Part 4: Addendum A - The Nightly Attractions

Addendum A - The Nightly Attractions

...Are they gone? Ah...Yes... Ahem.... The nights in the little Steppe town offer a different sort of gameplay to the players of Pathologic. Different characters have slightly different opportunities during the night, and our dear Haruspex just so happens to be the fellow with the most of them!



Meet the bandit! These fellows are added to the "spawn pool" around the city at about 9 PM, while the children are removed from it around the same time. As you can see, these chumps have a very hostile attitude! Not just to the player, mind you!



Killing a bandit yields a small boost to reputation. Funnily enough, killing a bandit while saving a local townie does not yield more reputation. On their own, a bandit will usually kill a townie – which means that the player is encouraged to pounce at the bandit after he is finished fighting a townie. This might strike you, dear reader, as callous, but it's all very justifiable. You see, Artemiy Burakh has a passion.



Artemiy likes being a collector.



Artemiy loves being a collector.



Artemiy really loves being a collector! These won't have a very practical value until Day 2, but now is as good a time as any to stock up and expand his beloved collection.



Another seemingly callous thing lies in the fact that the game, by the virtue of its mechanics, encourages Artemiy to turn towards the banditry himself! Since you get boosts to reputation from killing bandits, and there is a hard cap on reputation, it is beneficial to kill passersby, take the hit to reputation that that action carries with it, and kill bandits to restore it.



Cruel, but lucrative and efficient! You can't go wrong with a dagger in the night. In addition to all of the above, the bandits, occasionally, carry on them a set of lockpicks, allowing Artemiy to perform nightly visitations into the surrounding houses.



Just a simple turn of the lockpick and...





When entering homes in such a fashion, the player can loot any container – cupboards, tables, closets, etc – they stumble upon and pick up any food items that are in the open. If they do so in view of NPC, the female NPCs will panic, while Male NPCs will turn to fight you.





The NPCs are rather forgetful, and will forget about your crimes when you leave the house and re-enter it. The player also does not take any reputation hits for stealing things in full view, making these raids very easy and lucrative. The only limitation on them is placed by the lockpicks – each lockpick can only be used once.



This pretty much sums up the activities available to Artemiy during the night, although they will expand slightly in the future. For now, enjoy a small production...

REEL 3: Masks' Nightly Production – Night One