Hanako Games

Initial thoughts

#1 by somestrangecircus - Mar 24 2015

Bought the beta today, in preparation to do a special launch review.

First impressions are very good, but I get the sinking feeling that I'm awful at this game. A strategy guide would not be amiss, although it's probably a bit early for that.

Also, gambling cases suck.

Also, is having a girl not take action one day the only way to lower her stress?

Re: Initial thoughts

#2 by Franka - Mar 24 2015

somestrangecircus:

First impressions are very good, but I get the sinking feeling that I'm awful at this game. A strategy guide would not be amiss, although it's probably a bit early for that.

What sort of guide (that I haven't already done) would you like to see?

Also, gambling cases suck.

I used to hate those while I was getting acquainted with the game too.

Also, is having a girl not take action one day the only way to lower her stress?

Well, that and the weekend. Bear in mind that the stress limit gets higher as loyalty does.

Re: Initial thoughts

#3 by hanako - Mar 24 2015

Weekends become free stress relief later into the game, but Act 1 is putting you through the grinder.

Re: Initial thoughts

#4 by somestrangecircus - Mar 25 2015

Franka:

What sort of guide (that I haven't already done) would you like to see?

I dunno...Maybe a bit more help with plot cases, as I am completely stuck on what to do with the traitor's contact now that the Harvest Festival is over. None of my minions can pass the Internet check and it looks like it would take a lot of time to train them up to be able to reach that level.

Re: Initial thoughts

#5 by Shogeton - Mar 25 2015

I usually start fishing for items. With one or two +15 items you can manage to get there, provided you have one of your two more observing minions have a bit of upgraded observation.

Re: Initial thoughts

#6 by somestrangecircus - Mar 25 2015

The biggest issue I'm having is that the plot cases are easy to get stuck on. The first one with the traitor's contact, I succeeded at every possible action and couldn't progress any further with the case, and then Miss Talmage (is that how ya spell it) took away the case. The steam tunnels, I kept gossiping and gossiping but it only led to a few dead end locations, and after some weeks of this, I ended up with a Game Over.

Re: Initial thoughts

#7 by hanako - Mar 25 2015

Miss Talmage is designed to step in and provide an alternate route if you're stuck on a plot case. She can take away the contact case, and she will also give you the right location for the steam tunnels if you take too long to find it. (Well, she provides two locations, but one of them is the right one.) If you don't ask or tell her not to help you, though...

While obviously I can't see what happened exactly, if you actually succeeded at all possible actions with the contact, that case should close, and I don't think we've had any reports of it not closing. Can you remember what you saw happening in that case, and where you were stuck? Did you find out the contact's name? What happened after that?

Re: Initial thoughts

#8 by Franka - Mar 25 2015

somestrangecircus:

I dunno...Maybe a bit more help with plot cases, as I am completely stuck on what to do with the traitor's contact now that the Harvest Festival is over. None of my minions can pass the Internet check and it looks like it would take a lot of time to train them up to be able to reach that level.

That's all part of the learning process. It's hard to pass the first plot cases, because you're still finding it hard to solve all the random cases, so you're not getting as many skill points, and don't have as much extra time.

Also, you may not yet have realized that you really should bump Rowan's Observation and Stealth before anything else.

Meanwhile, the closet items are most important for plot cases, so you'll probably want to fish for the ones relating to your next plot case, and get rid of anything else.

You do actually have a lot of time, relatively speaking, so getting a minion to 50-60 Observation and raiding the closet for Observation boosts should not be too hard.

The steam tunnels, I kept gossiping and gossiping but it only led to a few dead end locations, and after some weeks of this, I ended up with a Game Over.

This gets relatively harder if you've slighted girls or failed a lot of cases, as the gossips may simply make you waste your action, so the better you've done, the easier it gets.

You'll want to have Mallory locked into Gossip every day (watching for stress of course) early on, so you always have at least one location open for Rowan to Search, when she has time. By this time, your Rowan should have enough Observation that you auto pass your checks (if you're playing loaded dice).

I don't think I've ever had more than five locations to go through, and you have a generous amount of time, as long as you don't get completely side tracked.

Re: Initial thoughts

#9 by somestrangecircus - Mar 25 2015

hanako:

Miss Talmage is designed to step in and provide an alternate route if you're stuck on a plot case. She can take away the contact case, and she will also give you the right location for the steam tunnels if you take too long to find it. (Well, she provides two locations, but one of them is the right one.) If you don't ask or tell her not to help you, though...

Well, I see what my mistake was with the steam tunnels...I didn't realize that Miss Talmage would actually give me the right location if I asked for help, so I told her I was doing fine. In the end, I had five locations, four locked and one with no entrance. I presume this was at least partly because I wasn't doing well at the game and had alienated students; I kept getting repeat locations or people telling me they wouldn't help me.

hanako:

While obviously I can't see what happened exactly, if you actually succeeded at all possible actions with the contact, that case should close, and I don't think we've had any reports of it not closing. Can you remember what you saw happening in that case, and where you were stuck? Did you find out the contact's name? What happened after that?

Well, let's see...After the Harvest Festival, I had the option to search the Internet, and after training Rowan up I was eventually able to pass that check, which unlocked three options: Searching the library, searching the school records, and misleading via telephone. I searched the library and school records and came up with nothing, and after a few tries I misled by telephone and got the contact to mention that another school was better. I then went to the library to search again, thinking that maybe I would now get the option to search for the school instead, but I came up with nothing. And then there was no other action I could take that I saw, until Miss Talmage came to take the case.

Re: Initial thoughts

#10 by hanako - Mar 25 2015

It sounds like you got only failures while searching the library. ('Too close to call'/'ambiguous' results may be either failures or successes. It's easy to lose track of whether you've definitely suceeded at anything while juggling a million other cases - if you have a saved game during that time, check your case log. Was a minion ever confident in her skills while searching the library? If yes, then we need to look at your save game so let us know.)


And yeah, if you had four locked locations and one with no entrance, the Random Number God did not like you. That's part of why the Talmage option exists, in case bad luck is causing the right location to consistently fail to pop up.

Re: Initial thoughts

#11 by somestrangecircus - Mar 25 2015

Once I'm off work, I'll tinker with it more. I thought I succeeded, but maybe I just lost track.

I thought I would get in trouble with Talmage if I admitted I was having trouble, so I said I was doing fine...Also didn't realize there was a time limit.

Re: Initial thoughts

#12 by somestrangecircus - Mar 26 2015

I did manage to get the Steam Tunnels done finally! Just had to reload and be luckier.

I don't have an earlier save for the Library, so I'll have to start another file and see if I have any better luck closing that particular case. I assume it has similar consequences to the Steam Tunnels if not completed or passed off to Talmage?