Just a handful of additional observations and tips to ace hard difficulty on this game - read on if you want a spoiler:
1. On the river's turn, the number of the current tile you're at determines how much you will be carried by the current. 1 - 3 = 1 tile, 4 - 6 = 2 tiles, 7 and above = 3 tiles.
2. The map and current per tile are all deterministic. No RNG and no procedural generation.
3. Each rower is one 20-sided dice (hence d20). So overboarding will really affect your rowing chance and especially repairs. But later in point 5, I'd say on hard you don't really have a chance to repair at all and you'll want those materials for strategic "dorifto". It's basically Initial D but "Deja Vu" on the river and a banged up boat. Sarriest (and ShaduKat) on hard don't really treat the boatpeople nicely, tsk tsk XD
3. When there are sufficient river tiles ahead but the currents are too high, you're better off timing your overboard of your crew and captain, until, crucially, the captain board the ship just in time to do the captain's "drift shift". Especially at places where there are bottlenecks. This includes plan which tile to do the captain's "calm the water" to time your arrival to a bottleneck nicely to do a captain's "drift shift", or even to use a lower number the previous tile by rowing backwards so that you don't ending up running aground.
4. For a safer straight shot of the water ahead with lower current, you can even boost ahead with captain's "drift shift" downstream. Just time your "drift shift" direction change later carefully.
5. You actually won't really have a chance to repair your ship, to be honest. For the cost of 2 materials to potentially get < 10 HP of repairs, you're better off chancing a route with the least shallow rocks using captain's "soften the blow" the entire game (The damage can range between the best case of 0 damage to the worst case of 11 per tile. I had "soften the blow" only mitigated 1 hp damage before LOL), and you'll find yourself rather "steady the ship" with the crew with 1 material to get shallow damage simply because you don't have a good long column to pace your movements and get less damage when you may instead get high damage but using 2 materials to gain very little repairs (and determined by overboard).
6. Never allow yourself to run aground, ever!
7. As the map and current per tile are all deterministic, I find the left-most route to have the best chance of acing the game, even though it's not the fastest route. It's also because I paused to screenshot the paths I've taken for this game dev whom I personally know. If any of you can find a better route with the least number of "drift shift" needed, 0 running aground, and hopefully with more chances of a good d20 dice throw against the currents and lesser damage, then you should be able to beat my record.
8. Scout usage - I fly it such that it's over a clear path, but also over some island but just enough reach to do the "distant survey" to trace one-tile path towards the objective until you see an obstacle. The key is to use "distant survey" strategically (once you found an island's edge there is no need to check the inner part of the island). Frankly, once you play enough times, and you're good at remembering maps, you don't really use like this anymore and you may instead scan the current numbers once you have an optimal path.
P/S - Nice idea from ShaduKat, Sarriest, whatever they were. Gave us a field day for that.
PP/S - Maybe a bunch of gamers can gather together to clear the entire fog of war and piece together a full map hahaha. That will optimize the speedrun strategy even more.
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Really fun! I didn't survive, though - someone kept running by boat aground... (I blame the rowers
Great game! I can totally see myself playing this during class lol.
Just a handful of additional observations and tips to ace hard difficulty on this game - read on if you want a spoiler:
1. On the river's turn, the number of the current tile you're at determines how much you will be carried by the current. 1 - 3 = 1 tile, 4 - 6 = 2 tiles, 7 and above = 3 tiles.
2. The map and current per tile are all deterministic. No RNG and no procedural generation.
3. Each rower is one 20-sided dice (hence d20). So overboarding will really affect your rowing chance and especially repairs. But later in point 5, I'd say on hard you don't really have a chance to repair at all and you'll want those materials for strategic "dorifto". It's basically Initial D but "Deja Vu" on the river and a banged up boat. Sarriest (and ShaduKat) on hard don't really treat the boatpeople nicely, tsk tsk XD
3. When there are sufficient river tiles ahead but the currents are too high, you're better off timing your overboard of your crew and captain, until, crucially, the captain board the ship just in time to do the captain's "drift shift". Especially at places where there are bottlenecks. This includes plan which tile to do the captain's "calm the water" to time your arrival to a bottleneck nicely to do a captain's "drift shift", or even to use a lower number the previous tile by rowing backwards so that you don't ending up running aground.
4. For a safer straight shot of the water ahead with lower current, you can even boost ahead with captain's "drift shift" downstream. Just time your "drift shift" direction change later carefully.
5. You actually won't really have a chance to repair your ship, to be honest. For the cost of 2 materials to potentially get < 10 HP of repairs, you're better off chancing a route with the least shallow rocks using captain's "soften the blow" the entire game (The damage can range between the best case of 0 damage to the worst case of 11 per tile. I had "soften the blow" only mitigated 1 hp damage before LOL), and you'll find yourself rather "steady the ship" with the crew with 1 material to get shallow damage simply because you don't have a good long column to pace your movements and get less damage when you may instead get high damage but using 2 materials to gain very little repairs (and determined by overboard).
6. Never allow yourself to run aground, ever!
7. As the map and current per tile are all deterministic, I find the left-most route to have the best chance of acing the game, even though it's not the fastest route. It's also because I paused to screenshot the paths I've taken for this game dev whom I personally know. If any of you can find a better route with the least number of "drift shift" needed, 0 running aground, and hopefully with more chances of a good d20 dice throw against the currents and lesser damage, then you should be able to beat my record.
8. Scout usage - I fly it such that it's over a clear path, but also over some island but just enough reach to do the "distant survey" to trace one-tile path towards the objective until you see an obstacle. The key is to use "distant survey" strategically (once you found an island's edge there is no need to check the inner part of the island). Frankly, once you play enough times, and you're good at remembering maps, you don't really use like this anymore and you may instead scan the current numbers once you have an optimal path.
P/S - Nice idea from ShaduKat, Sarriest, whatever they were. Gave us a field day for that.
PP/S - Maybe a bunch of gamers can gather together to clear the entire fog of war and piece together a full map hahaha. That will optimize the speedrun strategy even more.
Cool game, interesting mechanics with having to adjust against the river and against the crew.
Fun little game! There's a lot of strategy to it! And some luck, which I didn't seem to have. Worth the playthrough. :)