Do you keep things after a game over?

[Sully C.]

I'm on week 3 and I pretty sure I'm not going to make it, I can't complete custom orders let alone competition potions.

Do you carry some progress/unlocks after a game over? Like relationship levels, unlocked ingredients in shop etc so the next try is easier?

[SakujoSakujoSakujo]

No. It's a hard game-over screen. I've had two playthroughs. First one I have failed miserably on the first competition day and had to start from scratch. Second one I 100%'d everything. Balance in this game is not great. Few more months in the QA oven would have really made design choices and balancing better. It would absolutely make sense to have progress carry-over, especially when one of the achievements requires you to max out all of the relationships and without any post game it is a rather tight window.

[Ness Keyhand]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

No. It's a hard game-over screen. I've had two playthroughs. First one I have failed miserably on the first competition day and had to start from scratch. Second one I 100%'d everything. Balance in this game is not great. Few more months in the QA oven would have really made design choices and balancing better. It would absolutely make sense to have progress carry-over, especially when one of the achievements requires you to max out all of the relationships and without any post game it is a rather tight window.

Heavy disagree on the tight window. If it let you keep what you did after a game over, it would break the game in half. You'd be able to max out any NPC after week.. 3? Maybe? Whenever you can craft Superior Potions, just keep failing the week and you'll max out everyone, get every cauldron, all the resources you want.. That sounds terrible for the balance.
Without minmaxing I was able to get everyone to rank 10 by day 44, and in an optimized playthrough I was able to do it around day 37, so it's definitely not "tight" (if you give everyone a gift they like everyday).

[SakujoSakujoSakujo]

It didn't break Recettear, and it seems that in discussions here people overall agree with that sentiment.

[Ness Keyhand]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

It didn't break Recettear, and it seems that in discussions here people overall agree with that sentiment.

Considering the fact you get duplicating slimes on day 21, and can make 15k+ in a single haggling session on a good day, there is absolutely no excuse to fail after the day 20 challenge, even then if you have the basics of the game down it shouldn't be much of a challenge. Keeping erverything you got, including relationships? That just sounds way too broken.

[SakujoSakujoSakujo]

Right, it seems we both played Nier and Soulslikes, so difficulty is something we can handle. Now, I really don't think that having some leeway and difficulty options would hurt this game in particular as it was advertised as a rather light-hearted shop management sim. No one is forcing you to take the easy route. For other people though, getting F'd 10 days in and being forced to start from 0, can really be a deal breaker. This is not a "this land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind" grim atmosphere / learn from the failure game.

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

No. It's a hard game-over screen.

I suddenly feel a lot better about my habits of using a whole bunch of extra saves. (one at the start of each day, one at the start of each 3 day cycle and one at the start of each week)

Not that I'm likely to need it, given how I steamrolled week 1 and have a pretty great flow going at this point, with lots of ingredients buyable at Quinn's, and a bunch of useful early cards unlocked to boot.

[aesthesia]

Mind you, the game also autosaves every morning... You're not forced to redo everything from scratch, you can simply rollback a day before the competition, two days before the competition, repair the potions or rearrande the card deck etc.

ETA - there's a little arrow next to the autosave when you want to load a game, if you click it you'll see the game already saves each and every day for you to help you out in case you need to redo stuff.

[SakujoSakujoSakujo]

Originally posted by Aegix Drakan:

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

No. It's a hard game-over screen.

I suddenly feel a lot better about my habits of using a whole bunch of extra saves. (one at the start of each day, one at the start of each 3 day cycle and one at the start of each week)

The game autosaves every morning as seperate save slots anyway.

[Ness Keyhand]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

Right, it seems we both played Nier and Soulslikes, so difficulty is something we can handle. Now, I really don't think that having some leeway and difficulty options would hurt this game in particular as it was advertised as a rather light-hearted shop management sim. No one is forcing you to take the easy route. For other people though, getting F'd 10 days in and being forced to start from 0, can really be a deal breaker. This is not a "this land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind" grim atmosphere / learn from the failure game.

You make a very good point, I think the game should have a forgiving difficulty rendering impossible a loss at contests (Owl dropping miraculously on your stand and giving you a win card, or something like that). But I have talked to many people about the game, and not a single one had trouble with the difficulty. I do understand that some people have, though, and I still think keeping things after a game over would be too game-breaking. You can just double your possessions from one week to the next one, if you game over, and keep the relationships.. It defeats the purpose of having a timed objective.
So either get a story mode where you can't lose the contest, or make the week as long as you wish it to be, only entering the competition when you're ready.

[Ness Keyhand]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

Originally posted by Aegix Drakan:

I suddenly feel a lot better about my habits of using a whole bunch of extra saves. (one at the start of each day, one at the start of each 3 day cycle and one at the start of each week)

The game autosaves every morning as seperate save slots anyway.

This ^
Be warned though, if you do go back to an autosave and reach the next day, the autosave will be overwritten.

[SakujoSakujoSakujo]

Originally posted by Ness Keyhand:

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

Right, it seems we both played Nier and Soulslikes, so difficulty is something we can handle. Now, I really don't think that having some leeway and difficulty options would hurt this game in particular as it was advertised as a rather light-hearted shop management sim. No one is forcing you to take the easy route. For other people though, getting F'd 10 days in and being forced to start from 0, can really be a deal breaker. This is not a "this land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind" grim atmosphere / learn from the failure game.

You make a very good point, I think the game should have a forgiving difficulty rendering impossible a loss at contests (Owl dropping miraculously on your stand and giving you a win card, or something like that). But I have talked to many people about the game, and not a single one had trouble with the difficulty. I do understand that some people have, though, and I still think keeping things after a game over would be too game-breaking. You can just double your possessions from one week to the next one, if you game over, and keep the relationships.. It defeats the purpose of having a timed objective.
So either get a story mode where you can't lose the contest, or make the week as long as you wish it to be, only entering the competition when you're ready.

I mean there could be a partial carry-over. Something like relationship level and the unlocked cards. That would give a basic boost in head-starting the business, and more importantly it would not be so frustrating to get a crappy RNG, where in some miraculous way neither the adventurers, nor the investments yield you the materials you need to feed Quinn and brew semi-decent potions you need for the competition.

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

Originally posted by Aegix Drakan:

I suddenly feel a lot better about my habits of using a whole bunch of extra saves. (one at the start of each day, one at the start of each 3 day cycle and one at the start of each week)

The game autosaves every morning as seperate save slots anyway.

...HUH! That's actually a really neat feature to have!

[Ness Keyhand]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

Originally posted by Ness Keyhand:

You make a very good point, I think the game should have a forgiving difficulty rendering impossible a loss at contests (Owl dropping miraculously on your stand and giving you a win card, or something like that). But I have talked to many people about the game, and not a single one had trouble with the difficulty. I do understand that some people have, though, and I still think keeping things after a game over would be too game-breaking. You can just double your possessions from one week to the next one, if you game over, and keep the relationships.. It defeats the purpose of having a timed objective.
So either get a story mode where you can't lose the contest, or make the week as long as you wish it to be, only entering the competition when you're ready.

I mean there could be a partial carry-over. Something like relationship level and the unlocked cards. That would give a basic boost in head-starting the business, and more importantly it would not be so frustrating to get a crappy RNG, where in some miraculous way neither the adventurers, nor the investments yield you the materials you need to feed Quinn and brew semi-decent potions you need for the competition.

I still have to disagree with you. Without tryharding, by the end of the week you can quite easily get the potions you need done. Yes sometimes it takes a good 10 to 20 minutes to balance everything out, but if you have made basic use of Baptiste and the heroes, you should be able to make a decent potion you can then haggle for.
And when you see some of the later cards, especially Saffron's rank 7, you really won't think being allowed to keep them even after a game over is something that should happen.

[SakujoSakujoSakujo]

Originally posted by Ness Keyhand:

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

I mean there could be a partial carry-over. Something like relationship level and the unlocked cards. That would give a basic boost in head-starting the business, and more importantly it would not be so frustrating to get a crappy RNG, where in some miraculous way neither the adventurers, nor the investments yield you the materials you need to feed Quinn and brew semi-decent potions you need for the competition.

I still have to disagree with you. Without tryharding, by the end of the week you can quite easily get the potions you need done. Yes sometimes it takes a good 10 to 20 minutes to balance everything out, but if you have made basic use of Baptiste and the heroes, you should be able to make a decent potion you can then haggle for.
And when you see some of the later cards, especially Saffron's rank 7, you really won't think being allowed to keep them even after a game over is something that should happen.

People are failing within the first two weeks. No one reaches Saffron rank 7 that early. So that's irrelevant. Also, that still fails to address my point about accessibility. No one is forcing you to restart with accumulated advantages, but having that as an optional feature hurts no one. I like disagreeing with you. It sparks joy.

[Ness Keyhand]

Originally posted by SakujoSakujoSakujo:

Originally posted by Ness Keyhand:

I still have to disagree with you. Without tryharding, by the end of the week you can quite easily get the potions you need done. Yes sometimes it takes a good 10 to 20 minutes to balance everything out, but if you have made basic use of Baptiste and the heroes, you should be able to make a decent potion you can then haggle for.
And when you see some of the later cards, especially Saffron's rank 7, you really won't think being allowed to keep them even after a game over is something that should happen.

People are failing within the first two weeks. No one reaches Saffron rank 7 that early. So that's irrelevant. Also, that still fails to address my point about accessibility. No one is forcing you to restart with accumulated advantages, but having that as an optional feature hurts no one. I like disagreeing with you. It sparks joy.

Hence OP mentioning they had trouble on week 3... Where reaching rank 7 with Saffron is something totally concievable. And why the "The first two weeks are hard" argument is irrelevant in this case.
Feel free to disagree all you want for your own pleasure, my points still stand. Having easier modes is absolutely fine for people who prefer a chill storyline to a "harsh" competition. But in the case of an easier mode, why even go through the trouble of having a game over?
Making the week longer, and taking the competition only when you're ready negates the "starting over with what you have", since.. You don't restart...
Making the competitions unloseable... Would make a game over impossible, hence no loss in progress...