would've been nice, but that's just a minor thing.
To sum it up, while I've been frustrated and pissed for the past days because this game kept kicking my ass, the rewarding feeling has never been greater after beating a game for me. This game is hard as balls, which isn't the thing for the general gamer I think, easier combat mechanics will give more openings for the actual dating. I suggest you ease it up at least a bit if you want to attract more people than just crazy masochistic fucks like me.
But besides that this game is a diamond in the rough in my eyes. I absolutely loved it, while being frustrated and sweating in anger at the same time (fucking louies).
Good review. It's a little bit depressing to hear that I couldn't impress a gun-nut like you, but the sadness is overcome by your achievement. "This game is frustrating, I'm angry, it's hard as balls, and I love it" was exactly what I wanted to hear.
DeleteI'm just going to make the next game and call it: "Aching Dreams 4: Mount Everest" and make it feel like a life achievement to beat it, hahaha.
no homo but I wish I was there in spirit, when after 20 hours of grueling gameplay you finally score with Larry and you're like VICTORY FAAPPP! Yea abs no homo, just sayin lol.
DeleteSander, just out of curiosity:
Delete1. How long did you play for 1 ending?
2. Did you have to buy items to finish it?
3. Would you go back to the military as Private, just because you enjoy being punished all the time?
Wait, so he had the ultimate survivor loadout and took less damage... And it STILL took him such a goddamn long time to beat this game? If that's the case, it's hopeless for the regulars.
DeleteWhy are you so abrasive to change? Is it that difficult to accept that you were wrong?
As a military member currently, I find nothing exciting about the combat system. Please change this.
DeleteSorry buddy, I had to be honest about the guns ;)
DeleteToo bad that I was deployed when you asked me to take a look at them early in AD3's development.
Glad to hear you appreciate my review, I tried to convey my thoughts about it as good as possible. I do agree with a lot of what other people have said though, even if it didn't bother me I can see where they are coming from.
Sorry you missed the victory fap (no homo as well), but to give you a clear picture: in my head FF7's victory fanfare was playing while shouting YESSSS and furiously jacking off.
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@anon1:
1. No idea how much I've played in total, but my winning run cost me about 2-3 hours I think. Carefully planning from day #1 made it possible to finish the game in 30 (in-game) days with almost no ammo left haha.
2. No, I didn't buy a single thing. I had the armor thingy because of my backer status though, but I refused to use it :P
3. My rank wasn't private, and I was the one who would hand out punishments :)
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@anon2:
see point 2 directed at anon1
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@anon3
I don't think it was designed to appeal to military members, so why should he change it on just this statement?
I know that you wouldn't leave the military as private, just that you would go back with only that rank.
DeleteAnd i'm interested in your rank, because i'm a german second lieutenant myself :D
Guys all the stuff he had is actually dropped in the game. Not saying he didnt buy it, but you dont need it. On my last playthru i beat it completely without purchase.
ReplyDeleteSuccess lies in utilizing the rooms, and recharging your solar energy.
Be sure to have energy for a jammer, have isabel's debuff and use pistols much as you can (those have shitload of ammo) go for difficult areas early and collect ammo for assault rifles (though you really have to sit 5 rounds at ground zero to collect ab. 50 bullets) etc, then you will probably want to sit most of your time in the hotel, not gonna say why, figure it out yaselves.
Carmen wipes shit off the map and requires minimal tending to, leave this female terminator to complete the game for ya.
Later in the game you can stay at hangar or go for the easier rooms (thought there really isnt much difference in a +10 and a -8 rooms, i think the only difference is, you miss less, and enemies have less shield.
Bikini dropped in the game for me too, i dont know if its a glitch, or just super rare though.
Good luck!
Bikini Vision is a glitch :/ But that's going to be fixed in the next patch.
DeleteI was a big fan of AD1 and I had bought AD2 as soon as it was available. I knew this game was going to be more difficult and complicated than the other two, but it's to the point where the game isn't fun or interesting. The mechanics and gameplay are just not good enough to justify the difficulty or complexity. It's neither a good tower defense game or dating sim, so when you add them together it's just a complete mess. Very disappointed the direction you decided to take this game.
ReplyDeleteI feel like if you had given this game simpler mechanics like the first two that you would have reached your initial deadline on time instead of having it be nearly two years overdue. It seems like the extra wait was so you could add elements to the game to make it more frustrating and less user friendly. I can't comprehend why you'd think that was a good idea.
ReplyDelete