Post by hygge in Utopia Engine comments

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So cool! It was really fun to read through the manual and make sense of the various phases of the game

As intended, this game is HARD. It is a tight race against the clock, and a successful run requires a great deal of skill and luck.

While I was learning, I set the expert difficulty to a negative number (giving me extra days) which was nice to have. There is one part that confused me. Just before the final activation, the player should be able to spend their remaining hit points to lower the difficulty of the final roll, yet I appear unable to. Is there somewhere to click?

~~Also dying in the final activation does not end the game, but rather the player revives with full HP and possibly lost days. This results in an endless loop~~ ~~if the roll difficulty is over 13+.~~ (edit: see response)

If this is a straight remake of the 2010 game, then my opinions aren't needed, but if not, there's a few things I could suggest for both balancing and UI.

Introscopia3 years ago

Wow, thank you so much for the feedback!
You are correct! I totally neglected to put in the thing with paying HP to lower the activation difficulty. There are so many little details!
I'll look into this bug of not dying in FA. You probably can't get trapped in a infinite loop, because eventually you you run out of days anyways, but thanks for the bug report!
Any UI suggestions are super welcome! Thanks again.

hygge3 years ago (9 edits)

No problem. I've been replaying the game with the default 15 days with the hopes of beating it "for real". Here's my thoughts on each phase:

Searching: It takes me on average about 4 times to get an artifact from each location. One bad search can result in losing a few HP in combat resulting in more lost days. Definitely the hardest part for me. I have not yet successfully received a treasure. For one-use artifacts (ex. the seals ability to ignore the event) do you click it to use the power?

Activating artifacts: My favorite phase. Most artifacts are activated on the first try, and almost always by the second try.

Linking artifacts: Tough, especially with the limited waste basket. The average of my links is normally around 2.5. If you attempt a link with a full waste basket, it's very easy to get screwed with a large value.

Final activation: Currently, it's only possible to win if the average link is 2 or less (totaling 12) since you can't discount from your extra HP. Extremely hard as is (my only victory was having to tie a challenge roll of 12). Being able to discount HP will definitely help if implemented. Or having 3 dice.

Note: If this game is just a port, there's no point griping about the difficulty to you :P

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Possible bugs:

If you immediately click the dice after killing an enemy, it enters another round of combat. It appears that the enemy will (re)die after this extra roll no matter what, and you won't get 2x the components, but you can take additional damage.

~~There's been a few times where my search result should have been between 005-001 but it has given me 000 resulting in an activated artifact.~~ This was due to a good fortune event or artifact power that I didn't notice.

(Corrected the bit about the 13+ final activation roll being an endless loop, thanks. I had a couple hundred days from my negative expert mode value so I had to refresh instead of burning through the rest of the days :P )

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All of that said, I've been having a lot of fun with the game. I'm sure that planning an optimal route based on which artifacts/treasures you have, smart use of tools, and rolling strategy will definitely shave some days off the average run. What % of runs do you think are successful btw?

Introscopia3 years ago (1 edit)

Hey! I just dropped the 1.1 a few moments ago! paying to decrease final activation difficulty is in.

>Searching: It takes me on average about 4 times to get an artifact
I think there are more optimal strategies... I could give you some pointers.. or you could browse the BGG forums. But, of course, developing your strategy is most of the fun!

I am considering this just a port, so balance matters I'm probably not going to fiddle with.. But I agree, the wastebasket could be a little bigger.

>my search result should have been between 005-001 but it has given me 000 resulting in an activated artifact.
Did you check the log? There are many effects that subtract from the search result...

>If you immediately click the dice after killing an enemy, it enters another round of combat.
Huh! I'll look into this one for v1.2...

>What % of runs do you think are successful btw?
There are certain low-risk strategies that I do believe an give you a very high win rate, but mediocre score.. Now, playing wildly, trying to get a high score? that could be really low, less 30% even..

hygge3 years ago (8 edits)

> Did you check the log? There are many effects that subtract from the search result.

Sorry, I tried to correct myself with a (too-late) edit! What I mistook for a bug was actually the game working exactly as intended.

1) My edit also had a question on how to use the artifact abilities (ex. the seal - do I click the artifact box before or after entering the search screen to ignore the event?). It would be nice after each description if it said something like (passive) (active, one time use) (active, once per combat), etc.

2) Are the region monster charts missing? (Ex. to know where (s) monsters are)

3) Finally, if you wanted everything self-contained you could have a "?" tab to put the manual text within the game itself.

That's all I have to say, I'll check out the BGG forums for some strategy tips!

Introscopia3 years ago

>do I click the artifact box before or after entering the search screen to ignore the event?
After! once you're "in" the region. You're right, I could indicate these thing a bit better.

Didn't include the region monster charts in the game, no. I mean, that information, the spirits, it's so particular, and so rarely relevant... I feel the hardcore players who are going to use that mechanic wouldn't mind having the manual open in another tab! That's probably how most people are playing ,anyways..

>you could have a "?" tab to put the manual text within the game itself.
I considered adding a "?" button in each screen with the instructions on each sub-game... Maybe I'll put that in eventually.

Thanks again for playing and for all the feedback! Have fun

itch.io

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