Hanako Games

Easy Mode - possibilities?

#1 by hanako - Jun 5 2015

I do want to make a clearly-marked easy mode, for people who want to play through the setting and date the girls without quite so much challenge.

Custom mode is coming, and can be used for training purposes, but isn't the same as playing through the main storyline of the game. (Also, while you can use it to try out strategies on cases, the mechanics of minion management are slightly different. Without the main storyline, there are no traitors, and no weekend dates to build loyalty.)

Some of the suggestions that have been made:

'Continue' option, where you can just keep going without penalty when you run out of karma/rep. This has the downside that it may discourage people from learning to solve cases at all. On the bright side, it's a sort of godmoding that some players may want to be able to do. I'm disinclined to make this an official easy mode - better to make people cheat for this?

'Diceless' option, where no dice are ever rolled, no ambiguous results happen, and you win or lose straight out based on who has the higher numbers. Possibly not even letting you select a choice if you can't win. This changes the strategy drastically, which may make it unhelpful for learning the game, but gives you fewer things to worry about when planning.

'Regeneration' option, where successfully solving a case automatically earns you a tiny amount of rep/karma, thus making it less likely that you'll hit a game over. This has the benefit of making it easier to claw your way back up from the difficult early game as you get the hang of solving mysteries.

'Breather' option, where you get fewer cases to solve. Semester 1 would generate only one case a week, plus any special cases. Semester 2 would still have two cases a week. This has the downside that you no longer get the benefit for tracking down the contact behind the mole, but it would be a gentler learning curve for starting out in the game.

Thoughts? Other ideas?

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#2 by FantasyFan - Jun 9 2015

I like the "Regeneration" and "Breather" ideas. Especially the Breather idea, since my problem seems to be having too many cases at once.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#3 by grommile - Jun 11 2015

When I was having trouble with the game, it tended to break down along the following lines:

Overworking Rowan, often because I'd not realized that some cases were best resolved by Stalking rather than Searching.

Perps with highly skewed stat distributions (58 red...) before I'd accumulated enough XP or closet items to deal with that.

Chewing through my Karma on ambiguous dorm searches. (Kind of relates to the first point.)

Not twigging that searching the classroom on the first or second day of Suspicious Similarity is compulsory.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#4 by skydragonwings - Jun 11 2015

Regeneration sounds to me like it would interfere the least with learning to play the game while still making things a bit easier to manage.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#5 by Bardic Nerd - Jun 13 2015

Personally, what I want is a 'storyline only' mode where the only stuff is the various interactions with the other girls.

However, in terms of an 'easy' mode, I will note that having only one case a week might actually make things harder, since you have less chance to gain skill points. If one did go that route, though, it might be better to have the semester with only one case a week be the second semester, as my experience has been that's when you have less minionpower to spend on cases (and the steam tunnels takes much more of your attention away from other cases than the first semester plot cases).

For actually playing the game, the 'regeneration' option sounds like a pretty good one, but a 'storyline interaction only' mode might be nice, too.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#6 by Franka - Jun 13 2015

The way I see it, it would be rather problematic to trivialize case solving. This isn't so much a visual novel. If you just read through a girl's path, you would spend maybe half your time on the pre-harvest loyalty building events, then go through, mostly short, scattered events. For a fast reader, that's 20 minutes, max. You'd leave with an is-that-all? impression. Gameplay is rather integral to getting your money's worth here. Of course it's better for all involved if you enjoy that gameplay.

Now, learning the game can probably be less harsh than it is, but the current game is not unfairly hard. It's not a rogue-like, where bad fortune will kill you off; IF you know what you're doing. I haven't had a stat related game over since a long time ago, only story related surprises that crippled my chances at the final boss.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#7 by hanako - Jun 13 2015

Yeah, storyline-only really isn't possible here. For one, the gameplay is necessary to identifying the traitor, and to several of the other storyline events. Many cutscenes happen based on what you did in a case. It works the other way around, too - cutscenes that end with a girl stomping out and not working for the day have an impact on case-solving which therefore affects their emotional weight. The gameplay and the story are entangled.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#8 by Bardic Nerd - Jun 14 2015

Point, though I wasn't sure if there was some way to do something to just allow you to read through the different paths after finishing the game (having now played through several times, I'm starting to just want to read through all the possible story stuff without having to repeat a full game's playthrough -- though trying to get the last few achievements is still a goal I have).

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#9 by hanako - Jun 14 2015

I'm not sure getting all the story content is practical or possible for any one player, considering all the branches.

(I wonder how many people have gotten the scene where the theater refuses to let Elsa and Mallory watch a movie together?)

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#10 by Ren - Jun 14 2015

hanako:

I'm not sure getting all the story content is practical or possible for any one player, considering all the branches. :)

This makes me think of the Star Ocean 2 picture that was made up of loads of little squares. You got one square every time you got a new voice clip and you could get different team members depending on which people you met in the game. If you got enough squares in the picture to surpass a certain percentage of its completion, you had access to a new game mode. I remember playing it obsessively to get all the squares (mostly because I wanted to get all the characters and some where a bit hard to encounter).

It would be kind of funny to see something like that tied to scenes in VNs, too.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#11 by Bardic Nerd - Jun 16 2015

hanako:

(I wonder how many people have gotten the scene where the theater refuses to let Elsa and Mallory watch a movie together?)

I have now gotten that. It's hilarious.

Especially Mallory's "We should have a party to watch it at school and see who blushes first" reaction.

Re: Easy Mode - possibilities?

#12 by hanako - Jun 24 2015

We are currently beta-testing Teacher's Pet mode, which gives you fewer cases and more skill points for solving them.

Details in Updates (versions 1.1 to 1.1.19) - Includes EASY MODE. If you've been having trouble with the game, please try it out and let us know what you think!