Well then I'm a big ol' dork. I actually started playing a new game this afternoon, and will keep at it. Not sure why TestFlight keeps telling me I can update it though.
It appears that there is a slight bug in Testflight, because I've had that happen on multiple games that I've been testing. Others work just fine. Never really been able to pinpoint a difference in the set that work versus the ones that don't.
The second one was pretty random: main map but through the pipe/vent? on the east side. Last game I played there was nothing there, so you never know. I have tried to get through the cavern across the bridge but I keep getting schooled by the Stranger.
Actually from what I gather it's all pretty much random whether you find a button or not. I'll just have to keep trying
In this build there are at least 12 pins, so there are more to find . There's at least one more that's accessible quite easily from the opening (first) map.
I have found zero pins. I've not found any bugs either, just the maggots feasting upon my pile of corpses#. I'll keep at it, and will even Try to win a pin. Great work guys, the hype is real.
There are more pins, I swear! In the next build we may increase the frequency a tiny bit. Some of the best ones are further in, persevere!
Played some more last night. I'm slowly getting in sessions when I can. Something that struck me was the realisation that you can literally have a play session for all of 10 seconds or to how ever many hours you have to spend. If you're in a fight you'll have to Carry out the fight but if you're on board you can basically quit at any time. Why I'm mentioning this is because on a mobile device, this is basically perfect. Also, not to throw in any spoilers but last night I got to a bit where I faced up to a monster and then, apparently, well let's just say I went to another location and commenced with less stuff. Not sure what that's all about just yet. Minorly frustrating as I had some decent gear. Not sure I'm a fan of that tbh, though it does have me back on my toes so... Btw I take it the loot is generated from a random table? Or is it set items placed? Don't know yet, but I'm loving the loot side of this, I'd say it's one of the strongest points of the game, and very welcome because there just isn't enough turn based games with loot on the AppStore. Like always though, keep bringing on the loot please!
The trick is being able to limit yourself to 10 seconds (or minutes, for that matter)! I haven't played too often, but every time I find myself going for at least an hour.
Yes, the loot is generated from a 'random table' of items in each treasure and enemy instance. A chest may have a random table of 25 items in it of which 3-4 will be selected to be granted at random. Some chests or treasures, however, will have a set grouping of items. Beast enemies work the same way except that they will either have nothing or a set table of items (with a chance of getting nothing). Sentient enemies will grant their held weapon, their special (if it is an item and not a skill) and items from their table (or set loot items).
Omg that game of thrones was epic!!! I digress.. Anyway Started this up again (after deleting right before downloading again because I think those were the instructions), and I instantly remembered just how good this game is. Devs don't ever loose touch with the board game style of this. There's so many places you could take this just because of that. Even though I had to go through some of the pop up explanations again (a result of me deleting the game), it was good to start the story again and ready the small pieces of plot. That got me thinking of just how easy this could be expanded in the future if you so wanted to have epic side quests. Also, even just on the one level or even just throughout the whole game, you could have a section of story unravelled at random. Like entering a map might trigger story A or story C. Then the next time you play the game and enter that map it triggers story B, which makes you go explore different sections of the map. And that's just all within the one map! Just letting my imagination run wild. But also just highlighting how modular this game could become, making for heaps of replayability, with hopefully optimised (minimal) development time. It looks like the iCloud save is working. I've tested it out. Saved a few times, booted the app from memory and restarted and it comes right back to where it should be (was doing this before anyway). And it's great to have that "manual" feel of uploading or downloading to/from the cloud. That's very important as I've run into trouble with some games that hide everything behind the scenes, then something gets stuffed up, and the result is a game state ranging from loading a save from hours of gameplay ago to all data deleted. None of that here which is good. I also checked my iCloud data and Yep there's an allocation there for GK. One thing though, I tried another save by loading the game in flight mode. It picked up from right where it should be. I then played on, and saved again while still in flight made (saving by pressing save to cloud). I then exited and booted the app from memory. Then I put phone into wifi, loaded up the app, and again it picked up from right where it was meant to be. So, whatever it's doing with the saves, it's working!! Just wondering if there's a local save going on? And does this get compared to what's in the cloud, and maybe the most recent one is taken? How does it work?
The game is constantly auto-saving locally...not too often as that could have an adverse effect on battery life...but whenever there's an 'action of importance' (a battle turn, moving on the map, quitting, backgrounding, dying, rolling a character...etc.). It's only compared to what's on the cloud when you open the cloud save window. As the window is opened, it calls iCloud and pulls down info on what's on the cloud, comparing it to what has been most recently auto-saved locally (displaying your saved game time, etc.) so you can easily see what's newest. The best way to test if it's working is to save your game to iCloud, wait a few seconds (it can take a bit of time for the info to upload to the cloud) quit out of the game, start a completely new game (make a new character, go through all that...you can skip a lot of the opening instructions on your second time through). *This will erase and replace your local game*. Once you are on the map and the new game has started, go into the menu, open cloud save, and LOAD your iCloud save. If it's working, you will be automatically transitioned into your 'old' game. Auto-saved cloud files can get tricky if you happen to be playing on multiple devices. Blizzard does it with Hearthstone and it really works well...but we aren't Blizzard, there's no way that we could ever build a system that could be anywhere close to what they have! We're like a germ to their tauren. Requiring a manual save to the cloud is a bit old-school but it gives the player complete control.
As someone who lost tens of hours due to buggy iCloud implementations by well regarded triple AAA developers (Epic I'm looking at you) I welcome the 'manual' operations regarding iCloud saves....as I welcome last build....I was just about to write you when I received the test flight message. Finally I'll be able to progress much faster too on multiple devices!!!
New Build, New PIN HUNT! To all current testers: THE HUNT IS ON AGAIN! Find a pin and wear it in the beta of the game (v 0.08.1) and be the first to post a screen of the worn/equipped pin here and we will send you your choice of either: (a) An actual, physical pin of the pin you found in the game. Great for adding to your personal, intergalactic style. (b) A magnet of the pin you found in the game. Great for holding scraps of paper that are covered in codes and game notes onto your minifridge or the dash panel of your cruiser. PLUS: Undisclosed, surprise bonus items! There are currently over 20 pins to find in the game. They can be found in some chests, randomized into the loot, and sometimes on the bodies of (special) dead enemies.
This sounds kind of silly, but it is almost 'magical' to be able to play a game on your phone on a train, level up and make good progress, then get home, sit down on the couch and load up the same game you were playing minutes before onto an iPad and continue from the exact point you left off. That was a goal for us...to be able to do that.
