Beta feedback for Harry Tuffs’ A House of Many Doors has been largely positive, with one important exception. A few beta testers have experienced difficulty in discovering the special narrative rooms to drive the game forward. Since, story-driven exploration is kinda the whole point, this is a big problem for the game. Now, Kickstarter backers who participated in the campaign at the MATRON-tier, will get access to an updated beta and its game changing solution.
Previously, in order to discover new locations within the House before reaching them, players had to rely on their crew’s Navigator to point the way. The higher the navigator’s Insight, the better they would be at randomly updating the map with nearby locations as you traveled.
Filling in the map.
The trouble was, that players who didn’t want to spend their hard-earned Apprehension points on Insight, risked severely limiting their enjoyment of the game. A House of Many Doors features 88 special rooms that serve as narrative hubs for the story and lore of the game. Each room is packed with stories and secrets that are essential to the overall gameplay experience. They also give the players something to look forward to while exploring the darkness.
Navigating A Likely Solution
With the new solution, Navigators will now always update the map if you are within one room of an important location. This prevents near-misses of important areas, regardless of Insight level. Logically, it follows that even a poor Navigator would be more likely to notice something once they were practically on-top of it.
Insight now aids the player when they interact with neutral vehicles within the House. Players can speak with these travelers and trade stories, gossip, and coins for a peek at their maps. Comparing maps will give a random update about somewhere nearby that you have yet to discover. Having a higher Insight will allows players to receive updates without having to haggle away their hard-earned resources. Characters with low Insight are still able to receive map updates, but at a price.
It’s a great lore friendly solution to what could have otherwise been a difficult design flaw. Hopefully a bit more beta testing will iron out any remaining kinks. Then the rest of us can explore A House of Many Doors in the near-future.
