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[Sergius]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/555510/MachiaVillain/

I'm somewhat psyched about this game. From a lot of videos, it seems to take a lot from RimWorld - the building part at least.

You control a haunted mansion. Well, not exactly, because you start with an empty terrain plot and have to build it from scratch. By chopping trees, and mining rocks and metal.

You hire minions, which are your workers, have to keep them fed (with brains! and bones from your victims!). Then, you have to send invitations to groups of people and kill them with traps and minions - you get extra points for following horror movie conventions: the virgin dies last, don't kill the dog, also make sure each person is alone when they get killed. You need these extra points to advance your ranking in the guild of Evil Evilness or whatsitsname.

There's other stuff, but there are videos out there that explain it better than me, such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZHsqQRRh7s

Also, it's in closed beta, so all there is for now is preview videos from youtubers. At least for the next 30 minutes or so! Because it's set to launch (as version 1.0 or early access, I'm not sure) at 10AM PDT! Stay tuned...

Ah here's the link to the steam store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/555510/MachiaVillain/


EDIT: pix:

[Persus13]

The game looks fun, but the fact the game looks like a mod for Rimworld or Prison Architect is a little off-putting. I can see why a bunch of people ripped on RimWorld for having a similar art style as PA.

[dennislp3]

Yeah the art style is just plain leeching at this point. You never want others to immediately think of soneone elses game when they see yours.

Reminds me of Ghost Master. So now we have a Rimworld Ghost Master mod!

[nenjin]

I loved Ghostmaster, so this is right up my alley. I only played PA, and never really found Rimworld all that interesting. Partly because of the bland visuals. So this is pretty fresh to me.

[Sergius]

Ok, here's my impression of the game after only playing a couple hours:

Building is a bit more like a puzzle game, you gotta design your mansion from the start with the goal of proper horror movie killing. From watching Let's Plays you'd think it's a groovy idea to just cram your brain-chopping kitchen table right next to the front door and just rush victims the second they arrive into your house. That's just terrible, don't do it.

You want to funnel your victims in a linear fashion, and one by one pull the victims with revolving wall traps. Add a couple distractions (TV, bookshelf) in the path if the victims are rushing in too fast. Only after these starting rooms begin building the actual minion quarters. What I did was arrange 4 rooms (in the last one I put my writing desk because why not) in a 2x2 configuration, with the doors going thru them in a C-shape. This may or may not be optimal for traps, I dunno.

I haven't got very far, so just basic victims for me, but eventually you want to replace some revolving traps, such as making the first one the Virgin trap and somehow keep the virgin busy so you can kill him at the end. I don't think the order of the other victims matters, but definitely isolate them with lots more revolving walls. You can kill them by hand or using elaborate conveyor belts leading to massacre machines of some kind, I guess.

EDIT: Also pointing out that you don't seem to waste materials by disassembling and rebuilding, so feel free to remodel the layout once in a while.

[Radsoc]

Got it today too. Humble was cheapest, with the monthly rebate. I think the game is good as it is, but it can and probably will be expanded more, because it's easy to do. The greatest challenge for me currently is to make sure to have a good supply of food.

Much of the criticism seems to come from the casual crowd. As a DF or even Rimworld player, the game should be no problem at all.

As for tactics, you need a mansion front (a bit similar to Evil Genius hotels) for distraction. I build a main entrance, put a TV there, and link it up symetrically to two additional TV-rooms. Each of the rooms connect to an even smaller room, that symetrically connect to a common room mirroring the entrance room. That way it seems like I can thin the visitors out and access them from multiple directions most of the time. Revolving doors in the walls to filter out additional people if there are any as well, but never had that big of a crowd yet.

[Sergius]

The point of revolving walls is to isolate a person and get 50 extra evil points each. Killing them in groups only get you the minimum amount (10 points from "kill them at night" I think) and if they get scared before you kill them they whip up their cellphones and raise your suspicion.

My newest rooms look like this

Code: [Select]

......#######D##
......#.L.#.L..#
.BASE.D...#.#.T#
......#.T.R@#.@#
......#######M##

#=wall
M=mansion door
D=regular door
T=tv
L=light
R=rotating wall
@=victim

The room on the right is the fake "mansion", there's a TV to keep one victim distracted so he can't see the other victim going around the "privacy wall" I've put next to the entrance and activating the rotating wall. Then the second victim just stays there watching tv (he doesn't see my minions coming and doesn't get scared until he's attacked). If there are no more victims, I just go around and kill the one in the first room. Otherwise he keeps going on to the next mansion room which has a similar layout (maybe a bookshelf instead of a TV). So far I've only called up to 3 victims so I only have 2 mansion rooms and 2 tv rooms behind rotating walls. Eventually I'll add more variety to my layout, but this works for the basic victims.

[nenjin]

You know this sounds a little bit like "Dungeons." It was a Dungeon Master knock off with a twist: rather than just murdering heroes as they came in to your dungeon, you needed to get them to walk around and poke at stuff and basically fill up their "satisfaction bar." Once it was filled up, then you'd kill them and harvest their soul energy. So killing them quickly in a small dungeon was actually the wrong way to play.

This sound rather similar, in that you have to build an "amusement park" for visitors and that requires structuring how they move through the space. I wasn't crazy about it in Dungeons but I was going in with a much different expectation of the game.

[Sergius]

Well, there is no requirement that you fatten up the visitors. In fact, some types of victims steal from you, and that's not desirable at all. Distractions are just to lower your "heat" and be able to mostly kill them in order, and alone.

A major reason to use traps to split them up is that they seem to always bunch up together, they go thru the same doors together, etc. I've never managed to make a group split up voluntarily...