houseparty rules!

​Once we had the houseparty multiplayer version of Austen up and running, it prompted us to take another look at the way we were structuring feedback to our players. Originally, after each “chapter” of the game the player was given some information about how they were doing with their bachelor. Which was fine. But the addition of multi-player meant that there were new, more useful and engaging functions for these information rounds. They weren’t working hard enough for us. 

Among the changes; a new info round right before chapter four where everyone gets to see who the current first-place couple is. We thought this might allow for more “focused-fire” in the final round and encourage some more energetic leader-focused inter-player interaction (fancy dev talk for ganging up on the person in first place). In a similar vein, the “good listener” round was retooled to be available only to the human player in last place. It was renamed “the last-ditch effort.” Running “good listener" for every player was unworkably repetitive when there were five human players, we found, and this allowed the trailing player a chance to gain a +2 overall bonus, hopefully balancing the playing field a bit and fostering closer competition. 
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​We’re continuing to tinker and polish in advance of Tuesday’s release. Tuesday! We’re so excited! Thanks for joining us.