The Castle Doctrine Forums

Ah yes - I was in there yesterday and figured out the initial cat dance and a little beyond, but no further yet. Your value is too low yet to make it worth risking Wooster or buying lots of tools, so you're only getting the daily attentions of my second account at the moment!

I collected most of the Beebe collection when then hit the low four-figures. There are a few outstanding. Come try to get 'em back?

Wooster.

Afraid it's one less player now - I'm out.  I had a very, very promising house and I just pissed it away while naked scouting a $300 broken house! I absolutely adore this game.  I'm not ragequitting - it's just that so few people are playing it now that I haven't the patience to play. I can scout a dozen houses once every 24 hours, or I can build a house and collect $3-400 in bounties per day from it.  I can't see it being possible to build a decent house from scratch now without exploiting my alt account, which I won't do on principle.

I know there are some of you guys doing things to try and promote this game and get players in... if I had the time I'd help out, but to be perfectly honest if anybody should be making efforts to promote this game and get more players on board then it's the guy who is taking £12 a pop for downloading it. Those of us who love this game aren't weirdos or anything - there are tens of thousands of people in the world who would love to play this game as much as we do, it's just that they don't know about it, and/or £12 is too much for them to gamble on an indy game that they don't know they will like until they play it.  Jason puts his own 'no-discount-sale' principles above both the success of his game and the enjoyment of those who have paid him handsomely to play it, and that's a real shame. I personally think this game could become a £2.99 super-hit on Steam, but hey-ho, there-ya-go.

So long TCD, it was fun.

Somebody moved a dog in Gillard's over the weekend and it almost got me - but I have just been in again and that dog is now dead.  As a super bonus, he was somehow up to $6k when I hit it - not seen it get above $4.9ish for a while now! Woot!

That was you that got to the 3-choice trapdoors, bricked two of the doors and fell in the hole? You couldn't have known, but you chose the right one of three - I had installed enough sets of doors that you didn't get to see it, though!  It was you that prompted me to put an extra powered trapdoor up there because I knew you'd be back with ladders... and as for changing the path, yeah I threw a pitbull loop into the mix but I knew it was only a temporary measure that might keep you at bay for another 24 hours.

Have a crack at Beall. It's a harder house than Ernst's, that still has around 40% empty floor space, yet to be filled - bring me bounties and tools!!!

Well I asked for it!

Cullman did a good scouting job - though it cost him - but then earlier today Gonzalez took my vault. It took him three trips, and he used a total of $27,000 in tools (retail price) to get there, but he nailed it for $13,000. Poor investment really, but after his first trip it became worth it to invest a little more and come back. I enjoyed watching him get there.  I've since reinforced a couple of the weak points that he exploited along the way, and changed a combo or two...

The real pisser was that I was at work when I saw the robbery, but had no time to repair - I had to log out without redoing self-test, which somehow re-split my remaining money between wife and vault, allowing some pissant naked scout to come in, walk through Gonzalez's path of destruction, and take over $4k from me! Grrr...

Nakula - the damage is fixed, but if you wanna take a look I am Ernst. It's not worth any investment at the moment though, I am down to less than $5,000 and that is between my wife and vault.

Yeah, 24 visits - but it was either Friday night or Saturday morning when I last did a reset!

I poked my nose in your house because you're top - I'd like to stay and poke around, but it will just cost far too much. I could spend 75% of my value on tools for a house like yours, and that would just be to make sure I could get out alive, with no prospect of getting to the vault.

I'm happy to try and help spread the word etc, but I have very little knowledge of how to try and do so.

Blackout, it does seem REALLY difficult when you're new. As a few people have said, you learn by robbing - or, more accurately, you learn by DYING while trying to rob.  You will take a few steps in someone's house, think you're safe, and then - BAM - there's a powered door opened up behind you and you can't get out alive.  Or you'll take a step around a corner, which causes a dog to see you and somehow beat you to the exit.  The key is to look carefully at these traps that people have built, and figure out how to implement them yourself.

My house is currently at around $17,000. The total house has cost me probably about $30,000 or more to build. In total, I've had around 50 visitors, of which about 35 have died. But here's the thing - of those 35 dead people, 34 OF THEM have died in the first section of the house, the part that I built with my initial $2,000.

Beyond that, there are combo locks, corridors of death, magic dances, leaps of faith, multiple-choice deathtraps - but I could have just stuck my vault right outside the last door I built on my first $2,000 (where it was until I built up enough funds to build more) and out of 50 visitors, only one would have got to it and 34 would still be dead.

If I was starting over again now (which I did about three days ago) I'd build a wooden house which can catch out the odd scout, and carry out two types of robbery: 

(1) Empty houses.  If someone starts a new life and goes scouting, or they die, click 'start again' and then quit the game, their house will show up in the list as $2000 0/0. You can walk in, take the vault, then come back with a bat to take the other $1,000 from the wife.

(2) Broken houses. These are houses that have been abandoned, but still have dangers. Scouts die in them, and the vaults accumulate the bounties from those scouts. There is usually a way to get to the vault and 'harvest' this money with few or no tools. Use your new lives to scout these until you know the safe routes for one or two of them, then you can always check to see if there's anything to be taken when you have to start afresh.  As a hint, I'd suggest Gillard's house. The way to the vault is risk free (or at least it was earlier today) so you can walk right to it.

Experiment with line of sight traps, and put things in positions that will catch out robbers when they take the step that shifts the screen up or down. Be patient.

I took some from Gillard to give me a startup boost on my current life - however I think his wife was holding a lot, I only got to the vault.  (Follow the holes in the walls!)

I won't scout broken houses without a good doggie toolset now though, have got too much to lose again.

1) If I go and take a load of drugs and then come back here, will this thread make more sense?!

2) On a serious note: Jason's a smart guy (I expect). He must know that the two options are (a) change his mind and go against what he said publicly, or (b) let this game die. I personally hope he changes his mind. A lot of people perceive going back on themselves to be a weakness, and refuse to admit that they could have been wrong, sticking to their principles at all costs.

Accepting that things have turned out differently than planned, and changing your mind on something, is not a weakness, it is strength. Perhaps Jason doesn't see this.

Or perhaps he is happy to see TCD die, having run its natural course as a bit of an experiment.  That would be a real shame, but it's his perogative.

One thing I do think is that if he is going to let the game die, he should make this clear on the sales page.  It is £12.99 on Steam, advertised as a 'massively-multiplayer' game. That is becoming a lie, and people might hear of it, come and buy it, only to find that it is virtually unplayable now - letting them pay £12.99 for that is wrong.

It's been quieter than usual this morning, I think. Or maybe the player numbers just continue to decline...

I'm around, quietly building!