'free' houses?

ZenRose · 2013-12-02 14:48:30

I've noticed that fairly often there will be a house with no defenses and much cash (sometimes full $2000) available. Who does this and why?
It is my understanding that you must self test before your empty house goes up to the list of available houses. My only theory is that there are some people who have no interest in building defenses, and only enjoy the robbery aspect of the game but this doesn't make any sense either because I'd expect them to buy some tools at least. Thoughts?
Has anyone else noticed this?

ukuko · 2013-12-02 15:30:45

You can scout without tools, go home and suicide without getting chills. That way you can work out which house is which and what tools you need to bring before committing to anything.

jasonrohrer · 2013-12-04 11:07:39

Yes, if you go into a house and touch nothing, you won't leave a ghost there when you die.

jasonrohrer · 2013-12-04 11:17:39

Though I have tried to iron other suicide-motivating mechanical dissonances out of the game.... this is one lingering one. You really don't care about your life/family if you're doing this, which is weird.

The game used to give chills for ANY house that you set foot inside. However, this was really brutal on new players, who would quickly find themselves locked out of most houses after some innocent poking around.

I haven't found a way to make "each life non-disposable" yet that doesn't drastically screw up the game (like, people could get a forced "time out" after each death, but that really sucks).

Ideally, I'd really like you to feel, "This is my life, and it's valuable, better be careful with it," all the time! (I could charge $1 per life...)

Maybe chills could only settle on houses that you took more than one step into? Or houses that you interacted with in some way, even without tools? So at least you could poke your head in the door to find the house you're looking for without getting chills.

Or... maybe with more houses around now, chills for every house entry aren't such a bad thing?

ukuko · 2013-12-05 02:43:31

Even if you added chills to all houses, people would still recklessly work their way through the neighbourhood until they had chills on all houses.

I think it's important to be able to peek into a house before you commit to robbing it. That's what a robber would do, right — case the joint?

Otherwise you're going in blind, likely fail and then have to wait an hour before attempting again, by which point the original house may have disappeared or changed anyway. That seems rather unfair.

vahn · 2013-12-13 22:24:24

Im really curious how this will play out with a bigger player base.

I noticed my own behaviour with suicide runs just out of couriosity to check out all the other houses. Usually after i lost one of my own desings. Scouting without tools and going home to suicide so as not to get chills is not such a big deal imho, as you get trapped in the other mazes most of the time. Ill try to sum up my own motivations for starting over and over ( and in that case not caring for the life or the family ) and going trough all the houses in the list:

a) check out other house designs and trap ideas for inspiration

b) get lucky and make it to the safe in one try

c) find a starters house to quickly get the additional 2000$

I assume that most people do this, just the get some more cash to start with and build a more elaborate maze. At least i do And as soon as you do that, you start caring and behave according to the intended "This is my life, and it's valuable, better be careful with it. "

I really like that the time you spend being careful in other houses scales according to the time you invest in your own house.

2 workarounds to the suicide runs could be to either force the players to build their own house, before they can go into other homes ( maybe spend half the cash or all )

or let them randomly pick 5 houses to scout ( so as to get inspiration for new players, or money/ tools ) before they can actually build in their own home. That could be the tutorial, that is no tutorial

jasonrohrer · 2013-12-14 14:56:12

Yeah... you bring up a good point.

"Some people have nothing to lose" while "Others have a lot to lose" is a really important emergent dynamic in this game that nicely parallels the real-life dynamics of perpetrator/victim/fear.

The suicide runners are really just young kids with a death wish. I was one of those young kids once. I no longer am.

So, the strange part isn't the death wish... but the family hanging around in the background.

It almost feels like you shouldn't get a family until you've been alive for a while.... that would make a lot of sense. Though as I think about how this could work (like, a wife shows up first, and then each kid, one by one), I really don't want to get into a family-growth sim... at all.

SO... probably best to just leave that dissonance in there. You start the game as a family man each time. That's what the game is about. Sometimes, you don't feel like behaving like a good family man. But that's all you. Each family is unique and somewhat worth protecting.

Also, as a suicide runner who gets lucky with a score, coming home to a dead, defenseless wife is justice served.

bruce741 · 2013-12-19 23:01:13

I assume that most people do this, just the get some more cash to start with and build a more elaborate maze. At least i do smile And as soon as you do that, you start caring and behave according to the intended "This is my life, and it's valuable, better be careful with it. "

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-12-02 14:48:30

'free' houses?

#2 2013-12-02 15:30:45

Re: 'free' houses?

#3 2013-12-04 11:07:39

Re: 'free' houses?

#4 2013-12-04 11:17:39

Re: 'free' houses?

#5 2013-12-05 02:43:31

Re: 'free' houses?

#6 2013-12-13 22:24:24

Re: 'free' houses?

#7 2013-12-14 14:56:12

Re: 'free' houses?

#8 2013-12-19 23:01:13

Re: 'free' houses?

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