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[Yolan]

Another update. Here is the log.

Version 20   2013-October-18

--Fixed bug that allowed wife to shoot robber while robber is on welcome mat,
  allowing robber to strangely recover from death by leaving the house (thanks
  Colorfusion).

--Fixed tape playback page title text when tape value represents a bounty
  earned.

--Sleeping animals no longer jump back (mysteriously, while sleeping) to their
  original location after a successful robbery.

--Improved visibility of sleeping animals by bringing them up above wall
  shadows and giving them dark outlines just like other living mobiles.

--Returned to v15-style animal movement (animals start following/fleeing when
  they see you, but continue moving toward/away from you even after you move
  out of view).

--Added a panic button that can be pressed by family as they run out.

--Moved shotgun up slightly to make it more visible when surrounded by walls.

--Changed so that murder bounty is based on total number of people killed
  instead of just counting each murderous outing.

Pretty exciting.

[jasonrohrer]

Hey folks!

Glad some of you have stuck with this game and are still giving it a chance through a very bumpy 7-month public alpha.

This is the hardest game I've ever worked on in terms of the core design problems, and for a while there, I was starting to think that the design was impossible to fix.

You've got this core issue of people being motivated to build stronger and stronger houses, but super-strong houses (like, a thick wall by the front door and a combo lock right there) are really not interesting to rob, and houses are THE content of the game.  Even worse, players quickly settled on the ONE strongest house design.... and then all houses were pretty much the same.

For a while, I was trying various ways to "weaken" house design, from larger backpacks to blueprints and finally to chiseling away at the house-building tileset itself (maybe moving animals are the problem, maybe wires through walls are the problem, etc.)  Finally, after chipping it down to the point where most of the interesting house-building possibilities had been stripped away, players were STILL figuring out how to build super strong, boring houses (they found the ONE strongest design given the butchered tileset).  What more could I remove?  Yikes.

During my vacation, feeling somewhat design-defeated, I took a big step back.  Why do players want to build super-strong houses?  Why is that effective to progress in the game?  Is there any way to intrinsically motivate other behavior?  To intrinsically motivate ever-changing variety in house design?  How would that be possible?  Wouldn't there alway be "one best house design" that players would discover and gravitate toward?

The bounty thing, to my great relief, actually seems to be the solution that has eluded me for 7 months.  You only earn money if other players are tricked into exploring your house and then dying in there.  This is the sole source fresh money in the game.

This means, effectively, that there is no optimal, end-all house design.  The optimal design today is the house that will fool the most people today.  It won't still be fooling people next week.

We now have 7 active houses (the most in quite a while, through all my design hacking over the past few months), and they're each different, unique, and intriguing house designs.

I feel like I'm finally nearing the end of a very long, dark tunnel.  Good stuff!

[Wayward Device]

This whole venus flytrap thing is really what has kept my interest after coming back to the new versions. I had a great time recently with a very basic house (starter money + another 2000 I stole) that actually got some decent kills, even with the low numbers of people on. Basically, it looked like your normal wood wall multiple choice dog maze, but the only way to get to the vault without copious tools was to go through the maze and loop back to the family position (starts with a couple of dogs in front of them) by the entrance with all the dogs trailing you. If you come in with drugged food and block the first dogs, you will never get to the vault. It was eventually beaten by a guy with a ton of guns and over 70 drugged food (for a measly few grand) who just shot everything that moved after multiple scoutings.

Now I'm trying to think up a better, more tricky design to lure in unsuspecting fools. Good stuff. 

[jasonrohrer]

Wow, that's good to hear!

One interesting thing about this setup is that no branch of house design is necessarily dead forever.  One house style may be overused this week, to the point where it stops tricking people, but a few months from now, after people have forgotten about it, it can come back.

[Cheeetar]

Steal Real Money contest is coming to the Castle Doctrine to advertise for its Steam launch. The game's creator is going to pay out money gained from alpha pre-orders to split money amongst the players in the game according to how much money they have. Anybody else planning on taking their $2000 starting money to the bank for the current ~$13 payout?

[MrWillsauce]

It would make me so happy to hang that picture of the butt up on my wall, the money be damned.

[atari2600]

been having so much fun with this game the last few days. Im hooked! Beware of cats! So soft you have to touch them....

[Wayward Device]

Hah, I've seen that house. Noped the fuck out when I saw those cats, just too...odd for me. Pretty sure I even left a bat.

[MrWillsauce]

I didn't win the butt

[SharpKris]

I've come across something very odd. twice already my vault has been broken to in a very unusual manner,
to give you some background, i use combination locks... extremely sophisticated ones.. and a person walks in and simply walks exactly in the manner that will open the lock in exactly the right way to move the pitbull in order to re swtich the plate trap doors and turn off the power to the door. and he did it with no scouting what so ever and not a single step in the wrong direction 

[Cheeetar]

I've come across something very odd. twice already my vault has been broken to in a very unusual manner,
to give you some background, i use combination locks... extremely sophisticated ones.. and a person walks in and simply walks exactly in the manner that will open the lock in exactly the right way to move the pitbull in order to re swtich the plate trap doors and turn off the power to the door. and he did it with no scouting what so ever and not a single step in the wrong direction

There have been a few hacking accusations in the game. Jason Rohrer is very responsive when told about this, and if you can tell him who robbed you and for how much he can generally look into it.