Alien Cow Rampage: Orion Needs Your Milk! (MAGS JUNE 2014)

[Radiant]

Well, that was fun

Spoiler

I would like it if the cool title music kept playing when viewing the credits.
In terms of balance, it may be nice if the initial character generation is less random; it makes me want to quit and restart several times until I get a decent character. For example, instead of four dice, roll two dice and take the complement of both.
I would like to see stat mods on the character selection screen.
It took me a while to figure out why the 'build' button disappears on most areas, or why I can't rest in the cul-de-sac. I was also confused that 'loot' sometimes is automatic (success or failure) without getting to roll for it.
Final idea: please add hot keys! Let the player trigger any button by pressing its first letter; this would make gameplay much easier.

[close]

[Ghost]

Quite a few people have played Alien Cow Rampage by now, and were kind enough to give some feedback- I am glad that the original release is almost bug-free and can be considered a stable base. But in terms of balance it is clearly not even close to "perfect". What's more, some of the stuff I put into the game makes relatively little sense when I look at it now. So a rather large update is in order and I am working my way towards it. Here's a few of the things that will be adressed.

Better Combat
Combat makes a large portion of the game, yet it is rather simplistic. Also, while there are four classes, none of them feel really different in combat- they all need to rely on the same tricks and can hardly develop a unique strategy. I feel that much of this comes from the fact that any fight is nothing but D6 rolls. My plan is to replace this with custom combat dice: D6 with different symbols for attacking, blocking and a class-specific special move. This should make combat more interesting, give the classes some more justification, and it also opens up the game for those who like to tweak rules and develop finer strategies.

Interface Polish
Hotkeys, soft screen transitions, and an options panel have been requested.  ACRONYM was made or a monthly competition and I left these "small touches" for later intentionally, but they'll all be included in the next update.

Difficulty Settings
I made the game rather "hard to beat" and this did not sit well with everyone. While I think that a solo game needs to be hard in order to provide a challenge that makes a win "feel earned", who am I to deny a more casual player their fun? Easier (and harder) difficulty settings are currently being tested, and I wish to implement a table of "custom challenges" too (like beating the game in a certain time or without ever building any equipment)... there may be in-game achievements

Better Betterness
As a turn based game ACRONM doesn't always do the best job at telling you how turns work. At least one player never figured out how to build stuff but kept playing because he thought ACRONYM sounded cool and should be played regardless. And a very funny email suggests that the Scout colour scheme makes her look like a Teletubby. All in all there's clearly room for more and better betterness.
I rewrote quite a bit of the core mechanics to make things easier for players who struggle with making it "in time". Indicators (as mentioned by Radiant) to make bonuses more obvious, and a general overhaul of the combat data display should make everything be a bit more "transparent".

Cow Tools
The "abduction" part seemed unfair to some, and in hindsight it *is* nothing but a time-stealer (and the best way to justify the COW that I needed to complete "Acronym" as the... acronym). It has been suggested to make the cows a "score" element. Or to tie a minumum amount of cows to abduct to a difficulty setting, with any extra cows just adding score or providing a small bonus. I'm looking into that, or at least to find a way to make the cow thing more fun.
Everyone loved Ponch, though. You hear that, Texan luxury bovine?

Halloween Hijinx- AddOn
Since ACRYNOM is made to resemble a physical boardgame, an "add on" has been on my personal wishlist from the very start. Or... several of those. You know, a couple of extra "game things" to add to the base game. A first test with a "Halloween theme" looks really promising, adding a couple of new cards, two new enemies (Cosplayer* and Nosy Kid), two new Invaders  (The Riftjumper Twins)- and JasonB once more provided a fresh music track. I am really very exited about it.

If nothing goes wrong, the game will update middle/end of next month. Let me know if you got some additional feedback or suggestions- and and once again thanks to everyone who commented, rated, played and gave those Invaders a little love

__
* He cosplays as random characters, even as Batman**.

** Yes, the Cadet CAN put the man-charms on BATMAN, and BE SUCCESSFUL. Let that sink in.

[Mandle]

Yay! As a major fan of the original let me unequivically state that I have just wet my pants after reading about the updated version!

[Jim Reed]

Mechanic using a gadget and not using it up bonus should be noted in some way, so the player knows if it was a success...maybe a die roll?
When you use a gadget, the current card flips to the next one, then you get the animation of the gadget you used...shouldn't it be the other way around?
Keyboard shortcuts, the gadget buttons should be bigger...way bigger. Add more of everything!
Nice game! \o/

[Mandle]

Mechanic using a gadget and not using it up bonus should be noted in some way, so the player knows if it was a success...maybe a die roll?
When you use a gadget, the current card flips to the next one, then you get the animation of the gadget you used...shouldn't it be the other way around?

There is a dice roll. If you get the thumbs-up then it shows the mechanic putting a new battery into a gadget. This means you kept the gadget for re-use. This is the animation you are seeing...

Granted, in the original this was all kinda figure-it-out-for-yourself stuff. Understandable given the time restraints. Hopefully the deluxe version gives Ghost the chance to add a tutorial for each character perhaps?

(I just love making more work for other people )

[Ponch]

Everyone loved Ponch, though. You hear that, Texan luxury bovine?

It's the rhythm of my hips. It's quite mesmerizing.

[BrightBulb]

I really, really like this game! It's a bit like an RPG. Rolling stats, rolling checks, different classes, getting better weapons and armor. I also love the design of the aliens.

But unfortunately I couldn't finish the game, I'v tried like 10-15 times with different classes. Even failed with a character that had almost maximum stats (22 of 24). Best effort was card 17 of the gauntlet. I think the game is way to difficult. The reason for this is that it is too random. And the odds are against you.

It beginns with character creation. Two bad rolls and you are finished before the game even starts. I would prefer unlimited rerolls.

Combat is very tough. Get a lot of enemies early before you can build armor or weapons and you're done. Upgrades are essential, which makes scraps essential. Starting with 1d6 scrap could mean one upgrade for free or not. If you fail too loot several times you will die later on. I think it's fair to say that you can reload when you didn't manage to upgrade armor and weapons twice each in the first deck. Also you can reload when you lost to much time with dead ends.

Brings me to the looting system. It's again too random. Either you get few scraps with an easy check or you could get a lot of scraps, but the check is then nearly impossible to beat. I would prefer a dynamic roll like: scraps = 2d6 + attribute - 10

Building Gadgets is also too random. I.e. I got an auto-nav while playing deck 3. Avoid-combat-gadget are much stronger than avoid-minefield or avoid-smokescreen. Those avoid-trap gadgets are too specific while combat happens all the time. Furthermore traps are far easier to beat than enemies. I think gadgets are too expensive compared to weapon/armor upgrades. I would prefer to be able to select the gadget I want to build.

Another thing: Abducting cow is a bit boring. If it is really there only to steal time I would prefer it would work like a dead end card. Then I wouldn't have to reroll (including) clicking of the failure message again and again and again...

That being said, I will try to finish the game later on:grin:

It's somehow addictive.

[Ghost]

I would prefer unlimited rerolls.

This is pretty much the only thing I disagree with. Endless rerolls means you get the result you want, and if we go that route we might as well remove any roll, and always let the player chose the outcome, leading to a "do you want to win y/n" situation.
I'd rather assign fixed bonuses depending on a difficculty setting- that way a player can opt for an easy game or chose a challenge. A game with a random element as a core design feature (or fla ) needs to stay true to at least some randomness.
Alternatively, a "point pool" would sound interesting- after the inital rolls you get a couple of points to purchase either attribute bonuses OR equipment. That's a strong RPG mechanic and I think it could work out nicely.

Apart from that, I'm glad to hear you like the game despite its flaws, and I really like your idea to beef up the scraps mechanic. It makes perfect sense to add a bonus based on a tested attribute! If you're okay with it I'll gladly "steal" your input

As mentioned, the "cow abduction" will get a revamp. My current approach is like this: A cow card can be skipped for a slight time penalty, but abducting grants you an additional resource called "Favour". Since your superiors really want cows, each successful abduction grants you Favour points that can be traded for "small cheats" (skill reroll, or even skipping a card completely). You won't be able to get much Favour on a single run but about enough for two, three "tight escapes" from a bad situation.

@Jim: Thanks for the feedback, sir, and nice to see someone playing Mechanic! I'll do my best to make the build/item interface more user-friendly. Note to self: Never, ever, make a card game for MAGS.

Granted, in the original this was all kinda figure-it-out-for-yourself stuff. [...]Hopefully the deluxe version gives Ghost the chance to add a tutorial for each character perhaps?

There was a frikking MANUAL! I wrote that thing at 2 in the morning! I downloaded EXTRA SOFTWARE just to make a PDF! Why does no-one EVER READ THE MANUAL???
Ahem.
A tutorial is a fun idea and shouldn't be too hard. Not necessarily for each character, but for a basic run it would make perfect sense.

Might need a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeet moar time to polish this all up

[cat]

What about having one more die for the intial stats roll? Then you could skip the worst die.

[Ghost]

What about having one more die for the intial stats roll? Then you could skip the worst die.

I LIKE that; probably the simplest solution so far! Thanks I'll try that out first thing tomorrow.

[BrightBulb]

@Ghost: Feel free to implement any suggestion I made. Glad if I can help to polish the game into something even better.

On the topic of character creation: I think a point-buy system or distributing fixed values are fine as well. With the current mechanics you could at least allow rerolls with under-average stats.

With the mechanics as is, you force the player to alt-x. Or am I really supposed to take on that challenging game with stats like 2,1,3,2?

[Mandle]

Why does no-one EVER READ THE MANUAL???

Because we're always too pumped to just play the game!;)