Copper Dreams Beta Released
Copper Dreams Beta Released
Game News - posted by Infinitron on Tue 24 March 2020, 22:40:34
Tags: Mechajammer; Whalenought StudiosRemember when the Copper Dreams beta was supposed to come out on November 15th? Haha well, it's finally actually out today. And yes, the game's art style has completely changed yet again. Apparently Joe & Hannah didn't have time to write a Kickstarter update, so they just sent out this email.
Sorry about the delay — Hannah and I weren’t 100% happy with some of the feelings and visuals that we were going to release with the beta, and we’ve been busy fine tuning all those elements. We’re finally catching up! The Steam build has been now updated with these assets and tech that we've worked on since the alpha. We’ve implemented some lovely sprites based on what we’ve been working on with the SitS expansion, and they’ve brought a lot of clarity to the PC and NPCs in the game, especially with positions and limb highlighting/damage. Map visuals adjusted to match, as well as LOS and lighting from the alpha. More notable changes below, as well as additions.
We’re starting the beta with modified versions and connections of some of the first maps in the game from Block 8. We’ll be putting in the start of the game proper shortly, but in the meantime all skills are available for testing. There are two medical stations available, and to test combat and skills the goal is to wipe out all the thugs street-side.
Skills:
All Skills primarily abilities available, more to come through beta:
Biohack: Psi-attack any enemies in visual to distort your image to make it appear as if there are duplicates shimmering around you — they’ll attack one of these at random. If an NPC uses this, the player cannot precise aim any of the targets, and they are all indistinguishable from the real target.
Burglary: Currently you can lockpick doors and chests so you don’t need keycards or to destroy them.
Social: All previous social skills available: i.e. can convince enemies to leave or neutral NPCs to follow.
Chemistry: with vials and chemicals, you can combine to make various types of chemical bombs via the chemistry menu.
Hacking: Can try to hack computers, with various difficulties resulting in more or less passwords you can guess during a hack, each being a new roll for pass/fail. Too many fails lock you out.
Can also build drones with enough drone parts and a given weapon for it to use.
Systems:
Lighting and movement more fluid — lighting is based off any floors given vertex light, instead of tile light. These are (roughly) evenly distributed, update-able in realtime with taking out lights or using flashlights/muzzle flashes, and are more engaging to interact with. This tech was previously the hatch-lines in the alpha, and has been altered to be the main lighting operations. This has been smoothed out with a nice dither instead for better clarity, as the hatches were a bit difficult to read for the main lighting.
Cybernetics: A few charges are available to distribute as you want in limb slots on top right — the PC starts with some cybernetics attached, which can be switched out or modified later, as well as how much power and mental stability they can afford to power them. More details to come.
Virtues: All the stats from these were overhauled from alpha to now be designated by various advantage and disadvantages chosen at character creation and during level-ups. We’ll be finishing up the character and creation screen (and item/action descriptions) in a coming update.
Our users who have played it report that the beta scenario is minimalistic, with strange and unintuitive gameplay. The new graphics don't seem to be too popular either. Hopefully they'll release something better soon along with a proper update, though I think we've learned not to hold our breaths with this game.We’re starting the beta with modified versions and connections of some of the first maps in the game from Block 8. We’ll be putting in the start of the game proper shortly, but in the meantime all skills are available for testing. There are two medical stations available, and to test combat and skills the goal is to wipe out all the thugs street-side.
Skills:
All Skills primarily abilities available, more to come through beta:
Biohack: Psi-attack any enemies in visual to distort your image to make it appear as if there are duplicates shimmering around you — they’ll attack one of these at random. If an NPC uses this, the player cannot precise aim any of the targets, and they are all indistinguishable from the real target.
Burglary: Currently you can lockpick doors and chests so you don’t need keycards or to destroy them.
Social: All previous social skills available: i.e. can convince enemies to leave or neutral NPCs to follow.
Chemistry: with vials and chemicals, you can combine to make various types of chemical bombs via the chemistry menu.
Hacking: Can try to hack computers, with various difficulties resulting in more or less passwords you can guess during a hack, each being a new roll for pass/fail. Too many fails lock you out.
Can also build drones with enough drone parts and a given weapon for it to use.
Systems:
Lighting and movement more fluid — lighting is based off any floors given vertex light, instead of tile light. These are (roughly) evenly distributed, update-able in realtime with taking out lights or using flashlights/muzzle flashes, and are more engaging to interact with. This tech was previously the hatch-lines in the alpha, and has been altered to be the main lighting operations. This has been smoothed out with a nice dither instead for better clarity, as the hatches were a bit difficult to read for the main lighting.
Cybernetics: A few charges are available to distribute as you want in limb slots on top right — the PC starts with some cybernetics attached, which can be switched out or modified later, as well as how much power and mental stability they can afford to power them. More details to come.
Virtues: All the stats from these were overhauled from alpha to now be designated by various advantage and disadvantages chosen at character creation and during level-ups. We’ll be finishing up the character and creation screen (and item/action descriptions) in a coming update.
