Tin Star testing

Hosted Games Works In Progress
2225

I have a quick question about the romances. Sorry if it’s already been answered.

There’s a part in the game (I don’t remember where exactly) where you can offer to let your romantic interest stay with you for the winter, but nothing happened with that. At first I thought it was just because I hadn’t built a house yet, but in my next playthrough I did and again nothing happened.

So I’m wondering if there’s actually a scene where your romance comes over and stays with you or do you just get the epilogue with them? I was looking forward to having a little scene with Yiska (whom I adore, btw. Excellent job on him). If there is such a scene, is there something you need to do beforehand to assure that you get it?

2226

No, and there’s no penalty for not building yourself a house.

Also, Allen? I’m still getting that bug where, if Caraway comes after me after the railway war, I have to go pistol-to-pistol with her instead of using other tactics.

2227

@snappingcookies -Glad you are enjoying the game. There are a few more things I’d like to add to the game (See below), but I keep running out of time/focus.

@yermog - That’s a good point about the winter romance. I had originally wanted to do a bridging scene but ran out of material/energy. Well, it wouldn’t just be one scene but five, of course, and all of them different. Yiska would be far different from Miss Caraway or even Dan Schmidt.

I do take suggests though. So, if you have an idea or two, I would love to hear it…

@Ramidel - Okay, I’ll take a look at that. I do need to do an update for Tin Star, Do you recall when you fought Miss Caraway? After dispersing the Upton army at the Gorge, at the rail-head, or having seized the army as your own?

2228

Defeated the Upton forces at the railhead.

And regarding suggestions, just because the house question gave me an idea, I wonder if there would be the possibility of money loss during the interludes (particularly the winter) if you do not either have a house or an arrangement with Preston (because you’re living at the Grand Haven).

2229

@Ramidel - That is an interesting point. A realistic economic model would introduce a baseline of funds for being a Marshal and then have the player’s choices subtract their effective living expenses on food and shelter. Hmm, that feels cumbersome to model.

However, I think that the same effect can be abstracted if I assume that no monetary increase over the winter is standard, and then reward the player for paying attention to their house. That is, give a bonus to their money because they aren’t living at the Grand Haven and having to pay out of pocket.

One variable in this would be the condition of the house. You can live out of a tent on the ground you have broken (Or at least have a choice for doing so) and then have to spend more time on chopping wood for heating. That would be true to a lesser extend if you haven’t completed the house past a certain level. Either way that would use up a time unit later on. Also, if you have made an impressive deal with Preston then your expenses are just that much less because he lets you have a room in the Grand Haven for a pittance.

All in all, it would be revealed as a net addition to your funds rather than a subtraction. Does that sound appealing?

Possible additional scenes include the choice of habitation and talking with Preston about a room in the Grand Haven for winter.

2230

That seems like a good idea but I was wondering how do you achieve a “impressive deal” with Preston? I’ve tried negotiating but can’t make heads or tales of how good the deal is.

2231

First, let me say that this is probably my favorite game using the CoG (though there are a lot of other great ones out there), and the fact you are still making content is impressive (Heh, and we talked for a bit about bugs, I discovered.) Thank you AllenGies!

I admit, I wish there was a romance for Eve, but I know that would require more time than you have.

For anyone out there, did anyone get the Frontier Freedom Achievement? It says: Frontier Freedom: You still believe in the iron grip of order. (25 points)

I assume to get it one must maximize Law (which I did, but failed to get). If so, this may be a bug.

Second, I recall being able to encounter Billy Tate, and the Assayer, and proving the Assayer was stealing a small amount of gold dust by hiding it in his hair. However, I can’t seem to find the path to get that. Was this removed?

Finally, there is a small spelling bug:

“Yeah, my brother,” Tumbleweed Jack says as he slowly turns to face you. says as he flicks a wary glance at your darkened office. “You might never have known him, but that don’t really matter much to me.”

after ‘face you.’ there is a sentence fragment with ‘says as he flicks’.

2232

I think that some reward of some kind for paying attention to the condition of the house, or the Grand Haven, would be a good idea. But assuming that your salary just covers the cost of flopping on someone’s floor, and thus having a house or a free hotel room is gravy, is also a way to do it.

Mostly, I think that dealing with the house before winter should matter to some degree, since we have the chance to spend time and money on it beforehand, and it doesn’t feel like having a place to crash should be purely a do-it-for-the-player-prestige thing.

For Frontier Freedom, you need to have an Order of 0, which is hard to do because it requires you to essentially not do your job as a Marshal.

2233

@Verand -Hmm. Sounds like I need to revisit that part of the negotiation. A cue or two might go a long way to settling things. After all, I had the advantage of looking at the raw code when I wrote it.

@Lys -I am glad you like the game. I wouldn’t say that I am expanding the content quite so much anymore. I have one project that is ever so close to done… just need the art from my artist… and working on another. There is precious little time for Tin Star. However… I think with the addition of your bug concerning Tumbleweed Jack, I can convince myself to release another patch in January.

The bit with Billy Tate and the Bar Keep (The one with the assayer is a different scene, and a third involves him and Miss MacMurphy) requires that you visit Miss Caraway first, IIRC. The scenes with Billy are exclusionary as you can only run across him once in town and choose whether to confront him when he is acting badly. In fact, I believe you don’t have to meet him at all.

Ramidel has the right of things with Frontier Freedom. It is yours if you can get your order to zero by the end. That is not easy to do unless you are attempting a bad boy/girl run.

@Ramidel -Yeah, the house should bestow more than prestige. Ideally, every choice should matter, especially those that the player repeatedly chooses. I was going to make the house a possible stronghold in case of attack, but that never panned out.

2234

Then there may be a problem. If I visit Miss Caraway first, Billie wins that round of cards. However, you then can meet him when you go talk to Schmidt at the Assayer. Billie gets mad at the Assayer, but if you intervene, you only get an option to stop, wait for Billie to do something worse, or let Preston’s deputies handle it. As for him and Miss MacMurphy, that one still occurs even if you visit Miss Caraway first, and then go see Preston.

Maybe I mixed up the scene where you can prove the ‘official’ is cheating at gold, showing Billie is in the right. It is this one I was trying to replicate once more.

2235

It’s hard to get FF even if you are doing an evil run, actually. High Order is also incompatible with “empty the town into your loot sack,” because you have to avoid shooting or fining people. Murder and theft under color of office are still Orderly, after all.

2236

@Lys - I’ll take a look at the code and try to figure out what I did there. After all, there is what I wanted to write, what I think I wrote, and then what I actually did write.

@ramidel -Yep. Order and Law are two different things. But it should still be possible to get FF by letting certain events unfold without bothering to get involved. At least, I would like that to be true (see above).

2237

@Lys -I’ve reviewed the code and Billy Tate versus the Motherlode should still be a viable scene regardless of the romance status of Miss Caraway and no matter the outcome of the card game, Mind you, Billy Tate’s scene is accessible only if he hasn’t been interacted with before, though you indicated that had been true. Very strange.

Do you recall any other extenuating circumstances involved in your game?

2238

One thing you may want to look at is if you talk with Timothy Saddler for the very first time and choose the Just Chat option (where he asks where you come from), the encounter then ends/you leave the shop without the player being able to pick the other options (such as asking him to make you a saddle, rifle case, etc.) At least for the browser version I played has it.

Additionally, if you pick the option (visiting Hardigan, and you’re a Native American:
“You use Indians? Doesn’t that give my people a bad name?”

That option doesn’t disappear after you pick it.

Even with multiple playthroughs now, I haven’t been able to get that encounter lately, and that is why I wondered if there was some kind of hidden stat/attribute check I’m missing. I know some choices appear if you have a large enough stat.

Would an excessive number of Traits do it? My current playthrough has: Traits: Lawyer. Religious. Has been struck by lightning. Doctor. Native

Anyways, if I go to the Assayers first in Ch. 5 I get the following options:
“Hey Schmidt.”
“I need to talk to you about something. Something personal.” [Start Romance]
“Good to see you too. You got a bit?”
“Any chance I can chat with you for a few?”

This is to be expected, of course. Then if you wait, you get this interaction:
“Its not much to look at really,” Dan shrugs.

“Now, I have to think—” Dan begins but a sudden ruckus from the front of the line cuts the congeniality to ribbons.

“You’re a thief and a liar!” young Billy Tate declares in frothing terms then jabs a black calf skin covered finger at the bald topped assayer. “Its worth twice that!”

“Perhaps to a blind man in San Francisco,” the assayer replies coolly.

Between them a pile of gold bits lies on one scale while another holds little led weights. The balance between them is perfect but the fan of local script in the assayers hand seems a little small.

With the following choices:
*Step forward, see what is the matter.
*Stay quiet. This is town business, and the purview of the Sheriff.
*Step outside and signal to one of Preston’s deputies.

Now, if you pick the first one, then you get:
“Its thievery Marshal!” Billy says as you step forward. “Plain and simple.”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I have weighed it and taken into account the impurity of the sample,” the assayer counters then looks to you.
With the following options:
*“Sorry Billy, but the assayer has spoken. If you think you are being cheated, go elsewhere.”
*“Billy, you are under arrest.”
*Whack Billy on the back of the head, drag him outside.

I thought there was an option there to point out if the Assayer is a thief. If I’m missing a stat of some kind, I don’t know what it is.

If you decided to stay quiet, and see what Billy does, then you get these options:
Pull my pistol and gun down Billy.
“Say, Dan. Think Billy knows how deep the hole he’s standing in?”
“Billy, I’m standing right here with my pistol cocked.”
Rush Billy.
Wait
Once again, no choice leads to proving the Assayer’s guilt (unless I’m doing something wrong).

2239

@Lys Sorry it took so long to reply. The new year has brought all sorts of trouble with it.

I’ll look into the *disable_reuse problem for Hartigan and Sadler’s bit of discussion. Both should be easy enough to fix.

As for the scene with Billy, there are two occasions when Billy thinks he is being cheated. He’s right once, and wrong once. The Assayer’s scales are correct, the Barkeep Floyd is the one doing the thieving. If I am reading the code correctly, you need to talk to Miss Caraway first before seeing Dan to get the trigger for the scene in the Motherlode as opposed to the assayers office.

Billy has three separate scenes he can show up in, but he only shows up once. If you go to the assayer, he doesn’t show in the Motherlode or the Hotel. If he shows in the Grand Haven Hotel, then he doesn’t appear in the Assayer or the Motherlode, etc.

2240

No need to apologize. And I realize that for the most part you are done with the game, so it isn’t a top priority.

First, if anyone knows about the rattlesnake: I know sometimes I got it as a pet, other times all I get is a rattlesnake skin wrapped around a rock. Is there a special level/choice which leaves one or the other? (I know you can’t have other pets, and you have to betray Hartigan)

Anyways, if you are still taking some last minute corrections:

Some grammar stuff. I thought I e-mailed these, but just in case:
Marshal James gives you a respectful nod, “Fine, fine. Is is Mister Marshal or Miss Marshal then?”

Suggestion:
The first “Is is” should be Is it

“What’re you trying to pull, tenderfoot?” the bearded man says as he glances over, "this is my brothers horse, sent on over from San Francisco
Suggestion:
“brothers” should have an apostrophe: brother’s horse

The barrel of his rifle shifts away from the rock out cropping
Suggestion:
I believe out cropping is one word: outcropping

I would. She’s very different."
This is a choice, and is missing a quote mark at the front.

The same with this choice missing a quote mark at the front:
What are you getting back from Salt Lake City?"

Another quote mark/response missing at the front as well:
Why do you have these monks with you?"

“Don’t I? Its a family thing,” he says as he keeps his storm-tossed gaze fixed upon you. he says distantly.
Suggestion:
You accidentally made a second sentence there, I believe you were going for “… fixed upon you he says distantly.”

Something else: when you are able to invest in the town, and you could convince Sadler to get in touch with Wong Dai Choi, it may drain the Marshal’s funds instead.

Additionally, during the encounter with Marshal Steele, if you talk to the various townsfolk (like Miss Maddy, Harry Winthrop, etc.) to completion, then go to Elko, upon returning, you can talk to them once more.

And now back to Billy
First, sorry for getting the Assayer’s and Floyd confused. However, I figured out what I was doing, and why it wasn’t initiating the Floyd encounter when you talk with Miss Caraway.

This is what happened to bypass it for me.
You get the following choices:

  1. I’ve got some questions about a marshal."
  2. “First off, I wanted to see you again.” [Continue Romance]
  3. “Let me get you another bottle first.”

If you pick Option 2, and go through things, as well as Carrie’s question about your intentions, then you get a screen to go to the Marshal’s Grave. If you invite Carrie along, you then go straight to the Marshal’s grave. However, if you choose ‘Go alone’, then Billy’s encounter with Floyd fires first, and after that is resolved, you can still take Carrie to the grave.

So, I guess chose things in the wrong order; I’m just glad I wasn’t hallucinating it.

Finally, I explored a new alternate path (new for me) where I was able to gun down Eduardo and Steele. However, the game sort of acted like Maria, and her bodyguard was still at the Grand Haven Hotel. Additionally, if you talk to the Uptons in the Painted Caves, and describe what happened to Steele, part of the sentence is just blank.

2241

Thanks @lys - I’m almost ready to work on Tin Star. And that is because…

… I’ve finished an early 30% beta of Marine Raider II. If you, or anyone else is interested in doing a critique, check out the link. I also accept any ideas or thoughts that make for a better game.

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2242

whenever I click on a link it takes me too the midnight horror and not tin star

2243

That’s because Tin star has been realesed as a hosted game and in order to play it you have to buy it ; midnight horror is the game AllenGies currentely works on

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2244

what are the prerequisites for marrying regina?.. i read something about being a renegade and such, but can someone who has done it tell me what you did exactly to convince them… hungry snake always shots my attempt at working for them…