Game Suggestions

[S.R. Krol]

Saxon said:
Your stats don’t really matter, but the number next to the fuel level is critical. I learned where that was before I learned where my health bar was. The focus of the game is oil.

Sorry to hear that you feel the quest for fire overpowers the rest of the game. The beauty of Scallywag though is that with a few keystrokes you can change that.

If you look at the Scallywag directory there is a subdirectory called config (should be Game\Media\Config). There are several files in there that you can open with notepad. For oil you could change how it burns in the 'Core' file (look for OilBurnRate at the bottom) and make it burn much, much slower. Or you can change how often you come across it by modifying the 'Items' file. You'll find a rarity line for oil.

For complete modding instructions check out:
http://www.chronicreality.co.uk/mods.html

Hope this helps!

[scott_wakeling]

If you watch any player of more than a couple hours' experience, they just roll around the dungeon sliding their lantern up and down as they need without really thinking about it much - the emphasis turns to looting, mapping, and playing with objects.

It's a fair point though Saxon, I don't dismiss what you're saying, but as Mr Krol pointed out - the config files are right there, so feel free to have some fun with that.

As an aside, what do people think of the oil/lantern feature with regards to further developments? For example, Moria makes good use of needing fuel to light your way, with the final punishment being just a black-out (which I actually find more annoying than just dying, flailing around in the dark getting picked on is just so annoying!?).

[jab2565]

I was one of the beta testers for the game just FYI, and I don't know if I'm just lucky but not once during my time with the game did I ever run out of oil. I just kept the oil level at 2 or 3 and I never had a problem. I like to keep a stock of 20 oil in my inventory at all times which seemed to work fine.

[S.R. Krol]

scott_wakeling said:
As an aside, what do people think of the oil/lantern feature with regards to further developments? For example, Moria makes good use of needing fuel to light your way, with the final punishment being just a black-out (which I actually find more annoying than just dying, flailing around in the dark getting picked on is just so annoying!?).

I think any RPG that has consumption elements in it will probably always lead to divided opinions on the subject. I haven't felt Scallywag's oil usage was too draconian, but at the same time I get really annoyed with RPGs that force you to eat. There's nothing worse than being a bad *** barbarian who skins demons with his eyes closed on level twenty, slowly dying because you forgot to pack enough Powerbars.

Of course a lot depends on how it is handled. If you starve and the effect is you lose a couple hit points and that's it, fine. Likewise, yeah, if you're punished by flailing around in the dark that sucks.

Perhaps for future development oil consumption is an option that could be toggled off and on? If on it works as normal, if off the lantern becomes a magic lantern that never burns oil.

[NTJedi]

scott_wakeling said:
If you watch any player of more than a couple hours' experience, they just roll around the dungeon sliding their lantern up and down as they need without really thinking about it much - the emphasis turns to looting, mapping, and playing with objects.

It's a fair point though Saxon, I don't dismiss what you're saying, but as Mr Krol pointed out - the config files are right there, so feel free to have some fun with that.

As an aside, what do people think of the oil/lantern feature with regards to further developments? For example, Moria makes good use of needing fuel to light your way, with the final punishment being just a black-out (which I actually find more annoying than just dying, flailing around in the dark getting picked on is just so annoying!?).

Future game development should allow multiple ways to provide the player light. Other items of light could be torches, magic spells, special food providing darkvision, and perhaps some items which once used permanently light a specific area. This would allow the fantasy to seem more real.

[darkentrees]

Arrrgghhh!!! What a disappointment! I shared the URL for the demo of Scallywag with friends and all have same response - Great game - stupid design that you die on the bleeding edge of failing the oil managment sim!

Our views echo many here - why such a bad design decision? Especially for the demo! Who other than gamer geeks such as myself is going to navigate forums and edit config files to get the game experience people should be getting in the first place: A fun little game where your lantern is something you keep an eye on - not something that becomes the sole focus of the game to sprint from flask to flask while you try to stay alive, and forget about even taking your eye off that goal for a single second to enjoy any other aspect of the program.

You should re-release the demo with a more sane oil consumption rate, and maybe less people will be arguing heatedly over how stupid a dent that hammer puts in an otherwise fantastic little game.

The previous poster had a good idea about allowing multiple ways to provide better light - and another would be just to make the consumption rate adjustable on the options screen.

Scallywag = Great game gimped by stupid lantern