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I've been playing a lot of fairly dark games recently. It might be time for a little levity. I’m gonna play Recettear instead.  WARNING: This game is super anime. Turn back now if that’s not your bag. For myself, and for the rest of you, may God have mercy on us all. Brought to us by Japanese indie game studio EasyGameStation, translated by indie-loving localizer Carpe Fulgur   Recettear is one part item shop simulator, one part dungeon crawler, one part visual novel. It’s the story of a young girl named Recette, who is forced by circumstances to convert her home into a ye olde item shoppe, selling deadly weapons and alcohol to children, buying ancestral family heirloom sandwiches and sailor suits from old men, and forming solid business relationships with adventurers. No hero will be helped for free, no villain's business will be turned away, no charity will be given! Communism will not be tolerated! Capitalism is not negotiable! CAPITALISM, HO! Part 1: Another Morning in Anime Not!France Part 2: The Mob Owns You Part 3: Just What the Hell is a Pin Anyway? Part 4: A Gentleman Adventurer and the Merchants of Fortune Part 5: Tear Hates Poor People Part 6: You Have to Give Me a Do-Over! Part 7: Gotta Go Back, Back to the Past Part 8: Heavy Metal Thunder Part 9: The Humanoid Typhoon Part 10: Lovely and Charming Little Shop Part 11: What a Charming Young Lady Part 12: The Sweet Spot Part 13: New Folks Part 14: All My Favorite People Part 15: Priestly Virtues Part 16: This Garden isn’t Much of a Garden Part 17: Horrifying Yet Adorable Berserker Rage Part 18: Pretentious Evil Part 19: We’ve Entered an Endless Recursion of Time Part 20: Nothing Ever Ends Part 21: It's All Setup Part 22: Special Video Update 1 - Incorporeal Balls of Fire and Hate Part 23: Special Video Update 2 - Best Puncher vs. Total Dork Part 22: Everything Ends, Again and Again Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Nov 24, 2019 |
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Nov 8, 2018 10:24
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Part 1: Another Morning in Anime Not!France Our story starts, like so many anime before it, with our protagonist oversleeping. It also starts in media res, expecting you to just run with things until a flashback explains later what the hell is going on.  But not for long! I feel like whatever professionalism she was trying to gain with the glasses and tie is lost with the bare midriff and miniskirt. On the plus side, at least she’s legal. Probably.  Does she really not understand how important today is? Nope!   …  Thankfully for us, our underage protagonist sleeps fully clothed.  Oh. Tear! G… g’morning! We do not have time for “g’morning”, Recette! Are you planning on spending the rest of your life dreaming of sweets?She’s like, 9, so probably. Today is the day we set for the opening of the store! Uh, we did? … Oh yeah, we did! This game is fairly light on the English cursing. French, not so much. Tear has a filthy filthy mouth. Listen. Go wash your face and make yourself presentable, and then join me downstairs in the storefront. ‘Kay! I’ll be right down! This used to be the first floor of Recette’s house. Because of reasons, Tear converted it into a shop. Thankfully, as a videogame character, Recette can fit an infinite amount of stuff in her pockets (except when she can’t) and therefore did not have to give up her bedroom for storage.  “Capitalism, ho!” is Recette’s most common catchphrase, and quickly became the catchphrase for fans of the series. As one person on the Steam forums put it:   The first day of the game is a tutorial. Unfortunately, there are lots of tutorials in this game. We need to take care of a few matters before we open officially. Huh? Like what? Well, I somehow doubt that a store without anything to sell is going to attract all that much business. Uh… Oh yeah! We don’t have anything to sell!Nothing gets past our intrepid protagonist. … So, uh… What do we do?Get a dozen more skimpily dressed fairies and start a brothel? Is it appropriate for an underage girl to manage a fairy brothel? To start with, we need to establish a stock of items for the store. If we have nothing to sell, we cannot claim to be much of a shop!I think you made your point Tear. In fact, if you had planned on opening today, why the hell don’t you have any stock? Why haven’t you trained your sole employee? Technically, Recette’s the owner, but Tear’s company owns Recette until she pays them off, because reasons. That’s true… hmm… So where should we go to get stocked up? The best way, I think, would be to visit either the town market or the Merchant’s Guild. We need to give our regards to the head of the guild regardless, so that should probably be our first stop. Recette, at your age, I’m pretty sure every man you meet is an “old guy”, so that’s not really narrowing it down. The guild operates as a wholesaler for local merchants, so if we stop by we can purchase an initial stock. It would not hurt to grov- er, give your polite regards to the guild chief, either.Really Tear? You think that the ideal way for a retail shop to obtain stock is to buy from a wholesaler? My God! This revelation will surely revolutionize shopping as we know it! Especially since the Guild is the organization that allows us to operate here in the first place. ‘Kay, got it! Then let’s go, right now! When you want to leave the shop, head to the front door, currently located in the upper-right hand corner of the store.I’d question that Tear is telling Recette how to leave her own house, except we’ve already established she’s not real bright. Also…  Yeah. Preemptively telling her to use the door and reminding her where it is is probably best. TO ETERNITY, AND- Oh, okaaaaaay… Tear will inevitably explain every little thing in countless tutorials, but allow me a second to explain the layout of the shop, formerly known as Recette’s living room, and the interface, which Tear can probably see, but Recette can’t. In the top left, we have the clock. Days are separated into four time segments. You can open the shop for one segment at a time, going anywhere in town takes one time segment, and going on an adventure takes two segments. Next to that, we have the day count (the normal game lasts 36 days, although there’s also new game+ and endless modes) and my current money (what a pix is I couldn’t tell you). In the bottom left my current merchant level and experience bar are displayed. Recette is a shopkeep, not a adventurer, and she levels up by buying and selling in the shop. In the bottom right, a reminder that I can change the camera view if I don’t like sort-of top-down.  It’s not a particularly impressive change. Otherwise, the shop itself contains shelves for items (one item per space, I currently have room for 12), a counter where Recette sits when the shop is open, a large window (items in front of the window are visible from the street and will impact how people view your shop), and the door Tear gave very clear directions to.  We also have a menu. It contains a calendar with a running reminder of how much Recette has to pay Tear the following week, a list of all items I currently possess, an encyclopedia of every item I’ve seen so far, some options (volume and text speed) and a lost arcane art known as saving the game.  The town of Pensee! Which appears to only have about twenty houses. In normal games I might assume that this is an abstraction representing a normal-sized town, except there’s only about 12 people in this town, except for when they clone themselves. Once you’ve left the shop (which is called Recettear because REASONS!), you can normally walk right back in the door, no harm, no foul. If you actually go anywhere in town (I’m in tutorial hell, so only the merchant’s guild is available), then one time segment will pass when you return to the shop. It doesn’t matter how many places you go. You can do laps around town as long as you don’t go back to the shop. And so I will ride the rails over to the merchant’s guild.  A good solid rugged beard and the clothes of the working class. This man is alright in my book.   Yes, you’re recette and that loan-shark! While that is not… well, an INcorrect assessment, could I ask that you refrain from calling me a “loan-shark”?Tear is totally a loan shark, or at least works for one. That’s right, mister! She and I are partners! Don’t be mean!Recette is… very forgiving, but we’ll get to that in the flashback. Hahaha! Forgive me, forgive me! Partners it is! So! How’re the preparations for that shop coming along? Quite well, thank you.Our sole employee is an untrained child and we have no stock. We are totally prepared for the IPO. In fact, we plan on opening today, so we stopped by in order to show our gratitude for your help. Ha! Very good! You two know what’s what! If you have any problems, let me know, I’ll be glad to help! We appreciate your kindness, thank you. It’s a good thing Recette is adorable, because she doesn’t have much else going for her. Not a problem at all! So! You came straight here to pick up some merchandise, right? Well up to the counter then! Let’s get you two sorted! This is our first time stocking up. Our funds are limited, so do not go completely overboard. I recommend purchasing no more than ten items.Rule #1: Tear’s advice is usually bad. Kay-o! The guild master has a whole list of tutorials, but his are optional, I’ll go into them as they come up.  This is the reason we come here. The guildmaster sells items at wholesale for me to resell to adventurers and other people interested in dangerous weapons. Like small children. At this point, there are only two ranks of items and they’re all limited in quantity available. As I progress, he’ll make more items available to me, and older items will eventually become infinite in quantity, in case I want to buy a hundred lovely worn swords. I can only buy weapons (swords, daggers, staves, bows, spears, gloves) and armor (clothes, robes, breastplates, heavy armor, shields, hats, helmets) here, along with a few kinds of accessories (bracelets and charms). The other available source, the town market, has other accessories, consumables, and various random crap. I bought a small assortment from him, focusing more on higher value items (which are still pretty cheap compared to later stuff) rather than the number Tear wanted me to get. There’s a bit of hit and miss here, making more sales is often more important this early than making money, but I like to have a little padding in the ol’ wallet. Right then! Will that be all? Yep, this is perfect! We shall return when our stocks run low again. Haha! I’m looking forward to it! Here - a little something extra, as a start-up gift! Walnut bread being the cheapest food item. Food is easy to sell generally, and is also used as healing items in dungeons. Alright, little lady! Give ‘em your all! Capitalism, ho! Well, Adam Smith would be proud of us, at any rate… an item shop. Okay! What do I do first? First, we need to put some items on display. If we do not have our goods out for people to see, we can hardly expect the customers to buy them, after all!Tear, I’m pretty sure your goods are already on display. So I just need to get near these counters? Just so. Once you know where you wish to place something, choose what you wish to place in that spot by pressing the “primary” button.Yes yes Toad, I already know about Timed Hits.  Recette was confused enough already without Tear tripping out and talking about buttons. You will understand when you try it, trust me. Now remember, what you place will affect how people perceive the store, so think carefully before you place something. Right! Now then, to start off… Why not line up what we purchased on the counters?Okai!Recette is clearly allergic to using the same response more than once. It doesn’t matter where you choose to put things, with one exception.  Sure, what is it? Those counters by the window… Items you place there are visible to anyone passing by on the street. As such, putting “eye-catching” items… the sort of thing that makes you think “I want to buy this more than anything!”… on those counters is a core principle of running a shop like this. In a very real way, those counters are the “face” of the shop, and what is placed there greatly affects interest in our business. So choose very carefully what to place there.Tear likes her air quotes a lot. Wow, I never thought about it like that… Hokai! I’ll be careful!It’s not as important as Tear suggests, the window shelves matter in two cases: certain events will make specific items incredibly popular and having a lot of that item in the window will draw in huge crowds. Otherwise, the items in the window will affect the shop’s appearance stats, which are on a two-axis chart of cheap vs. gaudy and good vs. evil. Certain items are more strongly associated with one statistic or another, most don’t matter.  I grabbed one each of a handful of items, trying to focus on the cheapest versions of more expensive categories. I got a worn sword (sword) a rusty dagger (dagger) a leather glove (glove), a raincoat (robe), a clothes (clothes… I am aware of the redundancy), and a scrap plate (breastplate), plus the walnut bread the guild master gave me. … Are you sure it doesn’t look dumb? I… Do not worry. Everything looks fine for a first attempt. Now I need to reach you how to actually sell things. Please go sit at the counter. Right-o! The shop still looks kinda bare. Hopefully a quick infusion of cash will fill things out, if Tear ever stops the tutorial and lets me play the damned game. Well then. The items are in place, and now you need to learn how to actually sell things to people without embarrassing yourself! O-kai-o! So, to start with, I will lecture on the actual process of selling an item we have displayed.I’ll admit this tutorial is important. It can be kind of hard to catch on to these mechanics at first, and Tear’s lesson does help a bit. I just wish it was skippable. Yes, professor!  There’s enough variety of expressions in this game to make me smile when people spend forever talking, at least. Now then. When a customer enters, be sure to greet them with a nice big “Welcome”! Um, uh… W-welcome! Greeting the customer helps them to feel comfortable and relaxed while in the store. Their comfort is fundamental to our business, remember that as we continue.Not really. Mostly it puts social pressure on them to interact with the salesperson instead of just getting what they want, buying it, and getting out. My experience is that customers are generally happier being left alone. Now! A typical customer will find an item they want on our displays, and then they will come over to the counter to pay for it.Untypical customers won’t show up until later, after Tear does another tutorial. Let me demonstrate. Tear’s about to explain this pretty well in most respects, so I’ll sum up the bits she misses. Er, um, uh, ah… What they want will be in the “Target” window. You will also be able to see the name and base price.You buy items from the guild or market at 70% of their base price. So if you sell at base price, it’s a decent markup with a decent profit. Pay close attention to that base price. Also, if you press Button 3, you can view expanded information on the item in question.Details include item category, stats, and highest and lowest prices you’ve sold that item for. Consult the “custom.exe” program included with Recettear if you wish to check or alter your button configuration.Breaking the fourth wall was only really funny the first time Tear.  And you’re confusing Recette, who has a day to learn how to run this shop. Focus, Recette. Your life is hard enough to control as it is. Uh… okay. Now then. Next, you must decide what price you wish to offer. In general, you want to try and name a price higher than the base. Try naming a price, if you will. Uh… lesse… Looks like they were going for some kind of shortened from of “let’s see” there. You likely noticed that the base price serves as your default. To raise your price, press up. Press… up? ... … okay. It’s really a very unambiguous system. At worst, since a lot of mechanics work on percentages of the base price, the hardest part is calculating percentages of odder numbers. Also, just because you can throw another 25% markup on top of the base price like this doesn’t mean you should. Tear will say that you should always try to get the most out of every transaction, but Tear’s an idiot. Prices max out at 500% of the base price, which you will never, ever be able to get. Yes, very good. That is how you adjust your offer. As might be obvious, if a character is satisfied with your offer, it is a sale and you get a little bit of experience along with the money.Like I mentioned briefly before, Recette’s a merchant, not an adventurer, and she gains experience and levels up by buying and selling. If your price is too high, however, a customer can simply walk out. Learning to determine the proper price – there lies the challenge!Not really. The proper price is pretty simple to guess most of the time. It’s just not the same thing as the highest price you can demand without the customer walking. Now, if a customer disagrees with a price, but not so much that they want to storm out, then you can negotiate. Remember what I said about comfort earlier? That is the key here. Offer a price, but do not make it so outrageous that the customer feels you are not acting in good faith. So if they disagree, but stay, offer a new price. Ideally, you will lower your offer a little, and they will take it and give you a sale. Some customers may just be trying to sniff out a better price. When they are really willing to pay your initial price, however.This scenario isn’t very common. Whether or not you risk testing that possibility is up to you. How long you can keep haggling… well, that depends on how regular a customer the person in question is. As we are starting out, you will not be able to haggle for very long, but after customers being to trust us a little, you can haggle for a longer period of time.This is good information to know, but here’s something better: if you haggle, you’re doing it wrong. You get more experience for offering a price the customer will take the first offer, even more experience if that price is close to what they think the item is worth, and still more if you get it on the nose. At this point in the game, leveling up is more important than making bank. That’s why I tried to focus on items that will sell for more. Well, time to put theory into practice. Uhm, okay! Could I get this, please?   For best results, a price between 100% and 110% is best. I find between 102% and 108% gets the most experience boosts for accuracy. The corollary here is that customers have hard caps on how much they can spend, and will often choose to buy items out of their price range. If that happens, a perfectly reasonable price they can’t afford will still be shot down. Good. At this level, a customer will likely buy immediately. Alright then. Now for the fine art of haggling. Theoretically, what you wish to do is lower your price slowly, but as I mentioned, there is a limit to how long you can haggle. The idea is to deduce a customer’s desired price and go from there.I’d complain about Tear repeating herself except we’ve established Recette needs these points hammered in. A large number of stores sell at about 30% over base price. It is not a hard and fast rule, but people will usually accept that price level… usually.Not really, no. Only a few are willing to pay that much higher. If you can manage to go over that, you will make a lot of money, but you do not want to risk driving away a customer! Right then. So, as a customer, I am haggling. Could you make it a little bit cheaper? Okay… gotta make it cheaper, but not to cheap… This tutorial still offends me. There we are. Reducing the price to this level makes a sale likely.I literally reduced it by 10 pix to shut you up. I could have lowered it by 1 and gotten the same response. Well, that covers just about everything.I loving wish. She’s got so many more tutorials. Now let us put the entire lecture into practice all at once. If you can sell me an item, you will be ready for what lies ahead. Let us begin. Hello! Welcome to Recettear!  I still don’t know where Tear got this steel sword from for this demonstration.  So if I had bought this sword from the guild (at 2100 pix), I’d be making a decent 1150 pix profit at this price. Yes, an excellent price. Thank you so much! This is how Recette reacts to everything she sells, from the most expensive golden idols to the cheapest walnut bread. Then we went through the same thing again, with the same dialogue. There’s making a point that Recette is kinda dumb, there’s being patronizing, and then there’s this poo poo. Expertly done. If you ever wish to practice again, simply ask any time we are in the shop. And that is, essentially, how it goes. You are quite good for someone who has never done it before. Eheheh… really? We still have a little bit of time left today, so let us go ahead and open the store proper. If anyone comes in, simply handle then in the same way that we just practiced. Whoa. Are you sure it’ll be okay?This was literally the plan since before you woke up. It was all about opening up today. Do not worry. As the saying goes, salesmanship is more of an art than it is a science. You learn as you go. Now then, I will open us up. Go on and sit at the counter. Okey-day! Customers come in certain categories, every member of a category shares the same stats and the same portrait. They are probably meant to be different people… but it’s much funnier to assume that every old man is the same old man, every housewife is the same housewife, and every little girl is the same little girl. Occasional individuals will show up, mostly limited to adventures we’ll meet as the game progresses, the guild master, and some annoyances. And so we have our first customer, the middle-aged housewife. She buys things for her family, will eventually come in selling stuff her husband was trying to hide, and has a decent budget.  She’s buying the cheapest item in the game as a present for her mother in law. Passive-aggression is both passive and aggressive.  I started out at 102%, trying to fish for her target price, and made an easy sale.  I get 2 XP for making the sale. As you keep up a chain of sales without haggling, that amount will double each time. A long enough chain of sales can eventually result in getting hundreds of experience per sale, though chains this long will be pretty rare.  Note the 15 point XP bonus I got. That’s for getting near her target price, it would be doubled for being spot-on. Apparently Tear locked up as soon as Housewife left, because that’s the only customer you get to do on day 1.  Congratulations. You did well. … I sold stuff. She seems so shocked. This girl might have had a heart attack if she tried to run a lemonade stand. Hey Tear? I… I’m so happy! I… I did it! Tear, I did it!100 pix down, countless hundreds of thousands to go! Papa… I did it!...It’s hard to rag on Recette when she’s so happy. Let’s end on a high note. NEXT TIME: Terme Finance owns you (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 8, 2018 10:24
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Part 2: The Mob Owns You So, right about now you might be wondering what kind of circumstances lead to a young girl (Recette’s age is never given, but I can’t believe she’s any older than 8 or 9) converting her home into an RPG item shop.  Yeah, that.  Cue the flashback!  You can tell it’s a flashback because the background is suddenly in sepia tones. Yup, the calendar says it’s been three months since Papa left… I don’t get why he suddenly said “I’m gonna be a hero!” and then took off without saying when he’d be back…Kid your father is either dead or he abandoned you. I really hope he’s okay… I’m getting lonely… Well, I shouldn’t worry too much about him. The best thing about him is how tough he is! He’ll be okay!Really, it’s impressive that this kid has managed to keep herself alive for three months. I guess her papa must have been a fiscal genius who left a stash of money to support his daughter even if he was gone for a prolonged period. That has to be the case, right? And then there was a knock on the door. Bwuh? Papa… wouldn’t know. Who is that? The medieval anime Not!France equivalent of Child Protective Services, finally alerted to the fact that this girl’s father bailed months ago and she’s been living alone ever since? Huh? There’s nobody here. … Wait, what? At my feet…? Tear’s a fairy, and therefore we’re supposed to assume she’s small. She floats at Recette’s eye level in cutscenes, so one wonders why she was standing on the ground where Recette couldn’t see her when the door opened. Uhm… You are Mademoiselle Recette Lemongrass?Tear is the only one actually even pretending this is supposed to be France. Uhm… Miss Fairy?... Pardon me, but I am the one asking questions. Again - you are Recette Lemongrass? Uh, um… yes, I’m Recette. My name is Tear. I am an agent of the Terme Finance Company. Finance… Company?Metal Gear? I am here to collect payment on a loan paid out to your father. Here is the contract, and my identification. Uh… … Loan? Repayment? I, uh… In plainer terms, I am here to get our money back. If you are incapable of facilitating repayment… This house will be seized as collateral in order to repay the loan.This sounds illegal as gently caress to me, but this is Anime Not!France, not America, so the hell do I know about laws and poo poo? Besides, Terme isn’t really what you might call a “legitimate financial institution”. There’s a reason the Guild Master calls Tear a loan shark and the only thing she can say in her defense is to ask him not to. … Facilitating? … Collateral?So many new words little Recette is learning today! Truly this is a perfect teaching moment!  I guess she knew that one already. B-b-b-but I but I-I-I… Papa, Papa isn’t… He is not here… yes, I see that now.  He picked a fight with a dragon… on top of a volcano… and then disappeared… and your theory is that he turned around and went home? Even if he has not, however, the contract covers this eventuality. …Covers this?... Quite. As the sole remaining member of his household, we shall require that you pay the debts in his stead.Again, illegal as gently caress. If Monsieur Lemongrass hasn’t been declared legally dead, you can’t reasonably go after his heirs, since they haven’t inherited anything yet. Unfortunately, since the house is still his property, they probably could totally still take that.  I… barely have enough money to live by… by myself… Naturally, we are not demanding it all be repaid at once.That is technically exactly what you demanded when you first came in. There is still a small amount of time before any payment is due. Therefore… Am I gonna get sold off in parts to distant, foreign lands to repay Papa’s debts?Why do I get this uncomfortable feeling that this isn’t the first time she’s been concerned about that? I wonder if I can survive with only two internal organs?Well, you are an anime character, so very probably. Maybe if I eat a lot of spinach, that can replace my blood and… oh, but I don’t want to be a sailor! What am I gonna do?... I have no idea where you are getting these ludicrous ideas from.Yeah, it’s not like an enforcer for a shady loan shark just burst into her home and threatened to take it away, right? But I would never do such a thing. Quite the opposite, in fact?… So you’re going to sell her body for experiments involving adding additional organs? I was sent here to ensure that you wouldn’t have to resort to such… well, absurd methods to pay us back.No, you were sent here under the assumption that M. Lemongrass was alive after fighting that dragon and had gone back home and just failed to pay you. You were surprised to find out you had to collect from the kid. But, what… I have been sent to support you to the fullest of my ability so that you may repay the debt via labor.That doesn’t really sound much better Tear. Usually telling underage girls in debt to shady organizations that they have to pay off their debt through work means something VERY DIFFERENT from what we’re doing here.  B-but I’ve never worked a single day in my life!Given the distinct lack of school in this Not!French town, not surprising. I suppose maybe Papa Lemongrass was training her in whatever job he did before he dropped everything to become an adventurer, that would explain the outfit. Experience has no bearing in this case. All that matters is whether or not you are willing to work.If not, then we go back to that idea about selling your organs. Awwww… If you do not wish to work, then that is it, the house is Terme’s, and I will have to ask you to leave the premises.Again, no. A) You’ve already established that the debt hasn’t come due yet and B) You can’t evict somebody that quickly. Although, again, loan shark. Presumably Recette can’t fight being evicted after her kneecaps are broken. As the saying goes – those who do not work do not eat.Says the fairy snatching the dinner table out from under the child. So, Miss Lemongrass… which will it be? Work, or the house? … I’ll work, then. Splendid. B-but I don’t even know what I could do… Actually, I already have an idea on that front. You are aware, of course, that this city is an adventuring hub.No real explanation as to why this small town is a major adventuring hub, but there are a large number of adventurers who move through here taking advantage of Recette’s shop before hitting the local Adventurer’s Guild. Therefore… I propose converting the house into an “item store”Tear, you know you’re not supposed to convert the house into a means of generating profit for your company until after you’ve seized it, right? Item… store?... Right about now if I was Tear, I’d probably be tired of the screaming child. Of course, if I was Recette, I’d be tired of the pushy mob enforcer. Still, somehow that did work out, and Tear left to check on the details. The next day, she just let herself in, because Tear is rude.   There is a fair amount more movement in these cutscenes than in your garden variety visual novel, on top of the characters having a decent variety of facial expressions. You can almost forget that you’re staring at static images moving around the screen. I was only gone for a little while to do market research… Where could she have gone? All I did was threaten to take away everything she ever knew and loved.At least she has the good sense to know she’s the bad guy here. Asking her to turn the house into an item shop was foolish, even if it was to repay the debt… The poor girl must be terribly confused… And on top of that, her father is probably… Oddly enough, Recette did not make a run for it (what would even be the point, it would be exactly the same result of Terme taking the house), but just went outside.  For somebody who claimed to have no marketable skills for making money, she does seem to have some ability to work with tools. Maybe Papa was a carpenter?  Hey, Tear! Look! It’s done! What… is that?It’s very clearly a sign. It’s our shop sign, of course! Doesn’t it look cool? You can’t be a shop without one of these, you know.One could argue that it’s even more important than having inventory. Speaking of, isn’t there something you should probably take care of before opening day? Yes, well… it is quite well made. However… Hehehe! I’ve always been good at making stuff. Be that… as it may, while the sign is nice, I… hmm… Huh? Is there a problem? Well… the name. You are quite sure you have thought that through?  No, that’s a pretty dumb basis for naming your shop on. Especially as Recette is the one who does all the actual work. Isn’t it neat? Well, that is to say, the sentiment is commendable, but… so the name should reflect that, right? … You don’t like it? Really, it is not that, but, well, that is… Then it’s decided! Recettear, ho!   Tear doesn’t like being reminded that she’s a horrible person who does horrible things while working for even more terrible people.   And she doesn’t have the ability to say no when Recette is being cute.  Well, the tutorial certainly was. I swear, my first time playing, that tutorial nearly put me off the game. But for now, that’s enough tutorials and flashbacks, we’ve finally reached the loving game! Next time: The loving Game! Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 03:46
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mateo360 posted:couple of errors here. *Stealth fixes* You didn't see anything, you didn't hear anything, and you aren't going to tell anybody! Night10194 posted:If I remember right, hitting sales prices people see as reasonable also levels up the customer, which eventually leads to them having a bigger budget. Pretty much exactly. Customers have their own level up system representing your reputation with that customer. Making a sale gets you a little reputation, any XP bonuses will also give rep bonuses. Notably, there are certain actions that will lower your rep with a customer, including haggling three times in a single sale (thank you again Tear for your masterful tutorial), setting a price on a sale that's higher than the customer has on them or that's so high it drives them away (Tear did at least mention this one). Then it gets weird and complicated and any given transaction has a 1/3 chance of actually affecting your reputation because reasons. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 06:49
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Mechanical Ape posted:As a RPG item shop, do we also deal in vendor trash? Will we have to smile politely at adventurers and pretend we’re actually interested in 20 Dire Boar Snouts? Thankfully, no. I'll get into the adventuring mechanics later, but suffice to say that the adventurers aren't in a position to sell anything from their adventures. On the other hand, there is an entire category of items labeled 'Treasures' that people frequently want to sell to you and very rarely want to buy themselves. So in this case of this game, the vendor trash consists less bear asses and boar snouts and more various solid gold knickknacks.
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Nov 9, 2018 22:02
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Just What the Hell is a Pin Anyway? Alright, Day 2! Finally, a chance to play the drat game! … Okay, yeah, there’s like three more tutorials shoved in today.    Nnnmnmnmn… let’s do the very best we can… That is one seriously cranky fairy.  Sorry Recette, Costello you are not, and Tear is no Abbott. Oh… Tear! Right, g’morning! The clock does not have a “g’morning” hand!Why does basic courtesy make you so angry Tear? Recette, you are the proprietor of an item shop now. You must learn to be responsible and NOT sleep the day away. … Why in the name of Heaven are you smiling so much? That smile you had while sleeping is just getting bigger. Oh… no reason… I just… think I saw something nice in my dreams…Given that you were clearly dreaming about Tear, you and I have very different ideas about nice. … Tear, let’s give it our all! … Well, if you really are that dedicated to making this work, wash yourself and meet me downstairs.Of course she’s dedicated. There’s a Mafia enforcer about to take her house away if she fails. Uh, will do! -48 hours remain- Wait, that might be the wrong game...  … So, uh, what do I do now?The same thing you did yesterday, over and over again until the end of time. Welcome to retail. That is up to your judgment. If you sit at the counter, we can open up immediately, or we can re-organize the shop, or we could even go search for new stock around town… or elsewhere. Yikes, that’s a ton of options… how do I choose? It is as I said earlier. Running a place like this is more of an art than it is something you can simply follow a map through. Simply pick something. We will deal with what comes.More brilliant advice Tear, clearly you are earning whatever Terme is paying you for spending a month out here trying to get them their money. Well, okay… Right now, I’ve still got a decent stock, since I could only sell one thing yesterday, and no money to buy anything anyway. Gotta makes some sales today.  Old man wants a sword. Well, I’m gonna need to run a background check, and there’s a 10 day waiting period once that clears. Nah, it’s fine, he can have it. Gotta play around with the numbers to pin down those bonuses, trying 107% here.  Got the near-perfect +15 XP bonus.  Getting really worried about the old men in this neighborhood. Made this sale at 108%, didn’t get the bonus. Gotta try fishing a little lower. Only the two sales this block. The money isn’t great, but I made enough to make another trip out to the Merchant’s Guild, maybe pick up a couple more swords.  It’s not easy to see on a screenshot, but the Adventurer’s Guild is glowing, indicating that there’s a cutscene for me to see. Cutscenes at town locations pop up frequently, usually just a little side scene, sometimes important story progression. This one is story, but it can wait for now.  The Town Market is as valid a place to buy merchandise as the Guild, having mostly accessories, food, and non-useful stuff like books and treasures, and later in the game, items to decorate the shop. Unfortunately, I blew all my pix at the Merchant’s Guild before coming here. This trip out took a full quarter of the day, clearly Recette’s not much of a jogger.  Back at the shop, a brief look at the menu I can get by talking to Tear. She can describe the shop’s decoration as a graph:  Or tell what I’ll get at increased levels:  Or get repeats of her tutorials. Oh please God no. Opening up for the afternoon:  The Guild Master swings through from time to time. He’s clearly got money to burn.  He’s buying the cheapest item in the store.  Still, I did get the NearPin bonus on the sale. Also, yes, Recette does drop confetti from the ceiling when she makes a sale.  They say this even if they take your first offer with no haggling.  I managed to make enough sales with enough bonuses to get up to Level 2. This was a terrible mistake.  to sell things to people and not drive them to burn the shop in anger.Because Tear gotta Tear. Yepperoni! Easy as pie! Being a truly great store owner involves more than selling things however. There are times when people will want to sell items TO you, as well.And that means another loving tutorial. Really?Yeah, Recette, really. I know it feels like the last one just ended, but we’ll just have to suffer through. I suspect we will begin to get such offers soon. But I already buy stuff from the guild and the market. So why should I worry about buying stuff from the customers?Because buying something counts as a sale for the purposes of the sale chain XP bonus. So you have to grit your teeth and buy their ancestral family heirloom sandwiches. There is one major difference between a guild or market purchase and a purchase from an individual – individuals do not have set prices… you can haggle as you do when selling. Haggle DOWN, that is. Ooooh, so I can get stuff really cheap? But that seems like it’d be really hard. Fundamentally, buying and selling are not that different. The customer shows you an item they wish to sell, and then you set a price and perhaps negotiate. Obviously, you wish to pay less than the base price of the item. Okay! So… buy low, sell dear, right? Just so. That is the very core of a successful business. Now then, shall we practice? The fundamental procedure is the same as when selling.Do I have a choice? Kaio! Seriously, where does she get all these swords from?  Poor Recette, having put up with Tear’s strange delusions about buttons. So what should I set it to?... You can earn NearPin and Pin bonuses when buying too. 70% is usually a good base number to aim for.  Try lowering the price a bit more – 70% or less, perhaps.That was 70%, Tear. Do you need to go back to Fairy School? To satisfy her, I knocked it down to 69%. Excellent, this is a good price level. Yes, between 50% and 70% is a good target.As usual, Tear’s advice is bad. You will gain an item to sell without giving up too much money. And that… is essentially how it goes. You seem to have a decent enough grasp of it. Well. Let us put theory into practice again. I will “sell” you several items. If you buy them from me successfully, I believe you will be ready to proceed.And so we did it again.  And again.  You want to talk about vendor trash? There’s your loving vendor trash. Nobody ever buys this poo poo. Luckily, Tear doesn’t take up the whole drat night, and I have time to open up again.  Scored a few more NearPin bonuses.  And cleared out most of my inventory.  Recette and Tear end every night this way.  And the game ends every night showing you the books. Items you sold to customers on the left, bought from customers in the middle, and fell off the back of a truck on the right. You get a rating depending on having done something, one way or another, only screwing around doing nothing all day gets you lower ratings than this.  -72 Hours Remain- Whoops, sorry, wrong game.  Please don’t. Sure, what’s up? Concerning the debt… I have a suggestion concerning it’s repayment. You do? Paying it all back at once is wholly beyond your means, so I recommend smaller weekly payments to slowly chip away at it.Once again, this idea is terrible, and is the only reason why it’s possible to get a game over before the end of the month. “Wholly beyond”?... Uh, you know, you never told me how big Papa’s debt is, exactly…820,000 pix. It’s painful, but hardly earthshattering. That is because you would faint if you found out. For now, it is a secret.Have I mentioned recently that the entire way Terme operates is shady as gently caress? I-I’d… faint?... As the store begins to build up steam, we will increase payment size.  The first and last payments are generally the worst. Please be sure to check it regularly. Kay-ya! I’ll keep an eye on it.Got plenty to do today, and it means getting out of the shop for a while.  Besides the Adventurer’s Guild, I’ve got cutscenes at the Town Square and Chapel. I’ll knock those out first.  You never seem to have trouble relaxing even when we are NOT in the plaza… Ehehe… well, it’s healthy, right?Tear spends a lot of time bitching about Recette’s work ethic, despite never lifting a finger herself. Meanwhile, over at the chapel…  What on earth a-… yes, that is right. I work for Terme Finance. So you’re employed by them, right? What’s it like?Recette is well aware that Terme is basically the local Mob and wants to know what working for them is like? Erm… no. That is not quite accurate. I was contracted to Terme through another organization. Thus, I am not really an employee per se. So, you’re just contracted? I’m surprised, you seem so- It is not that surprising. Almost all fairies in human society belong to a fairy-specific contract agency. There are, of course, a few free-agent fairies out there as well, and- So that’s how it works. Er, yes. To tell the truth, it can be difficult for fairies to find employment in human society, so the agencies were founded an age ago in order to help facilitate fairy livelihoods. That’s amazing!An entire species is basically held in serfdom to us! Feudalism, ho! … Quite. But that’s enough of the side attractions. The main show is waiting at the Adventurer’s Guild. Next time. NEXT TIME: Gentleman Adventurer! Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 07:48
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habeasdorkus posted:There's a missing close italics bracket in the middle of the update at this line: Please point those out when you spot them. I'm a lazy gently caress, so I ran the update through a converter that in theory was going to handle the BBCode for me, but in practice I think I spent more time chasing broken tags than I did writing the update. habeasdorkus posted:We've got only a couple tutorials left, and those really are the worst part of the game. The actual mechanics of running the shop are really well done. Also, people will almost always accept a first offer of 51% for their goods when selling to you, so if you don't mind missing on the near pin XP you can save some dosh that way. I personally do that because I have most of my cash invested in my goods for sale and don't leave a ton lying around for purchasing someone's heirloom ham sandwich. My main issue with the tutorials is that the game has to come to a screeching halt every time Tear wants to tell me how to do something. Not making them optional was a huge mistake. And for all the information that gets dumped on you, as we've established, so much of it is either misleading or flat out wrong that I almost feel like it would be better for the player to be thrown into the deep end with no instructions at all. MechaCrash posted:Tear has no real incentive to help you. Terme gets paid either way. Depends on the value of the house. My best assumption is that the house has lost value over time since the loan was made, and it's now in Terme's interest to get their full value out of Recette, with a side bonus of, if she fucks up, converting the house into a profitable shop has increased it's value. Mechanical Ape posted:Has there ever been a game where, for story reasons, the tutorial deliberately lies to you? It was technically a major feature of Bravely Default. Super Jay Mann posted:The thing is that Tear's advice is perfectly sound if the goal is to maximize your monetary return on every transaction, which intuitively is what you want to do in order to be able to grow your business enough to cover the continually rising debt payments. It's just at odds with the true progression system of this game which emphasizes customer relations and satisfaction above all else, and this disconnect is so awkward and yet calculated that I still don't know if it was intentionally designed this way. Tear starts off the whole spiel by talking about how you have to make your customers comfortable, and then explains how to wring them for every penny they're worth instead of carefully managing them for increased profit later. The explanation might boil down to Tear has no idea how to interact with people. Would certainly explain why basic courtesy from Recette infuriates her so much.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:02
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Zanzibar Ham posted:Wait, I started up the game in response to this thread and I was able to skip past the tutorials... Is that from a new patch, or because it remembered I played the game a bit before? Huh. The man's right. There's no onscreen prompt for them like there is for cutscenes, but the tutorials are skippable now. That's certainly new. Ha. Ha ha ha. BWAHAHAHA! On the downside, i still have to play through them for this LP, in the interest of getting everything.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:55
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A Gentleman Adventurer and the Merchants of Fortune Alright, enough cutscenes and tutorials, let's get to some action... preceded by a cutscene and a tutorial.  This is the “Adventurer’s Guild”. The guild manages expeditions to the various untamed wilderness areas or abandoned ruins near the city – the areas commonly referred to as dungeons. Without approval, adventurers cannot visit the dungeons. Aw nuts, so we can’t just go into a dungeon ‘n pick up everything we get at 100% profit… It is still a very good idea – a great many people have made fortunes that way. If you wish to do so, however, we must first hire an adventurer. Hire? Can I just pick anybody? The truth of the matter is a bit complicated. Even if you pay them, few adventurers are willing to risk their lives simply for the benefit of a complete stranger. Ooooh. So they turn away people they don’t know very well? Indeed. You should first get to know a few adventurers, and build up a certain level of trust with them. If all goes well, they will give you a symbol of their guild membership - this usually takes the form of a card. With that in hand, we can bring an adventurer with us. So it’s like they’re inviting us to a dinner party!Recette… yeah, sure. Well, dinner parties usually do not include blood-mad beasts attempting to rip you limb from limb… But the analogy does work. Somewhat. Right. So first, I need to meet an adventurer… hmm… Which, for us, should not be that difficult, yes? After all, we run an item shop, so we should get a few coming in as clients on a fairly regular basis. Oh yeah! Well then, I’ll do my best to get a dinner invitation! … Indeed. Just be careful that “Recette” is not on the menu.For once, Tear’s advice isn’t bad. This is more or less the process for getting adventurers on-call. Meet an adventurer, they start coming around the shop and you can run into them around town, and then eventually you can recruit them. With an exception… … Huh? Is something wrong? Well, that guy, over there… Spiky hair, check. Goofy outfit, check. Loud and obnoxious, double check. We just found us a shonen anime protagonist.  If I can’t work, I can’t get the money! And if I can’t get the MONEY, I can’t get the ITEMS! And if I can’t get the items, apparently I can’t WORK! AGH!The continual plight of the working class anime protagonist. Heaven, if I had a few things I could at least visit the Hall of Trials… I wonder what’s going on? He seems to be a rookie adventurer complaining about his inability to complete the required guild test… Test? Well, the guild hardly allows anyone in off the street. You can only officially work for the guild after passing a test. An item shop owner is hardly the only job with challenges.. Hmm! I have an idea… Bwuh? I do believe we have found our first adventurer. Wait, what do you mean by – uh, Tear! Wait! Son of a… I burned what cash I had just getting to this city… If I can’t get into the guild, I dunno what I’ll even do for dinner money… now I’m hungry. Great. Tear, you clearly know nothing about how to interact with people. I realize you’re a fairy, but that’s no excuse for acting like you grew up in the woods. … Who you callin’ “Seedy”?... Er… uh, well… you two would be?... We are a pair of merchants who happened to be passing. Merchants? Oh… you heard me talking. Sorry, but I’m way too broke – and seedy – to buy anything. Believe me, I could tell by your seedy nature that attempting to sell you anything would be a colossal waste of time.She’s right about that. C’mon Tear, stop with the “seedy” already. He isn’t a plant… So are you two going to prune me, or what, here? Would you like it if we came with you to the Hall of Trials? If you require equipment or items, we can provide them. I’d call you a pair of angels, then, but… why? Business, naturally. We help you pass the trial, you provide us with your card. Oh, I get it! We help Mr. Swordsman clear the dungeon, and then he gives us his card, a sign of eternal friendship! “Eternal friendship” is rather irrelevant in this case, but it does work out neatly for all of us. What do you say? I see… you guys are pretty new at all of this too, huh?Swordsman-san is pretty damned perceptive. He’s an idiot, but he’s a perceptive idiot. Our offer, “Mr. Swordsman”. Yes, or no? All right then! Heck, I got nothin’ to lose! Well, aside fromm my precious life, anyway… Yayifications! Glad to meet you two, uh… I’m Recette! Nice to meet you! I am Tear. Call me Louie. Louie the swordsman! Good to meetcha! Yes, yes. Now then. We will begin all of the preparations for a dungeon visit, including a visit to the central market to pick up food and other restorative items.Nope. Not gonna bother. We will then return here for you when we are ready. Right! I’ll be waiting here.Any adventurer working for you is always at the guild when you want them. I’m not sure if the implication is that they live there or are just always on duty.  I decided to buy stuff to sell in the shop. Once you’ve had some practice, there’s no need to bring extra healing items to the first dungeon.  Louie is clearly the only adventurer available right now. This screen also shows you his current loadout, in case you have an upgrade (or a piece to fill that empty slot) to lend him. Most adventurers have a small fee to hire them out, but Louie is always free.  At the beginning of the game, your adventuring inventory is 20 slots. Anything you take out with you, outside of the adventurer’s property, takes up those slots.  Louie doesn’t have any headgear, so I’ll bring a hat for him to wear. Once he equips it, it won’t take up inventory space anymore, but I risk losing it if we’re taken down.  I also could have given him this charm, which has more magic defense but no defense at all. The hat is more useful here.  Just so. “Welcome to the jungle”, as they say. You know… aren’t we just going to hold Louie back here? I mean, I’m not a monster slayer… I’m scared!...Surprisingly insightful coming from Recette. The two of us are perfectly safe. There is a protective field around the two of us… To the monsters, we may as well be invisible. Really?! That’s amazing! So Louie is perfectly safe too then?Yes Recette, that’s why Tear specified “the two of us” she was talking about herself and Louie. You get to be bait. Er, not… quite. Aww, why not? While in the field, we do not need to worry about monsters, but this is accomplished by making us virtually intangible to everything inside this place. We can directly manipulate nothing. Wait, so we can’t collect things? Why are we here then?Secondary weapons, obviously. If Louie’s sword breaks, he’ll throw Tear at the monsters and she’ll kill them with an overly long tutorial. That’s why our adventurer remains outside the field. Oh, I see. He’ll pick stuff up for us! Should our adventurer be injured, we can place him in the field and retreat.It’s nice to have a game explain why dying in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere isn’t a game over. Since we must carry him back, however, we can take very little else with us. One item, at most.This amount will increase as we level up, maxing out at 3. So even if we run into trouble, we don’t lose everything? But wait, I thought you said we can’t – Yes, I will elaborate further if need be later. Naturally, if we get out safely, we can bring as much as out bags will allow us to carry. Well, our bags are not bottomless. If we run out of space, it will be up to us to decide what to keep or discard.Inventory management in dungeons is a surprisingly big deal. Shoulda sprung for a bag of holding, or at least a handy haversack. So, the adventurer focuses on adventure, while we keep track of what loot he should keep.“Keep” being something of a misnomer, as Recette and Tear get everything. I guess that makes sense… Kay-o-day! Let’s get to it! In the absence of tutorials, adventures start by offering you a chance to equip anything extra you brought in. In dungeons, you freely control your adventurer, Louie in this case, while Recette and Tear follow along behind shouting encouragement. Louie is a swordsman, we waves around a sword, has a shield to block projectiles, and wears medium to heavy armor. He’s an excellent starter character for learning the dungeon mechanics and not a bad choice for taking all the way through the game’s six dungeons. Fighting as Louie is very much like playing Legend of Zelda, and taking advantage of his sword’s swing arc to hit enemies to his right side and his shield to be able to dodge and block attacks is key.  Adventurers each have their own levels, and gain experience in the more expected fashion of slaughtering everything in sight. They learn special moves as the level, Louie starts with a fairly useful Spin Slash which costs 5 of his 10 skill points and can hit enemies around him. Like I said before, he’s basically Link except poor. And loud. The tutorial dungeon, the Hall of Trials, is primarily full of slimes. They come in green, blue, and red, with greens being ridiculously easy but numerous, reds being harder but generally found one at a time, and blues being in the middle (and most often encountered in traps). Ideally, you never want to charge an enemy head-on with Louie. His sword swing covers a decent arc in front of him and to his right, so it’s best to come at them from the side so you’re not lined up to take a hit.  You can form kill chains by killing large numbers of enemies in quick succession, which, much like sales chains, increase the amount of experience Louie gets. They’re hard to keep up from room to room, particularly if you have to stop and pick up loot like this. Killed a slime, dropped a sword.  It’s easy to pick up large numbers of items while adventuring. Unfortunately, a lot of the time it’s crap like this. You might note the circle around Louie filling up. That’s his experience bar, after clearing two rooms he’s already halfway to leveling. These first levels come early, and since you’re fully healed on leveling, I can get away with not bringing any healing items along.  Some rooms or hallways are trapped. In this case, it’s a fairly normal trap, falling boulders (which I avoided, while the slimes had some trouble). Others get… strange.  On any given floor of a dungeon, your goal is to find this teleporter to get to the next floor. If you want, you can jump on and progress immediately, or take advantage of respawning monsters to grind more. The game will eventually punish you for spending too long on a floor by spawning invincible superenemies, but that takes a very long time.  Enemies explode into showers of gems when you kill them. The gems are experience points for Louie, rather than anything valuable, and are generally sucked into the passing adventurer.  I believe somebody was asking about vendor trash earlier? Most of the time, you don’t want to sell these drops in the shop, unless you get a lot of them, they’re more often used in crafting later.  Found a bow in a chest. Like rooms, chests can be trapped, and you have no way of knowing until you open it (usually, but there is adventurer who can detect traps).  One of the more common chest traps in lower level dungeons is this group of blue slimes that circle around and close in on you. If you can get outside the ring early, or have really good timing when they’re around you, Louie can wipe the entire group with his spin slash.  Like so.  There’s actually a lot of strategy to dungeon crawling. Rather than just rushing in and beating on everything, sometimes you should wait for the opportune moment. Hitting an enemy from behind, from the side, or while they’re attacking all do increased damage.  Generally, Recette (well, more likely Tear) can identify everything you come across in the dungeons, but occasionally something unidentifiable will pop up. These are unknown crafting ingredients which require higher merchant levels to identify. They’re generally useful to keep, but not so valuable that you shouldn’t ditch them if something worth a lot of money comes along.  As far as I can tell, these tentacled guys (Green Ropers and their thousand palette swaps) are the only monsters that deal collision damage. It’s so unusual that I often forget other monsters don’t while I’m playing.  The last remaining enemy type in this dungeon, gnolls. They come in two flavors, melee gnolls will try to punch you, ranged gnolls throw chestnuts. They’re the toughest things in the Hall of Trials, and are just dangerous enough to be annoying at this point. Louie can block the ranged attacks with his shield, luckily.  They also sometimes drop chestnuts, which can be used in crafting. You might note this chestnut is +3. It’s not worth any more than a regular one, but selling this to a customer would get me a slight boost to reputation with that customer. Items with pluses are hard to come by, if used in crafting a piece of equipment they’ll add directly to its stats.  I managed to fill my entire inventory with crap already. Later you have to be conservative and think about what makes the most sense to bring back.  In this case I just let Louie eat the walnut bread to end the dungeon with full health.  A really big chest and a skewed camera angle? That’s always exciting.   This is… Did I… do it? I did, didn’t I?! Poor guy’s so enthusiastic, it’s hard to rag on him for being excited about clearing the tutorial dungeon. Oh sweet mystery of life! Now you’ll give me money! Way to go, Louie! Recette! Tear! This is all thanks to you guys! This is all well and good, but there is a treasure chest just ahead. It behooves us to investigate thoroughly.I’m with the fairy on this one. Loot now, celebrations later. I’d say drinks are on Louie, but he’s still broke, and none of these characters look old enough to drink anyway. Tear, you really do like going for the money, don’t you?It’s literally her job, yes. Wha?! I… do not spout such foolishness! Heeey, heeey, now. I love me some treasure too. Don’t worry, Tear, I feel you on this. Really, you two completely misunderstand me!...And so Louie finally walked up the steps and opened the chest.  Hah! Give me just a sec here! Wow, cards! So this is an Adventurer’s Guild card… Uh… here, Recette. Take one. Like we promised. Huh? … Oh yeah! Okay! While you did promise to give us your card eventually… We are not so crass as to demand your very first card. You really should think about who you want to give your first –Tear, you’re making it sound like something very different. No, I want this. Recette! I beg you! Please! Take my very first card!Not getting much better. I’d love to! Thanks, Louie!Recette, you are far too young for that sort of thing! Awesome! I can’t wait to adventure with you two some more!Right, adventuring, that’s what we were talking about. Merde. Really now… young people… Mysterious door appearing from out of nowhere hanging in the air. Well that’s not creepy or anything. Hey, Tear? What’s this thing that just showed up?It’s called a “door”, Recette. It’s weird and creepy, but still a door. Ah, yes, that. That is commonly referred to as a “Goho-“ Erm, what am I… a “Door of Return”, I mean.I’m missing the joke here. TVTropes tells me it’s a Persona reference. That’s at least two references I haven’t gotten so far, I missed the Dragon Quest one earlier too. This game is overloaded with references, I’m probably only going to get like half of them at best, so feel free to call them when you see them. If you enter that door, you can return to town in an instant. This one has appeared because we have cleared the dungeon, but they are often encountered during normal exploration too. I believe they usually appear roughly every five levels or so.Every five levels for the first few dungeons, ten levels in later ones. But, wait. If we take this back to town when we’re hallway in, don’t we have to start all the way at the beginning again? Not at all. You can always head back to the floor that had a door on it. In fact, if you do not use a door, you DO have to restart. So if we find a door, we should always use it? Almost always. If we need to rest or unload, then we should use the door. Remember though – returning home takes time. Furthermore, leaving ends the current contract with our companion, and we would have to re-hire him or choose a new one. If there is something specific in a dungeon that you desire, you can simply ignore the doors and press onward. Alrighty, then. I think we have to go home now, though. Quite so. Oh, just to be sure… in the future… Please try to avoid referring to this as “going home”, yes? Ooo… kaaaaay?... Louie opens doors the same way he interacts with everything else in the dungeon. He hits it with his sword.  And that’s the tutorial dungeon. I walked out with a decent little haul of loot and it cost me absolutely nothing going in. Your only adventuring costs are the cost of your adventurer (free for Louie), the cost of whatever consumables you bring in and us, and the opportunity cost of spending half the drat day in there instead of opening the shop.  Leaving me with enough time to open up once before crashing for the night.  Some of those monster drops are worth a pretty bit of cash, but customers won’t often go for them.  Then again, I put out that lovely statue too.  Now that I’ve met Louie, he’ll stop in once in a while. Adventurers will visit from time to time as soon as you’ve met them, but they won’t equip anything you sell them unless you’ve got their card. And they’ll often buy things they can’t equip because they’re dumb.  Case in point, Louie’s buying another set of the armor he’s wearing.  Still, money and experience is money and experience.  A day well spent! NEXT TIME: You Have a Soul Sucking Retail Job
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Nov 13, 2018 08:55
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CommissarMega posted:And it's certainly not like any of them are all that hard up for money either. So it's all good- the system works! Yeah, try telling us that again once we've had a few more of Louie's scenes. I'm partial to the one where he's hungry and Recette helps him learn about which plants in the town square are edible, because it's just that drat heartbreaking that she had to learn about that herself to keep going while Papa Lemongrass was off fighting dragons or whatever. Speaking of 'or whatever'... well, that's a hell of a lot later, we'll get there when we get there.
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Nov 13, 2018 10:14
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MechaCrash posted:The fact that their old gear takes up space in your bag is why getting them to equip the good stuff on a permanent basis is so nice, and why I wish I had a "IT'S A loving PRESENT JUST TAKE IT" button. As much fun as evil capitalist fatcat Recette memes are, I blame Tear for this. Recette's all "You're such a big help I'd like you to have this so you'll be better protected from the slimes!" and Tear swoops in all "NO! ADVENTURERS PAY FULL PRICE!" Your Everyday NEET posted:I'm guessing Louie is the only character that attacks in an arc? Yep. Each adventurer is limited to one kind of weapon, with swords being Louie's thing. There are characters who have much better range, some who are much faster, and some who can rain death from the sky, swinging in an arc is really all he's got. And I really wouldn't call it save scumming, it's an intended mechanic. If you try to drop a save in a dungeon, it saves your progress at the time you entered and you start again from there. The drawback is losing as much as a couple hours of dungeon crawling progress (later dungeons get loving long if you try to marathon them). Glazius posted:Anyway, fun capitalism fact: unlike in real life, where a price can be so low people are suspicious they're getting value for money, in a video game there's no selling price so low that people won't gladly pay it. To be fair, there's only one brand of products, every worn sword, ham sandwich, and raincoat is the same as every other worn sword, ham sandwich, and raincoat. More on that fun subject later when we get to why that is.
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Nov 14, 2018 04:55
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MechaCrash posted:Louie is the only character that uses swords, but he's not the only one who swings in an arc. There's another character much later who swings in an arc, and the swings are fast, but the range on those swings is pretty small. This is a fair point, I just never really got used to playing him.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:06
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Tear Hates Poor People Alright,  I’m sure somebody out there needs that slime fluid.  Shop’s surprisingly popular with clones of the old man today. There are specific events where your shop will be filled with dozens of one character type, but that’s down the road still.  Louie noted my insistence that he needs a hat and came to get one, I’m actually kind of proud of him. But more annoyed that I only have this thing and not a proper helmet for him. But better to have any upgrade at all than nothing.  Yes I am Tear. Now please don’t say anything else. Hehe… you think so? There is one other matter, however. You cannot always be certain that a customer will know what they want when they come in.Yeah, I leveled up again, so it’s time for another tutorial. These will thankfully become less frequent as Tear runs out of things to teach me. What do you mean? They may come in thinking “what should I make for dinner?”, “What would be a good weapon?”, and so forth. They will not be quite sure what exactly they wish to purchase when they come through our door. In such a case, we must provide them with advice to help them decide.Tear keeps using that word ‘we’ for things that she expects Recette to do while she kicks back and reads fairy gossip rags in the corner. W-wait, how could I do… Many customers will simply give up if they do not find something suitable for their needs on our counters. Others, however, will realize that we may have reserve stock, and will inquire as to whether or not we have something they seek.Some customers are blind idiots and will ask for something that’s clearly sitting on the sale counters. That is when you may suggest an item you think they would like. In a sense, it is a chance to show your ultimate skill as an item-shop keeper – if you know what someone desires, you will very likely impress them and cause them to return.Okay so I (and a lot of other people) overstated the issue with customers wallets in our griping. Normally, a customer’s budget won’t impact a sale, because customers on their own won’t pick out something they can’t afford. This mechanic is where the actual problem is. A customer will ask for an item category (an actual category like ‘swords’, a more general category like ‘weapons’, or a descriptive category like ‘something to keep warm’, and you have to provide an item that fits. They’ll accept any item that fits the request, even if they can’t afford it, and it’s your fault if your reasonable request price breaks the bank. And of course the game never actually tells you what a customer’s budget is, it’s up to you to figure that out yourself. It does tell you when their budget increases via some hearts floating above their head, but that’ s only helpful if you play video games like I do with a wiki open on your other monitor at all times. This is why we hate that little girl with such passion. The other issue here is that customers can request any category, and if you don’t have it, too bad, lost sale. So in order to maximize XP gain, at this point the game expects you to have a couple of everything in stock. Which is still all kinds of not gonna happen with my meagre liquid assets. Yeek… no pressure then, none at all… Well, let us give it a little practice, shall we?I swear to God Tear, I will put a loving bucket on you. Is it too late to start screaming “I don’t believe in fairies!”? It is no different from a normal sale, really, beyond the fact that you must choose the item to sell yourself. Let us begin.And yet here we are, with you insisting Recette needs to practice it. Kay-kay! Welcome! I would like a sword please. …Sooooo… anything is okay, as long as it’s a sword? Ultimately, you must pick something the person would like. By the way, if I may give you a little advice:Why stop now, other than the player staring at the screen repeating “Shut up Tear” over and over again? If you sell weapons and armor to your adventurer friends, they will equip the items you sell them. Meaning, of course, that if you sell items to them, we do not need to lend them any items at the start of a dungeon excursion, and will be able to bring back more items for our own use.Even if I was a new player, I would have figured that out by now Tear. Even if an adventurer must… “retreat” while in a dungeon, the equipment is not lost, since it is in their possession. So selling better equipment to our adventuring friends is a good idea… even if you must undersell to them a little. Accessories work the same way, so think carefully about who you sell what to, and what effect it may have on their performance.I complain about Tear a lot, I realize, but I have to admit this is really good advice. If Louie comes in asking for a sword, he gets the best drat +5 Holy Avenger I’ve got, no money down. If he comes in asking for a bow, he gets a slap across the face. Followed by the cheapest bow I’ve got at full price, because I’m at least gonna milk that XP bonus from him. Whoaaa… I hope I can keep track of all this. If you look at the details of an item when selling to one of our adventuring friends, you can also check what that person currently has. Now then! We should continue. Affirmatification!  Normally when loading your inventory, it always starts on the first page, which is swords. To gently caress with you, it starts on clothes for this tutorial.  I still want to know where Tear keeps getting these practice swords from. Steel swords are worth a lot right now and we’d be better off actually selling that thing than pretending to sell it to Tear over and over.        Don’t I wish we had, that’s more money than I’ve got, more than anything in my actual stock is worth. Then we did it again.  No, please, thank you.  And now we begin the main bulk of the game: Recette’s slow slide into retail purgatory, from which there is no escape, because Tear will take her house away if she fails.  Swear to God Louie ends up showing up every time I open for the next three days. It’d be loving creepy for him to be attracted to Recette, so I will instead head-canon that he has a thing for Tear’s bare-midriffed professional outfit. Also, as it happens, I did not have any food. Should have gone shopping and stocked up on some of the common request items. Which I went to do after this store cycle.  Whereupon I ran into this fine lady at the market. Is something wrong, ma’am? Oh, just wondering what to do for dinner tonight.Why not buy some fine… whatever I’m about to have Recette buy? You don’t mind watching somebody buy something here, walking to a completely different store, and then buying that item at a higher price, do you?  For some reason, the only thing that comes to mind is what I usually make. What do you usually make, then? loving Not!France and their Not!French food. Who the hell gratins a loving shark? Or mutton? Or loving pumpkin? I think I see the problem. If I may interject? If you like gratin so much, why not try a stew? They are somewhat similar.Gratin is food with a breadcrumb or cheese crust browned under a broiler. Stew is meat and vegetables slow cooked in liquid served with the cooking liquid. They’re not really anything alike. Tear is applying her skill at giving bad advice to cooking advice now. I also find pumpkin stew irresistible, but that is, ah, beside the point.I don’t think you’re going to score a dinner invite Tear. Pumpkin stew?... That’s a wonderful idea! I’ll try it tonight! I’m glad we could help! Thank you so much, you two! Now to make stew for the next month! …That was not quite what I had in mind.That was weird, but oddly fitting with how weird the people in this town are. Also, let’s talk for a second about that sign in the background. We can’t see the whole thing, but the part that we can see appears to be written in Greek for some odd reason. The part I can read is coming out to -Opsa-san. I’m not prepared to offer an opinion on if there’s a joke in there I’m missing, what language that joke might be in, or why the hell there’s a sign in Greek in the middle of Not!France.  I blew all my liquid assets on more stock. Money in your pocket doesn’t do you any good in this game, you’re almost always better off spending as much as you can, preferably on the most expensive stuff that still falls into your customers’ budgets. On the other hand, when it gets close to time to pay off Tear, this strategy can get awfully risky if you don’t manage to sell enough items quickly enough.  Louie’s back, buying a helmet. Thankfully, the game can mostly (with some exceptions) keep track of whether an item is an upgrade, so Louie isn’t going to replace his higher-defense hat with this just because it’s a helmet.  Didn’t make a lot of sales, and came out in the red for the day overall, but I have enough items in stock to make some decent money tomorrow.   Another day, another dollar… well, no dollars, Recette isn’t getting paid for this.  Ours is not to question why, ours is but to make a tidy profit off of your need for antivenom. Also, it’s a +1 item, so I get a slight boost to reputation with the old man. Also hit the price point and got the 30 XP Just bonus.  This is what I was talking about before. Old man walks in, blatantly ignores the apple sitting on a shelf in front of the window, walks up to Recette, and asks if she has any food.  Then Louie showed up again and bought a spear. Yes, it’s a spear, shut up.  It was around this point that I accepted that Louie is showing up more than I usually see him, and decided to buy a few expensive Louie-equippable items to try and shuffle over to him. Even if somebody else buys them, that’s still money in the piggy bank.  Once you’ve befriended an adventurer, it’s pretty usual to run into a few cutscenes with them in various parts of town. Such as running into Louie wandering around the town square. Yes!... … No. Huh? That’s Louie! What in the name of Heaven is he searching for over there? Hey, let’s go ask! Why do I get the feeling that I would much rather not get involved…Because you’re a horrible person incapable of doing good deeds that don’t benefit you or your company?  Oh! Recette! Tear! What’s up? What ARE you doing, wandering around here? Ah, well, I got hungry so I decided to take a look and see if I could find some edible grasses or herbs or something!You would have had lunch money if you hadn’t decided you desperately needed a spear you don’t know how to use. Why… does this not surprise me in the slightest…Because you know Louie’s perpetually broke? But, uh… I’m not sure which of these are edible, y’see… You can eat those, but they taste best if you clean them. Now, the plants with the soft leaves, at the east end of the plaza? Those taste the best! You should try them. …How is it that you know so much about edible plants? Especially ones located here of all places?…Tear. You really couldn’t connect the dots there? You seriously need to ask why the orphaned child with no money needed to figure out which easily accessed plants she could eat? I am simultaneously angry and sad. Ehehe!Recette puts up a brave front, but her life is pretty loving bad. Thanks a ton, Recette! I owe you again! No problem! Remember to wash what you find! Why do I feel as if that is the least of his concerns?And there’s Tear making GBS threads all over the poor. Well, that was loving depressing. Let’s head over to the church, only good things happen in churches, right?  …Seriously dude, this is getting a little creepy now. Combined with how often you’ve been hanging around the shop, I’m starting to think you’ve got a problem. Hi there, Louie! You are actually in the chapel. I am struck dumb. Well, even I gotta be a little faithful every now and then. As I said, struck dumb.Could you stop making GBS threads on the guy for two seconds Tear? He’s a valuable adventuring companion, and a disturbingly regular customer. I’m surprised, too! Yeah, I was praying for Heaven to provide me with lunch.The plants in the square didn’t sit right, I’m guessing. Somehow… I feel as though that’s not the main purpose of a chapel.The guy’s so poor he needs to rummage through public spaces for edible plants to eat, and you don’t think he should be praying for his situation to improve? Uh, you think so?...Well, that’s just even more depressing. Recette’s life is terrible, Louie’s life is terrible, Tear is terrible. Time to distract ourselves from all this terrible with some retail therapy.  You know you life sucks when your soul sucking retail job that pays you literally nothing is a step up.  I guess the right thing to do would be to spot him the apple. It’s a cheap item that I can afford to give up and it would make his day. … Nah.  CAPITALISM HO!  Some poor sap came in asking for a treasure. Good news is that I have one. Better news is that nobody ever refuses, no matter how lovely an item you offer them. Bad news is that it’s drat near worthless.  Going out at night is hit or miss. There are some cutscenes you can only see at night, so you have to do it sometimes to get everything. On the down side, the Market and Chapel are both closed (so is the guild, but it’s not like there’s time to go adventuring anyway).  Indeed. It would be best to return home quickly. This is a dangerous time for a girl to be wandering about.Some actual good advice from Tear. Right! A cute girl like me could end up in all kinds of peril!And Recette actually being smart and sensible. Everybody’s out of character all of a sudden!  And Tear’s being a bitch again. Status quo restored, all is well with the universe. Ehehe… well, don’t sweat the small stuff. C’mon, homeward ho! Given how small Tear looks in the shop, and that she flies, mistaking her for a human child would take some serious beer goggles. Oh Heaven! A hoodlum! … You know what? I’m happier that Recette doesn’t actually know the bad things that could happen to her. Her life’s so lovely already, I’d be concerned if she was actually aware. Who is there?! Show yourself!And Tear’s prepared to fight them off with… presumably harsh language, although for all I know Fairy Kung Fu could be a thing.  Oh good, it’s just the creepy old man who hangs around Recette’s home and buys things he doesn’t need and gives her sweets. No cause for alarm here at all. Thank goodness. I was about to call a gendarme. With an appearance like his, that’s not unreasonable! Now that’s just cruel.Very much so. You know what else is cruel? Leaving the little orphan girl and her fairy companion alone on the street at night and expecting them to make their own way home instead of walking them there. Bah, screw home, bar’s open! Does this seem like the kind of town with a legal minimum drinking age?  What is it? Say, Tear? Is alcohol yummy? I have only tried it once before, myself. Really? Wow, you’re so grown up, Tear!Yes, in that she is literally a grown up. She’s wearing a tie and everything! I hated it. It stank of barrels… Barrels?... Typically, most alcoholic beverages are left to age in barrels… so the drink had a strong wooden smell, and it was not dissimilar to attempting to drink a tree.So maybe try not drinking barrel-aged hard liquor? … Okay, that doesn’t sound yummy at all.Then again, considering Recette’s characterization, there won’t be any drinks sweet enough for her until alcopops are invented. To be honest, the popularity of the substance baffles me. It always sells well, so stocking it is always a good way to make some money, but…This would be good advice, if I was able to buy alcohol in this game. Well, I sorta can, but not really. You’ll see later. But, barrels! … Barrels…Did a barrel kill your mother or something Tear? I don’t like whiskey either, but this is bordering on a grudge or something.  Another day gone, more money… lost to stocking up. I totally know what I’m doing, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. NEXT TIME: The end of week 1 means its time to write a check.
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Nov 17, 2018 10:03
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Your Everyday NEET posted:I get the feeling that you really hate Tear. I mean, it's understandable. Plus, trash talking her is fun. Mostly for the fun, but also because Tear is kind of a lovely person in the early game and I'm the only one who's going to call her on it, because Recette sure as hell won't. Glazius posted:It was a different housewife. There's like three copies of each generic NPC out there and their wallets all level up separately. ... Oh my God you're actually serious about that. I knew there were three versions of each generic NPC, but I didn't realize they had separate budgets that leveled up independently. I love this game to death, but that is absolute bullshit right there.
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Nov 18, 2018 05:48
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Drakenel posted:So far, these are kids, let's assume such, and maybe truthkeeper will ease up on the creepy comments a little. Recette is certainly a kid. Louie, to the best of my ability to tell, seems to be an adult.
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Nov 18, 2018 07:09
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You Have to Give Me a Do-Over! Louie finally remembered that he hits things with swords, it’s a miracle! An upgrade for Louie at last!  Truthkeeper posted:If Louie comes in asking for a sword, he gets the best drat +5 Holy Avenger I’ve got, no money down. Shut up you.  It’s hard to imagine why these people would want or need most of the things they buy, but there’s something especially odd about a little girl buying a lovely breastplate.  Twice! Two upgrades in the same day!  I’m not going to buy any new furnishings for the shop just yet (I can get new wallpaper, flooring, and sale counters from the market), but it’s an important thing to think about. Your choices on these will affect the shop’s atmosphere scales, and more importantly, some of these look really loving silly but you have no way of knowing what they look like before buying.  Wow, it’s already evening… You enjoy the evening, don’t you. … To be honest… until recently, I despised evenings. I always had to go home to an empty house… Ah… But, now… Now I have you at home, so I’m not lonely anymore! … I… … We should get home, then.I think this is the first time it’s been established that Tear is living with Recette right now. On the one hand, this is rather sweet, Recette being so happy to have somebody, anybody, at home. On the other hand, this means the mafia enforcer is constantly looking over her shoulder, ready to end things and seize the house the moment Recette isn’t dedicating her every waking minute to paying back the debt.  Hmm? What is it? Why are adventurers in the pub so often? Do they all like alcohol that much? Well, adventurers do enjoy their liquid pleasure, but a pub like this also handles “quests” for adventurers.What is this “quest” of which you speak? Therefore, many of the people here are looking for work. Isn’t that kind of stuff handled by the Adventurer’s Guild? The Guild does also handle some quests, but remember, you can only hire a guild adventurer officially if you possess the guild card of that person – assuming they have one at all. Therefore, places like this tend to offer a different kind of quest… mome “daily”, run-of-the-mill business, if you will. Clients do not pay as much as guild-sponsored ones, but this sort of place is also far friendlier to “rookies”. However… if the request is too simple or moronic, it is likely no one will even attempt to do it… Look, the requests are posted up there on the wall. Let us have a look, shall we? Umm, let’s see…    Okay, letting the child into the bar in the first place was already questionable, but the wall of the bar turns out to be pre-FBI investigation Craigslist. Recette may need an adult. A full-size adult. While it is true that they are often used as glorified handymen, in a way this sort of thing is a sign of how much adventurers have blended into daily life in the city. That’s true… Hey, actually… we should do this quest! I mean, I’d love to help someone find their kitty! Ah… no, I am afraid we can not. While anyone can post a request, only those registered with the Adventurer’s Guild can legally take on such requests. So I am afraid we can not do anything listed here.You just finished explaining to me that the point of this request wall is to get requests too low level for the guild, sometimes by people who don’t have guild cards. Make up your drat mind Tear. Or possibly she’s lying because she doesn’t want Recette wasting time with things that won’t make money for her company. Aww, that’s a bummer…That it is, Recette. Then again, it would be even harder to take this game seriously if the 9 year old girl was also an adventurer. Yep, I’d never be able to handle playing this without laughing if there was a child adventurer.  Guild master needed one of his weapons back.  I’m not sure why Louie wants this chestnut. They’re hard enough to be used as projectile weapons, so I don’t think they’re edible.  And that’s day 6 over, and I’m actually ending a day in the black for a change.  It’s day 7, the end of the first week.  The first payment is due at close of business tomorrow. No worries, I got this handled.  Old man came in looking for a treasure.  I did not.  Recette always reacts this way to failing to make a sale.  drat it Louie! The cute girly sandals that would have been an upgrade for you were right there in the window.  Items from dungeons with +s after them are still worth extra rep.  I didn’t have any books either.  Shoes do not count as armor.  drat and blast.  Oh, hey Recette! Tear! Precisely why is a person without a cent to his name in an establishment devoted to drinking and spending astoundingly vast sums of coin?Told you he’s an adult. At the very least Tear thinks he’s old enough to drink. I came to check out the posted quests! Y’know, from patrons? I thought you’d be the questing type, Louie!Because that’s literally his job?  Darn right! I do ‘em whenever I can! Well, what are you considering doing at this time? I was eyeing one of these, maybe. Lemme see…    I am certain these are all references again, but I’m not getting any of them. How can this game I’ve sunk 100+ hours into make me feel like I don’t play enough video games. Actually, I think that third one sounds familiar. Something I played on the PSP. Might have been What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? These… uh… seem like they might be kinda hard… More importantly, who on earth posted them HERE, of all places?... Well, for some reason, nobody’s been taking ‘em, despite the great pay! Hmm, I can not possible imagine why no one has taken one. Merde. I know, right? If I can get my hands on one of those rewards, I can say farewell to my life of poverty forever!Louie’s life would be almost as depressing as Recette’s if it wasn’t so funny. Ah… he is… serious. Well, I’m off! Rather than his bidding farewell to poverty, I fear we will be bidding farewell to him. In a casket. Louie… you kind of remind me of… … Papa…There’s a ringing endorsement.  As I continue leveling up, I unlock higher level items from the merchants’ guild and market. Now I just need to get this into Louie’s hands. Incidentally, this little shopping trip almost completely tapped out my on-hand cash.  Okay, so I lost money since yesterday. No worries.  G’morning! Incidentally… You are aware that today is the first day of collections, yes? Eh?! Wait, as in “pay up or we take your house” collections?! I’m sorry Tear, does it hurt to be reminded that you’re threatening this girl with homelessness? Uh, let’s see… I have a calendar that I can check when I’m on break, don’t I… Or “in the main menu”. I bet you’d say. Indeed. This is only the first week of collections, so the amount to be paid is not severe… yet. However, the amount is scheduled to increase weekly, so keep that in mind and do not get lazy. The bill is due at the end of the day… so work as hard as you can today, yes. Affirmations! All I have to do is make 9995 pix in a day. Piece of cake. I got this covered.  And there’s 9850 in the first time segment. See, told you I had it handled. I think you were starting to doubt me. Maybe you think it’s a fluke? Fine.  Fine, I’ll do it again.  But first I have to deal with a child smaller than Recette. She’s presumably crying because she can’t afford something she wants to buy. Hey, hey now. What’s wrong? M-m-mmy dolly… *sniffle* Aw… the shoulder’s been ripped. This is my favorite… Whaa… Hey, wait! Can you give it to me for a second? O-okay… Lesse, I have a little thread and a needle in my apron pocket here… And loop, loope, don’t poke myself… And done! How does that look? It’s weird to see somebody actually giving Recette respect. Then again, it’s weird to see her being competent at something. You’re welcome! I need to go now! Baibai! Hmm. Not only are you good at sign-crafting, but you have a fairly deft hand at needlework, too.Tear is clearly thinking she should have conscripted Recette to work in a sweatshop to pay off the debt. How about you, Tear? I bet you sew a lot of stuff! Er. Huh? There is no time for dawdling… where to next? I guess fairies aren’t very good at using big needles, huh… Alright, third time quarter. Crunch time. Plenty of time to make all the money I need, of course.  Sure Louie. I’ll pay for your creepy cave chocolate.  Sure Guildmaster. I’ll pay for your candy stolen from a child.  Oh no, what have I done? I’ve ruined everything!  It’s all over now, I guess.   Given that I have tens of thousands in stock, you’d think she could cut Recette a break. I am sorry, but as an agent of Terme Finance, I must now seize this house in order to repay the outstanding debt. Wha?... No! I… I…Some of you guys were harping on me for hating Tear. But never forget that Tear will give Recette the boot the second she fails to pay by even the tiniest amount.  And this is how it ends for Recette. At least she’s got a nice big box to sleep in. Plenty of leg room.  was crushed by the cruel bitterness of reality. Waaaahaahaaah… Why’d it have to end in a box?! Ah well, it was a fun try, but I guess that’s the end of the LP. Clearly I’m just too horribly incompetent to properly play this game.  No Tear, I’m quite serious. I’ll just go play something else. If I did not know better, I would say you were in a coma. … Huh? Tear? Mmmmm… but I’m asleep… Mmmmm… Tear was just a dream, I guess… That dream seemed so real, though… I thought… I mean, I liked… … Mmm, pillow…  Oh. Well. How unexpected. Oh! Tear! It, uh… Yeah, g’morning! Merde. You are still half-alseep, I suspect… Recette, you are the proprietor of an item shop now. You must learn to be responsible and not sleep the day away. You’re… right. I need to… … I don’t quite remember. That you can seemingly be awake and asleep at the same time would be a wonder… if it did not fill me with blind, hopeless terror. Yesterday we paid our respects at the Merchant’s Guild, and then briefly opened shop. Have you already forgotten?This sounds… oddly familiar. Welcome to a handy little mechanic. Any time you get a game over, Recette wakes up again on Day 2, with only 1000 pix in her pocket, but with her full inventory from the previous run, any upgrades you made to the shop, all upgrades from your merchant level, which you also keep, and all stats for both adventurers and customers. I lose any unlocked dungeons and adventurers’ cards (except for special circumstances I’ll go into later). From this day forth, we are now in business properly. The way this is going though, I fear for the future. Eh… hehe… right… That’s… right, actually. We’re… in business, now. … Why in the name of Heaven are you smiling so much? That smile you had while sleeping is just getting bigger. Oh… no reason… I just… think I saw something nice in my dreams… Tear, let’s give it our all! … Well, if you really are dedicated to making this work, wash yourself and meet me downstairs. And so we start anew. I’ve showed off the automatic new game+, so now I won’t be doing that again. … I won’t be doing it intentionally again.  I get a nice boost to reputation with the little girl, working her way to a higher budget. The little girl has a dangerous projectile. Should I be concerned?  Tear still goes through her tutorials as I continue leveling up, but unlike the early ones, they’re properly labeled as being skippable. Also, I totally jumped the gun and skipped this one before I realized it was a new one. The short version: customers can now show up, name an item category, tell you they want 2-4 of that item and that they want it in 2-3 days and they’ll show up to collect then.  They also still show up with their usual odd requests.  All is well in the world. NEXT TIME: Time to redo everything I did in the first week. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Nov 24, 2018 |
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Nov 23, 2018 05:53
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Wayne posted:Regarding the previous update, I could've sworn the last week was itself 800k, not that that was the total debt. Did that get patched or is that Game Over-induced PTSD? Okay, good to have somebody else backing me up on this. I've been swearing up and down that the last week is 800k. But I can't say for certain until I get that far again, and the wiki tells me the last week is 500k, so that's what we're going with for now.
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Nov 23, 2018 08:46
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Music Junkie posted:I have never really heard of this game. I can honestly say I wasn't really expecting what it's about. Interesting concept though. On one hand, it's nice that they technically give you an out in case you don't make the necessary amount by the due date. The variety of customers, how does that work? Do you just have set ones at your level? So, there's a basic set of customers (old man, middle-aged housewife, middle-aged man, little girl) who represent generic people. There are three instances of each of them that only really matter for stats. There are also named unique customers, which include all the adventurers (although they son't start appearing as customers until you've met them somewhere) and a small handful of other people, like the guild master. Your Everyday NEET posted:Can you just sell your stuff normally through other stores classic JRPG style? I kind of remember selling my stuff (and my kitchen sink and whatever is in my garage) just to make ends meet. This is so, you can sell any item at 50% of it's market value back to the merchant's guild, in case of an emergency.
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Nov 23, 2018 09:41
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Gotta Go Back, Back to the Past Skip! Note of course that I already have more than enough money for the first payment. “Can’t I just pay you now for this week?” “No.”  I still wasn’t fully prepared for any and all requests like I should be by now. Yes I have a hat for her, but it’s more than double the poor kid’s budget.  I ended up deciding to let her leave and not make the sale, but I wasn’t happy about it.   But she came back to place an order for food, so I guess she forgave me.  For his son, I expect.  Another successful day.   The little girl aside, the customers are leveling up to the point they can afford some decently expensive items, ramping up my profits.  Yeah I totally forgot to go out and shop before opening up, so still no.  Well that’s a very reasonable and thoughtful response. Recette still reacts same as always “Waah I screwed up I have no talent!”  Dude! The gently caress is wrong with you? You don’t just walk into a public place of business with one of those things! For those of you unaware, this is a durian:  It’s a popular fruit in many parts of southeast Asia, considered a delicacy but most well known for smelling like sewage. This actually varies from fruit to fruit and person to person, but is common enough that they’re illegal to bring on a bus or train or into a building in many jurisdictions. And this crazy fucker expects me to buy this from him? I mean, of course I bought it, it’s the highest value food to show up so far.  The Guild Master’s wife sounds like a lovely person.  No. Go away.  This is one of the… weirder treasures. It’s a fishing pole. I know I complained about the Unthankful Treasure, and this one at least is worth something… but it’s a loving fishing pole. Really, treasures in general are just hard to move.  Still a weird thing to say, but less creepy than people buying deadly weapons as presents.  Yeah sure, I’ll stop by your place tomorrow and buy them from you.  Better you than me buddy.  I’d really like to know how Tear’s grading system works. What exactly are her expectations? I suppose I actually should go out and buy a variety of commonly requested items so I don’t have to keep turning away customers. But I’m going to stop at the town square first.  Huh. A character with a unique sprite dressed in an unusual manner. Well, I’m sure this is just a one-off appearance and I’ll never see her again.  You walk so fast! Wait up!I hope she manages to catch up with her sister. Poor kid doesn’t look like she’d do well if left on her own. Besides, there’s really only room for one abandoned child in this game. That girl… Tear, is something wrong? Ah… no. It is nothing. … Hey, Tear? How do you think people see us? How do…? Do you think we look like sisters?You’re a normal sized human child with brown hair and a perpetual smile. Tear is a presumably normal sized adult fairy with grey hair and a perpetual stone face. Yeah, you look so much alike. Given that I am a fairy, I rather doubt it. Oh, right… Still, if we did, I’d be kinda happy… Really? Why is that?Because, to the best of her knowledge, he father is dead and she has no living family and she likes pretending that she still has somebody? … I made myself sad again. Well, since I’m bigger, I’d be the big sister, right? … Your logic, as always, is breathtaking in its faultiness.Just because it’s true doesn’t mean you have to be quite that blunt. Yeah, I guess you would be the big sister… But that’d be really nice too! Right… sis? Hey, wait for me!I could complain about Tear being needlessly mean… but I prefer to think that this is her feeling bad because, again, she’s enforcing the mob’s loan shark agenda here, and Recette loving loves her for it.  Alright, fine, I’ll buy some loving books. There are a lot more references here, some I get (Les Infortunes is obviously Les Miserables), and some I‘m less sure of (Wings of Eldon references Evangelion in later volumes, but I’m less sure about this one). Some aren’t at all, Le Pensuer is just a magazine abou the city they live in, Pensee. Booze of the World is a travelogue focusing on hooch, which comes with free samples.   You bet I did kid. Sorry, no candy for you, you can’t afford it.  That doesn’t really narrow it down. Luckily, orders don’t get assembled until the customer arrives, so there’s no hilarious mixups.  That ring I put in the window was a horrible mistake and I’m not sure what I was thinking. It’s out of most customers’ budgets and most of them don’t go for rings in the first place. It ends up sitting there forever.  As hilarious as selling her a copy of Booze of the World would be, she can’t afford it. She got a copy of Wings of Eldon, which I hope is a good read for a girl her age.  Didn’t your wife just make you sell me a walnut bread. Here, take it back at a markup.  Oh, Recette. I’m… tired, for some reason.It’s nice that Recette is starting to become recognizable. Means she might be able to continue making a living after she finishes paying off Tear. I wonder if I’m starting to get old and slow? If you are tired, it can help to eat something sweet. Sugar stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system and energizes you.Tear, now is not the time for your tutorial voice. That… sounds complicated. A-anyway! You should go eat something sweet! Like, for example… candy or canned peaches from our store! We have a lot of sweet stuff to choose from!Recette, we have no canned peaches, because they aren’t available from the market yet. In fact, I think the only sweets he have are Louie’s cave chocolate and a candy apple. Then again, kudos to Recette for finally getting the hang of casually advertising her place of business when she talks to people. Tear must be proud. That does sound good… maybe I’ll go have some chocolate cake! Thanks for the advice, you two! Aww, cake? Now I’m jealous…I’d say go buy some cake, but Tear probably wouldn’t let you eat something you bought with company funds.  Yeah, sure, hats. You planning on bringing mommy’s credit card with you when you pick up, or shall I just pencil you in for two of the cheapest hat I can get? Annoyingly, if I had been smart enough to pick up a bunch of books for when little girls came in looking to buy them, I’d probably have leveled her up to a higher wallet already.  Well gently caress you too Tear. The hell did you do all day?  Seriously wondering if maybe this town is made up entirely of adventurers and their families. He came in to buy a spear for her yesterday.   And so I reached day 8, again. With no need to show off the time reset mechanic, this time I’ll make the payment and move on, right?   I’m even gonna spend half the day loving around with Louie instead of going and spending any money. This here is why I incorrectly thought he was always free. He’s free for this first trip to the Hall of Trials, and I incorrectly remembered that continuing to be the case. My bad.  Since Louie retains his levels and equipment, this run through the Hall is silly-easy, ending the same as before. Card get, yay. It’s after that when things went wrong. First I made a series of unwise purchases from customers when I opened up shop in the third time segment.  And then there’s this rear end in a top hat.  Huh. This place isn’t nearly as nice as I thought it’d be… Can these people really get me what I need?... Uh, excuse me… Well, I’ve got no choice. Gotta keep striding forward. You there! Go fetch the owner of this place. I have business with him! The owner? Well, you’re looking at her! What can I do for you? … Surely you’re joking. Don’t waste my time, girl. Huh? No, really, I’m the owner. Can I help you? … Uh, sir?... You dare make a fool out of me?! You must think I’m just some idiot kid…Well I certainly think you’re an idiot. HeuuuWHAAA? I, uh, but… You expect me to believe that someone as SHORT as you owns this establishment?!Because ability to own and run a business directly correlates with height. Y-you shut up! I AM the owner! Really!Not that Recette is handling this much better, but to be fair, this jerk just wandered in, insulted her establishment, then insulted her. Also, again, she’s like 9. To be fair to him though, he doesn’t look any older.  Teeeear… listen, he’s being… Merde. Some kind of problem, I assume?No, really, you think there might be a problem? I thought Recette just picked fights with customers all the time! … Hmmm… A fairy… interesting. Not what I expected. Pardon? Physically slight and at a disadvantage against larger creatures, but innately talented at administration and management… Quite possibly the only nonhuman race to easily adapt to human culture by utilizing their unique talents…She’s still standing (well, hovering) right in front of you. In other words, you must be the proprietor, madam fairy. Good day. I apologize for having to raise my voice at your servant.Didn’t you just establish while yelling at Recette that short people can’t own businesses? Tear is even shorter than Recette, and therefore can’t possibly be the owner! And calling Recette a servant is kinda insulting to both of them. Ah, well… Now hang on just a- It’s a pleasure to meet you, madam fairy. Caillou is my name. I am a magician by trade, and I need to place an order for some reagents.Sadly, this is our next available adventurer. Somebody earlier thought I hate Tear, but no. I poke at Tear for funsies, I dislike Caillou but am willing to ignore him for the most part when I'm not making fun of him. There’s a character who exists for the purpose of absorbing everybody’s hatred, we’ll see her whenever she shows up. Credit where it’s due, Caillou is awesome. He’s slow, made of glass, and has basically no offensive power once he’s out of skill points. But as long as you have fuel to keep him going, he tears through everything in his path with awesome magical might. He’s a solid contender for the best character to handle boss fights. He’s also really loving annoying, and this thing with him not believing Recette is the owner is a running gag that gets dragged out way too much. Even when he’s acting as a source of fascinating exposition about the world, he’s so annoying arrogant that I just want Recette to punch him. I’d love the guy if he never spoke except for the purposes of answering questions. An item order? Very well, what can we get you? I require three items specifically. A charred lizard, a bat wing, and a slime liver. I only need one of each. There’s no need for a precise deadline, but obviously, the sooner you can provide them, the better it will be for everyone. Can I assume you will take the order?Caillou’s requests are all from the second dungeon, which opened immediately after clearing the Hall of Trials. The first two are boss drops with annoyingly low drop rates, the third is a common monster drop. Unlike every other customer who comes in to place an order, if you already have the items, you can surprise the hell out of him by providing them immediately, and he’ll buy them on the spot. Otherwise, he’ll just show up every couple days asking if you have his stuff yet. Naturally. We shall obtain what you need as soon as we can. Marvelous. Well then, if you’ll excuse me… Uh, you know, I, um… Ah, yes, you. Look, don’t cause your boss trouble, alright? Pretending to be the owner like that will only make you look foolish.I get it. It’s supposed to be funny because he’s the actual fool. It’s not funny, it’s just dumb.  You tell him Recette. Now, now. There is no need to get so angry about this. It is a simple mistake, nothing more.Tear’s just happy that somebody other than Recette showed her respect. If it’s so simple, then why do you look so happy about it? You, uh, clearly misunderstand me. Yes, clearly…It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t a recurring joke. Unfortunately for Caillou, he’s going to have to wait a while for his reagents. Sort of. Not really. Time travel bullshit.  No amusing quips, this time I totally hosed up. And so back to start again. Last time, I promise. Probably. NEXT TIME: The first week, for the third time, guest starring the second dungeon
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Nov 24, 2018 07:42
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We can probably name plenty of stories about kids taming dragons, it was kinda a thing for a while.mauman posted:Calilou's response is rather amusing if you have the items on hand when he first walks in. Caillou's really only good for boss rushes, but he's damned good for them. I'm planning on showing it off his reaction to me having his stuff already next update, if the drop rates cooperate without too much save scumming. Xander77 posted:Type, probably. Noted and fixed.
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Nov 24, 2018 09:20
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Heavy Metal Thunder Right then, so where were we?  Ah, right. The first week, again, again. But this time I get to sell alcohol to a minor. Or not. It’s still outside her wallet range, and I neglected to remember to stock any other books the little girl can actually afford yet.  So I sold it to an old man instead.  “Metal things” is one of the easiest order types to fill, although it tends to get kinda iffy about what does or doesn’t count as metal. As I’m given to recall, precious metals (silver, gold, platinum) are considered a different category from regular metals.  Okay, I made twice the first week’s payment in a single day! No way I can gently caress this up again!  Swords are metal, right? This guy looks like he can probably learn to dual-wield.  She’ll be the most metal fucker in kindergarten.  Bigger swords! There is no specific codified code of chivalry, and if there was you probably couldn’t fit it on the hilt of a sword.  I cleared the Hall again, so Caillou showed up again to be a jackass and give me his quest.  Oddly enough, even if Louie swaps out his shield for a bracelet (which occupy the same slot, because JRPG), he still has a shield to block attacks with.  Keep on telling yourself that kid.  Gee, I dunno, easy sales on the day the first payment is due sounds like a bad idea.  Your mommy hates you and probably just wanted you out of the house for a while. Especially given that she’s making you buy it out of your own allowance.  Louie is pretty well equipped, from the perspective that he’s a JRPG character wearing items with good stats. From a realistic perspective, he’s wearing leather armor with a scarf over it, a bracelet on one arm, and a newsboy cap.  This is the closest thing we have to a map of Anime Not!France. I’m curious if it actually resembles an actual bit of French coastline, but I have my doubts. The Jade Way is the first real dungeon, which is gratifying to get to having hosed up enough to have to go through the tutorial dungeon three times. It’s fifteen levels long with boss fights every fifth level, and an option to skip out after each boss fight.  On the first level, I got a buff. For the duration of this level, my skills are half cost. These events happen infrequently, and are more often buffs for the monsters than for me.  Even though Louie can block attacks without a shield, this shield I brought along is better than his new bracelet, so I swapped it in.  Rabbits! They suck. They jump around, and Louie can’t hit them in the air. They need to be able to move in the direction they’re jumping, so pinning one against a wall makes it die quick.  I found a bomb trap! Bombs do a decent chunk of damage, but can be knocked away with attacks and have an easily visible timer. I also found a taiyaki. Yay for found pastry.  Bees are our other new enemy in this wing of the dungeon, and they also suck (you can kinda see it off to Louie’s left). They’re small, which makes them hard to see and hit, and can paralyze your adventurer on hit, making them super slow. Mechanical Ape posted:How exactly does a slime have a liver? Well you see, that’s the interesting thing. Regular slimes don’t.  But The Crowned Slime: Lord of the Slimes does (sometimes). This boss fight is annoyingly simple. Crowned Slime will try to jump on you, get out of his way and wail on him with your sword. Every time he hits the ground, he’ll get smaller, taking more damage and moving faster. Repeat until dead. Annoyingly, he did not drop a liver. I’ve seen some reports that the liver drop rate is modified by how many times the Slime shrinks before you kill it, but I’ve never been able to confirm that. I’ll be swinging back through several times to get the charred lizard and bat wing anyway, so it’s not like not getting it this time was the end of the world.  I could have kept going, although my inventory was full up, but I needed to cut playing around here anyway, so I called it a day. On the plus side, next time I come here I’ll be able to pick up where I left off.  See Louie? This is the proper loadout for a swordsman. Now beat up some monsters (or some rich people in dark alleys, I’m not picky) until you have enough money, then walk into the shop and buy these items.  That is the exact opposite of what I just said! He won’t equip items he gets from an order like this, so I can’t use this as an excuse to throw the most powerful sword I’ve got at him on the cheap.  I finally managed to sell a magic ring I bought during the first iteration of week 1. But I’m still down for the day. loving up and repeating this week again is absolutely unacceptable though. Luckily, I have a decent inventory, I just need to keep the shop open all day tomorrow. NEXT TIME: Ten more levels of Jade Way, and the second week, finally
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Dec 14, 2018 09:34
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The Humanoid Typhoon Alright, made it to the end of Week 1 without spending all my money and having nothing left to pay this week’s payments. Probably. It’s all about getting through Day 8.  Yeah, I think I got this. And Louie managed to buy another sword. I’m this close to being proud of him.  Success! And Recette set off another of her infinite confetti bombs to celebrate. So this is the payment for this week. Let me see… Congratulations. Well done. I have officially received your payment for this week. Let us continue to work hard next week, as well!Work hard? But that sounds like hard work! Yay! I did it! I’m counting on you next week too, Tear!And so Week 1 finally, finally, for the very last time, came to a close. And as Week 2 finally begins, a shadow falls over the town as a dark figure stands over it.   That insolent little plebeian’s shop which is the focus of so much rumor! My, my, it’s so… common. So dirty. So dull. How DOES that little prole get people to come in? I wonder… Well, no matter! This is the perfect opportunity to show that little shrew, and this whole city, what a truly elegant shop is like! There is a young rich girl laughing fiendishly. We may be reaching peak anime.  And another fairy. S... Silence, you insolent fairy! It’ll be mine EVENTUALLY! That’s practically the same thing!   Well, I’m sure nothing of consequence is going to come of that and we can probably ignore these strange people. I’m running a business here, I don’t have time to learn the backstory of every freak and weirdo who walks in my door, let alone the ones who don’t come to the shop.  Alright, Day 9 start! Another perfectly normal beautiful day.  Just need to lay out a few more items for sale in my perfectly normal shop where nothing interesting is afoot at all.  Something’s certainly astounding, I’ll give her that. The best way to learn about your foe is direct infiltration, after all! And with strategic espionage ability such as this, I can’t fail!Good work Snake, now proceed to the extraction point.  Hmm… the interior decoration is as seedy and plebeian as the outside…Oi! Words can hurt kid! Although I haven’t bothered doing any decorating myself, so technically she’s insulting Tear, not me. This place will look far worse once I start decorating it. …which means their selection of items must be astounding! What could it be?! What sort of thing could that filthy prole sell?! Perhaps some kind of black and white animal, the ownership of which violates international treaties? Perhaps the most delicious apples this side of the Mer d’Blanc?If these are references, they went right over my head. Perhaps… one of those books Father says I’m too young to read?...I do sometimes stock that book that comes with alcohol, so she's not exactly wrong. Uuuuuummmmm... Oh be quiet, whoever you are! You are interrupting my train of thought! Uh, could you come out of the box, maybe, at least? It looks kind of weird on the floor here… ! But!... That means!... ...Uh... …Well then! Cue evil noblewoman laugh again. In all honesty, I shouldn’t be surprised by this. I should have expected a foe as canny as you to break through my otherwise impenetrable stealth techniques! Okay?... This confirms it! You are indeed worthy of being my rival! Heuuuwha? Rival?!Poor Recette. Just got out of bed and ready for work and having to put up with this poo poo first thing. Ah, I have failed to introduce myself, of course! I am the owner of the monolithic item store chain, “Big Bash”! …Well, to be specific, I am the owner’s only child and inheritor. Alouette is my name. Remember it. Everyone around me calls me “Young Mistress Alouette”, but you, o my rival, shall have the privilege of calling me “Lady Alouette”.I’d call her Louie if we didn’t already have one. She can be Al. Al is very annoying, but she has two saving graces: she’s rich and stupid. Al will quite cheerfully pay up to twice what an item is actually worth, if I’m not fishing for bonus XP. Uh... “Big bash”?And she’s terribly confusing poor Recette. Tear, despite clearly hovering next to Recette when this conversation started, has apparently not paid the slightest bit of attention up until now.  billion pix, and a yearly gross profit of five hundred billion.It’s Walmart. With Amazon boxes apparently. Oh, Tear! I heard the commotion and came to see what was happening, but… why are the two of you discussing Big Bash? I’m, uh, not really sure… Interesting, you also have a fairy! Huh? Prime!drat it, Amazon’s slipping their advertising into my vidyas now! First the box, and now telling me to get Prime!  Or it could just be the name of a fairy.  ... Oh, uh, “mistress”, I see your attempt at infiltration failed. W-what’re you talking about?! Their superior detection abilities simply caught me off guard and overwhelmed my cardboard, that’s all! That’s... A fairy!…Nothing gets past you Recette. Daaang, this one sure is sharp You got a problem with that, kid? I mean, you hang out with one too, so what’s the big deal? Call me Prime. You could say I’m Alou- er, the mistress’s guardian.The big deal is that Recette’s fairy is pressing her into service to pay off a possibly illegal loan under threat of eviction. So far, we’ve met two fairies, and fifty percent of them have been morally dubious. I can’t blame Recette for exercising appropriate caution. Prime is sort of the opposite of Al. She’s entertaining and a great character… but I hate when she comes in to shop. Prime is brilliant when it comes to knowing the value of an item, pinches every penny she can, and is more likely than any other character to argue against an offered price that she’ll then take if it’s offered again. She’s not the biggest headache or the worst bane to my sales chain XP, but she’s up there. Uh, well… I’m Recette, and this is Tear. It’s nice to meet you! Mmm. Yeah, real pleasure to meet you too, bookworm. Eh?... Are you, by chance, referring to me? Pssh! Like there’s anyone ELSE here I’d call that?A fair point. I’m only half certain that Recette knows how to read, and Alouette probably has people to read things for her. ...Well, the pleasure is all mine, then. Alright, mistress, we’ve introduced ourselves, so how about we head on home now? What are you talking about?! I haven’t finished introducing HALF of the fantabulastic, amazing incredibleness that is Alouette, Inheritor of Big Bash! Pssh, if we stick around for that, we’ll be here all week. Come on now, we’re going home! It doesn’t say or specifically show Prime yanking her out the door, but that’s my head canon and I’m sticking to it. Enjoy your happy, carefree days as long as you can! For when I am through with you… ... So... uh… What do you think all that was about? That... Was not dissimilar to meeting a hurricane in human form…Yeah. Yeah that was certainly a thing that just happened. But let’s ignore all that craziness in favor of our usual brand of craziness. SHOPPING!  Treasures scale up in price much faster than other item categories. I can buy these gaudy monstrosities, but most of my customers won’t have the budget for them, even on the rare occasion they actually want a treasure.  A lot of books end up getting sequels.  The market has started listing vitamins, but not actually stocking them. All types of Ferromin increase an adventurer’s max HP and are worthwhile investments in the late game.  But the real reason I went to the market today was to spend a little money renovating the shop. Luckily, installing new wallpaper and floors is an instant process that requires no special skills or time, and if you don’t like it your old wall and floor are available to instantly put back in. On the downside, you can’t actually see what these options look like before you buy them or know what effects they’ll have on the shop atmosphere.  I can usually ignore the bizarre perspective in here until I actually start looking at the walls.  There we go! I am a master of interior design! NEXT TIME: The second and third wings of Jade Way.
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Jan 5, 2019 08:27
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This line of comments about savings amuses me greatly, because mechanically, the star wallpaper makes the shop look dark and gloomy, while the bright-rear end flagstone floor makes it look more expensive and high-end. This kind of atmosphere helps to draw in the next two adventurers I'll be unlocking once they're available. Sadly, one of those two will be Caillou.Scalding Coffee posted:Making the shop look good enough to attract the sort of people you want is such a crapshoot anyway and all you have is a blurb to describe it. It is also needlessly complicated if you dig deep enough. I got the best looking one and the people hated it. A patch to address it would help. Now this is interesting. I've only ever tangentially bothered with shop atmosphere, a few points here and there to draw in specific people. Care to say more on the problems with it? Montegoraon posted:This game is surprisingly unwholesome. One could easily imagine a trashy light novel harem plot happening just off screen. Considering that like half the female cast is very underage girls, I would be very uncomfortable with that.
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Jan 6, 2019 00:59
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Lovely and Charming Little Shop DAY 9  Louie! Finish your coffee*, we’re heading out! *Louie’s coffee actually may actually be used coffee grounds he found in the trash  Because I left through the door at the end of the first wing, I can start at the beginning of the second wing now. It’s one good reason not to try and power through an entire dungeon at once, the other being that your inventory fills up loving fast at this point in the game. It doesn’t get much better later.  Jade Way levels 5-10 are underground. Not exactly a garden spot.  The teleporter to the next level was literally in the next square. Can’t say that happens often. No of course I didn’t immediately move on. There’s loot to be had out there!  These rear end in a top hat mushrooms are new to this area. They come in two varieties, some wander around and try to rush you, others are rooted in the ground, and pop in and out in various spots.  Huh, usually my first instinct is to murder anything I see down here, but that looks like a person. But I feel I should follow my gut here. LOUIE, KILL!  Oh fine.  God, everybody’s eyes look kind of dead in this game, but hers especially. Killing her would be a kindness.  What a well of dialogue she is. Uhhhmmmm…. hello?... Oh… yes? Can I help you? I… think that might be my line. Are you looking for something? I’d be happy to help if you are… Ah… no, that’s not it. I seem to be… lost, somehow. Can you, perhaps, tell me where I am? “Where” you are? Uh, in here, that could be a problem. These dungeons enter their shape when a person enters. I am afraid that giving you your present location is impossible.This is the first indicator, and certainly not the rest, that the dungeons are not just ordinary ruins and wilderness. Oh! I’ve entered a dungeon then? How surprising! What? How can you…? I was just on my way home from… hmm…Given her obviously Japanese clothes and weapon, she may be more lost than previously suggested. Wow… in some ways, I’m kind of in awe… How in the name of Heaven do you get so lost that you end up in a dungeon? How indeed? I, too, am at a loss. Given how “lost” you seem to be, I hope the trees don’t start shaking…I never actually watched Lost, so insert your own clever joke here. What should I do now, though? Hmm… To begin with, I would recommend searching for a floor of the dungeon with a large red door. That will allow you to go-, er, to exit the dungeon. Really? Why, thank you, Miss Fairy. You are very kind. Er, not at all. Be careful though.And so the mysterious Japanese woman wandered off, totally never to be seen again. …Hm. Well that was… unexpected. I hope she gets home okay… A few floors later, I managed to find Caillou’s charred lizard, it’s a rare drop from gnolls found around here, or from the boss of this wing. Speaking of…  A giant mouse isn’t very threatening I guess. That’s why they gave him a proportionally sized glowing red-hot crowbar.  Fighting Reggie has a catch: His defense is absurd, he hits like a truck, and his swing arc is absurd. Going head-on is suicide. Thankfully, he’s either blind or stupid. He makes no attempt to actually get to me or attack me, and just swings at random. And he gets hungry easily. That’s where the mushrooms come in. Both red and purple mushrooms spawn throughout the fight, just getting in the way normally. Reggie will occasionally stop for a snack. If he eats a red mushroom, that’s bad, he’ll be healed a lot.  A purple mushroom will stun him for a few seconds, making him fall down and dropping his defense enough to do some damage.  So the name of the game is to run around, kill red mushrooms, leave purple mushrooms, and assault the poor mouse whenever he poisons himself.  It’s a solid strategy.  Yes, I could keep going, but my inventory is full. And this will open up the instant start at wing 3.  It’s a decent little haul, mostly stuff that will be useful for crafting later, but a few things I can sell now.  But all play and no work makes Recette a homeless girl.  This week’s number to reach is 30000. I should probably open the shop tomorrow. Especially since tomorrow brings… A NEW MECHANIC! DAY 10  NO! Not the candy! Why? Is it a new tax? Did I vote for this?  Ah, that? That was a “newsflash”. Important events are reported on for everyone in the city. That one was “sudden jump in candy prices”.No explanation for how this works at all. I suppose the obvious answer would be town criers or something, but I find it amusing to think there’s an anachronous PA system rigged up to every building in town. So if you are buying or selling candy, pay close attention to that. “Sudden jump”…? In other words, sudden scarcity has driven the price of candy up. In general, that means that prices will roughly double. So a candy that sold for 300 pix may now sell for 600. W-wait a minute! So candy is gonna cost a ton of money for the rest of time?! That’s terrible! How am I gonna survive?! Wait… I’ll buy all the candy in the city, and keep it for myself! Well… maybe I’ll share or sell a little, but it IS candy…Y’know, in case any of you thought that evil capitalist Recette image was exaggerating. A-HEM! No, prices will stabilize after some time passes. Precisely how long, however, nobody can say for sure. For once, however, you have hit upon a good point. While it can be hard to predict price fluctuations, if you keep a fairly wide variety of stock handy, it is possible to take advantage of a situation like this… and make money hand over fist.She exaggerates. You can make money, yes, but it only doubles your initial profit, you have to have the stock on hand (or buy it at increased prices), and the customers still have to choose to buy it. It’s nice when it happens, but not something to go crazy over. You can also try to take advantage of the situation after news comes in, of course, but it is harder to really make a profit that way. Whoooaaah… This is complicated… ‘n now I’m hungry… Well it is quite a bit to take in at once… So let’s see it in action, shall we!NO! Please, no more tutorials!  Watch carefully! This information could be vital! Right! …Uh… …And sometimes, the news is like THAT. Hehe. Well for SOME people it’s sure vital. Run, Louie, run!… Okay game, you win this round. That was good. Most days from here on out will now open with a news broadcast, usually one or two important things and one joke.  I still will never understand advance orders for categories.  And I’m still pretty sure the guild master is just buying his own products back to try and help Recette out by slipping her some money.  Somebody came in to sell a set of solid gold scales. Buying this was a mistake, high-value items are still hard to move this early when most peoples’ budgets are low, and treasures in general are hard to move.  Then I did it again, because I’m kinda dumb.  I wish I’d hat a more expensive hat to sell her, but there’s something amusing about my self-proclaimed rival coming in here and buying a cheap piece of poo poo.  drat it Prime, did you have to come in when I’m already hard up?  No you won’t. I started at 105%.  I lowered to 103%. She walked. I hate that loving fairy sometimes.  Alouette chose something off the shelf this time, and something worth some decent money.  You mind buying it this time?  104%. She exists solely to break sales chains. Which brings us to … DAY 11 NEWSFLASH: There are signs of a boom in longswords among men who know quality Please report troublesome adventurers to the Adventurer’s Guild Price increases are situationally useful and good to keep track of. Booms are the best thing to see in the news. I immediately run out the door. Straight to the Merchant’s Guild, where I bought ten longswords. “Why?”, you may ask?  And why did I fill two of my three counters with them?  Men have come in great numbers, looking for the popular swords! This is why booms are great. A boom means that a specific class of citizen is looking for a specific item, or class of items. If I put enough of that item in the shop, they will flood in, and everybody will want to buy that item. It’s basically a license to print experience points.   And repeat a half-dozen more times.  And so I hit level 13 by the end of the day. And had too many swords left over at the end of the day. DAY 12 The price of longswords has decreased The price of candy has normalized Steel your soul against the dark arts and turn them away - the chapel-masters I made pretty decent money yesterday, and have some time before the next payment is due. I think I can afford a large expenditure.  Just as replacing floors and wallpaper takes no time, neither does major construction.  Now I have another counter. NEXT TIME: Back to the Jade Way
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Jan 8, 2019 07:48
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Super Jay Mann posted:So I forget, is there a threshold where Prime will always buy or does she just randomly piss off regardless? I've seen her deny prices down to 101% in the past, and have never been willing to go lower.
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Jan 8, 2019 08:09
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It's not that I'm not making a profit, it's just
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Jan 9, 2019 06:46
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What a Charming Young Lady Alright, time to go knock out the third and final wing of Jade Way.  This is back on the surface, and therefore much fits the descriptor ‘Jade’ a lot better.  Oh goody, Alouette is here. And as opposed to my one poor and desperate but unique adventurer, she has a dozen generics with her. Oho! Recette! What a COINCIDENCE, meeting you here!Alouette, being rich does not make stalking acceptable behavior. Oh. Alouette! How are you? Ah, you’re dungeon-crawling as well, I see… And with such a seedy-looking adventurer. Tsk… Wha?! My adventurer friend isn’t seedy-looking! And we did this joke already!drat it Recette, that fourth wall does not get any cheaper to replace. Well… I suppose a seedy adventurer is appropriate for a seedy merchant… O-hohohoho! Knock it off!... Well, come on, everyone! Don’t bother picking up the inexpensive garbage! Only the best for us!This is the first non-tutorial dungeon, there’s nothing but inexpensive garbage. Well, if you’ll excuse me… Is triggering a bomb trap near her being too harsh for the insults? Nah.  The flying tennis ball to Louie’s right is actually a bat with it’s wings folded up. They attack with a sort of ring projectile that I guess is supposed to be weaponized echolocation. It can’t be blocked with Louie’s shield, so I probably take more damage in this wing than the first two combined.  But this one did drop the bat wing I needed. Now I just need to repeat the first wing until the Slime with crown drops a liver.  This wing is also home to enemy swordsmen. They’re much better at using shields than Louie, and can block melee attacks from the front. You can only damage them from the back or sides, or waiting for them to take a swing and get inside their guard.  Another kind of trap makes the ground slippery. It isn’t area based, it makes the entire dungeon slippery until it runs out.  Oh, her again. Ah… Mhmm. Uhhh… hi, again. Oh, my. Hello, have we met somewhere previously?She’s awfully young to be this senile. Could be that she’s just stupid drunk, I guess. Uh… yeah, in a way that’s giving me a whole lot of déjà vu… Is that right! I’m sorry that I don’t remember. I take it you are again here by mistake while attempting to get hone. I’m not quite sure I… wait, am I… …I am somehow not surprised that you did not realize where you were. This is a dungeon. Again. Ah… well, I was just heading home from the market with dinner. See, I even have my scallions with me.You only have scallions for dinner? That’s just sad. Recette, this poor lady needs your help learning about edible herbs to be found in town. Wow, those look great! So perfectly green and tasty! I must say, it was quite a good purchase. This is not the time to be chewing on onions! Merde, how are you not concerned about your situation? I think something more than your sense of direction is off… I think I’ll have sukiyaki for dinner tonight.There are a lot of varieties of sukiyaki, but one thing they pretty much all have in common is ingredients other than scallions. This also adds more evidence to this mystery woman being Japanese, what she’s doing in Anime not!France is a mystery. Sukiyaki? I dunno what that is, but it sounds good! Tear! Can we fix sukiyummy for dinner tonight? Grain porridge. Ever and anon.Yes, Tear really is running Recette’s entire life, not just their business relationship. It would be sweet of her to take over parenting the poor orphan girl, except for that whole threatening homelessness thing. Aww… Heehee… I enjoy your company, you two. I must get home, however. Stay safe!And that was the last interesting thing that happened until the end of the dungeon.  While we can not currently proceed any further, I strongly suspect that we can go even deeper in next time. Wait, huh? Why’s that? The dungeons change shape every time someone enters them. Some theorize that they adapt to the strength of those who enter, and refer to it as the “living dungeon phenomenon”. The truth of the matter is… unclear, however.No. Each dungeon is exactly the same length every time, and they don’t seem to scale to character level. I think this is a badly translated attempt to explain that each dungeon is longer and harder than the previous one. But hang onto that “living dungeon phenomenon” thing. Uuuuuuhhh… okay… I wonder if the dungeon gets bored if it’s alone…  … like this the playthings of the underworld? Heh, I see… I like the way you think, girl. W-who’s there?! Sudden camera angle shift! Also, this is the sort of dungeon that usually suggests you’re seeing through the ceiling and can’t actually climb onto the walls, and then… well, this.  Evenin’. Name’s Charme, the Lady Thief.You’re a pretty lame thief when you have to make up your own sobriquet and try to convince people to use it. TH-THIEF?! So. Your treasures, valuables, and assorted shiny bits. I’ll be taking them, if you please.The loot is being carried by intangible people, the only tangible person is armed and armored. In the time it takes you to kill Louie, I’m pretty sure Recette and Tear can bail. We won’t let you! *Sigh* Always the way. Well then. In that case, looks like it’s time to CUT some fools.I’m just glad she didn’t say “cut to the chase”.  I poke a lot of fun, but Charme is the hardest boss fight so far, and a right pain in the rear end. She doesn’t have any special mechanics like waiting for Crowned Slime to shrink himself, or waiting for Reg to poison himself. This fight is just a slugfest. Except Charme’s faster than Louie. Much faster. She runs faster, she attacks faster, and she has a dash attack.  What I’m saying is that this fight took a while.  Hell, I’m losing my touch, getting’ beat like that… Um… miss? Are… you okay? Ugh… I’m mortally wounded! I can… I can see the far shore… HeuWHAAA?!?! NO! I, uh, um… …I’m kidding, girl. Really… if you get this worried about every berk who tries to slit your throat and take your lucre… OW! Friggin’…A friendly reminder to not try to mug people protected by guys with swords, because swords hurt. Hey! You really ARE hurt! Here, take this wound ointment! What the…?! Did you have that on you this entire time?!So what if she did? It’s not like Louie needed it. If you’re keeping her on a gruel-based diet, I shudder to think what your idea of proper medical care is, so maybe it was a good idea for her to keep it secret. Ehehe… sorry, Tear. … You two’re a pair of oddballs, you know that? Believe me, she is the only round, strange object currently present! Please do not assume that both of us are nearly so foolish. Really? Seems to be like you two make a good pair. …Er… Well then, young ladies, I should scamper, since I’ve been beaten like a mutt. Enjoy your treasure! You earned it! Wait! I’m Recette, and this is Tear. We have an item shop at the top of the hill in town, called “Recettear”. You should stop by!Well, she mugs people in dungeons, she might need to buy stuff once in a while. Or fence stolen loot, I don’t much care. I should, huh?... I’ll keep that in mind. See you kids later! Goodbye, Charme! Merde. Giving her our shop lcation… what are you thinking, Recette? The Lady Theif, huh… She was kinda cool! You will forgive me if I do not think the same way. …Heeey… are you… jealous? Tch! Absolutely not!Tear just doesn’t want you getting close to anybody smart enough to figure out that your business relationship isn’t kosher. Louie isn’t smart enough to recognize indentured servitude, so he’s fine.  The prize for beating the dungeon is in the chest, but Charme dropped a copy of Booze of the World.  The book isn’t worth as much, but the vase is so loving hard to sell.  Well, that one’s done. Except for needing to go back for a liver. NEXT TIME: Need to spend some time running the shop, need a liver, need to open another dungeons. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 08:02
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Really, there are two problems with treasures. The lesser issue is that most customers just don't seem interested. But the main problem is that treasures scale up in value really quickly. This odd vase has a base price of 21400. That's well beyond what most of my customers carry around. That's why it seems like Alouette is the one most likely to buy treasure, she can always afford most of them.
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Jan 16, 2019 10:11
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The Sweet Spot Day 13 The price of shields has increased Steel your soul against the dark arts and turn them away - the chapel-masters  We’re coming up on the next payment day, and I have enough to cover it. The best course of action is to get out of town for a while before I decide I need to spend money.  I grab Louie, two HP restoring foods, and one SP restoring candy, and make my way back to the Jade Way.  Once you’ve cleared a dungeon, you can run boss rushes through it. I still need that slime liver.  This fucker does not want to drop a loving liver.  Whereas Reggie drops a charred lizard every time.  Charme is stingy with drops too, which is annoying, she’s the most difficult boss in this dungeon (because I’m impatient).  That’s one boss rush down. No liver.  Alouette, if you think a single secondhand candy apple is going to make a shop more appealing, you’re even more of an idiot than I thought.  Are you down with something Tear? No, I’ quite well. I simply thought it was time to explain how to place and use vending machines.As I think somebody mentioned earlier in the thread, vending machines are the big moneymaker in this game. Although I’m sad to hear that they patched out the ability to sell vending machines in vending machines, it doesn’t do much to nerf their moneymaking potential. Vending machines? Vending machines allow you to sell a larger volume of items in a shorter amount of time, compared to handling each customer yourself. Really? I guess that makes sense. To place a vending machine, choose the vending machine from the item placement menu at a counter as if it were a normal item. The counter will become that vending machine. And after I put it down, it just starts selling stuff? No, you will have to keep the machine stocked yourself. There is a limit to how much you can place in a vending machine as well, so be mindful of what you put inside. Kayo! There is… a downside, however. Because the machine is automatic, the price of an item sold from a vending machine cannot be negotiated. Items will sell for their base price. Keep that in mind. Aw, I like being able to haggle ‘til I turn blue in the face… It is a drawback. The extra volume can often make up for the lower price, however, so for cheap items, a vending machine is helpful. Well, I guess so… Finally, remember we cannot sell off the machines ourselves. If you wish to dispose of a machine, we must sell it back to the Merchant’s Guild or market… at a steep loss. Keep that mind if you decide to invest in one. Will do!Tear’s explanation is mostly accurate, but leaves out one more drawback: you get no experience from vending machine sales. There’s no opportunity cost, vending machine sales don’t deny you sales at the counter, so they’re still helpful. I find it’s best at this point to stock them with mid-tier items that I might have lying around, while keeping the highest grade stuff on the counters, and a few lower grades in reserve to train up new customer’s budgets. Later, it’s all slots all flooring all the time. And then as soon as I open up again, it’s straight back to cutscene as we get a visitor.  Huh, not bad. This’s a pretty nice-looking place. … Y’know, is it really so kosher for an employee to give a customer a face like that? Thought a smile was the basis for “customer satisfaction”.You did try to mug them that one time. But since I’m still annoyed about Tear playing along with Caillou, I’m gonna side with Charme on this one. Sorry Tear, you have to be polite to all the customers, even the assholes. Oh, for a normal customer, that is completely true. For someone who openly attempted to MURDER us, however, this is the only face I have to show.Be fair Tear, she only tried to kill Louie. You and Recette were perfectly safe. And Louie’s job is to put his life on the line for your convenience. …Hmm… Well, it looks like she’s got a different idea… I’m so glad you came! Yeah, well, I kept wonderin’ about this place. Nice store you have here Recette. Aw, thank you! Make yourself at home, okay?I realize this is also your home, but it’s a store Recette. Customer’s generally don’t make themselves at home. What, is she going to sit on the counter and read a magazine? Recette… …See? I see all too clearly, thank you. That Recette’s a good girl… nice, trusting, honest. Don’t you agree, Tear?O-of course I do. You don’t need to tell me that…I feel like Charme is the only one person who actually holds this lovely business arrangement against Tear.  Day 14 The price of weapons has decreased The Swords boom has ended Several incidents with fake high-class restaurants have left diners uncertain I really should have bought more swords to take advantage of the boom again, you can do it once a day as long as a boom lasts. Item price decreases happen about as often as decreases, and work on the same principal. I should try and avoid selling weapons while they’re down, but it’s a good time to buy. If you were wondering, yes you can have multiple increases and decreases going. An item affected by an increase and a decrease will be at normal price, but an item affected by multiple increases or decreases will not stack to even higher/lower prices. The dream, obviously, is when you get a boom on price increased items. Today’s tasks:  VENDING MACHINE! There are three kinds that hold more items at once as you get better ones, only the cheapest model is available, holding 6 items.  JADE WAY BOSS RUSH! AGAIN!  Nothing.  After I expanded the shop, the new counter wasn’t very useful.   Much better.  I guess he kinda needed the MDef boost, but Louie is quickly becoming the worst equipped swordsman. He has a necklace and a scarf and a bracelet, he’d probably replace his armor with a ring if he could.  Charme, you are a thief. You can’t wear heavy armor. And I don’t have her card yet, so she can’t equip things she buys from me yet anyway. Day 15 This year’s harvest a disaster! The price of food has increased The price of Swords has normalized Beware of fake items and scams – the Adventurer’s Guild  BOSS RUSH AGAIN AGAIN!  loving finally.  And then in my rush to get out with the precious liver, Louie got murdered by Charme. Oh no! Wh-what do we do now?! Calm down. I thought this might happen. As I was saying earlier, if an adventurer is injured while exploring for us, we will bring them into our field and then we shall “book it” back home, as the saying goes. Normally we would not be able to bring any items with us, loot or otherwise, but thanks to this special little box the guild gave us… We can bring back at least one item. Okay… wow, that bos is tiny. We can’t fit much in there.Any one item, as small as a cherry or as large as a suit of armor. As I gain more merchant levels, the box will gain more slots, maxing out at 3 items. Just so. Choose carefully then. We can only pick one item, so make sure it is valuable! Will do! Gee, should I pick the item I came here for in the first place, that I need to finish a request from a customer? Or a burnt lizard that I already have several of? Slime liver get. Finally.  Heya, girl. Heaven, are you ever not bright and happy? Nope! A bright and happy welcome is the key to sales! And for that, Recette, I’ve got a bit of a present here for you. This is!... you have an Adventurer’s Guild card? Darn straight! If you ever need the help of a professional berk such as myself, give me a look, okay? I will, thank you! …Umm, well… Tear! What is it? Tch! You… Tear, look! Charme gave me her card! WHA?!... is this a joke?! YOU are a member of?...Well they let Louie in, so clearly the guild has no standards as long as you can walk down a hallway and kill slimes. Well, Recette’s been good to me. Consider my way of paying you guys back for that trouble earlier. Payback’s important, y’know. Right, Tear? I… suppose it is. … Hey, Recette? Mind if I borrow Tear for a moment? Heuwha? Uh… I’ll give her back right away, don’t worry. Well, uh… be sure to give her back the same way you found her! … The same way?... What am I, property?Well, you are a fairy. Fairies are a slave caste, right? Well then! A-yoink! … What are you really after? … Hey, Tear. Let me ask you… Are you really just some random, dispassionate loan-shark? What are you… ’Cause, y’know, I’ve been wondering. If all you’re really after is getting that loan repaid, wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just steal the house and cash out?Recette and Tear have never talked to Charme about the loan situation. Is this just regular gossip around town now? There’s nothing stopping you, after all… except for one thing. That… is not it at all. As an agent of Terme, I- Take a little bit of friendly advice? The harder you try to spin some elaborate tale, the worse it ends up being when the web comes apart at the end.Are you suggesting that Tear cares that much about Recette? Because we’ve seen Recette end up homeless twice already. Heh… not that I have any room to lecture anyone on that front. So sticking to your guns? Just a loan-shark, then? Unbelievable. Did you give her your card just to ask me that? Heh… maybe I did. Guess I’ve been a bit of a busybody, eh? Everyone who comes through the door is like that. That girl… Something about her… inspires people to care.Yeah, people like the poor young girl who puts up a brave front in the face of overwhelming adversity, what a shock. … I suppose she does at that. Hey, are you guys done talking? Sure are. As promised, one intact Tear, just as I found her! Well then. Let me know if you need my help. I will! Thanks again! Later! I can still buy from customers during increased value periods, but I have to pay them around 90-95% of base value, cutting into my profit margins.  Sometimes you get additional news bulletins later in the day. It doesn’t happen very often. The price of longswords has increased The price of shields has normalized A think tank has been established to research food safety – great results are expected!  What is it? And… are you OK? You seem a little… different. Sho, I gots a meshage fr’m th’ guild t’day. They’ve TOOOOTALLY foun’ a new dungeon!... or shumsuch’. *hic*God but I hate phonetic drunk accents. Whoa, really?! Really really SUPER really. Ever’onesh callin’ it th’ “Amber Garden”!... Boy, I hope it’sh that kinda… amber…I think you’ve had enough Charme. The Amber Garden?... … ..Uh, Charme? Uhhhh… Huah! Whawas I talkin’ ‘bout?... Anwyeah! Sho if you get th’ chance, we should totally go! I mean, who knows whu’ kinda, uh, “items” we could find?! Yeah, items… Yeah, that’s true! Well then! Back t’ th’ pub with me! Fwoosh! Umm, right! Thanks for letting me know, Charme! A new dungeon, huh… And then Louie finally bought a new scarf.   And that’s another payment down. NEXT TIME: Caillou will probably show up for his stuff at some point, and I have a new dungeon to hit up. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 09:24
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Fixed and fixed. Section Z posted:Save your hate for the real enemy. Games that won't highlight stat differences until AFTER it's bought. I have to agree, I'd rather have to deal with the unexpected color coding than not get any data on whether or not the adventurer is buying an upgrade.
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Jan 27, 2019 23:29
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New FolksTruthkeeper posted:NEXT TIME: Caillou will probably show up for his stuff at some point, and I have a new dungeon to hit up. Yeah, funny story, none of that actually made it into this update. Day 16 Alright, another news bulletin, another day…  Oh? A customer waiting outside before I even get the news?  Huh? Hey, what’s that girl doing outside the shop? … Sge’s, uh… just kind of staring into the shop. Does she want to come inside, maybe? Or are our windows that gripping.That is a very attractive days-old unrefrigerated cut melon in the window. … Well, smile, Recette! Come on, smile, look friendly… Eheh, heh… heh… … Okaaaaaay, what should I do here… frozen in a vapid smile for all eternity.Tear, have you not been paying attention? Recette’s been wearing that same smile for most of the game. Also, the mysterious green haired girl vanishes after this line. Oh, Tear! There’s a girl at the window who looked curious about the inside of the shop, so I tried to give her my best “come in and buy lots of stuff” smile! Okay, I stand corrected, she’s not smiling vapidly here. And she actually frowns a bit for the next line. I wonder why she… It must have been your sudden, terrifying appearance, Tear! Yeah! So I a TERRIFYING, you say? Really? Terrifying… Um, that smile you have is kind of… yeah, I think “terror” sounds abou- Things like this are why I dislike Tear. Her response to finding out Recette is afraid of her, the mafioso enforcer loan shark, is to justify that fear. But that’s enough of the complicated dynamics of the relationship between our two leads. Back to game mechanics.  I vaguely mentioned item crafting earlier, this is the interface for it. When you’ve got an item used in a crafting recipe, the game will tell you which recipes use it, and how many of that item you need. Usually this requires one buyable or already crafted item and a number of mob drops.  In this case, fusing an iron armband with five insect traps of various + levels made a Maiden’s Bracelet +3, being significantly better than the bracelet that went into it, but not as good as the ones I can currently buy, because I focuses on grinding my merchant level instead of lots of dungeon runs.  It’s also only usable by women.   Similarly, one of my extra charred lizards and a buyable necklace. Again, it’s not as good as necklaces I can currently buy, but it is worth a decent chunk of money. My supplies bought and crafted, let’s open up shop.  Oh hey. Oh hey! You’re that girl who was hanging out near the windows earlier! Stained-glass yayness! I’m glad you came in! What can I get you? Arma. Bwuh? Oh, is that your name? So, is that like “Miss Arma” like a last name, or- “Missarma”. Negative. Arma.There’s something about her speech patterns, it’s a bit odd. I just can’t put my finger on it. Soooo… you’re saying “just call me Arma” then. Affirmative.It’s also strange how her facial expression never changes. Strange girl. Well, I’m Recette! Nice to meet you, Arma! Recette.Very sparing with her words too. Yep! State the purpose of this facility.And very direct. The “purpose” of? … Uh, okay! To start with…FADE TO BLACK FADE-IN So that’s about it! You can buy and sell items here. A material distribution center. Understood.That’s a bit technical, but mostly correct, sure. Materi- uh, yup! So what do you- I am taking this object, then. Yeek! wait, hold on! There is a problem? Well if you want to have something, uh, “distributed” to you, you need to pay me some money, y’know! “Money”. Term undefined. Elaborate.Huh, must be foreign. One of those communists the TV news is always warning me about. Quick, Tear, grab my blunderbuss! I need to explain money? Yikes… I’d better start all over then. So, uh, how do I explain what money is? Well, the money we use is referred to as “pix”…FADE TO BLACK FADE-IN … So that’s why different items cost different amounts, see?...FADE TO BLACK FADE-IN …And that’s when the hero yelled “this is the end of my journey!”…FADE TO BLACK FADE-IN And that’s why you need to pay for items in a place like this!Recette is either best teacher or worst teacher. … … Understood. I currently lack “money” and am therefore unable to perform “shopping”. Note of course that the shop was full of customers during that whole conversation and lesson. Well… that was exhausting! I hope she does come back, though…I wish she wouldn’t. Whenever you get a new customer, they always start at their beginning budget. I’ve worked hard to train up my current customers and my merchant level so I can sell expensive poo poo.  I do love it when advance orders coincide with price increases and I can sell lots of expensive stuff at double price.  I love it so. I did good enough business to take the evening off and wander around town a bit.  Have I complained recently about how judgmental the loan shark who pressed a child into slavery can be? Hahaaaah! Shilly fairy, you can’t shtick a person in a cup!However, I still hate phonetic drunk accents, so I’m going to agree with Tear here. Maybe I coul’ stuff oyou inta one, though…Then again, I think I like where Charme is going with this. Heeey, Teeeeah, y’want shome’o’thish? I believe… I shall pass. Whelp, yer loss, then, y’stick-in-the-mud. Maybe Recette’ll wan’ shome…Charme, please do not corrupt the minor. HeuWHA? Er, that is, uh, um… Stop clinging to he, for Heaven’s sake. I swear, for a “professional berk”, you can not hold your liquor at all… Oh? Is somebody else having an event at the same time as ours? drat it, we had “the protagonist visits the bar in the evening” slot booked! Hmm? What is… He’s certainly wearing enough belts to be an RPG protagonist, but the priestly accoutrements clearly label him as somebody’s party member. Not just no, but HELL no! Do you have any idea how long your tab already is?! You’ll drink me out of business at this rate! Son of a… Alright, alright, I can take a hint. I’ll call it for the day. Goodness, quite an argument. Aw, him? Tha’ happens all tha’time. That guy keepsh puttin’ shutff on ‘is tab and doesn’ pay up, so he keepsh gettin’ chased out. Haha! I think he even has Louie beat when it comesh t’bein’ poor! Well, eitha whey, don’ worry t’much ‘bout ‘im. Hmph. The unwise use of money is the human trait which I find the most perplexing by far. “Unwise ush of…” huh… well, anyway… C’mon, Recette, yer big sis wantshta introdush ya to a man named “Jack”… Oh absolutely NOT!I’d feel better agreeing with Tear, except I think her primary objection is that Recette won’t be able to work as hard if she’s hung over.  Huh, come to think of it, there was no newsflash this morning, so this is the only news we’ve hard today. There are signs of a boom in longswords among men who know quality The price of weapons has normalized The initiative to rename Egg Toast “Lunch Bread” is gaining strength, sources say Time to fill the shelves with swords again.  NEXT TIME: Caillou and Amber Garden
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Feb 4, 2019 10:41
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All My Favorite People Day 17 The price of daggers has decreased The price of food has normalized The “Are Adventurers Necessary” symposium has opened today Oh hey, that last one sounds interesting, I should totally make some time to… oh, it didn’t say where to go. Well, it probably costs money to get in, and Tear would never dream of letting Recette spend money on something so foolish. At the very least, my morning is set in stone.  Men. Great numbers. Popular swords. But also.  There’s THIS rear end in a top hat. -oh. Right. Good day. Did you finally manage to get my order in?Well it’s not like you’re any kind of priority, you’re lucky we even bothered. Ehehehe! Is your laugh supposed to creep out the customers, or is that just one of your natural talents?Point to Caillou. Da-ta-daaa! Wha? You’re not happy? What in the name of… “Da-ta-da”? Have you no shame, you ninny? Given how long I had to wait for this… Well, whatever, I did put in the order, and I do still need these, so I’ll go ahead and take them now. Here’s the fee. Thank the owner for me. Despite the delay, I do appreciate the help. I TOLD you. I! AM! THE! OWNER! You really don’t know when to give up on a prank, do you?If it was a prank, it certainly wouldn’t be a very good one. In any event, you do need to learn to deal with customers better.The hell you say. Customers like you deserve to be booted out into the street. Ordinary retail workers don’t deserve this kind of poo poo, and the owner of the store particularly doesn’t. I’ll be coming in here more often from now on, so I expect good service.You’ll get the exact same service everybody else gets for now. I might care about you if this LP reaches the point where I actually use you. poo poo I should probably do that at some point.  Dammit Caillou, now you went and upset the poor girl.  Although clearly not that much. As mentioned earlier, these items are worth a lot more depending on how long it takes to procure them, with the best price being when you flop them on the counter the first time Caillou walks in. Also, it seems like it shouldn't have been that hard to not have that text break out of the box.  Louie forgot what kind of weapon he uses. Again.  The price of armor has increased The price of swords has normalized Merchant’s Guild master, your wife is looking for you Poor guild master, his is a tough life.  I love increased armor price, it’s truly a beautiful thing.  Unfortunately, Arma’s still too poor to be able to buy high-end armor at normal price, let alone double. I sold her the cheapest bracelet I had.  Well, he should really have a shield equipped, even though he doesn’t need one to block attacks. But this still hurts a lot to let him have.  I’ll get over it. Day 18 The price of shields has increased The swords boom has ended Racial wars in the north coming to a head, sources say It’s always the little snippets of backstory that are the most interesting. I’d really like to know more about these racial wars. Is it those drat dirty elves again? The only good long ear is a dead long ear!  A thoroughly uneventful morning shop opening got us to merchant level 17. Recette can now carry 25 items in dungeons. These inventory increases are always welcome, and they stop well short of where I need them to be.  Oh good, you’re here. Maybe I should invite Caillou and then we can have a party in the shop. While I burn it down. Hi, Alouette! You look like you’re in a good mood. I am! Father and I are going on an excursion to eat foie gras in a bit. What’s a foe-grub? It sounds kind of mean.Recette, foie gras and foe grub don’t sound anything alike. I think you’re faking it at this point. You’re actually brilliant and well-educated, aren’t you? Admit it! What in!- You don’t even know what foie gras is?! Poverty IS a curse!She may not know what foie gras is, but I bet she knows how to curbstomp the bourgeoisie if they don’t shut the hell up. Awww… Teeear! Help me out here! Yes, very well. Foie gras is a good made from goose liver, and is generally considered to be a “high class” dish, due in part to what is involved in creating it. By overfeeding the geese, excess fat accumulates in the liver, significantly changing the taste. The process is lengthy, naturally. As a dish, it is typically sautéed, then eaten. Oooo… kay. Is it yummy, though? Naturally! It’s a delicacy of the upper crust, after all. It utterly lacks any texture… It’s strangely meaty and oily!… It’s truly the ultimate in rare tastes!In my experience, rich people are too stupid to know what good food is. Or, in the words of an excellent doctor and a world class chef: “Goose liver? Fish eggs? Where’s the goose? Where’s the fish?” “That’s what rich people eat, the garbage parts of the food.” But… it’s yummy, right? Of-of course it is. S-silly plebian…Still pretty sure Recette is smarter than she lets on. Also pretty sure she’s only putting up with Al’s poo poo out of pity.  Grinding wallets is still tedious. And I have to do it for every character when they start shopping here. By my count , I still have five left who haven’t started yet.  I’d read that book.   Hello again, Al. Hiya, Alouette! You going somewhere again?She only just said a few hours ago that she was going to get foie gras with her father! Oh. Wait Now I get it. Al’s father is a major businessman, the owner of Big Bash. I bet she hasn’t actually seen him in months because he’s always working, and makes up elaborate stories about what she thinks she’d be doing if Daddy actually had any time for her! And Recette is the only one who will listen! HA! … I made myself sad. Indeed I am! Father and I are off to have some truffles! Puffles? Uh… And you don’t even know what a truffle is! It’s to be expected of a pauper, I suppose. How distressing!The really scary thought is that maybe Alouette thinks this is how making friends works. Well then, this time I shall instruct you personally! Truff-kay! Thanks! Y-yes, you… should be thankful. … … Recette? Uh… that’s it? Yes, that’s it! So, mushroons? Okay, thanks, Alouette! I feel smarter already!Hard to not feel smart when you’re in the same room as Al. Well then, pardonne moi… Huh. Maybe I’m too used to Tear’s long explanations…Yeah, a short and to the point explanation does seem weird now. She also completely missed the point, naturally.  God drat it Louie, didn’t I already tell you you can’t just go waltzing in with one of those? Are you trying to run me out of business?  Yes, yes, Grandma’s prized comic book, I’m sure.  At least she’s popping in a lot, makes the grind a little faster.  And the day finishes with another level up, increasing the stock at the wholesale shops. NEXT TIME: New characters and the Amber Garden will finally make an appearance
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Feb 28, 2019 09:46
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Blaziken386 posted:
And yet, we've thus far avoided the worst character in the game showing up.
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Mar 3, 2019 03:30
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Day 19 The price of accessories has increased The price of daggers has normalized If your glasses need adjustment, talk to us today! – Western Glasses Store Increased accessory price is pretty nice when it happens, since accessories tend to be pretty high price-point items already. Of course, I just made a lot of sales, and leveled up enough to expand the available items for purchase from the guild, so that’s less nice to have prices go up before I buy.  I have a little problem that I need your help w- We automatically refuse to place horse heads in anyone’s bed.I think you’re a little confused Tear. You’re the mobster here, not the guild master. Actually, I have a package that needs to be delivered to the orphanage near town square. You’ve seen it, right?Nope. I still can’t prove that this town has more than seven buildings. There appear to be more than that, but those are probably just cardboard cutouts. I’m a bit busy right now, so… Oh yeah! Sure! We can do that! Thanks, girls! This’ll help me out a lot. Alright then! Package acquired, charge forth!It’s a little odd that the master of the Merchant’s Guild doesn’t have any employees or apprentices or anything to do his grunt work for him., but it’s nice that Recette can agree to help somebody out with no expectation of a reward and not get bitched at by Tear for wasting company time. Indeed, not a bad idea. The Merchant’s Guild has been generous to us in the past, so getting them into our pocket now will only help us down the road.For gently caress’s sake Tear, can’t we do one nice thing for somebody without you trying to expand your damned mafia empire?  Look, you upset the poor guild master. For the orphans! Let’s go! Cut to the town square, no need to spend additional time and money drawing another location or more character artwork when we can just use our imaginations and pretend there’s an orphanage just offscreen. Delivery successful! Forward to yayness! Well, I am glad we were able to get that done with quickly. I’ll say! Everyone seemed to like the package! Although… what d’you think they’ll do with… I mean, just the… I’d rather not think about it.The dreaded noodle incident. Given that it’s a package from the Merchant’s Guild, which is where I go to buy general adventuring equipment, I have this niggling feeling that I just delivered a box of swords to a bunch of orphaned protagonists who are now prepared to go avenge their dead parents and doomed hometowns and such. Blasted guildmaster… I think I would have preferred the horse head. Well, either way, we pulled it off! Back to the shop? Indeed… wait. Uh, what’s up? It may be nothing… over there, however, is that not… Oh! It‘s the man with the huge bar bill, isn’t it? Yes, but why on earth is he hiding behind a wall? Heeeeey… yeah, that’s suspicious! Forward, to investigation!... and yayness, later. Ah, wait! Recette!Tear doesn’t approve of Recette wanting to dig into something shady going on? Couldn’t imagine why.  Naturally, since the background is completely unchanged, it looks like they were having that discussion two feet away from him. Cease whatever vaguely sneaky thing you’re doing at once! Whoaho!I was going to be snarky, but this is actually a pretty normal reaction to a young girl sneaking up on you and accusing you of doing “vaguely sneaky things”. This is an orphanage! What are you doing here, peering at it like that?! What in… mind tellin’ me who you are, little miss? My nae is Recette! I run the item shop “Recettear”, on the hill.You accuse the shady individual of doing sneaky things involving orphans, and then immediately tell him your name and where you live. Well done, Recette. Well done. I was on my way homme from delivering a package, and saw YOU being all sneaky! Oh, you’re the one who runs that… huh. Pretty impressive at your age. We seem to have gotten off to a bad start. Name’s Elan. In the strictest terms, I guess you could call me an adventurer. I kind of owe something to this orphanage, so I stop by a lot.What, you rung up a huge tab here too? Why all the sneakification and peering, then? I wasn’t… peering, really. It was more… gazing at, I guess. With guilt.You’d probably feel less guilt if you paid your tab. What do you… Time’s have been… a little hard, lately. You know how it can be. I can’t afford to buy the kids who live there treats anymore… So I think to myself, “It’d just be better if I didn’t show up at all…” But… still… Oh, I… I see. I’m sorry I was angry at you, but… Aw, hell’s bells! Now they’ve seen me!Sorry Dresden, looks like you’re going to have to suck it up and go interact with some children who seem genuinely happy to see you. Gotta let ‘em down and go in empty-handed, I guess…Don’t worry, they’re probably still riding the high of the box of swords I brought them. It’ll be okay. Huh? Look at them. The kids appreciate YOU, not the gift! Hehe, kind of weird for a merchant to say you don’t need gifts, I guess…Tear would scoff if she had bothered to follow Recette over here. But it’s true, really! Go on, they’re waiting! Little miss… Elaaaaan, we’re gonna form an angry mob and go purge the unclean with live steel! Come with us!  Oh dear, looks like they’re starting with him. Your fans await, Mr. Elan. Good luck! Oh, maybe you should go easy on the alcohol too… for their sake.And then you can use the money you save from not drinking to pay your hospital bills! Capitalism, ho! Haha… man, she sure told me. Recette of “Recettear”, huh… Oh, hello Tear. When did you show up? …Was it just my imagination, or was that fairy giving me a hell of an evil eye just now?Probably just a stink eye, I don’t think Tear knows how to channel the malocchio. She’d be using it to drum up more business if she could. Having gotten sidetracked from my original shopping goal by that cutscene, it’s time to get back on track! With another cutscene, at the church.  Really, I must admit, you do not strike me as the pious type.Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, I’m pretty sure there are no atheists among starving orphans. When you came to chapel, you’d get a stamp on a little card, and with enough stamps, you’d get a piece of candy! So your primary motivation was the candy, not the faith.Again, starving orphan. Ayep! Merde. My previous judgment hit the sweet spot, it seems…And another!  Oh yeah, the coins in the fountain. Wow, there’s a lot now! C-COINS?! Why are COINS in a public water display?!Those coins should be filling our coffers! You’ve never had the urge to toss a coin into a fountain and make a wish? Just looking at the fountain kind of makes me want to… … Can I make the natural assumption that you have been so abysmally foolish in the past as to actually throw perfectly valid money into this fountain? Ehehe… well… maybe once… or twice… or thrice?... Oh! I haven’t done it in forever, though! Really?I’m going to assume ever since Papa Lemongrass left and money suddenly became tight. I certainly hope not.Well, that’s enough of Recette’s disturbingly cheerful renditions of her life as a poor starving orphan. Let’s get back to work.  The ideal situation, where I get to sell an expensive armor upgrade, during a period where its price is increased, to an adventurer.  Day 20 is special, because it’s time to go check out the new dungeon we heard about some time ago.  The Amber Garden is neither amber, nor a garden.  It’s also kind of a long slog, and represents a substantial jump in difficulty over the Jade Way. It’s still not very hard.  The most notable new enemy are bombs. Unlike Final Fantasy bombs, these don’t explode until you kill them, at which point you have three seconds to run or knock them away, much like bomb traps.   These were just super-convenient.  More monster-regicide. Eyebat King is kind of a pain, he’s accompanied by infinitely respawning regular eyebats, so I have to dodge their usual projectiles from multiple directions…  …while the king flies around doing this.  I probably could have made it further, but no rush.  I’d complain about Caillou buying equipment that’s incompatible with his gender, but I’m enjoying price gouging him too much. Day 21 Lots of sunshine in the forecast - beware of sunstroke! The price of shields has normalized Hire an adventurer at the Adventurer’s Guild today! That bit about sunstroke is our headsup that another boom has begun. Unlike the swords boom, this one doesn’t tell you what item to stock up on. It’s hats.  My shop is now flooded with little girls desperate for hats to protect them from the sun.  And housewives buying overpriced produce.  And middle-aged men buying random high-value weapons. This sort of thing is why grinding merchant level and customer wallets in the early game is more important that focusing on making money, even to the extent of failing the first payment a couple times. Being able to sell big ticket stuff means I can spend less time overall in the shop, and more time out in the wilderness cracking the whip on Louie. NEXT TIME: More cracking the whip on Louie in the second part of Amber Garden Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 03:54
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Super Jay Mann posted:An update so good I can read it twice! It took two or three tries where I kept missing bits, but I think I finally got that resolved. Super Jay Mann posted:I always forget Elan is a thing in this game, probably because he seems wholly unremarkable. He's completely missable if you're not careful to grab pub scenes, I think I actually did totally miss him my very first playthrough. And then he just turns out to be a chill dude in a cast of lunatics. mauman posted:ohboyohboy, I think we're almost about to unlock my favorite adventurer. You are a terrible person, encouraging horrible abuse of underage laborers.
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Mar 26, 2019 05:33
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about it.
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Oh, in that case I just deride your taste in adventurers.
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Mar 26, 2019 09:24
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This Garden isn’t Much of a Garden Day 22 The price of armor has decreased The price of food has normalized Racial wars in the north coming to a head, sources say Racial wars? Pshaw, that’s none of my business. Nothin’ but right normal humans here, none of them freaky long-ears or what have you. Only good elf is a dead elf I say!  On a completely unrelated note, today’s to-do list takes us back into the Amber Garden.  There’s no plants, and it isn’t amber, but at least it’s a quick level.  New enemies include the flying jack o’ lantern, which can only be hit after it tries to land on you.  I like extra experience.  I like it a lot.  Levels with revealed maps tend to be my favorite, giving me the choice to either stay to grind and pop treasure chests or run straight for the portal to the next level.  I missed grabbing this boss’s title, and I feel bad about that. The Insect King Large, Armored, Angry He’s got a simple strategy that you’ve probably seen in several games: only the head is vulnerable, and the bug prince likes to curl up and roll at you.  He also summons bees to attack you, they still suck.  After fighting the Insect King, things were looking up, so I decided to keep going. This wing is also neither particularly garden-like nor amber. I want to see your manager!  This wing is interesting though, since it doesn’t have a boss. Instead, level 15 requires fighting a gauntlet of knights, bombs, slimes and ropers. Only after killing dozens of enemies across the map will the exit appear.  One of the knights even dropped a water crystal. Elemental crystals are needed for a handful of fusion recipes, and are pretty difficult to get.  Eventually, I fought my way to the end of the wing, and took the door out this time.  Recette sure does spend a lot of time at the pub. Tear should have a talk with that girl. Ooooh, h’llo Recette… I also still very concerned about Charme’s intentions toward our girl. Well, you have my deepest apologies for my continued existence. Aaaahhh, I can’t take Recette home w’me if yer here…Yes, because the fairy is going to be able to stop you. Te-ta-ti-euuWHAAAA?I don’t think Recette approves anyway. I-I-I can not let you do anything of the sort! Aaaaahm kiddiiiing… m’kiddin’! Yeesh, y’guish’re serioush…What even is this drunk accent? Merde. Somehow I find your “humor” hard to take as such. Especially when you are THAT forward about it. Eh…hehehe…And so Recette wasn’t molested this time.  Never got around to opening the shop today, but I got a bunch of worthless crap from the dungeon. Yay? Mind you, not opening today was intentional.  It’s repayment day, after all. On the downsider, I’m kinda broke now, but I should be able to stock the shelves tomorrow with what I have in inventory. DAY 23 The price of heavy armor has decreased The hats boom has ended Beware of fire on dry days! drat, I would have liked getting another day of hat boom sales, maybe I should have opened yesterday. Oh well.  After a very profitable but boring morning, I decided to spend the rest of the day in the Amber… Volcano? Who designed this loving place anyway? Well, that’ll probably never be relevant. Onward, through the Orange Volcano.  I made so much money this morning that I decided to splurge on some vitamins for Louie. Those four bottles increased his max HP by 23, which isn’t terrible, but could be better.  Not one, but TWO colors of knights. They’re identical, except the gray knights rarely drop void crystals instead of water crystals.  I still fail to understand the fish trap. Why is this a thing?  No. I not going to say it. I refuse to breathe life back into that lovely joke. Let’s just see what the game calls it. Volcanicrab Explosive Shellfish There you go. It’s a volcanicrab, and certainly not a giant… drat it, no! Volcanicrab is another tricksy puzzle boss. He’s totally invulnerable, his claws hurt like hell, and his bubble blowing attack is surprisingly powerful. By himself, he’s unstoppable.  If he hadn’t brought help, he’d be unbeatable. The trick is killing the bombs and having them explode in the crabs hitbox, which flips him over, exposing his weak point for… massive damage.  I still haven’t gotten Louie to buy a crystal sword from me yet, so instead I keep one on hand to equip him with.  Meanwhile, Arma’s wallet upgraded quickly enough that she’s already able to buy expensive weapons she can’t use during a price increase.  And Charme bought an ugly, gaudy piece of trash. Which really describes most of the items in the treasure category. DAY 24 The price of longswords has decreased The price of metal things has normalized Beware of fake items and scams! – the Adventurer’s Guild Fake items? Sounds like a sweet racket, I wonder if I can get in on that.  -oh, great. Good day. You seem to be lounging about as usual. Well that’s NOT true! I’m really very, very busy! …Even if I do have my feet up on the counter!Even if she does, that’s hardly Caillou’s business. Shut your loving mouth, buy something, and get the gently caress out. …Rrriiight. Putting that aside for a moment… I assume you’ve heard about the recent… issues… concerning the trade of items deemed by the chapel-masters to be “magical”?You are neither buying something nor getting the hell out. Do I have to call security? I don’t care if you are here trying to introduce some plot, I’ll have Louie cut your rear end. …Uh… …Typical.How dare a perfectly ordinary shopkeeper not be familiar with ongoing legal changes involving magic! I have heard about that. The chapel-masters have been seizing items that they claim have a… “corrupting influence on man’s immortal soul”, I believe the claim was. Hah, spot on. Just as I’d expect from you, madam fairy. Hey… Anyway, it’s all sanctimonious nonsense. Interestingly, though… the items that the chapel gathers for destruction? A lot of them are turning up in the dungeons. And I do mean a LOT. Wh-whaa? Why? A very good question. The dungeons have always been packed with mysteries, however, so it may not be worth thinking about too hard.Those places that we go to kill things and get poo poo? They’re weird and not worth thinking about. It does, however, present an opportunity. Which leads me to… HAHAHA! No. gently caress off Harry Potter. Even if I was inclined to stop using Louie, I have two more people I would sooner charge into a dungeon with before even stopping to consider you. The only way I would ever take Caillou into battle is if there was some kind of thread vote after all the playable adventurers had appeared and the will of the voters demanded it. And that’s just laughable. Oooh, you want us to give the items back to the chapel-masters.Recette, please don’t live up to Caillou’s expectations of you. How can you be so dense and still be capable of breathing? Dense? Uh…I want to make sure that these items return to general circulation.I’d accuse him of being a warlock actually in league with the devil and trying to actually corrupt people’s souls, but I feel like that would be giving him way too much credit. The chapel-masters are standing astride curiosity and knowledge, and I won’t have it! If you help me, you can recover some items to sell, while I lay hands on other things for… study. The chapel-masters won’t try to seize property from a secular shop, so you would have nothing to worry about.How does being a shop stop the chapel-masters for seizing our stuff? Does the guild master have mob connections to protect us? Ah, of course. The Merhcant’s Guild has jurisdiction over the behavior of the city’s merchants, and the guild master would never cede authority to anyone, so… So they can’t touch us.Huh, apparently so. Aren’t city politics wonderfully headache-inducing? Regardless, madam fairy. You provide the material support, I provide the quite literal firepower, we go into a dungeon together and get what we need. Agreed? Well, we’ll pay the adventurer fee for sure, but you’ll have to buy what we find here in the shop, just like everybody else!‘Atta girl. Awww, maaan, you gotta be… ahem. Well, yes, that’s acceptable. I’m looking forward to seeing you in action. I expect a lot, Mr. Magician. You hardly need to worry on that front, Miss Counter-jockey. Just make sure you can identify everything we find, alright?A reasonable concern, and one reason I focus so much on grinding merchant levels in the early game. I hate picking up a piece of loot and only being aable to tell that it’s a thing for crafting. You bet! See you!And so another adventurer is added to the stable. I don’t have to like him personally to use him in adventures, except I also don’t like him as an adventurer. NEXT TIME: There’s still 10 more levels in Amber Garden Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Apr 20, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 04:26
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Section Z posted:Can we vote to keep the Guild Card but throw Caillou into a dumpster? That's probably where half the treasure items end up anyways Oddly enough, although we're unable to get rid of the regular cards, there are special cards you receive at the end of the game that you can then turn around and sell the next time around. Yes, there's a next time around even if you win. I'm never going to manage to show off everything in one go-round, so at the end of the month we'll be entering some variety of New Game+ or another. Scalding Coffee posted:Charme's icon should be in place of this sentence: Aaaaahm kiddiiiing… m’kiddin’! Yeesh, y’guish’re serioush… Should be fixed now, after a minor hiccup of accidentally posting the entire update again, because editing posts at 4AM is hard. mauman posted:oh yeah, big time. Oh my yes. This setting probably hasn't gotten past the apprenticeship level of giving a drat about your employees. Doubly so for the guild being good for Recette. The guild seems to be one of the only two wholesalers in the city, and the market, while alright, would not be able to support an adventurers' item shop very well alone. Huh, there's a weird idea for a challenge run, only using one wholesaler the whole game. I don't think it's come up at all yet, and in fact I feel like it's never mentioned at all, but the hell kind of government do you guys think we're looking at? Given that it's Medieval Anime Not!France, a monarchy would be easy to assume, but if so it's one where the church has a great deal of power (huh, kinda like France). We almost never hear about what's going on elsewhere in the country, besides the ongoing racial wars constantly coming to a head, maybe it's not a country at all but instead Pensee is some kind of city-state, where everything between the Adventurer's Guild and the item shop Recettear is ruled by a mighty theocracy? More thoughts on this, much, much later. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Apr 19, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 08:53
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TracerK posted:Uh... Very definitely finally ultimate remix fixed this time. mauman posted:Good for bosses, slow as gently caress in dungeons (insufferably so, much like his personality). He does get something to help with getting around, but it's rng based, which is it's own big problem. Also, you need to lug around a ton of sp items, cuz you REALLY don't want to rely on his basic attack (which is bad....like really really bad even if it does give back some sp). He's alright for bosses, but frankly between his speed and lack of a dash, I take so much damage playing him that his own damage output just isn't worth it. His teleport skill is no substitute for a reasonable way to move out of the way. I'll admit to him being sort of nice to have for fights where dodging is harder. Looking at you here, Griff Part 2: Archdevil's Boogaloo, although I really prefer Tielle for this one. Tenebrais posted:The dungeons really lose all coherency after the Jade Way. It's like they designed a bunch of dungeon environments then never thought of places to put them. Or possibly that there were a ton of much smaller, distinct dungeons originally that the game design shifted away from. Jade Way wasn't very coherent in the first place, what with the random out of nowhere underground segment. Still, the weird dungeon layouts will eventually be explained, it's most the naming conventions that strike me as particularly odd
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Apr 20, 2019 08:20
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Blaziken386 posted:Question: is there any reason to do the boss-rush mode of dungeons? It would be worth it if it guaranteed a boss drop, but most times, you get nothing from the bosses, and no drops/treasure chests from doing 5-10 floors. If you're specifically hunting boss drops and don't want to waste time running through non-boss floors. Particularly if you're the kind of person who's okay with save-scumming.
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Apr 20, 2019 22:12
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