Discuss the massively-multiplayer home defense game.
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It doesn't crash for me when alt-tabbing, but if I do, my windows explorer tends to crash - I have to completely kill and restart it to get my taskbar working again after playing Castle Doctrine. I'm on Win7 64bit.
One of the main problems I see in the actual system is that you need the same resource both to build and to break strong defenses. When facing 5 people with 20k+, the only way to get their money is to have a comparable amount of money. People with so much money, however, tend to not break in, instead just saving up and strengthening their defenses. This leads to 5 untouchable, passive strongholds at the top, and 3-4 "lesser" houses at the bottom, constantly destroying each other's life.
This would, of course, be way less obvious if we had a large playerbase, but I think this "economical problem" would still persist.
I considered and eventually decided against the idea of fake vaults early on in the design process. I really wanted to avoid too much of an annoying "minesweeper" feel, where you had to test 25 fully visible options before finding the right one. Granted, there's still some of that left in the game because of what players end up building, but there's not a tile that explicitly supports that.
The idea of a staircase exit is an interesting one, especially for testing. I can't imagine someone using it in a live house, though, because if you're going to force the robber there, wouldn't you rather just force kill them (with a pit instead of an exit)?
Also, I do like "backdoor" as it stands right now as an emergent thing that you have to plan for and build... something that players discover how to do, since there's no explicit "backdoor" tile waiting for them.
I guessed you would already have considered that, seeing that it's quite an obvious mechanic. I also see the underlying problem; turning a house into even more of a guessing labyrinth wouldn't be fun, and if the sprite would look a bit different, it's just a matter of looking closely at each vault (and would only catch unexperienced players). On second thought, I do agree that no interesting designs would emerge from this.
On the staircase topic: I love the idea. And I do actually think that it could be viable in actual house designs! Would be a nice psychological weapon; the premise of a safe escape route. If you're surrounded by pit bulls, would you rather try to crowbar your way out, or just take the staircase? but what if it's booby-trapped? Could lead to some awesome designs indeed.
Interesting thoughts on the topic! The only concern I have about this now is that. given the current set and pricing of building materials vs tools, the danger of building such devious designs isn't, in my opinion, properly counterbalanced by how difficult they are to break. If you take a quick look through the available houses, most use designs with a lot of pitbulls and a maze. Relatively cheap and takes a lot of saws to break through, as well as quite some meat or a few crowbars.
I'd really like to see such intricate designs encouraged; I tried a few designs with complex cat re-routing parts and other nice puzzles, but most just bypassed them by brute force. The same budget could give me 5 pitbulls and a ton of wooden walls. But really, that's going a bit off-topic; the main advantage I see in such a testing device is a bit of an easier entry for new players (I have 3 good friends who bought the game on my recommendation, but stopped because they were frustrated before really getting to know the mechanics). Plus, as described, you cannot use it to VALIDATE your design - which means you'd still always need one full-danger test run in the end.
largestherb wrote:ahh colorfusion thank you, as i read number two i was thinking .. wait, i can't even remember why tool losing was added to the game..
tools vanishing into the air was added a few versions after unlimited backpack was added. it was definitely a good change, but indeed.. i have lost many thousands of dollars of tools because i clicked the wrong house, or simply picked a house at random that my toolset was useless for.
Whatever happened to "don't lose your tools if you only stand on doorstep and leave"? Wasn't this getting implemented?
That would indeed be a good addition. That, and some sort of indicator color for "houses visited in the last 10 minutes" or something of the kind.
Not a screengrab, but an excellent let's-play with about the most elaborate wife-tomb I've ever witnessed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AIlwPPX … page&t=278
If you watch on for a while, you see how the hole thing turns from a humble shrine to a massive security decoy system.
Yeah, I had over 30 break-ins this night. one of them killed my wife, one killed my 2 children, and one took the money and devastated the house. And I managed to kill myself during the self-test because I did replace a broken wired wall with a normal wall >.<
Fresh Start!
The main problem at the moment is that staying "below the radar" is nigh impossible, considering that the house list averages at 1.5 pages at the moment. Heck, I've even been scouting (and, at times, robbing) 40$ houses just because there wasn't a viable alternative.
I do think though that 1-2 additional elements to protect the family would be nice. While pitbulls can be used in an efficient way to keep intruders away from your beloved, having some other means to defend them would add more tactical options, and lead to more elaborate designs than "long tunnel stuffed with dogs" or "cleverly placed, un-crowbarable dogs". Just some new security elements that can actually protect the passage without blocking the family's path.
The concrete blocks can work if placed just at the right spot, but mostly to inexperienced players.
I thought some about it, and I start to like the idea of leaving a little note in there more and more. It doesn't yield any gameplay advantage, but it's... it's just that tiny little personal bridge, a small room for a very indirect but amusing interaction between victim and intruder. You might just leave a funny comment, a prediction, or even a bit of actual help in solving the puzzle!
I've seen suggestions about having multiple vaults to split your money between. However, I think that role has already been taken by the wife, and would introduce quite a few design problems (the self test, for example). I've also seen a few mediocre attempts at trying to fool people into mistaking a block of concrete walling for a vault - which doesn't really work though.
However, decoys are a very interesting mechanic, and I think they could add a lot to the game. How about an object that looks like your vault - not exactly, though - the sprite could feature subtle differences which are hard to spot, or it could just use the sprite of the plundered vault.
This can be used in a lot of different scenarios - leave it just barely visible to lure burglars into traps, or to let them waste tools on dummy walls or mechanisms.
I think it could just be left without any interaction - a simple piece of wall, basically. To prevent people from using it as an unbreakable wall replacement, it could be breakable using a cutting torch, because it is made of steel. One possible interaction would be the option for the house owner to leave any short note inside, which, upon opening, would get displayed to the burglar. A fun interaction between owner and robber.
Any thoughts?
I could even see this evolving into a new genre altogether - just like it happened with minecraft. building defenses and breaking other people's traps is a very rewarding and fun core mechanic, and it can be taken in a lot of different directions. Between the two variations here, I must say I do much prefer the roguelike puzzly way, but I'm curious what other designs will come up. I've even had similar concepts cross my mind in the past and might end up prototyping something myself, it's extremely interesting game design terrain to explore.
What I do strongly dislike about Quest for Loot, though, is the seemingly strong monetization aspect of it.
Hello everyone!
Loving the game so far. Kept quite a close eye on it through all sorts of youtube videos as well as the forums, and finally decided to buy it a short while ago.
One thing I really like about the game design (amongst many aspects) are the trade-offs for everything. It all boils down to spending money to either get money or protect money.
Another system I've thought up which would, in my opinion, tie in nicely to the mechanic, is an RC robot.
Basically, this is just a little remote-controlled testing device. You can buy it and then use it once. It will automatically start a test-run of your house, with your own character sprite replaced by a little rc car or robot. You can not validate your house using this - it is merely for testing out certain setups which can't be well replaced by lights and chihuahuas. For example, traps in which certain animals need to actually die.
It can also be used if, after swapping all those flashy lights with deadly grids and holes, you're suddenly not quite sure anymore if you've got the correct path in mind. A little safe test-run for the real deal can be quite helpful.
In short: a one-use item that can be used to safely test, but not validate your house design. It's a very cheaply produced model, and will stop working even if it isn't destroyed while testing.
I'd price it at around 100-200, not quite sure about that.
I even thought about a more expensive model that could be used to validate the design, though I do think this would somewhat violate the game's design core.
Any thoughts, comments and feedback appreciated, thanks for reading!
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