Lost Coastlines High Scores

Competitions
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Now that the first reviews of Lost Coastlines are out, I thought I’d start a thread for people to post their high scores.

…if, of course, the goal of the game is to maximize one’s high score.

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I’ve enjoyed it so much I haven’t worried about high scores. The names are just fun. I’d rather solve all the quests I can instead of maximizing my score–figure out what’s in each blank area, for instance.

Yambolzol Cap
Shumlarum Sea
mountain of buttonup
Outer Zultusk

Part of me also really wants to share the map I made but I won’t if it’s too spoilery.

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i mean, it’s a procedurally generated map so I don’t think it’d be too spoilery, but of course that’s your call.

I personally feel LC is best played with a hand-drawn map

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Funny.

Of course the names of the towns and islands themselves could be considered spoilery. I thought they added a lot to the wonder of the place when I first encountered them on my travels.
Or they could just be teasers to make people more curious…

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Could be really fun it people posted their high scores here. I played for quite a while twice and even though I got some pleasense (positive points) I got a lot more unpleasense (negative points). I also saw a video where ferkung ( YouTube Lost Coastlines ) got a negative score.

So I was wondering if most people got a negative score, and if so, if William Dooling could offer some advice, e.g. which character traits might give an easier path to positive points, at least initally?
[it may also be me who might suck at this type of RPG though I find some RPGs easy enough, such as Leadlight]

Also, it would be nice to have a place to put the high scores. Ryan Veeder has a website for scores for “Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder” but you could just use the IFDB page for Lost Coastlines to do it. Works well for one of my games. I wouldn’t mind adding high scores to that page and players could add themselves if they like.

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I didn’t keep track of my score, but I got what felt like a pretty good number my second time through – in my experience, the four one-time actions that let you “cash out” various of your resources for pleasance were far and away the biggest contributors to the score, swamping any gains or losses accrued during gameplay.

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I believe the highest score obtained by someone other than me in the most recent iteration of the game (which is identical to the one released) is 3,017

The highest score I’ve personally gotten without cheating is 5,145.

Negative scores are common, and of course the LOWEST score is a chase goal in its own (try poking around in libraries or visit the most terrible nightmare)

Mike Russo is right that the most remunerative options are the four one-time actions, and thus the player is incentivized to find libraries, academies, shrines, and taverns, as well as the accompanying secrets, questions, possessions, and stories. The “Game economy” is mostly about accruing pleasance so that one can get supplies and food, and potentially purchase possessions…though it is possible to make ABSURD amounts of pleasance by formulating good trade loops (locating a market to buy low, and another to sell high). The procgenerator is specifically designed to make these “loops” difficult to find, but with enough navigation you can pull it off.

avoiding a negative score is about discharging worry, fury, and madness…

  • you can lose ALL worry at shrines if you have enough pleasance, thus there’s no danger in accuring even very high amounts of worry (Eg, 550 worry) so long as you can eventually get to a shrine…but be warned, some nightmares can turn worry into other kinds of unpleasance
  • Fury is downright POSITIVE, as you can trade it away to smugglers and pirates, often for very good stuff
  • Madness is very, very bad. Avoiding madness is a complex dance of trying one’s best to avoid terrible nightmares, while spending pleasance to lower madness at shrines when it breaks 100 or so. Often this is simply not possible
  • There is only one way to lose sadness and it’s very very very hard to find

As for tips on starting builds:

  • The Pirate is the best class for beginners: the SCOWL ability makes large-scale navigation much easier, and the high starting boost to seacraft makes travel less scary. Also, plundering ships is a great way to make money in the early game

  • The Scientist is also good: if you obtain magic (which you can get from diamonds, if you take them to academies, and a few other places) you can PUBLISH using the scientist’s special ability, which gives you a lot of pleasance and/or a secret.

  • Probably the hardest class to use well is the mystic.

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Thanks for all the tips, Especially:

… as I feel very much as a beginner in this game :slight_smile: