I use the itch desktop app, and after installing this update for Strategems, it no longer launches the game correctly. It just opens the containing folder. I’m not sure what’s going on, as it launched fine before the update.
Deleting the folder with the old version seems to fix it, and my save data is even retained. But if you know of a way to avoid the need for this manual fix after an update, that would be great.
Okay, I finally found a sequence that leads to a win. At no point does it involve playing the large stones, so I still have no idea what people mean by that. The first two turns are crucial.
For turn 1, use the pickaxe on the 122 to play a 61 and a 2 like so:
Turn 2, use the pickaxe on 125 to get three 5s. Use them to lock the opponent out of the top-right:
This alone opens up many paths to victory. However, you can get an even cleaner win by holding onto the 5s on turn 2, not playing anything that turn, and instead waiting until turn 3 to play them along with additional stones, allowing you to lock the opponent out of the bottom left as well:
Thanks for the reply. You might want to hide the spoilers, though.
(Spoilers)
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That's a good point about only knowing the last victim being a danger.
I assumed those instructions about barring people from knowing the case came from Richard, left behind along with his work. Otherwise, wouldn't others knowing enough about it to give those instructions also be in danger of triggering the curse? It would explain how they could have known to hire a recluse like Richard and even keep his name secret, but how would they have gained that knowledge in the first place without significant exposure risk themselves, and isn't the fact that Richard happened to know that last victim the only reason he was able to serve his purpose? But how could they have known that he did without themselves also knowing the last victim?
Now that I think about it, it even seems kind of contrived that Richard not only had the kind of occupation to let himself be hired for this kind of thing and was enough of a recluse to prevent the curse from spreading by not knowing many people, but somehow one of the few people he did know just happened to be the last victim.
Incognito mode works, thanks, though it would be nice if there was a way to revisit it in-game.
Reading over the final note, it leaves a lot of things unclear for me...
(Spoilers)
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His plan wasn't to remove all traces of the case ("I know I ought to wipe the drive, but I'm sorry.").
He didn't intend/expect to stop the curse from taking him, even by suicide ("I guess none of you will remember me!").
He didn't seem to have been specifically planning/expecting to die, since he reacts with shock/realization and as if his fate only just dawned on him, rather than having thought it through before ("I guess this is what everyone was expecting.").
And since it didn't seem like he'd have time to create the hangman game after already being doomed, it must have been created earlier. So I would conclude that it wasn't meant to imply a specific plan or known outcome. But then what was it meant as?
He also seemed to think that the case will/should remain a total mystery ("I suppose I'm the only one who knows what happened, and that information will likely die with me."), but if the only danger is in remembering specific people, what would be the harm in describing what happened and the nature of the curse, just without identifying the people? But the fact that he leaves the audio transcriptions with everyone's names mentioned throughout leaves a real danger.
And I don't get what he means by "I see this as the best possible outcome. And I'm honoured to have played my part." What part did he play, exactly? If no one ends up discovering his work, as seemed to be his expectation, how is it any different than if he had done nothing at all? And leaving the case files behind means he didn't even do "his part" of eliminating the danger.
The last three lines are ambiguous, too ("Write something important before you drop dead, you idiot! Never mind. God I hope this works"). Does the "never mind" imply that he gave up on trying to write something important, or did he suddenly come up with a plan to avoid death? Does the last line refer to this plan, and if so, what could it be? If not, what might he have been referring to? Maybe it was the "instructions" mentioned in the Brief ("we were given strict instructions as to when it could be examined. They also detailed a list of names prohibited from ever learning its contents, myself included.")?
And the last thing I don't get is that in the case of every other victim, no memory of them or their actions remained whatsoever. But in his case, the fact that everyone still remembers that there was a man hired to work on the case doesn't fit the pattern. Only his name seems to have been forgotten. Is it because they had records left behind of his involvement that they accepted to be true despite not remembering them, or did he actually avoid the curse somehow after all, or maybe just partially?
Lots to think about.
I really enjoyed this! I share a lot of the thoughts/questions others have already posted, and some I haven't seen mentioned. (SPOILERS)
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I would suggest having a thread explicitly allowing spoilers and one that doesn't, just like for the original puzzle book (and rename those original threads to clarify that they are for version 1). That way you can discuss spoilers for version 1 without risking getting spoiled for version 2, and just generally keep discussion focused on one version at a time.
I think I finally get it. The reason it didn't click for me is that thus far, terms on the right column seemed to follow a rule that they always had to form a valid word or phrase when read from right to left. "nowevahwonuoysa" would be the only one not to follow that rule. Actually, more than that, it breaks the bigger, more important rule of these "word searches" always involving searches of actual words, not simply nonsensical letters, so long as you see right-column terms as simply being reversed.
I didn't notice that the puzzle 12 hints were all the same as the bottom-right corner hints, even for ones that go in the right column, which would indeed necessitate writing them backwards. I think I would in fact find it more intuitive if you instead switched up the puzzle 12 hints for the right-column terms as you say ("n8" for "notraceof"), so that they would get written the same as on the previous pages, and this would allow the final term to also follow the pattern of being valid when read backwards from how it's written. Then you could do one last page after where everything gets written out properly, with the right-column terms only reversed there for the final message.
I can see what you were going for, with the elegance of having the final puzzle also serve as the final message all at once, and maybe this isn't an issue most people would be confused by like I was. But speaking for myself at least, it almost made me miss the final message entirely, and I think my suggested approach would help ensure that people understand exactly what you want them to see at the end.
You still left the last slot in the list starting with A, though. As I already tried to explain, "the last message (which is the same as the puzzle 12 solution) is shown starting with A, and that's also the direction it's read, which breaks the pattern of messages on the right side needing to be read backwards." So replace the A with an N, or put the A at the end. The last clue on the bottom-left (under the smudge) also needs to start with 'a', not 'n', as the clues correspond to how the terms are read, aren't they? Or am I misunderstanding something?
Personally, I would only see those nudges as helping to confirm what to search for in the last puzzle. They wouldn't make me any more inclined to write everything out in the columns. And even if I did write them out, there's no guarantee that I'd realize they're meant to all be read in sequence. I still feel my previous suggestion is the best way to ensure players reach the intended ending. But that's just my opinion.
Just played this and wanted to say how good it was. Many layers and tricky but fair misdirections, like how in puzzle 2 you could find MOBSTER and NOTARY before realizing the theme and the mirroring rule. Very well done!
I just have a bit of feedback about where things didn't quite feel so fair and maybe could be improved.
So in order to play a challenge mode, do I have to delete all my data? There's no way to store saves for multiple runs? I put a lot of time into my first run, and it'd be a shame to just erase it all. But I guess there isn't much more to get out of my run if there isn't going to be anything to do beyond beating the elite 4 and the champion.
Also, I don't know what the intention was with the game design, but I never saw any incentive to use pokemon that require berries other than oran. Pokemon that require different berries don't seem to be any stronger, and don't add anything special to make it worth not being able to use any berry you draw to summon any pokemon you draw. It's not like pokemon that only use oran are in short supply.
Especially egregious are the legendary pokemon. I've only gotten a Zapdos, but I assume that its requirement to only summon with enigma berries is something they all have in common. Zapdos is barely any stronger than other pokemon, and I can't imagine it ever being worth using, considering the limitation on enigma berries in your deck, not to mention how hard they are to find in the first place. It makes legendaries pretty worthless, unless there's something I'm missing.
I was fairly engrossed with this game, but I have to say I'm left feeling quite unsatisfied. Spoilers...
After the 2nd trial, Echo suddenly has the power to snap back to the past with memories intact in order to circumvent bad outcomes. This power comes out of nowhere, is hardly questioned, and is never explored or explained. You'd think it would be revealed to have something to do with the Ultimate Memory title, but that just ended up being fake and unrelated.
Such a power is something that you base an entire game system around (as in the Zero Escape series, Raging Loop, Life is Strange, etc.), not something you throw haphazardously into a game already based on a wholly different system (of deaths actually happening and moving forward with the story despite that, i.e. Danganronpa).
And even besides that issue, the story ended up not making a lot of sense for me in various ways. Like, Echo literally witnesses Sei murder everybody in an alternate timeline, and still insists that she wouldn't resort to killing? How does that make any sense?
The rules for body discovery in this game are never explained, but it requires 3 people in Danganronpa, so it's assumed to still be the case here, yet then it shouldn't be possible for some of body discovery announcements to happen in the later chapters.
I also don't get why Pandora didn't seem to recognize the symbol of her twin sister's school on her note, or what the purpose of the note even was, since it claimed that she was safe, and yet nothing was done to actually protect her. And was it ever really explained why Echo was made to be involved in the killing game, or why so many of the planned pairings didn't happen? An organization with the technology and resources shown seems like it should be more than capable of abducting Ashley without Echo witnessing it, for example. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
The roster screen for each character shows up to three other people when hovering over the right side, but it doesn't indicate what this means at all. And I don't understand why everyone has a designated flower, or how that has to do with anything.
But the main thing that didn't work for me was that the explanation behind the killing game kind of fell flat. There were minor references to "despair," but not enough to think that it's an active threat to the world in the way it is for the main Danganronpa games. So it's hard to believe that there would be a whole organization of people so willingly involved in causing so many deaths just in the name of...some rather unclear goal.
Like, what was it all for, really? All they apparently used the winners for was to run more killing games. I never got a clear idea of what they were actually trying to accomplish. There was so much emphasis on ultimate talents benefiting humanity in the early chapters and with the motive questions, but that theme didn't really tie into anything in the end. There was no indication that I recall of any actual attempt to better humanity in any tangible way despite all the effort of conducting these killing games.
I still appreciate the effort made, and how this game is freely offered, but these issues leave a lot to be desired.
Woooooow, I don't know how anyone could find that on their own. That answered a few things, but raised even more questions...
It seemed to indicate a level of technology (regarding body morphing) far beyond the time period, and for no apparent reason. It explains that Morris targeted Leisa just so he "wouldn't have to deal with her," and yet he included the voodoo scarf to try to keep her protected? Did he want her gone or not? And the scarf was just supposed to make the wearer protect the target, so then why does Roen hang himself with it, even in the scenario where Leisa dies and no other death is necessary that day?
I assumed it was the part after the 4th ending, where they all meet 6 months later. It unlocked the last CG in the gallery, but it still says "#Routes Cleared: 4/4" on the home screen rather than "Full Clear". I do have a save on the screen that says "True Route Clear" and "Thanks for playing!", but from there I can only return to the title screen. Am I supposed to start the game from the beginning yet again or something?
Thanks, I was able to reach the rest. This was interesting, and I could see a lot of effort put into it. It still left a lot unexplained, though.
Spoilers Below
Like, how did they all get abducted in broad daylight at around the same time with no one seeming to notice? How were they kept sedated and cared for for over a month, with no side effects besides a bit of grogginess? How were Cira's cats taken care of in all that time? Why was the laundry room behind a wall? What were the red lights in there actually meant to do? What was the point of the passage from the bathroom to the kitchen, and of keeping most of the cabinets locked until it was discovered? Why did the first three endings end the way they did, with the door suddenly being blown up and swarmed by armed guys for no apparent reason, gunning down the first people they saw but then letting others go (or was that part of Jez's game and not meant to make sense)? Why does the game thumbnail show a gray person with a pink eye and a yellow eye? Why was Leisa chosen for the game, not fitting the profile of the rest of the original targets?
Other things just didn't make sense to me, like how does it make sense for the minimum one death per day rule to be made hard to discover, and only found by chance, also needing someone familiar enough with TCM to even interpret it? They called the tenth player a hero, but aren't they the one responsible for going forward with putting everyone's lives in danger, leaving them with a bunch of traps like the armed exit door and the poisoned water? How can insulated electrical wire be sharp enough to not only cut skin, but actually dismember someone from falling onto it (or did that only happen in Jez's game)? How was the armed guy supposed to get to and from the monitor room without his own flashlight and with the ladder out of reach? And wouldn't it have been risky to keep passing through the area? Did he have full facilities down there that weren't mentioned? Or was there another exit that they didn't find? If they researched everyone enough to know where they frequent and that they didn't have anyone who'd report them missing, couldn't they have also prepared the clothes and everything else ahead of time? Why did they need over a month since the abduction? And wouldn't that have been enough time for people to notice them missing? Seira was only supposed to be on a break for 2 weeks, I think.
So many questions...
Oh, I finally noticed the little triangle arrow indicating the grid orientation. That's so sneaky. Just like how the wire configurations don't go in order past the first time. I'm glad I was able to figure it out, but it's a shame that if you're missing something, there's no real way to get unstuck.
I enjoyed the game, but it is kind of lacking the excitement of collaborating with another person like in "Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes." This game basically just has you take on both roles of that game, which misses a key part of the appeal. It's still nice for what it is, though.
I reached what I think was the third day. There was a connection problem with the tank and three lit green diodes, which I resolved. Then it says there are two lit red diodes, which means create figure 5 from the grid annex, but I did that and it didn't work. I tried the response for two flashing red diodes just in case, mixing up terafitunol (misspelled as terafinutol in the manual by the way), which I'm pretty sure I did correctly, but still no response. I'm stuck and can't figure out how to proceed.
I'm playing on a PC, actually.
SPOILERS BELOW
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I did enjoy playing, even if the lag and text speed issues dampened that a bit. I'm interested in seeing the rest of the story, though it'll be hard to retain that interest if there are really long gaps between releases.
The game description says it's broken up into "five huge chapters," and this demo is the entire first chapter, I take it? But it didn't feel "huge" at all, to be honest. It seemed like it barely scratched the surface of the full story. A lot of it was just predictable dialog, and I even anticipated that the death was an accident as soon as "snag" was communicated. It seemed strange that no one even considered the literal meaning until later on. Though I suppose Zarah (intentionally?) steered them away from that conclusion. The tree branch being broken was also immediately obvious, at least to me. Hopefully the future chapters are less predictable.
It does feel like the game is setting up some interesting reveals, at least, with the way Cass seems so unbothered by their friend's death and apparently hadn't spoken to anyone in a while, or the mentions of Elise's bad home situation, or how the DnD party includes an unaccounted-for rogue or paladin (whichever one Ari isn't), or how Zarah was thinking that Tessa doesn't know her friends very well (though no idea what she's basing that off of, or why she was opposed to the suggestion that the death wasn't suicide). If any of these were given explanations, then I guess I missed them.
However, I feel like there's a disconnect with the core game mechanic. We're playing as the spirit being called, but we don't have any of the knowledge the spirit is supposed to have, and we have to guess at the answers based on the options the spell cards give us and the character thoughts. The former makes it seem like Zarah (or some other force) is directly manipulating what the spirit is saying, or at least can say, which doesn't seem intended, and the latter makes it seem like we're not the intended spirit at all, and are simply providing believable answers because of an unanticipated thought-reading ability.
The latter might be an interesting twist, and the possibility of it being the wrong spirit is even mentioned, but you'd think Zarah would be aware that spirits could read thoughts and fake identity that way (or does she in fact know and is misleading everyone?), and we're not presented with any possible motive for a different spirit to do this, especially if they're only supposed to be able to be contacted once. If you really are meant to be playing as the intended spirit (Elise in this case), then it just doesn't feel very much like we are. Giving the spirit (you) some internal dialog would certainly help with this, but I have to assume there's a reason you didn't include this.
Another thing is that it can be frustrating to be given a board of spell cards and not know if you're wasting time trying to find an answer because you're actually locked into giving no valid answer, due to plot-required noise or the question being faulty. Hopefully that doesn't keep happening throughout the game. I also don't understand why some words were underlined even when they didn't seem to relate to any spell card answer options or journal entries. One example that comes to mind is "crack," from Tessa's thought.
Sorry if I'm being too critical. Hopefully you find this feedback helpful.
Some feedback:
Under "Features," you call this a "kinetic novel." My understanding is that this term is for visual novels with no branching paths or interactive elements, which I don't believe applies to this game. You probably don't want to give people the wrong idea.
You might want to add "Interactive Fiction" as a genre for this game. All visual novels inherently fall under that category I think, but you probably want this game to show up for people searching by the "interactive fiction" genre specifically.
The text speed setting doesn't seem to work. It's painfully slow and can't be made faster. Also, the settings controls are not very responsive. The game as a whole seems to be rather laggy.
I did encounter issues with the journal. I didn't see any changes to it after the final update notification for it appeared, and I tried flipping through it to see if the update was on a previous page, but the lag was really bad. And once I tried using the First and Last buttons, then any of the navigation buttons made the page stick to the mouse in its turning animation, without being able to release it. Things got more messed up from there.
It's common convention for text history to be triggered by scrolling up. I would suggest implementing this for your game for ease of use.
Hit false end 4, Revelation, and tried to "rebirth" to before my choice so I could stay on script, but it put me after that choice. Talking to the guy again went the same way, and didn't even let me escape to the main menu while the dialog was continuing, so I had to force close. I'm not willing to restart from the beginning, so I guess that's it. Pretty disappointing, honestly.
I'm not sure how people would normally come across this game, but I found it in the itch application. It's not playable when installing it from there, though. You apparently have to open this page in a browser instead.
Most games I find through the application offer screenshots, which I think is good to give players a better idea of what the game is like.
I noticed a typo in the conversation, when the woman says she's been here since '87. "Here" is missing a letter.
It seems there's only one person who ever comes. After he leaves, no one else comes but there's no indication that there's no more content. Some sort of end screen or message would be preferable.
I'm on Dean's route. When I was prompted for a password at the vault, I guessed it on my first try. This lead to presumably stopping any deaths and going to bed on day 10, where it said "to be continued."
It seemed strange to me, since password hints thus far were all given in the routes where you didn't guess the password, and having it be so easy to guess this time around without failing first was confusing.
I reloaded to the part at the vault and declined to enter a password this time, and got the bad route with deaths. But not only did this not seem to reveal any additional hint for the password, it also ended in its own, separate "to be continued."
So now I have two separate saves left hanging and no idea what's going on...
Tried to load my last save, and it just gives an error:
[code]
I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.
While running game code:
File "renpy/common/00keymap.rpy", line 396, in script
python hide:
File "renpy/common/00keymap.rpy", line 411, in <module>
renpy.save("_reload-1", "reload save game")
PicklingError: Can't pickle <type 'function'>: attribute lookup __builtin__.function failed
-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------
Full traceback:
File "renpy/common/00keymap.rpy", line 396, in script
python hide:
File "C:\Users\Alec\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\adastra\Adastra-13-win\renpy\ast.py", line 814, in execute
renpy.python.py_exec_bytecode(self.code.bytecode, self.hide, store=self.store)
File "C:\Users\Alec\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\adastra\Adastra-13-win\renpy\python.py", line 1715, in py_exec_bytecode
exec bytecode in globals, locals
File "renpy/common/00keymap.rpy", line 411, in <module>
renpy.save("_reload-1", "reload save game")
File "C:\Users\Alec\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\adastra\Adastra-13-win\renpy\loadsave.py", line 286, in save
dump((roots, renpy.game.log), logf)
File "C:\Users\Alec\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\adastra\Adastra-13-win\renpy\loadsave.py", line 45, in dump
cPickle.dump(o, f, cPickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)
PicklingError: Can't pickle <type 'function'>: attribute lookup __builtin__.function failed
Windows-8-6.2.9200
Ren'Py 6.99.12.3.2123
Adastra 13
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