I agree. They should have at least made a post here, at the minimum. Thank you to those who have found the answers via translation.
gamsii
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A member registered Jul 15, 2017 · View creator page →
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I hope you guys are able to do August 3rd as the release as planned, that's my birthday. :)
(I can see it now. My friends asking me "What are you doing for your birthday?" and me being all, "Playing the newest alpha release of a game so I can update the Wiki.")
I really like the new church outfits, and the theme you guys are going for there. It makes a lot of sense, given the narrative of the game and what they seem all about. And I'll admit I like Phyllis' new outfit. A lot. Yes. Very nice. Much approve. (Okay, but please have some rare dialogue for Antoine where he comments on her outfit and how she's just trying to steal The Good Dr Xu's attention away. "I'm not the jealous type, you know, but..." His crush on Xu is just too precious and perfect.)
If you guys do decide to do a Kickstarter, I'll definitely smack it right front and center on the wiki front page and try my best to encourage people to throw their rupees gols dollah bills at you. There are a few Youtubers that have been playing and loving the game as well, and I bet a bunch of them would be willing to toss up links. I also have a ton of suggestions that I've been keeping in my head and not putting up because I figured they might not really fit into whatever the current budget is compared to what you have already stated as where you want the focus of the game to be, but if you decide to do a Kickstarter I'd definitely make one giant post of all the things rattling around my thinkpan.
Perhaps make a base goal, and then some bigger stretch goals as a way to keep it closer to what you guys think might be realistic? I think having a playable demo (the free alpha) of the game will make a huge difference; and outright stating that the core game is going to happen whether or not the Kickstarter is successful, and that the Kickstarter is really to gauge how much additional interest in expanding the game is out there, seeing how big and deep people really want it to be to the point that they're willing to invest in making that happen.
Anyway, I'm super excited and can't wait to play through the new content! Thank you for the update, Pathea!
Not sure what options are near you, but check out any sort of convenience stores, drug stores/pharmacies, grocery stores - anything that sells any sort of gift cards. If you can't find Steam gift cards specifically, but have a way to get any sort of prepaid gift card that can be used online, those could work too. Not all prepaid cards can be used online though, so mind that.
Do your parents trust places like Amazon? Not sure if Amazon is in Trinidad, but if so, and if they'll trust Amazon, you can get Steam gift cards from there too I believe.
Hopefully you'll have a local store that sells gift cards. Best of luck with this!
Thanks, Pathea, good to know!
And man, I would love to see the Barber shop working. It would be really cool to see a bunch of neat hair styles that are only available from them as a money sink. Unique dye options would be really awesome, too. The hair coloring is super cool in the game, but being able to pay to also change just the tips, or just the roots, or add streaks, or even rainbow effects - THAT would be awesome.
I agree that mod support would be great, but if it requires an entire separate steam workshop API to be built from scratch, that might detract a good chunk of the budget that might be better used to making the game the best, most polished it could be, with features the community are asking for that might exist outside of the original plans.
That being said, games of this sort always end up having a large and thriving modding community, and lots of people only even play the games because they can mod it, or because they want to mod. And games with a large modding community tend to maintain longer levels of interest than they might otherwise (see: every game over 5 years old with giant modding communities ever, as well as some of the newer games, like SDV and others.)
However, ultimately, tbh, I don't know anything about video game programming, only some web code, so I have no idea how difficult or involved making this sort of interface you're suggesting would be or how much budget it would require.
Perhaps that's a bug? The thorny, flowery bushes that you can chop down to get fiber seem to respawn for me, but I only figured out they give plant fiber later on (because I never bothered trying to chop them down before) so I'll have to double check that. But I'm fairly certain they respawned for me. However, some of the bushier trees that just give wood do NOT seem to respawn for me.
Also: thank you! There's still a ton of work to be put in but it's coming along nicely, very much thanks to some lovely contributors that have joined in to help! I couldn't do it without everyone's wonderful help.
While I don't think this is technically a bug, I think it would be wise for the game to not let you axe a chest full of items. The same thing happens if you axe a crafting station that is working on something - you'll lose everything in it.
Best to keep your axe out of your hands while you're around your stations!
Oh man, is there any way you miiight remember which side quest? Cause I know a couple random townie sidequests can pop up, and I think there might have been one that came from the fireside meetings that I missed entirely in my first/main playthrough? Can't use the car right now so I've no reason to build it (not even for the money, I've already got tier 3 workshop lol, nothing left to do now but work on the wiki until 1.1) but it'd be good to know!
There's a brief fishing tutorial the first few times you use your fishing rod (at least, I don't notice it any more, coming from someone who has already invested an unhealthy amount of their life in this game), but I found the first couple times I tried to read it, I got a fish hooked and was either trying to figure out how to keep them hooked, the instructions faded away too quickly, or the fish got off the line before the instructions could even fade. I've already stated my dislike for the current fishing system before, but there definitely also needs to be clearer instructions.
You want to move your mouse left or right following the arrow on the screen hovering above the fish - so when the fish is moving left, point your mouse left so that the fishing rod in the game is pointed that way. Same with right. That'll keep the tension from going too high (usually), but to actually reel the fish in, you have to left click. Reeling also increases tension, so mind the tension bar, and stop clicking if it gets too high. (At least, I think it's clicking and not holding; I stopped fishing early on because I don't like it, but also because it's just not useful; there aren't many fish, the cooked fish recipes aren't worth the effort for their low stamina regen, and the fish aren't big enough money earners to bother with. )
I'm the same, finished everything else - excepting the dee dee transport, because I can't seem to find a small engine in the mines for the life of me.
I had thought that maybe there'd be a spider creature in the cave on Amber Island that would drop the spider web, but that isn't the case. I can't find it either. Unless it's a reward for some quest or an extremely rare drop from some creature, I don't think it's in the game yet; similar to how you can make the dee dee car, but not actually use it yet.
Here's hoping for 1.1! I can't wait.
Update: I hit tier 3 today. What I decided to do was just farm for copper (and tin, which pops up when you're mining for copper) and for awhile set 2 furnaces constantly all working on bronze bars, always topping them off each time I picked up any, and turned them all into bronze pipes. Doing the math between bronze pipes and plates, it equated out to a value of 26g per either way, so it made more sense to go for pipes since they only required 2 bars per pipe to craft versus 3 for the plates. I kept 1 of my furnaces open for crafting guild commissions, usually glass or stone bricks since I wanted to save my copper for the more profitable bronze pipes. Selling these to the guild every time I popped in to grab or turn in a commission, I racked up the money pretty quickly.
If you are able to find the small engines in the mines (I can't seem to so far, and I've been looking nonstop), then you could also build the dee dee vehicles. Their value is 2800g (seen on youtube where someone completed one). It doesn't appear that they are usable in game yet, so might as well sell them. I found the most time-consuming part of trying to make mine (only missing the dang engine ugh) was getting enough of the fibre plant to make 20 fibre cloth for the top, but you can forage a few of those each day usually.
It appears that they won't restrict it. On my character, everyone that seems to make sense as a possible dating option has the hearts, including the other males. It looks like there are even some other interesting options, like romancing Django (who seems MUCH older than you) and Papa Bear? Who is a literal bear?
I'll be furious if they limit it later on tbh.
I was thinking about this while playing yesterday.
Jumping should definitely not use stamina, specifically for the reason of getting stuck. There were a few times I definitely got myself stuck in areas that I wouldn't have gotten out of if not for jumping (like the time I nearly stranded myself on the island you have to build a bridge to before I put the second bridge head down).
I do think gathering should use stamina - but maybe only at first. Perhaps as you level your gathering up the stamina used goes down? So at level 5 gathering it goes down to 1 stamina, at level 10 gathering you no longer use stamina.
Running using stamina makes sense; do you wanna get to the mines earlier in the day but have less stamina to spend, or vice versa?
It's come up in another thread here, but I think the argument boils down to: should stamina regen? I don't think it should, at least not without some fancy ring crafted at a high-level work station using rare components, but as came up in said other thread, we definitely need more stamina regen items, and early-game ones (such as apples) need to be easier to come by without expending more stamina to get them than they actually regenerate.
Oh man, this, definitely this. When writing my previous post I was thinking of how interesting it might be to see NPCs competing with the player for resources. Not everyday, that could get annoying, but maybe once or twice a week they go out to collect or chop wood, stone, plants, even fish and fight monsters. I'd argue that they shouldn't be allowed to do that on property the player owns, but everywhere else is free game. So you could chose to try to get to those nodes first on those days, or let them if you want to make it a bit trickier for yourself, let them actively compete with you.
It'd be cool to see all of this with a friendship & rivalry system. So you could be friendly rivals/competition, or unfriendly. If the devs like the idea of loyalty that I suggested (I think in my previous post here) then putting all of those together would be really interesting. Like, "I know we're rivals and maybe not the best of friends, but you came through for me when we needed your help" and so on.
That makes sense. Regardless of the actual speed of item processing, I do think it should state how soon the next one will be available, as I think it only says when the entire batch will be done right now.
The idea of a slider (literally or in difficulty level choices) is interesting. I understand some people like being able to adjust every aspect of the game manually, which is fair. Personally, I like things done a bit more organically and in-game. Just brainstorming a few ideas...
Do you think having the ability to craft fancier furnaces that process items faster (and more of them in a single batch) would help that? It might be slow-going at first, as a lot of these sorts of games always are in the beginning, but as you work more and upgrade your workshop and associated crafting stations, you become faster and more productive. Perhaps even having the ability to increase the speed of production by expending more power stones, or some other uncommon resource?
I suggested in a Steam comment that maybe the player can choose different paths to focus their time on; organically, instead of "pick your profession" is far more fun for me personally - the more time you spend doing something, the more it levels up, the more efficient you become at doing that thing - but I imagine some people like the idea of having to pick one thing to focus on to get more out of repeat playthroughs. If something like this were implemented, then it would make sense for things like production speed to go up and become faster as you level that skill up, if you're focusing on the workshop (other "paths" could be things like spelunking, fighting, fishing, farming, etc).
While I don't think it is at all necessary to lower the cost of entering the ruins, I did struggle a bit coming up with the initial gold until I realized I should just sell one of my extra stacks of 99 stone from my many days of resource node farming. Perhaps your first time in the mines, or perhaps one day per week, the maintenance fee is halved?
Alternatively, having some easier early-game commissions that don't require copper, such as stone stools/tables, that could easily be made with a single day's worth of resource gathering, that gives 10-30g rewards, at least for the first ingame month; that way, a new player could easily earn that initial 80g in a few days, possibly even get into the mine by the end of their first wee if they're lucky. It definitely shouldn't be TOO easy though; I like the fact that you have to put in effort to earn your way into the mine, and it makes you think carefully about whether you can take best advantage of going into the mine that day. On that note, we absolutely need a way to cancel accepted commissions - if that's already a feature in place, I've failed to find it thusfar.
I love the idea of local competition suggested above, too. You do have a competitor living in town with you - your top competitor, even, and Higgins has been shown to cheat the system when he can, ruthless as he is. However, it might be tricky to implement. Perhaps if there was the ability to open an actual in-town shop that you stocked with items, and Higgins (and maybe other characters) did the same, with a limited rotating inventory, and NPCs went around the shops during the day buying based off of loyalty. You can fill this shop with items made in your workshop, or any items really (but, perhaps, you could get small amounts of commerce guild prestige by selling actual proper workshop items from your town shop), and man it whenever you, possibly even hire someone from the town to work the stall for you? (Something that your spouse or child could help with doing, if that all is implemented.) You'd have to actually work to earn the townsfolks' loyalty by both making friends with them and also filling any commissions on time. If you fail to fulfill a commission from them on time, their loyalty would go down a lot, and they'd be more likely to buy from your competitors - other NPC shops. The entirety of this would require adding small micro-commissions that the townsfolk request a lot from you - such as wooden or stone furniture items, or even just collection quests, like bringing them some fabric or fruit or raw material, depending on that individual's habbits and needs and likes and what-not - but I think that that would be great, even without a shop stall to run.
So I've played this game for over 10 hours (I only downloaded it last night; send help) and have done just about everything the current build has to offer from what I can tell, though I'm sure I've missed some things. So what do I do next?
Start on an unofficial wiki, apparently.
I'm 106% unqualified for this and have never done more with other wikis than very minor edits so I could definitely use some help from other players on this little pet project. As you can see, I've hardly even begun; right now I'm focusing on making the barebones of important pages (characters mostly, plus what little story, background info, and lore scraps are available) and can work on filling out those pages when I can.
http://mytimeatportia.wikia.com/wiki/My_Time_at_Portia_Wiki
To Do List & Things Needed (that other players could help with, if they feel so inclined)
- .pngs of: the player character and all the NPCs, as well as the NPC face art (from the relationships tab); items, equipment, loot, and all such manner of items (inventory art + good shot of in game model); monsters; the map, including a close-up on the city; the various crafting stations (workshop, furnace, woodcutter, etc); the player character in mine gear (googles and jetpack) as well as them flying with the jetpack; screenshots from the abandoned mines; screenshots of the playable section of the island cavern as well as the blocked-off portion with the troll; all the beautiful concept art
- Gifting guide for NPCs - likes, dislikes, point values; **I made the spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/4Eo3MB
- Sparring guide for NPCs
- NPC routines - probably another spreadsheet (is there an easier way to do this other than following characters around all day?)
- Plot & Storyline
- Lore
- Monster info (locations, spawns, levels, attacks, damage, loot drops)
- Crafting guide
I'm also going for tier 3. I don't think it'll be too hard, just a bit grindy since I imagine most of the money will come from selling stacks of stone from the mines and crafting any copper commerce guild requests for extra money.
As for mining for relics vs fishing... I actually enjoy the mining (though I think there needs to be more color contrast in the abandoned mines, though I wish I could hone in on more than one relic at a time. Maybe instead of "renting" the jetpack and goggles any time you go in the mines, they could be equipment that you actually have to make inventory space to bring with you, and you can work on upgrading them as well. Give the jetpack a glow in dark areas, increase the distance at which you can spot relics, increase how many relics you can hone in on at once, install an aura estimator that makes different relics glow a different color, etc.
On the other hand, I find the fishing system extremely boring and unsatisfactory. SDV's took some getting used to, but I enjoyed it with the right setup, but it definitely wouldn't be right for this game. I think the base system used is good, but it definitely needs some more work. It feels a bit more like modern Legend of Zelda fishing, but what Zelda has going for it is controller vibration, which is really great at giving subtle cues. I'm mainly thinking of OoT and Twilight Princess here, but regardless. Perhaps having more sound cues to mimic that would be good.
Personally, I think the time passage is perfect. It can feel a little dragged out early on when your stamina is lower and you can't do as much in the day, and can feel a little too fast when you've got the outfit and more stamina, but I like that you have to approach each day with at least some semblance of a plan and prioritization.
Definitely keep stamina. I agree that there need to be more stamina replenishing items, or at least, for now, that those already in the game should be adjusted. More complex food, for example, should replenish more stamina. So the cookable stew and salty catfish should both have higher stamina regen, as should the granny's pumpkin pie, since you have to buy the ingredients (peppers and salt) or the pie outright. Apples would be a great early-game stamina replenishing item if it wasn't so hard to get even one or two of them down. Perhaps having 1-2 apples fall off each tree each day that you can pick up for no stamina cost, but you can still try kicking the trees to get more if you wanted.
Personally, I've found that I spend a good portion of time in between abandoned mine runs farming llamas, sea urchins, and snails for their meat and making grilled meat from them so I can have stamina replenishing items when I go spelunking. It takes a few days to build up a good collection of them, but I usually can go digging for about 12-14 ingame hours with a stack of 8-10 grilled meat and a few apples that I've gathered while making resource node rounds. As for waiting for the furnaces... I just always keep them running, even when I don't have a need. Right now I've got three of them going, and I ALWAYS keep copper burning in at least one of those. The second is usually running bronze bars or stone bricks, and the third is sometimes empty so I can toss in smaller batches of things as needed, such as for glass or extra copper. Personally, I LOVE that it takes time for each to process - it feels less like a boring instant-gratification mobile game that way, and kind of forces you to go out and do other things in the meantime.