MERLANDESE'S PROFILE

author=Link_2112

Goth Drone

Inspired by the goth kids from South Park.

Technox

This is played twice. There are some parts I'm not happy with, I'm going to go back and tweak it.

Spewky Town

Jazzy Title Screen

"Goth Drone" and "Spewky Town" are nice! "Spewky Town" has that "Lavender Town" vibe and GameBoy sound. I'm not sure it's very catchy in itself, but it has a good mood.

"Jazzy Title Screen" has a couple of nice ideas going on in the bass, but overall it's a little too chaotic for my tastes. For it to be a title screen, the game would need to be incredibly quirky, in which case it might be perfect! XD

author=KoopaKush

Haunted Hill

I think "Haunted Hill" is a pretty appropriate title for this. It definitely has that mood, and would work well in a game like Luigi's Mansion. I can even see it as a villain's theme if the villain were of the lighthearted variety. The clean piano is nice, and I think it's what make me think of the Mario franchise.

Regarding Kant's Prized Possession, if you talk to Squeaker about it I think he sort of fills it in. Kant's possession may not be his Prized Possession (because he's obsessed with the moon), but it does correlate intentionally with the moon as a reminder. It's like having a picture of what he loves rather than the actual thing itself. It's also why he prizes his Lunar Watch so much. Hypothetically he could have used anything that reminded him of the moon, but none of them would be good enough for the judges because his obsession is beyond this world.

There are actually several pieces of the plot that alter depending on how you do them. Nickel's gambling event can also be changed into a banking event if you solve his Conclusion differently. The minutiae is irrelevant for his growth as a character, since either version of the event is viable. Likewise, Conclusion 01 has you discover out Junior's intentions one way or another. In one version of a playthrough she decides to help you, and in another she's not so friendly. That goes hand-in-hand with her nature.

Each of these variations follows through to the end and is explained as if it were The Truth, including the info you get if you go to the meeting or see Kant outside. Whether Roland had it this week or a week way earlier isn't relevant to the why and the how of Kant's dismissal. It means there are different versions of the overall story, but these differences don't actually change the plot progression too much. They add variety and inform the plot with an altered history, but that's all. Another example is that some players find that Junior took their lunch box on Wednesday, and others find out it was Aunty. I think. XD Been awhile, but there's definitely a difference in that outcome.

So yeah, good eyes! There are quite a bit of small differences in the game if you play them much differently. The day you choose at the beginning even alters a few events. You'll notice, for example, that Junior doesn't have her PP until her Trophy Bout. But you can see her PP in the room of the person that currently has it. That person depends on what day you picked. If you picked Wednesday, it's in Amara's room. And if you check the placards in Nickel's room, the first placard they read is of the member whose day you chose. So in this example, you'd read Amara's. If you wanted to read Kant's placard, you would have had to have chosen Saturday at the beginning of the game. Not worth redoing just for these details, but fun!

I wanted it so that everyone played a slightly different game without really knowing it. If you're shown too much that your choices count you tend to go back and redo things to choose your perfect layout. The way I've done it makes most people feel as if they're getting a rather linear set of information even if tiny things change from game to game.

author=argh
Oh, and one more question for Merlandese (sorry): Why doesn't Junior's battle theme follow the naming convention of the other bout themes?

Because that was composed by Michael "Garoad" Kelly, not me. And when he composed it, he named it. He donated two tracks to the album, both of which he named. :)

Although I wouldn't have minded if

Show

the hacked application wizard

turned out to be a bigger deal.

Mm, yeah, I really liked that line of story, too. It connects a lot of things, but it could have gone other places, for sure. It ends up just being a necessary layer for a million things that's entirely necessary for the background of the mystery, but then when it gets its own spotlight, it sort of ends. I guess now that you mention it, I also feel a little let down with that line of progression. XD I'm not sure how much more I could have squeezed it into the framework of the game, but the presence of the speaker box is probably one of the most lasting and pervasive elements in the plot, even if it's often subtle or hidden.

Speaking of chaos, I did find the wild fluctuations in trophy negotiation prizes rather bizarre. I once saw an offer of 0 Euros change to 400-something Euros between refreshes. I managed to coast most of the game from selling Masque's mask for 500 Euros - I thought he was just really obsessed with it, but apparently I just got lucky? It would have been nice for those prices to be more controlled, to better reflect how desperate the members really are. Like, I sold back Le Neuvieme's grimoire almost immediately because he seemed so sad, but he only offered like 12 Euros for it.

This is a nice catch, really. I think the negotiations with Nickel are honed a bit better, but maybe I forgot to transplant those tweaks into the post-bout moments. One big reason there is such fluctuation deals with the fact that the characters gain their own hidden money that you, as the player, can't see. Every time you sell them their possession back, they lose the cash they gave to you, which may or may not prevent them from offering a high price next time. When you bout an opponent, you not only get yourself money, but they get money, too. If they ever refuse to negotiate it's because they're broke. XD

But as a way to build it better into the game, they all actually have the same internal number. When you sold to Masque for that 500, it was probably the first time you had offered after a ton of bouts. That means that you allowed the opposition to earn enough cash to spend on a negotiation. But directly afterward, if you sold again (even to anyone else), they had less money to offer.

The concept of giving them finite resources to spend made it so that you couldn't break the system by continuously selling possessions for immediate cash wads. Instead, you had to bout more to allow the other members a chance to earn money to spend. Weird, but that's how it works!

I told him to find objects (the 200-Euro option) and he found the first sticky note. When I checked Amara's room again it had advanced to the second, but seemed to be in the wrong place because I tried examining two steps in every direction and found nothing. I assume it refers to the location of the first object, but I never found that so ???.

Oh, wow! That's a cool oversight. I mean, not cool for you, but I never thought of that. XD I really wanted players who were stuck in the Scavenger Hunt to have an alternative, but I forgot that there was a piece that referred to a previous piece. As a game, that's a lame oversight. But I guess if it were reality, we may never actually know where Masque found that sticky note without having to pay him again. Dude's kind of a jerk like that. :P

The second note should be somewhere outside of Flore's room, if I recall. Just click around there a bit.

(Also, where does it say that bout pay is proportional to style points? I either forgot it or didn't notice it in the first place and as a result I was quite confused by the fluctuations.)

I can't remember where exactly it says that. It might be in the manual, or Squeaker said it. But the pay you get after a bout directly corresponds to your style by a factor of ten. If you finish a bout with 10 style, win or lose, you'll get 100 Euros! That means that prolonging a match is actually in your favor, even if you lose it. I got 43 Style Points once and landed an immediate 430 Euros, then sold the trophy back for another two-hundred-something. Major victory!

This fact is one of many reasons why there's no healing moves, and also a deciding factor in why non-Trophy Bouts have half HP. It wraps together in some way or another. I learned quickly that every decision I made snowballed into every other decision. XD

(Trivia: If you finish a bout in a way that makes it so you get no money, Squeaker will scrounge through his savings and give you a few Euros. What a nice guy!)


EDIT: Ah, and I forgot to answer about Junior's safe. There are events that talk about which room is Junior's, and also there's a spot in Kant's room that looks like it should have a safe, but doesn't. I'll leave the Junior thing alone in case you haven't followed that line of POIs, but the safe that should be in Kant's room was re-purposed into a function of the vending machine.

By the way, is there any vending machine on Earth that could make less sense than that one!? XD

Go for:

"... a cover up."

"... a name."

"... a family."

"... the original owners."

I'm pretty sure those are the answers! Hopefully when you go for the Confrontation it'll all make a bit more sense. :)

author=ivoryjones
Oooh now I'm excited haha! Did I mention the cast is oh-so lovely? Roland is so dorky and his scene with Aunty who offered him some 'bedtime stories' - I couldn't stop laughing at that scene! xD And his interactions with Flore are priceless!

(Seriously though more people need to play this game so I don't have to bug the author with the answers of the puzzles xD)

This all extremely nice to hear. :) Thank you very much! I like the chemistry Flore and Roland have as well.

author=Hasvers
(I realized that I had actually played it an eternity ago, for probably roughly 15 minutes before forgetting to continue for some reason or other).

That's not surprising! The game starts with a pretty heavy load. I don't give the player the hook fast at all, which is bad design any way you slice it. Still, I think the investment pays off. Most players say it all *clicked* for them after the first or second hour of play. That's technically a bad thing, but I'm not exactly troubled by it. XD