Travelling At Night · published · build 24618883
Until this update, the game had two kinds of skill-modifying items
permanent items you'd equip that would give you bonuses
one-use items you'd equip that would give you bonuses until the first time you succeeded with a skill check that relied on them as the best bonus-giver, at which point they'd get used up, also you could use them whether equipped or not to unlock occult-operation choices with matching aspects like Bewitch and Expel, in which case sometimes but not always they'd get used up
Confused? Fair. It was that way because I wanted to make crafted items different from purchased items - more powerful, cheaper, but one-use - and plug them flavourfully into the choice system. The various prototypes where you decided which to use when were even more confusing. But honestly it confused us too sometimes, and when an item disappears for confusing reasons, that doesn't exactly spark joy for players. So we knocked it about and reworked it.
In the reworked version, there are
permanent items you equip that give you bonuses
one-use items that you don't equip, but you can choose one to help with the little magics you do in dialogue
NB help with. Choices with occult-operation aspects like these aren't locked out any more - they're always open. But they're generally attached to a skill check. So if you don't have a suitable item to help - or if you want to save it for later - you fall back on improvised materials with a hefty penalty.
Some thematic stuff this reinforces: (i) Spencer can't throw fireballs. Like a character in a Tim Powers or Susanna Clarke novel (John Constantine kept coming up as an example in Lottie's and my discussions tool), he needs his kit of useful things or he has to fall back on bits of fluff and chalked sun-crosses
(ii) fortunately, he can make a lot of that kit himself
(iii) also he can fall back on fluff and chalk - and if he's got a high enough skill, or if he has a full Aspect Pool, he'll succeed anyway through ability or luck
(iv) note the different levels of penalty for those skills. The practitioners of the Arts Unconsidered can get by with cat-fluff and table salt. Bright Arts types really need their pure and fancy gubbins. And the Night Arts fall somewhere in between.
We also took the opportunity to rework the effects of crafted items to differentiate them more. Most tiers do something different now. The top tier, for instance, is mostly permanent skill-bonus items with no occult-operation aspects, though there are a couple of exceptions:
Of course, in the demo, with most of these out of your reach, it won't make much difference! But as we open up more cities in the next beta, these will come on line for playtesters.
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Anyway here's the version notes! There's some good stuff in there beside the items rework. We have the larger-text-size tweak almost ready to go too, but it touches a lot of the UI so you probably won't see that before mid-September.
- MAJOR REWORK OF THE OCCULT-OPERATION ASPECTS + ONE-USE ITEMS:
- occult operation Aspects (Bewitch, Entwine, Expel etc.) are no longer hard locks - if you have the skills, you can attempt them, but without proper materials, you'll suffer a penalty for improvising (with some flavour text)
- 'proper materials' are the things you make with crafting recipes - all are now optional one-use bonuses for occult operations
- so there are no longer any one-use equippables, and you can't burn equippables by accident. (If you have a one-use equipped in a save right now, you can enjoy the bonus until you remove it or use it in an occult operation)
- reworked recipes to differentiate them further - alchemy items now have refreshments, level 15 items give Trouble reductions on use, top-tier items are *mostly* permanent (though in the demo only alchemy items are relevant, and those only just)
- little red marker distinguishes one-use-only occult-operation items
- 'Sundry' organising group for Plans in Journal
- Toned down the paper texture on dialogue, for more contrast
- Andrée has been fleshed out with a batter animation
- Linou now mentions your unpaid bill if she sends you to see a friend.
- fixed andother highlight-all bug (character highlight disappearing when you moused off)
- fixed Doomed Ping-Pong at a cutaway entrance
- promo-block star no longer opens the news window
- sanitarium bug fixes
- hover outlines should still be visible when zoomed out; sanitarium hover shouild be more obvious
- clarified bad ending descriptions
- crafting panel spacers reduced (were doubling up with layout spacing)
- various narrative copy edits