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[megalowho]

Ponied up the cash in order to play with speech, want to support a game this unique anyway. Was rewarded with an awesome round of Sea of Fire, only one AFK and everyone else was hilarious but still trying to play. Not sure how much staying power there will be with two scenarios currently but I plan on going back in for more tonight at least.

Even if it can be reduced to a fancy RP chat room with goals and inventory it's incredibly entertaining when it clicks. Also speech is both bad/good and legitimately good, the accents and inflections are something else.

 

[dantevsninjas]

I have no idea what happened in the game I played. It doesn't help that the voices got turned off and I didn't know about it till after the game was over (I assumed it was a bug).

I was Linda, a reporter, so I just tried to talk to people about things (I was given actions to discuss something about drugs and that Ingmar was suspicious) so I could write an article about anything I could learn. Except everyone just seemed to dump all their story items/actions on me, immediately, while not actually telling me anything about them so I just "knew" that Ingmar was a criminal and that Alex's dad was one as well, and also more details about the drugs as well as two unrelated stories, but had absolutely no idea what to do with any of that or why the other character was telling me it. This also clogged the left side of the screen with like 10 things I was apparently interested in but had no details on how to actually progress in a way that the game would recognize, especially as the tooltips for ones near the top would go off of the screen. At one point Ingmar tried to start an orgy, and plans for a night club were shared. I took pictures of several people since that was apparently a thing I was supposed to do, and lied when Ingmar wanted his back and told him I gave it to Mary. Mary then gave me a ring and tried to seduce me after revealing that she had the drugs, except it seemed like after telling you to go to the cabin the seduction actions stopped working. She then gave me the drugs, drank vodka with me, and tasered me twice. The game ended during the second taser and I got absolutely no results screen before the post-game chat showed up, so I have no idea whether I did the right thing or not regarding any of the stories I was supposed to be reporting on.

This scenario, or at least the role I had, seems really badly thought out in terms of the game recognizing that you know something being tied to using actions in a game that depends a lot on what people say. The obvious issue is people just straight up telling you things but the game not acknowledging it unless they use some specific action to do it, but I was hit with the weird opposite where people used the specific actions while not actually giving me any context to them through the chat. And then there were issues like how I supposedly I "knew" enough about Alex that I should tell him that I was going to do a story on him, but there was no action for that so it wasn't clear whether I had to do that through something else or if it wasn't tied to mechanics at all and is something I should have just said for the sake of acting in-character. Actions and goals would vanish with 0 acknowledgement of why that was happening. Finally, given that I had a number of different stories to pursue as a reporter by the end it was weird to 1. not get any way to select what I wanted to focus on and research beyond the action that let me talk about drugs, and 2. not even tell me if I failed to do anything.

This about sums it up.

I had a fairly similar experience, except everyone else I was playing with was either AFK or insane. Still, I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was extremely fun trying to balance actually attempting to play the game with playing a character who played along with the insanity around me.

 

[chadtwo]

I have no idea what happened in the game I played. It doesn't help that the voices got turned off and I didn't know about it till after the game was over (I assumed it was a bug).

I was Linda, a reporter, so I just tried to talk to people about things (I was given actions to discuss something about drugs and that Ingmar was suspicious) so I could write an article about anything I could learn. Except everyone just seemed to dump all their story items/actions on me, immediately, while not actually telling me anything about them so I just "knew" that Ingmar was a criminal and that Alex's dad was one as well, and also more details about the drugs as well as two unrelated stories, but had absolutely no idea what to do with any of that or why the other character was telling me it. This also clogged the left side of the screen with like 10 things I was apparently interested in but had no details on how to actually progress in a way that the game would recognize, especially as the tooltips for ones near the top would go off of the screen. At one point Ingmar tried to start an orgy, and plans for a night club were shared. I took pictures of several people since that was apparently a thing I was supposed to do, and lied when Ingmar wanted his back and told him I gave it to Mary. Mary then gave me a ring and tried to seduce me after revealing that she had the drugs, except it seemed like after telling you to go to the cabin the seduction actions stopped working. She then gave me the drugs, drank vodka with me, and tasered me twice. The game ended during the second taser and I got absolutely no results screen before the post-game chat showed up, so I have no idea whether I did the right thing or not regarding any of the stories I was supposed to be reporting on.

This scenario, or at least the role I had, seems really badly thought out in terms of the game recognizing that you know something being tied to using actions in a game that depends a lot on what people say. The obvious issue is people just straight up telling you things but the game not acknowledging it unless they use some specific action to do it, but I was hit with the weird opposite where people used the specific actions while not actually giving me any context to them through the chat. And then there were issues like how I supposedly I "knew" enough about Alex that I should tell him that I was going to do a story on him, but there was no action for that so it wasn't clear whether I had to do that through something else or if it wasn't tied to mechanics at all and is something I should have just said for the sake of acting in-character. Actions and goals would vanish with 0 acknowledgement of why that was happening. Finally, given that I had a number of different stories to pursue as a reporter by the end it was weird to 1. not get any way to select what I wanted to focus on and research beyond the action that let me talk about drugs, and 2. not even tell me if I failed to do anything.

This about sums it up.

You hit the nail on the head in summarizing my experience. I think the only way for Velvet Sundown to really be fun is if you go in with a mindset similar to that of Vinny's during the QL. Basically, just going in with a sense of humor and just sort of fucking around with everyone else and getting a laugh out of the text-to-voice. Otherwise it's just a weird, broken role-playing game with vaguely defined objectives. The real question is, how long can that remain fun? How many scenarios until you get tired of the same old swearing at people and chuckling as the text-to-voice struggles to pronounce everything? I think playing with friends would definitely alleviate this issue to a degree, but since when playing with friends it's unlikely you'll actually work towards objectives and more likely you'll simply talk shit to one another, the game is basically just a visual representation of, say, a group text message.

 

[PedroLumpy]

Sound is bugged for me, making it unplayable. Anyone else have this issue?

 

[M3z_]

Played this game last night and was having a terrific experience with a great cast of players and then it bugged at the very end and we got stuck in limbo. Sucks, I was having fun and accomplishing a bunch of goals. Still was interesting.

 

[ChickenHunter]

Completing (if there is even such a thing) the two scenarios seems to be pretty dependent on doing things either in a specific order, or with specific responses. I had a game where we managed to get all the way to

Spoiler

planning a nightclub

but then were stuck getting to whatever was the next step. It seems if even one of the players decides to forgo their goals, nobody else will be able to proceed in theirs. Also love making is either broken or not implemented yet, which can lead to some funny situations but also nonstop dumb cybering nonsense.

Fun game though. Looking forward to the return of free TTS.

 

[Zombie James]

After a month of down time, text-to-speech is back. Now I can finally play this thing.

 

[Incandenza]

Has it reverted back to the original scenario? I wouldn't mind playing that one again.

 

[CanUKlehead]

Finally played, Bombcast GOTY talk spurred me on. No matter if people were serious or not, I haven't laughed harder playing a game. Amazing.