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Slow Burn subtracts from fresh premises first (or at least, it should!), so you can still accumulate accepted premises even while it's active, provided you're summoning more than one premise to the field at a time. 

... Of course, it's undeniable that it's a little overpowered at the moment. Still trying to figure out the right balance, there.

I may be inclined to admit that I have actually paper-prototyped a "pure gameplay" mode not entirely dissimilar to what you're envisioning here. The day may come when I undertake the effort to implement that mode... But for now, I'm focusing primarily on finishing the main story! 

It's all sort of intertwined with itself, though-- I'm still getting tons of actionable feedback about ways the core debate mode can be refined and expanded, so if this theoretical mode eventually does come to exist, I expect it'll be built on a more solid foundation than what exists currently.

Slowdown on Steam Deck is interesting-- I would expect it to have no problems. If it was just in the last debate, that could suggest I may need to simplify the geometry of the background, or perhaps the lighting configuration of just that scene. I'll look into it-- thanks for the tip!

Potentially. The exp awarded by a debate is distributed evenly across all participating arguments. If failing to present evidence causes you to use more cards in the debate, more cards will get exp. However, the total amount of exp awarded remains the same. It depends entirely on if you want to distribute that exp to more arguments or not.

Should be pretty easy, in fact. All of the in-game text is stored externally in JSON and tsv files and read-in at runtime. You should be able to find them in the zip file in the "Languages" subdirectory, if you want to have a look at what's in there. 

As for the actual process of making a new language package (and subsequently testing to make sure it works), that's probably a bit too complicated to explain in an Itch comment, so shoot me an email at developer@realitylayerzero.com if you're still interested and I'll walk you through how to do it.

Once you're in the predebate menu, your arguments are "locked-in". You gotta change 'em prior to invocation.

The days remaining are partially replenished at the beginning of each part, although not necessarily by a fixed amount. You have my guarantee that you'll be given enough time to complete said part, even if you run the clock down to almost zero in the prior one.

There are ways to get more money. One, you'll encounter without doing anything particularly fancy, so just keep playing and you'll find out.

The first thing you mentioned sounds like it might be a bug. I'll need to investigate that. Sorry about the annoyance, there!

Continuing into the third part, whenever it releases, will work much the same as continuing into the second part from the first did. Each new version will read from the same save data location as the current version (%localappdata%), so all of your old saves will still be visible-- assuming they weren't deleted, and that you're using the same device, that is. Just hang onto your cleared saves and let the magic of mildly clever programming take care of the rest!

Thank you very much for pointing the issue with the students out! I've just applied a fix for that and a few other issues. You can find that update in version 0.3.2.1!

A native Linux port is certainly somewhere on my to-do list. It should also work seamlessly with Proton (for Steam users). 

You don't? As far as I know, even in the most extreme case, you should be able to switch to a Logos/Ethos deck, or an Ethos/Pathos deck. Swap one of your non-Ethos arguments with Law and Order. 

Tricolor decks are still workable, but they're tricky to wrap your head around.

You can save in the middle of cutscenes, so I'd recommend doing the following:

1). Sometime before the debate begins, create the deck you intend on using.

2). Use the "save" feature to write to a new save slot while in the scene immediately before the debate (closer to the end, if possible). Remember the number of the slot, in case you need to reload.

3). Use the shift key to fast-forward through dialog you've already read.

4). If things are going poorly during the debate, press escape to bring up the forfeiture prompt. Re-adjust as necessary.

I'd also highly recommend bringing cards that specialize in criticizing Pathos, if you have any. 

I hope that helps. You can do this! I believe!

That delay sounds like it could be a bug, or perhaps hardware-related. Would you say your PC is underpowered? Does the game appear to be lagging otherwise? (I may have gone too crazy with the lighting in some of the debate stages...)

An hour?! Whew, that's... That's quite a bit. I guess I need to consider further balance changes...

Something that might help with dialog length is using the "fastforward" button-- which is mapped to "shift" by default (the same key as the run button). You can use this to skip through text, which is useful if you're not interested in re-reading.

I appreciate you asking!

Sure, I can explain. 

Rhetoric doesn't level up, but you can find level II and III critique cards just by playing normally. Depending on your choices, you may already have some! Otherwise, consider pursuing some optional objectives, since that's a consistent way of finding new cards. That being said, level I critique cards are less expensive than the higher-level variants, so they tend to maintain a certain usefulness even with the higher-level variants available to you.

The Enthymeme is a means of passively accruing premises. Its "pitch" (or color) determines what kind of premises you gain at the start of your turn, and its tier (or level) determines how many you get (up to +3). The pitch also somewhat increases the weights of arguments that use premises of the same color/mode. The Enthymeme is symmetrical, so its effects apply to both sides equally.

Debate Pace simply refers to how many actions-per-turn each side can take. At a pace of one (the default), you can only perform one "action" (e.g. playing a card, resonating an argument) before your turn ends. At two, you can perform two actions, and so on and so forth until the cap of 3 actions-per-turn. Debate Pace will reset to default after a certain number of turns since it was increased pass.

Proposal slots determine how many proposal cards (e.g. shields, reflectors, status effects) you can have active at the same time. Run out of proposal slots, and when you try to play a new proposal, you'll have to replace one of your old proposals, thereby losing its effect. You can increase your number of proposal slots by simply progressing the story, or by using certain pieces of equipment. 

There are some horror-adjacent themes, like the occult elements intrinsic to the invocation ritual, as well as some influence on my own writing from writers known for horror-- specifically Lovecraft and Ryukishi07. Beyond that, it's mainly an aesthetic label. 

I think it's really easy to get carried away in horror and create something that ends up being just kind of gross. That's something I'm consciously trying to avoid here. 

Subjectively, I would not say Reality Layer Zero is particularly scary, although there are certainly tense moments. It's my hope, as well as my intention, that the evocations of horror are more in the vein of "gothic horror"-- magnificent and gloomy, perhaps, but not scary in a way that might meaningfully put-off a contemporary audience sensitive to such things. Your mileage may vary, of course.

There is a way, Quayle is an optional debate.

Not yet! I can only confirm that development will continue, and that the next part of the story will release as a free update on June 1st (in about 2 days).

While there isn't currently a built-in UI for deleting save files, you can delete the save files manually in the Reality Layer Zero subdirectory of your %localappdata% folder to help reduce some of the clutter. Kind of a lame solution, but there ya go. Meanwhile, consider in-game file management taken as a feature request!

The choices you make at the beginning determine three of the four arguments that appear in your starting deck (the fourth is chosen when you first visit the Garden), as well as your starting rhetoric and equipment. There may also be some minor changes to dialog depending on your chosen background, but nothing very elaborate (yet). Thanks for playing! 

Good feedback! Top of my list of gameplay improvements for the next major update is to "mellow out" the opponent AI a little bit, to reduce that unfairness and increase how in-control the player feels, so consider that totally noted. 

As for Pace Up (the resonance effect on the big card "Clockwork"), I also agree it's a skosh problematic at the moment. It's possible that mechanics which show up in future chapters may help dial-back how off-the-rails it feels, but if not, it may need a rework. I'm thinking of either "localizing" the Pace Up effect for each debate participant such that it functions more like a Haste status in a more traditional JRPG, or perhaps decoupling the debate pace and acceptance rate mechanics somehow, so that only the "activating" player gets the "increased acceptance rate" benefit (at least at first). I'm open to suggestions on this one.

Hey, fair enough, I'll see if I can reproduce it. Thanks for the tip!

EDIT: I have managed to reproduce the error. I'll add a fix for this issue as well as some of the others you mentioned here in the next update. For now though, for yourself and those who might be reading, if you've got a card "grabbed" while in the deck editor, DON'T back out of the editor! Drop the card first!

EDIT 2: Should be fixed as of version 2. I also went ahead and addressed the other two things you mentioned (accidental text skipping and finding the isolated guard). See Patch Notes #1.

Do you have any more details? (For instance, where the crash occurred?) 

Depending on several factors, you may be able to bypass this error if you reload. 

Thanks very much for the feedback. You can find the guard down the alleyway as pictured here. Might have made him a little *too* out of sight, heh heh... 

Gonna totally figure out a better way to prevent accidental text skipping, but for the time being, if you miss the last little bit of text, you can press tab (or L3) to view the text backlog. Should alleviate some of the annoyance!

https://act-novel.itch.io/reality-layer-zero

Mystery! Occultism! Card games! I made this in Game Maker Studio 2!!

The above trailer features heavily the "adventure system". You can check out the "debate system" by viewing the below trailer.

The game was inspired by Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric. Eagle-eyed gamers in the audience might also spot a passing resemblance to Ace Attorney. Purely coincidental, you understand. I am very original. I've actually never played a videogame before.

You can download it right now! It's free!! The game currently contains the first of six planned chapters. Golly gosh, I hope it doesn't crash the instant it hits your computer machine! (if it does, please send me an email at support@realitylayerzero.com so that I can address the issue)

You can follow the Twitter account for vague, wordless updates that might be tangentially related to ongoing development efforts: https://twitter.com/RealityLayer0

Or if infrequent updates delivered straight to your inbox are more your cup of tea, consider signing up for the mailing list on the official website: https://realitylayerzero.com/

Thank you very much for your attention. Here are some pretty screenshots.

Thank you for your kind words; I'm glad you enjoyed it. 

I considered the payment-optional model early on, but something about it just didn't sit right with me. 

Instead, please consider supporting my future endeavors. I would greatly appreciate that.

Hey, thanks! Glad to hear you liked it. Good luck with finding secrets.

A submission: https://crunchysoft.itch.io/applewood

It's a free game, so this will be the only thing I'm submitting, as requested.

I really need to get around to playing the Prince of Persia games. Thank you very much for your kind words. 

It's probably not bugged. Something that's potentially not obvious for the upper-left ghost is that the phrase only uses 7 notes, not the full 8. The other thing that might not be obvious is that you can place the pebbles on the bars, not just on top of them (or, in other words, you have access to EGBDF in addition to FACEG). 

Timestamped video solution.

If you can give me a place to send it, I can give you a key directly.

https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase

Follow the instructions in the thread linked above, and that should do it for you!

You should be able to grab one now. Let me know if you have any trouble!

Added. You should be able to grab one, now!

Sure! I can send you one on request, or if there's a way to distribute them automatically (I'm not super familiar with Itch), I can do that too.

Details of the ending change depending on completion percentage.

You can access the pause menu with the start button on a controller or with the enter key on a keyboard (by default)

Oh, I didn't actually know you could do that! Thanks for the tip and the feature.

Check out the itch page here.

In Applewood, you play as a weak and powerless little imp named Ringo, exploring a dangerous world. Because you're not very strong, you have to rely on your wits to keep yourself safe. For instance, if you see a big apple growing on a tree, you can pick it up and use it to shield yourself from projectiles, or turn it into a projectile of your own by throwing it. 

The game also has a colorful cast of characters, all of whom react to the world as it changes during your adventure. While the opening moments are light and silly, eventually things take a turn for the slightly more serious...

Even though it may not look like it on first brush, Applewood has a pretty significant story emphasis, and goes to some pretty interesting places in its later hours. Stick with it until the end, and you won't be disappointed! (If you don't believe me and DON'T CARE ABOUT SPOILERS, check out close to the end of this stream archive)

I worked on this game alone for five years and poured a ton of love and creativity into its creation. Now that it's out, it's by-and-large being ignored, which I think is because people take one look at it and think that it's just another pixel platformer that's not worth any additional attention. Maybe they're right, but this review seems to suggest otherwise. 

If my word is worth anything, I'll add that this game was designed with far more of an adventure-game ethos than a platformer ethos. I also consider it to be a very personal work of art that I made to work through internal anxieties as a young person, which I hope counts for something.

If you're into Paper Mario or any of the Zelda games, this one will probably be right up your alley.

If you want to play it but can't pay for it, hit me up! We can work something out! I'd rather the game be played than not be played.

Thanks for reading.

This is a post about Applewood, a game I've been working on for a little over four years now.

You play as Ringo the Imp, a resident of Applewood Forest on the continent Applaysia. Ringo's not very strong, and not particularly courageous, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a critter half as clever or as kind. 

The demo contains three different scenarios pulled from three different portions of the full game. It consists of some light platforming, puzzle-solving, and exploration, and has some fun character dialog interspersed in there, too. 

You can find the demo here: https://crunchysoft.itch.io/applewood-demo

Please let me know if you have any feedback! I'm on the cusp of pushing the game into beta, so this is close to the last time I can incorporate "serious" changes to the game before it's finished. 

My goal with the game was to see if I could create a compelling (and dangerous!) adventure without over-relying on combat as a means of crafting engaging gameplay. I don't really know if I've succeeded on that front! But I've still really enjoyed making what I have so far, and I'm excited to see it finished (hopefully before the end of this year, although I've been wrong before). 

I was primarily inspired by Gargoyle's Quest and Yoshi's Island when designing the main mechanics, so if you're a fan of either of those games, I hope maybe you'll be interested in this one!