Colin and I are now settled in Cape Town for the first half of winter (their summer). Colin’s going to spend it kiteboarding on the endless, beautiful beach and I’m going to put my head down and work. This is what I’ve said every month for the last year, and does it ever happen? Rarely. Life is just too full of distractions to spend it crunching, I guess. That or I’m paralyzed with fear that I’m going to screw up this wonderful, already successful game somehow because I don’t truly understand why people like it.
Let’s hope it’s that first one.
Version 0.69
So October’s version 0.69 (hahah… yeah) was big on balancing and increasing the importance of happiness and faction rivalry towards the end of the game. It’s still not right; with so many random elements I’ve got to do a helluva lot of testing to know if I’ve made something too easy or hard, and I’m trusting a lot of that testing to the community. I’m not sure if I’ve told you this lately, beta testers, but I love you. You’re great.
I also included Adam’s final versions of the faction leaders, which are really fun and make me want to write them all some new events. I’ve decided every faction will have a special requirement before they’ll ally with you (in addition to needing 75 respect). Like, the Luddies want you to have a lot of farms, the Government wants you to make ammunition for them, the Pharmacists want you addicted to Bath Salts etc. I’m looking for more suggestions.
Also making it in are the start of relationships, the Kickstarter stretch goal chosen by popular vote. Survivors assigned together will gradually become friends, which gives them a happiness boost if they spend enough time together. They can even fall in love and get married. And yes, there are same-sex relationships too.
Sometimes people just don’t get along, and they hate to work together. Force them on missions together too often and it could end badly. Don’t miss the warning signs!
Next month we might see children finally make an appearance in the game. Colin’s helping me brainstorm how they’re going to work right now. It’s pretty swell having him on the team!
Nice job! (Government’s leader seems to me a mix between Mc Cain And Rice :P ) I would suggest you to set the maximum factions’ strength and how fast it is recovered also based on the type of faction: It makes sense that the Govenment and riffs should be much more troublesome to fight than the school boys, for example. If same-sex relationships are implemented they should have diplomatic effects; for example if same-sex marriages are celebrated or not your fort loses/gains respect to Last Judgement Gang and/or Dahlias accordingly. You could also implement this choice in the policies when you draft constitution. Just my two cents :)
I love these games, and kids in the apocalypse puts the Rebuild series on conceptual par with Fallout. I can’t wait.