Another round 🔄 with Another Round ☕
Welcome to the Jungle
Hi there! It's me, Lucas!
I want to start off with your expectations under control: I moved the date for the store page announcements to December, contrary to what I said would happen in the last newsletter. We need a little more time to update Another Round and Null State with a few tweaks I want to see, then we'll update the trailers for the games and ship the store pages for the general public to catch up on everything you already know!
So, what are these tweaks, I hear you asking?
For Null State, I want to add some gameplay + art to the combat loop, plus shuffle around how your inventory will function during play. We also need to integrate Steam's SDK and restructure the in-game text to allow for localization – which are definitely the more-boring-but-still-very-important features in the list!
How about for this newsletter, though, I show you the improvements the team made to Another Round during October.
Okay? Let's go!
We Got Fun and Games
When we first put Another Round together (just this past spring, wow!), there were a few gaps in the design which I admit were never nailed down (e.g. - there were 4 resources to match the card suits, and I never figured out what they should do other than... exist).
Because of those gaps, the version of Another Round which we submitted to Valve had some rough edges that I kept thinking & thinking about – and now, finally, the team had time to come back through and tidy those things up.
I hope you'll agree: I think the results are fantastic!
Replaced the suit-specific resource economy with "vibe"
When was the last time you walked into a place of business (restaurant, camera store, bakery, whatever) and thought to yourself "Oh... I don't want to be here. This vibe is ... wierd."? I wanted your patrons to have that same feeling when you seat them each night.
Vibe is counted up at the end of each night. Gaining vibe depends on how many people in an area are happy with where they're seated.
Each night, there's a vibe threshold you need to meet or else you risk losing customers (who wants to go back someplace when the vibe isn't right?). You could probably finish the game while below the threshold, but you'll be losing "casual" customers every night – it's a risky way to play!
Upgraded the minor event choices & named card effects to be... weirder.
Another Round is kind of a deckbuilder, right? And yet, during gameplay, there was very little deckbuilding happening (combos were pretty much the main way to modify the deck, originally). To take us from static to dynamic, Billy (linktree) took on updating the minor events, and Robin (linktree) took on the named card effects.
Each of the four areas is preferred by each of the suits; for example, Mirrorshades like to chat, while Pink Mohawks like to play. My favorite example of a new named card effect is Li Zhen, who bends the rules for whatever area she's played into... changing that area's allegiance to be preferred by Black Trenchcoats!
Keep an eye on the upper-right corner to see Li Zhen in action: the red-themed, Corpo Suits part of the room transforms to a green-themed, Black Trenchcoat area.
The named card effects are much more immediately impactful with the update, and there's some great visuals associated with them – especially the area theming, which Heloisa (Behance) made look fantastic (and Robin stitched perfectly into the scene!).
Every minor event will give you two choices; usually, they'll both be beneficial (or both... not). Here, you're given the choice between bumping up the value of your wild cards, or bumping up the value of one of each of the suited cards.
These minor events feel a lot more consequential now without being terrifying (although... I HAVE accidentally lost a game by chosing to remove cards when my deck was at the lower end on deck size). It'll still be really hard to lose, even just kind of randomly picking options. 😅
Changed the major event UI to look more like One Last Job
After we were done working on One Last Job, I liked some of the visual effects we used there enough that I figured "hey, in Another Round we're sending people on jobs too, just like in OLJ – let's copy a bit of that look & feel to bridge AR's major events to feel a little like OLJ's jobs." And that's just what Robin did!
When there is a major event, you must send some of your named cards to deal with it. The more named cards you send, the less likely it will be for one of them to be injured. We got lucky -- this time!
Previously, we showed a percent success chance, depending on the number of people you sent. We're "hiding" that information a bit behind dice rolls now, which could be bad for some folks – let me know if that's you, by the way!
Other than the visual change, the game mechanics are still the same as they were before (sending more folks will give you a better chance of doing the job successfully, although some folks will be guaranteed to get injured if they're sent on certain jobs), they just look a little more fun. Robin even kept the waddle-off / waddle-on animations, which I absolutely love. <3
We Got Everything You Want
December WILL be when we open the store pages to the world. I don't know if it'll be before the monthly newsletter or not, but - rest assured - I will write a SPECIAL (short) newsletter to celebrate when these pages go up and wishlisting is open!
Until then, you can keep this on loop:
