Introduce Yourself

[jesskitten]

Hail and well met!

 

I've been a gamebook fan since young (and a computer game addict, more recently, too) but hadn't heard about you guys until now. I'm done school and working now, but it didn't scar me enough - almost, but not quite - to not give school-based simulation games a whirl especially when it's combined with fantasy RPG, one of my favourite genres. And I'm glad I did!

 

I tried out a demo of the game when I noticed the two games (Academagia, Scheherazade) as add-ons on the BCS kickstarter, which itself I only heard about near the end of its pledge duration, through someone's plug on a gamebook-related mailing list I happen to be on. So it's kind of a fortuitous leap that I found this game from two degrees of separation away, but the demo was fun, and boy is the real thing addictive! I was quite eagerly waiting for the key and am pretty sure I redeemed it within 15 minutes of it landing in my inbox heh. It was a nice little surprise too since the keys were originally estimated (via one of the BCS staff answering a message I left on the kickstarter survey) to be sent on the weekend, but it arrived last Friday evening at the end of a particularly long day. Talk about a very welcome Encourage Fellow Student roll.

 

I think I put about 15 hours into it this weekend (it was raining!) and am halfway through my 2nd playthrough, and I wanted to share my first impressions! I love how complex and deep it is, there's still tons of things I haven't tried out - stories, skills, different specializations, spells, I didn't even quite figure out how to use extra phemes in a spell until just before midterms of this 2nd playthrough, not to mention crafting, which I haven't touched. In a sense, as much as my characters are navigating their ways through Year 1 and growing, so am I, the player.

 

I like how some events make reference older events and their outcomes, whereas others promise future continuations, and so on. The end of year finale of the first playthrough definitely left me appropriately wistful and eagerly awaiting 2nd year, and other writings at the end of some of the events have been suitably epic and left me impressed (like the path I took through Bright Young Vernin.) I also like the lore (though the little boxes eventually made me start skipping lots of it), and giggled at little references like Stenephen Pastis' and Daribus Conley's courts. <3 Pearls Before Swine.

 

The bad stuff mostly comes from the UI, though it seems like that may be improved with the next installment anyway? Hard to navigate around and refer back and forth (for example, you can't see your current skills and abilities while picking your optional settings for the day's events), no easy way to look through/search/sort phemes, locations, abilities, duration of all active effects, etc, and it can get really overwhelming really quick (then again, that is sort of an accurate simulation of a first-year student's mindset.. ). I also often don't know what is a bug/oversight and what is something I just haven't found yet, like it took me nearly 3/4 of the first year to find the inventory screen and gold display... *blush* - And I still haven't figured out how to see Student A's relationship with Student B so I can decide if raising/lowering their relationship would have any effect. Also there's no way to increase the size of anything (or run it in windowed mode), so there's a lot of blank space outside the frame around the main playing area, while at the same time I have to squint a lot to see the text, especially when it insists to put everything in little boxes that require lots of scrolling. Very hard to visualize and therefore mentally sort and compare information.

 

Oh, that and the next few years aren't out yet. /rage. But I'm sure by then I'll have a stable of characters, each with their own different storylines and memories, to carry through. And then rage about the lack of Year 3!

 

I'm not sure if you're still looking for bug submissions, assuming they aren't things I just don't understand yet - I think I stumbled across a few, like how Study the Fields is supposed to increase Agriculture/Flowers/Seeds by 1 skill step each, but increases Agriculture and Seeds by 1 skill step and Flowers by 1 skill level instead. There were a couple minor typos but I didn't note them down, and at least one event where the entire text from start to end was in red text instead of black, I am not sure if that signified something or was just a misplaced colour /tag. And one skill that got used on my female character by another female NPC but whose description stated something about opposite gender only. I'll have to look through history to find out what that was again..

 

Oh, and how exactly do I go about curing Slightly Queasy (from Bitter Stalks)? I've done searches on the forum, wiki, and even downloaded the mod tools and searched through item/ability names for keywords, but resting doesn't cure it, and I haven't found a recipe, item, skill etc that seems to get rid of it yet, and my character has been queasy for months now.

 

Cheers,

Jessica

[Schwarzbart]

Welcom to ther BCS forum jesskitten.

I think they changed Slightly Queasy so that it get lost when you rest. (Nut 100% sure about this)

[jesskitten]

Welcom to ther BCS forum jesskitten.

I think they changed Slightly Queasy so that it get lost when you rest. (Nut 100% sure about this)

 

Thanks! It doesn't seem to though... I've rested multiple times and it's still there, grrr. I suppose my insight is high enough this playthrough, regardless.

[Legate of Mineta]

Jess;

 

If I recall correctly, Bitter Stalks is a Poison, and you may have to cure it via a specialized Action. By the way, you did Patch before you began your game, correct?

 

Glad you enjoyed, though (and you caught that reference! )

 

We're always interested in bugs, so if you see any typos or strange occurrences, please note them in the latest Bug thread over on the Support Sub-Forum.

 

Thanks, and welcome to the forums!

[Schwarzbart]

Legate there is no cure for Poisons in year 1 to my knowledge thats why we requested the change some time ago and you agreed to it.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Bah, I forgot! If it's not implemented, I'll have to ping the Team again (although let's see if she Patched up first.)

[jesskitten]

Hmm. I'm fairly sure I did download/patch up to CP3 and start the new game with the mod selected, as the e-mail mentioned, yup. I can't say for sure it's not there (I haven't seen all the actions/abilities available nor gone down all the sub-trees), but I think I haven't found the action in my games, as yet (if it exists).

[Albert]

Hmm. I'm fairly sure I did download/patch up to CP3 and start the new game with the mod selected, as the e-mail mentioned, yup. I can't say for sure it's not there (I haven't seen all the actions/abilities available nor gone down all the sub-trees), but I think I haven't found the action in my games, as yet (if it exists).

 

As I understand it patches and new content can only be added to new games, it wont add to old saves. (unless I'm wrong)

[jesskitten]

Right, I only started recently (4 days ago now), and patched to whatever is in this thread before I started. I believe you're right from what I read, too.

 

I'm just going to assume there's no way to remove that Slightly Queasy passive (from Bitter Stalks) currently in game.

[Legate of Mineta]

Jess;

 

Hmm, thanks- I'll need to report this to the Team. In Y2 we actually (finally) have a timer for these kinds of effects, so you can't be permanently poisoned.

 

We'll review, and thanks!

[Svinik]

Hi

 

I'm Andy Tall, I played played the beta-test version on and off until I saw the "proper" game on the Holdfast kickstarter and have since played the "proper" game through a few times, having seen early designer drafts listing out all the skills, phemes, etc I think I can safely say that no matter how much I play I will never figure them all out

[Dreamweaver]

Hi

 

I'm Andy Tall, I played played the beta-test version on and off until I saw the "proper" game on the Holdfast kickstarter and have since played the "proper" game through a few times, having seen early designer drafts listing out all the skills, phemes, etc I think I can safely say that no matter how much I play I will never figure them all out

Andy Tall as in Andrew Tall from the wiki? If so, thanks for putting in the effort, it's been very useful to me.

[Legate of Mineta]

Svinik;

 

Welcome to the forums, fellow beta tester! Glad to see you here.

[Schwarzbart]

The game must feel complet different from what it was in beta.

Even as a player from the 1. release version I think its a different game by now.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Oh man, it was *different* alright.

[CremePudding]

Hi

 

I'm Andy Tall, I played played the beta-test version on and off until I saw the "proper" game on the Holdfast kickstarter and have since played the "proper" game through a few times, having seen early designer drafts listing out all the skills, phemes, etc I think I can safely say that no matter how much I play I will never figure them all out

You must have an iron will, because that wiki thing is killing me.

[Svinik]

You must have an iron will, because that wiki thing is killing me.

 

Andy Tall as in Andrew Tall from the wiki? If so, thanks for putting in the effort, it's been very useful to me.

 

 

Yup, Andrew on the wiki, Andy/Svinik here (the latter is Larry's fault, he understands why), I'm used to them - that wiki's fairly intuitive and simple so I just knocked out adventures as I played though. Sadly I had to quasi-guess ability DC's, and rather than "doing the wiki" properly I played for fun and just recorded the path I took, but what the heck, I'll try another path next time, or having put some basic blocks in place someone else can tag outcomes on. And I'm glad that someone's found it helpful, I figured that since I used the wiki I should add a page or two to it, plus with Academagia being available via Holdfast and with Year Two in the works I figured that some people might want to re-run year one.

 

 

 

The game must feel complet different from what it was in beta.

Even as a player from the 1. release version I think its a different game by now.

 

 

I actually find the game very similar in many ways to the beta (although my memory may be being gentle), at least the buttons for inventory etc got moved, my first beta-play through I couldn't see them as they were below the bottom of my screen which made concealment...interesting as play progressed ;-) That said the game crashes a lot less now, although the last couple of weeks tends not to do well on my machine.

 

And hail and well met Legate, please ignore any comments on the wiki, forums or elsewhere which may suggest research into illegal areas, it's purely scholarly summarisation of approved research into methods for detecting and protecting against illegal magics.

[Legate of Mineta]

Hail! And small text will not save you from Detention.

[Svinik]

Hail! And small text will not save you from Detention.

 

 

That depends on the instructor, Viada can't read anything under font size 14 so you just have to use a faint pencil and you're safe...

[Sciurrus]

Hi all! I've been lurking around on the forum for a while now and well my Hide and Move Silently skills both hit 10 so I figured I would come out and introduce myself.

[Legate of Mineta]

Welcome to the forums, Sciurrus!

 

Glad we finally made that Perception Roll.

[AlmondFlower]

I really enjoy games where you can create your own characters. So few do it properly. However, I was happy to see Academagia really includes the character you make into the world and they do it very well. (=

 

I go by AlmondFlower. The name's Ciera, though. It is nice to meet you. I love games, particular those that are story driven or have RPG elements. I found the forum some time ago when I first got the game (around the time patch 15 came out, i think?), but it was a long time before I joined. I'm terrible at introductions, so I'm gonna hop off. Just wanted to say hello, mainly.

[Legate of Mineta]

Welcome to the forums, AlmondFlower!

 

We're glad you enjoy the game- character creation is one of our favorite parts, too.

[Albert]

Welcome AlmondFlower! Same reason I love Academagia.

[Lapis]

Hi, I'm Lapis. I've been lurking for quite some time, but finally decided to come out of the woodwork. I've been having a great time with Academagia - I love the sheer amount of choices and skills available. I just started playing around with the mod tools as well, and I'm so glad they exist; it's nice to be able to create personalized adventures for my characters. I think I might be addicted to reading lore, so hopefully there's lots more coming...and I am of course eagerly anticipating Year 2.

Nice to meet you all!