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KickStarter ATOM RPG - Wasteland Soviet style! - now with Dead City update

Will you back?

  • I will consider it!

    Votes: 39 54.9%
  • No! I would never!..

    Votes: 9 12.7%
  • kingcomrade

    Votes: 23 32.4%

  • Total voters
    71
  • Poll closed .

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
Huh, my GOG version hasn't updated to 1.092 yet. Hopefully it's released for it soon.
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
709
Hi guys. Would've reported back sooner, but I was afraid to post anything because everyone was named CXitizen and had Infinitron's userpic and then I gotten busy again. What was up with that anyway? Was it the guy's birthday or something? I'll lurk some after posting. Happy b-day, Infinitron! Or not! I'm just guessing over here.

For anyone who plays with their camera distance maxed out, the isometric mode has some interesting moments in cut scenes :D

edit: so restarted a game and tried something in the beginning fight -- stashed the AK into the tent, curious to see if it would remain (I know the items in there get looted but I thought maybe stashed items you put in manually might stay).

Fucking a toy AK was in there when I checked it.

Touche you potato bastards, hahaha.
Not anymore!!! Cutscenes are fixed! But the fake gun will always be there! :D

Why is mountain pass so... ass?

It really feels half-arsed and barebones.

To me the highlight of the game was dead city, which was added later apparently? Really hope trudograd's gonna be more of the same
Just like the dead city it was supposed to be like this. A small location you need to travel to for the main quest. But then we decided to make more content because a lot of players were asking, and to not just make a third map, we poured all that content into dead city. it won the additional content lottery! While the Pass is doomed to be barren forever, most probably.
is the power armor and combat stances in with this update?

apteryx-queeny-untitled-10.jpg




EDIT: at least that big ass backpack at the end of the game?

Atomboy

We're adding PA in Trudograd. Atom's locations are too lo tech and the enemies are too weak for this badboy. Same for the stances if you mean hiding behind stuff, etc, but I'm not sure we will even add it in Trudograd. As for the backpack, maybe!
Atomboy sorry if this was mentioned, but I tried out the new iso-model last night but sadly all the weapon-impact sound effects were missing? Music and other sounds were fine, but no sound when I hit the enemies with my melee weapons.

Is that something you've come across?
Fixed!

BTW, new patch released (1.091). Can't seem to find patch notes, so not sure what the changes are, but mayhapse fixed some issues with isometric view.
We're posting smaller changelogs into our Steam patchnotes thread!
Tl;dr is it good or not? Should I play Underrail first?
We have different approaches to the material. I like Underrail for exploration, cruel difficulty, the fact my brain hurts when I'm trying to make a good character, and aesthetic reasons, and I like Atom because of dialogue and because I made it somewhat and aesthetic reasons.
So I'm doing a new playthrough and this time I'm playing solo as a martial arts Grandmaster and total dick with focus on stealth and pick pocketing. And I must admit, I'm having a blast - increased difficulty you get for not using guns is something I've been really missing and the game kind of stopped being fun for me, cause combat encounters after level 10 are just not challenging.

Speaking of, I've encountered a few things that could/should be improved;

1) When you play unarmed, on skill level 150 you unlock some cool flashy moves with special bonuses (very high chance of a knockdown, critical hit, etc.), such as my favorite - a dragon kick \m/. Problem is, if you pick "Falcon punch" perk, it replaces your "Dragon kick" and it's actually worse in every way (less damage, weaker additional effects). This needs some revamping methinks... falcon punch should be combined with martial arts skill level somehow to give you "Dragon superkick" or some other silly anime shit :>

2) Pickpocket and timed explosive... so I have pickpocket level 150 and I can plant explosive on people relatively easy. But what's the point when after detonation everyone turns hostile even though I did the plant unnoticed? The only explanation I have would be balance purposes, but I can already kill anyone with cigarettes and on a much lower level than I need to be as pickpocket expert or to have access to timed explosives in the first place. Atomboy, fix please? :( ...I even unlocked "It's a Classic" steam achievement for planting the bomb, but then I needed to reload cause whole city wants me dead

Besides this, I have few lesser complaints/ideas;

3) Unarmed skill level 199 unlocks "Fatality expert" IE "Bloody mess with kicks and punches" and that's nice, but I think it should also increase critical chance, or knockdown chance or some other useful combat effect

4) When you aim your kick at someone's legs (aimed attack) it looks a bit silly cause your character does double kick to the head. Animations used for small animals (low kick/stomp) would look much better. Speaking of kicks and martial arts, it would also be cool to have some special move / kick that does no damage, but has almost 100% trip chance for some nice tactical combos

Anyway, keep it up comrades! And give that dude (or gal) who decided to put a dragon kick in the game a big hug! The Wasteland needs more of Chuck Norris! :obviously:
Hi! That's really cool that you even return to the game! A week ago I sent your thoughts to the combat design dood. He has some sort of reason not to make crits higher with fatality expert (i didn't understand the explanation, just zoned out) and we can't have both Dragon Kick and Falcon Punch due to technical reasons. The game, like it was first built, can only hold a certain number of attacks for each weapon. Including the fist. Changing that, will mess up other things built upon the fact the system can only have 4 or I guess 5 attacks for one weapon. Like, all weapons will glitch out. We'll make the new attack better than the one it replaces in some patch in the future. Sorry! :( I'll hug myself, because I make up the names based on stuff I like, but I won't hug the game code that limits combat moves.

So, i re-installed ATOM and got past the starting room, it's way better and no more animated grass nor performance issues.

Actually, it's quite good, i didn't get very far though, just got out of the first village after doing the early quests.

Some minor complaints :

- The mushroom quest : either you should drop the number to four or add 1-2 more on the map, i spent too much time searching for the last two shrooms, found the mushroom struggle quite unnecessary.

- The dog and his master surrounded by four goons : they both died, i'm guessing the master is supposed to die and then you save the dog and have him as a follower, well, not sure how to do that other than having a sniper rifle, hoping they can shoot that far, i just own a zip gun and the rusty quest reward other than CC weapons ... So they both died ... :sad:

- The skin worm quest : difficult to tell who's compromised other than the guard because you obviously never met them before, maybe the location they talk about can be visited so you'd know if the pet is a cat or a dog, i feel like either the guide or the "disco" guy are compromised too but i have no clue so i picked the guard only ...

It's nit-picking mostly, but i feel like the two first points are valid.

Very good game so far.
Thank you! The mushroom quest is pretty random, you sometimes get more than other times, I think. Though it wasn't planned this way. Best way is to skip it with a speech check! It's pretty bad. We raised the dog's HP and stuff, so the dog problem shouldn't happen, a shame that it did, we'll look into it.
I played this game for a little bit when it first came out and couldn't be bothered to get out of the tutorial. How has the game improved since then? Are the bugs and translation issues fixed, is isometric mode bug-free and worth playing?
Yes, it now works much better, has a ton of content, and our editor did things to most of the text. However, there's a thing I noticed in the player reviews. Some believe that even the dialogues which our editor who is an actual writer and a native speaker edited, are still badly translated. I think that might be because "russificated" sentence structure and bizarre words like comrade, as well as some cultural differences in speech might be seen as actual errors instead of being seen as stylized speech, so there's that.

Isometric mode is fantastic! Thank you, Atomboy !
Thank you!

Trying out isometric mode right now. The screen goes completely white every time a dialogue starts.
Does it still happen? Can you send a screenshot to support@atomrpg.com ? Never had this issue even before the fix.

A few thoughts on graphics (stylistically).

After seeing some of the indie games of equal or bigger budget in recent times, and ones on the horizon that look like they have promising gameplay... I'm so glad you guys didn't go for an over stylized cartoony look.

I know the current look probably fed at least 20-50% of the mouthbreathers on steam forums and elsewhere complaining about how "dated" it looks, but the clean graphical style is so much more palatable than a bright cell-shaded mess that some other games are clinging to in order to mask the technical limitations or low poly count.
Yess! We like that hyperrealistic yet low poly approach of our modeller a lot. Plenty of folks hate it but it's a keeper!

It seriously looks even better in the new "isometric mode" too.

So sick of all the cartoony shit coming out these days, particularly all the flat "minimalist" styles you see everywhere. It just feels soulless. Much prefer what we got with ATOM, and again, even more so from this new angle.
Thank you! I agree!
the game ends right when you get the fun guns, damn give us 10 more hours after the final encounter, or let us have those guns mid game

also everyone in my party died, so I had a feeling me and atom would just take shit over, but alas, the game ends

also skorpion is op as fuck, 3 bursts a turn compared to every other smg/burst weapon
Are you sure you did everything?? Most folks get down right bored before finally getting to the final encounter! Yeah... And we made the scorpion even better in the patch! You'll get all the same stuff in the beginning of Trudograd most probably. Inventory won't be transfered entirely, but you'll get good vendors in the second place you visit.

They added Moshinka with scope and not to their new game but ATOM what a mad men!
We'll make it even better in the next game!
Huh, my GOG version hasn't updated to 1.092 yet. Hopefully it's released for it soon.
GOG gets the update a bit later most of the time, I think because the upload speed is slower or something like that.
 

ItsChon

Resident Zoomer
Patron
Joined
Jul 1, 2018
Messages
5,381
Location
Երևան
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yes, it now works much better, has a ton of content, and our editor did things to most of the text. However, there's a thing I noticed in the player reviews. Some believe that even the dialogues which our editor who is an actual writer and a native speaker edited, are still badly translated. I think that might be because "russificated" sentence structure and bizarre words like comrade, as well as some cultural differences in speech might be seen as actual errors instead of being seen as stylized speech, so there's that.
It's all good. My parents are from former-USSR, so they both often speak Russian around the house. I've gotten used to this "russification", as you called it. Excited to enjoy the fruits of your hard labor!
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
709
Yes, it now works much better, has a ton of content, and our editor did things to most of the text. However, there's a thing I noticed in the player reviews. Some believe that even the dialogues which our editor who is an actual writer and a native speaker edited, are still badly translated. I think that might be because "russificated" sentence structure and bizarre words like comrade, as well as some cultural differences in speech might be seen as actual errors instead of being seen as stylized speech, so there's that.
It's all good. My parents are from former-USSR, so they both often speak Russian around the house. I've gotten used to this "russification", as you called it. Excited to enjoy the fruits of your hard labor!
Then it's gonna be pretty familiar for you, dude. I'm almost sure.
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
709
Now that the replies are done, I'll leave you with some news.
First of all, I'm pretty late with this one, but here's the Kholodets art.
_R2cNEvAcuQ.jpg
As you can see, this one is a VERY original monster, and we're basically losing money by not patenting it.

Also, I almost made the minigame inside the game that will be featured in Trudograd. i mean it works, but it's not as cool as it was on paper. I'm not sure how we can do this, but if anyone is up for a beta test of a semi-strategic card game, you can reply in the thread, and maybe I'll get to you if I find a way to make it into an executable. It's currently inside the Trudograd Unity project.

Also we will have text quests with pictures, like in Space Rangers, but I think that was already mentioned.

We also have a new part time comrade who makes trash and icicles and other minor details the lack of which is blatant in the first Atom.

Main problem at this stage of development - to not make it bloated with new features. It has to look like Atom. Save transfer almost figured out. You'll have a new skilltree, new skill point system, etc but it will have the skills from Atom too, and there will be a respec guy right near you at game start, so you can import your character, respec him and make him like you always wanted. The new skill tree isn't a tree as much as it's a circle, and you now can pick only skills you want, sort of. It's 2 times better than the old tree. I swear!

I wrote a bunch of quests and we found room for ~10 new characters. The map making dude made 4 maps already. One is this old Factory. Before the war it was busy with making a huge rail cannon for launching nukes all over the globe low altitudes like another great Soviet invention - the Shagohod, it could also launch shit into space. Sounds like the right thing to destroy that pesky comet, right? I'm sure you'll find it there, just waiting for you at the factory and the game will just end after two maps were visited basically.

You guys got any questions about Trudograd? Especially lore based? I can't think of anything more to tell.
 

Diggfinger

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2014
Messages
1,200
Location
Belgium
Hi guys. Would've reported back sooner, but I was afraid to post anything because everyone was named CXitizen and had Infinitron's userpic and then I gotten busy again. What was up with that anyway? Was it the guy's birthday or something? I'll lurk some after posting. Happy b-day, Infinitron! Or not! I'm just guessing over here.

Not quite sure, TBH.

My educated guess is that he was living out a long-suppressed sexual fantasy of having a an army of clones at his disposal for his personal shit-posting pleasure.

But then again, I could be wrong...
 

CoronerZg

Scholar
Joined
Apr 15, 2015
Messages
129
Hi! That's really cool that you even return to the game! A week ago I sent your thoughts to the combat design dood. He has some sort of reason not to make crits higher with fatality expert (i didn't understand the explanation, just zoned out) and we can't have both Dragon Kick and Falcon Punch due to technical reasons. The game, like it was first built, can only hold a certain number of attacks for each weapon. Including the fist. Changing that, will mess up other things built upon the fact the system can only have 4 or I guess 5 attacks for one weapon. Like, all weapons will glitch out. We'll make the new attack better than the one it replaces in some patch in the future. Sorry! :( I'll hug myself, because I make up the names based on stuff I like, but I won't hug the game code that limits combat moves.
Hey, thank you for the reply! Yeah, that makes sense. What about explosives tho? :)

2) Pickpocket and timed explosive... so I have pickpocket level 150 and I can plant explosive on people relatively easy. But what's the point when after detonation everyone turns hostile even though I did the plant unnoticed? The only explanation I have would be balance purposes, but I can already kill anyone with cigarettes and on a much lower level than I need to be as pickpocket expert or to have access to timed explosives in the first place. @Atomboy, fix please? :( ...I even unlocked "It's a Classic" steam achievement for planting the bomb, but then I needed to reload cause whole city wants me dead
 

Mark Richard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2016
Messages
1,192
You guys got any questions about Trudograd? Especially lore based? I can't think of anything more to tell.
What exactly is Truodograd? I'd describe Krasnoznamenny as a corrupt bureaucratic city practising aggressive expansion, yet for all the hypocritical politicians and outrageous prices, its one of the few places in the wastes that offers some semblance of normality (apartments powered by electricity, movie nights, etc). Is Truodograd a den of vice, the dying gasp of a once great civilisation, a prosperous trade hub, or something else? How do its people make their day to day living? What natural resources does Truodograd have to sustain itself?

I guess what I'm asking for is the tourist brochure.
 
Last edited:

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
Thank you! The mushroom quest is pretty random, you sometimes get more than other times, I think. Though it wasn't planned this way. Best way is to skip it with a speech check! It's pretty bad. We raised the dog's HP and stuff, so the dog problem shouldn't happen, a shame that it did, we'll look into it.

It's probably me and a string of bad luck, was there alone, not max AP/Dex, short range low grade gun.

Restarted the game and chose a different path and it's alright.

Is there going to be more updates ?
I'm not sure i want to finish the game right away if there's some cool stuff coming.

About your sequel, if you want to add some big battles like the mutant fortress assault, could you try to do something like ToEE, having groups of enemies attacking together if it's not too much of a hassle ?
Or maybe it's just the fortress being too big for the combat system.

And about the combat system, i enjoy the game a lot, still, some full cover, average cover, low cover stuff like Wasteland 2 would be amazing, hiding behind trees is alright but having tactical battles instead of Fallout basic system would be amazing, probably means a lot of mapping work though, some wasteland maps in the red scorpions area or the bandit stronghold (first half) were really amazing.

Two other things :
- For some reason, i found Fallout sound effects + fatality/gore thing made the battles way more fun.
- Mutants everywhere and yet, we don't get to recruit some mutants with cool unique features, looks like it's a missed opportunity.

Still love your game, combat system aside, you did what wasteland 2 couldn't do, factions feels right, i like the old soviet union thing too, gives a certain atmosphere.
Great work.
 

Bergblatstein

Novice
Joined
Mar 14, 2019
Messages
39
Well I'm 50% of the idea men for the game and I can tell my part of the story - the city was probably going to be the fabled Trudograd (or Labor City in English) a huge dystopian hive city of sadness and industry, much like what they have in those Warhammer games - a city that on one hand got bombed (although not as strongly as was probably planned, since the place was the local heart of industry) and irradiated, but on the other hand still had functioning factories, crucial for the whole region. There'd be slave work, broken lives, alcoholism, corruption, some especially vile bandits, ultraviolent gangs. I had several quests in mind, including a worker that cannot get drunk because his alcoholism was separated from him by a local psychiatrist in a hypnotism session, and now it lives on as the Indulging One or Выпивающий. There was also a mentally ill kid that could talk to large machinery, but all it told him was "kill yourself", a plot line concerning the Hesperus star, a Machine Prophet who taught people a way of life that was not seen as appropriate by the authorities, an investigation into the life of the city's founding father the hero of labor (who turned out to be a nazi supporter and a jailbird just like that one episode of the Simpsons), etc.
The activities included dating, more kinds of gambling, and some stuff my buddy made up that I can't remember.
All of it is going to get into the finished game, either as rumor, a reference, or even a real quest e.g. the Hesperus star thing.

Whew! That was a god damn long journey since the first time I appeared on the Codex. And now this baby is finally done! Seriously, thanks guys, the codex really helped us out. I'll be making a Trudograd post when we have a demo. And of course I'll be continuing to chat in this thread whenever I can!

...Lockpicking minigames blow :|
Also, I was thinking about what can I show yall from Trudograd that's more or less complete, and I found this leaflet available very early in game. Although the author of it terribly exaggerates the social climate of the city, it displays the main cultural and social conflict as well as the architectural principles and flood \ smog problem of the game and lore rather clearly. Here it is!
To all those whom it may concern...

Saved from the atomic blaze by the illustrious grace of merciful fate, and the might of Soviet weaponry, Trudograd lived on... And gloriously so! It is now a provincial Babylon, that challenges the sky itself, by growing not in width, but in height with it's shanty towns and fabulous districts built upon the cold, tin plated flat roofs of it's mass-produced, utilitarian apartment buildings. Hidden behind it's pre-war walls, fortified with sand and steel, protected by it's mighty guardians, and saved in most part from the yearly rages of river floods that came with the bombs falling far beyond the horizon, Trudograd decisively survives through what was thought to be the end days...

But in it's growth and strength, Trudograd forgot of the terrible ailment, caused by it's own prosperity. It forgot about the terrible, cannibalistic, disgusting mold, which originated in the barren and hostile Northern lands, and quickly flooded this amazing city's poorest and dampest corners.

There is no need to lie to ourselves, for we all heard the furtive whispers of those unfortunate enough to be Trudograd's locals but still live on the smog filled, damnable ground levels of the glorious spire-city... Whispers that tell of loathsome flats occupied by whole packs of the watery eyed, disturbingly fair-haired and milky-skinned mongrel migrants from the abominable North. Rumors of the terrible, ungodly, heretical rituals that go on at times when the stars are right, in their unclean, disease-ridden kitchens and stairwells, gifted to them out of pity by our vacuous city authorities.

How naive our elected officials were, when they decided to let these ragged, uneducated savages into our midst! Did they not know, that their beliefs and traditions will come with them as well? Now, Trudograd is home for all manner of vile heresy, from the secretive love-slaves of Krishtapas, the many-handed giant, whose slimy offerings make even the most pious of people curse the name of the Lord; to the unholy Witnesses of the sand and death demon Tsathoggua; and surely the unspeakable followers of the Black Goat of the Woods, a terrible, churning flesh-tree that births monstrosities in pale moonlight.

Stay vigilant, fellow locals! For the enemy is among us, spreading it's ungodly culture and wishing our pure blood to flow on it's decrepit altars!

- Concerned citizen

Sounds like a huge and important place and i look forward to seeing it but since it sounds more vast than KRZ, will there be a number of factions within Trudograd competing for control of varius parts of city and suroundings? Would you even try to pull that of seeing as in base game quests and conflicts where straightforward?
In another post somewhere once there was mention of concealed carry places or zones, will these be in some parts of the game?
Is Demo still planed and is it within reason to ask when this might be?

Hope that in Trudograd, unlike real life where bayonets are used to open cans -we get to mount it on a rifle and use it in anger! :argh:
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
709
In ATOM RPG, Kholodets eats you.
Ha! You got the reason behind it!
Is Claudette romanceable?
No! We decided to cut out all romance. Like, we had his huge txt with planned romantic encounters, but then we just made everyone cuckolds, alcoholics and erectile dysfunction victims to avoid straying from the original game.
Hi guys. Would've reported back sooner, but I was afraid to post anything because everyone was named CXitizen and had Infinitron's userpic and then I gotten busy again. What was up with that anyway? Was it the guy's birthday or something? I'll lurk some after posting. Happy b-day, Infinitron! Or not! I'm just guessing over here.

Not quite sure, TBH.

My educated guess is that he was living out a long-suppressed sexual fantasy of having a an army of clones at his disposal for his personal shit-posting pleasure.

But then again, I could be wrong...
Ohhhh... And I thought it was his birthday.

Hi! That's really cool that you even return to the game! A week ago I sent your thoughts to the combat design dood. He has some sort of reason not to make crits higher with fatality expert (i didn't understand the explanation, just zoned out) and we can't have both Dragon Kick and Falcon Punch due to technical reasons. The game, like it was first built, can only hold a certain number of attacks for each weapon. Including the fist. Changing that, will mess up other things built upon the fact the system can only have 4 or I guess 5 attacks for one weapon. Like, all weapons will glitch out. We'll make the new attack better than the one it replaces in some patch in the future. Sorry! :( I'll hug myself, because I make up the names based on stuff I like, but I won't hug the game code that limits combat moves.
Hey, thank you for the reply! Yeah, that makes sense. What about explosives tho? :)

2) Pickpocket and timed explosive... so I have pickpocket level 150 and I can plant explosive on people relatively easy. But what's the point when after detonation everyone turns hostile even though I did the plant unnoticed? The only explanation I have would be balance purposes, but I can already kill anyone with cigarettes and on a much lower level than I need to be as pickpocket expert or to have access to timed explosives in the first place. @Atomboy, fix please? :( ...I even unlocked "It's a Classic" steam achievement for planting the bomb, but then I needed to reload cause whole city wants me dead
Dang, sorry, I have this reading habit where I read something and I only remember parts of it when I reply! We made the explosives work like in Fallout to appease the Fallout gods, but then doing stealth kills with dynamite made everything too easy, so we made everyone aggro. Now it's in the game as a way to cause a distraction and make fights easier, not to stealth kill people. It's not the first time we ruined a more or less sound stealth mechanic because it ruined the game!
You guys got any questions about Trudograd? Especially lore based? I can't think of anything more to tell.
What exactly is Truodograd? I'd describe Krasnoznamenny as a corrupt bureaucratic city practising aggressive expansion, yet for all the hypocritical politicians and outrageous prices, its one of the few places in the wastes that offers some semblance of normality (apartments powered by electricity, movie nights, etc). Is Truodograd a den of vice, the dying gasp of a once great civilisation, a prosperous trade hub, or something else? How do its people make their day to day living? What natural resources does Truodograd have to sustain itself?

I guess what I'm asking for is the tourist brochure.
I guess it resembles Krasnoznamenny a little bit, only Krasnoznamenny is a town, and Trudograd is a big city. Even if we cut out all the optional stuff and keep only plot related locations, it will have 8 of them, with several underground facilities, while Krasnoznamenny had 2 above ground maps and them bunkers. Also, we're exploring different topics with Trudograd. It was a very secretive closed city in an undeveloped distant region of USSR with tons of military research facilities, factories, a dam, science labs. It was this hidden heart of Soviet industry, and it's reflected in the name. Trudograd basically means "Labor city" and while no place was named like that irl, it sounds very Soviet in Russian. Anyway, for reasons unknown (probably because the enemy didn't know how important the city was) only a few nukes were launched it's way, and all of them were stopped by the anti-air contraptions Trudograd scientists invented. So there's no radiation in Trudograd to this day. It's a huge city, hidden behind mighty walls, protected by soldiers and cool weaponry. However, there's a problem. Trudograd is a wealthy city of trade, and accepts migrants, so it needs to grow. But outside of Trudograd, every other city of importance in the region, especially to the north, was nuked. So now there are these hordes of poor, sick, angry northern barbarians that reverted to tribalism, and these people, along with hideous mutants, and crazy tribes led by warlords like Syoma Voronok and Cohen the orthodox Barbarian assault everything! So Trudograd can't really outgrow it's walls for safety reasons, and instead grows up, to the sky! It now has three tiers. First one is the ground, where hobos, old people, sick people, cheap labor and northern migrants live. It's a dank, smelly place, ruined by annual floods. Second one is based on the roofs of 5 story buildings, it features houses built upon houses. There the middle class lives and life is more or less to the standards of the old world. There is also tier three, we internally call it Sky District, because you don't go there very often.. Its like cloud district from morrowind get it. That's where the richest, the brightest and the most powerful live. The faction dynamics are like these:
- The rulers of the city - former military and communist party officials and their kin want Trudograd to prosper by trading tech goods made by factories for services and food, that Trudograd can't really grow too much of since it's vertical and doesn't have a lot of soil, so they are dependent on cheap labor which comes from the foul mouthed, dirty savages from the north. However, they also fear that one day these northern migrants will replace them and ruin their way of life. So they keep em down.
- Some of the Trudogradian youth believes the capitalist-ish leaders forgot what Communism is and strive for the revolution that will make everyone equal.
- The northern migrants want to live and have lots of rutabaga, and are victims of negative stereotypes. Many native Trudogradian people dare to believe that there is actually a northern warlord that prepares a savage attack on Trudograd, and some of the migrants are actually spies and will turn on the masters when the horn sounds from the North. It's most likely just silly superstition.
- The northern Warlord waits for his time to shine. Or is he. He might not exist even.
- Also some secret lesser factions.
- KGB.
- Beet is looked down upon and the favorite root vegetable of Trudograd is rutabaga. It's a kind of turnip.

For resources, Trudograd has metals, electricity from the dam, and factories that were futuristic in 1986, so they are pretty much invaluable. They produce new arms, bullets, can openers, knives, belt buckles, I guess flasks and things, forks, helmets, they have some power armor too. Anything but food. Though Trudograd also has food, but not as much for comfort, so it needs trade.

Thank you! The mushroom quest is pretty random, you sometimes get more than other times, I think. Though it wasn't planned this way. Best way is to skip it with a speech check! It's pretty bad. We raised the dog's HP and stuff, so the dog problem shouldn't happen, a shame that it did, we'll look into it.

It's probably me and a string of bad luck, was there alone, not max AP/Dex, short range low grade gun.

Restarted the game and chose a different path and it's alright.

Is there going to be more updates ?
I'm not sure i want to finish the game right away if there's some cool stuff coming.

About your sequel, if you want to add some big battles like the mutant fortress assault, could you try to do something like ToEE, having groups of enemies attacking together if it's not too much of a hassle ?
Or maybe it's just the fortress being too big for the combat system.

And about the combat system, i enjoy the game a lot, still, some full cover, average cover, low cover stuff like Wasteland 2 would be amazing, hiding behind trees is alright but having tactical battles instead of Fallout basic system would be amazing, probably means a lot of mapping work though, some wasteland maps in the red scorpions area or the bandit stronghold (first half) were really amazing.

Two other things :
- For some reason, i found Fallout sound effects + fatality/gore thing made the battles way more fun.
- Mutants everywhere and yet, we don't get to recruit some mutants with cool unique features, looks like it's a missed opportunity.

Still love your game, combat system aside, you did what wasteland 2 couldn't do, factions feels right, i like the old soviet union thing too, gives a certain atmosphere.
Great work.
Thanks again man! We'll probably have a mutant sidekick in Trudograd. There's a silver lining in the game, and it's that mutants are pretty much always mentally disabled or slow. So Atom's mutants wouldn't be great party members. There's a mutant-human hybrid you can recruit though later in the game. Combat will be updated but it's hard to tell how much in Trudograd, but Atom will only see very small quality of life updates, small fun thingies and bug fixes, as well as soundscaping. Sound blows, but we're working on it. Nothing huge though!
Fortress was too big, that's true.

any new chicks you can smash in trudograd
We have one already! She's a looker! And there's a sleazy pickup artist for all the lady characters out there!
Well I'm 50% of the idea men for the game and I can tell my part of the story - the city was probably going to be the fabled Trudograd (or Labor City in English) a huge dystopian hive city of sadness and industry, much like what they have in those Warhammer games - a city that on one hand got bombed (although not as strongly as was probably planned, since the place was the local heart of industry) and irradiated, but on the other hand still had functioning factories, crucial for the whole region. There'd be slave work, broken lives, alcoholism, corruption, some especially vile bandits, ultraviolent gangs. I had several quests in mind, including a worker that cannot get drunk because his alcoholism was separated from him by a local psychiatrist in a hypnotism session, and now it lives on as the Indulging One or Выпивающий. There was also a mentally ill kid that could talk to large machinery, but all it told him was "kill yourself", a plot line concerning the Hesperus star, a Machine Prophet who taught people a way of life that was not seen as appropriate by the authorities, an investigation into the life of the city's founding father the hero of labor (who turned out to be a nazi supporter and a jailbird just like that one episode of the Simpsons), etc.
The activities included dating, more kinds of gambling, and some stuff my buddy made up that I can't remember.
All of it is going to get into the finished game, either as rumor, a reference, or even a real quest e.g. the Hesperus star thing.

Whew! That was a god damn long journey since the first time I appeared on the Codex. And now this baby is finally done! Seriously, thanks guys, the codex really helped us out. I'll be making a Trudograd post when we have a demo. And of course I'll be continuing to chat in this thread whenever I can!

...Lockpicking minigames blow :|
Also, I was thinking about what can I show yall from Trudograd that's more or less complete, and I found this leaflet available very early in game. Although the author of it terribly exaggerates the social climate of the city, it displays the main cultural and social conflict as well as the architectural principles and flood \ smog problem of the game and lore rather clearly. Here it is!
To all those whom it may concern...

Saved from the atomic blaze by the illustrious grace of merciful fate, and the might of Soviet weaponry, Trudograd lived on... And gloriously so! It is now a provincial Babylon, that challenges the sky itself, by growing not in width, but in height with it's shanty towns and fabulous districts built upon the cold, tin plated flat roofs of it's mass-produced, utilitarian apartment buildings. Hidden behind it's pre-war walls, fortified with sand and steel, protected by it's mighty guardians, and saved in most part from the yearly rages of river floods that came with the bombs falling far beyond the horizon, Trudograd decisively survives through what was thought to be the end days...

But in it's growth and strength, Trudograd forgot of the terrible ailment, caused by it's own prosperity. It forgot about the terrible, cannibalistic, disgusting mold, which originated in the barren and hostile Northern lands, and quickly flooded this amazing city's poorest and dampest corners.

There is no need to lie to ourselves, for we all heard the furtive whispers of those unfortunate enough to be Trudograd's locals but still live on the smog filled, damnable ground levels of the glorious spire-city... Whispers that tell of loathsome flats occupied by whole packs of the watery eyed, disturbingly fair-haired and milky-skinned mongrel migrants from the abominable North. Rumors of the terrible, ungodly, heretical rituals that go on at times when the stars are right, in their unclean, disease-ridden kitchens and stairwells, gifted to them out of pity by our vacuous city authorities.

How naive our elected officials were, when they decided to let these ragged, uneducated savages into our midst! Did they not know, that their beliefs and traditions will come with them as well? Now, Trudograd is home for all manner of vile heresy, from the secretive love-slaves of Krishtapas, the many-handed giant, whose slimy offerings make even the most pious of people curse the name of the Lord; to the unholy Witnesses of the sand and death demon Tsathoggua; and surely the unspeakable followers of the Black Goat of the Woods, a terrible, churning flesh-tree that births monstrosities in pale moonlight.

Stay vigilant, fellow locals! For the enemy is among us, spreading it's ungodly culture and wishing our pure blood to flow on it's decrepit altars!

- Concerned citizen

Sounds like a huge and important place and i look forward to seeing it but since it sounds more vast than KRZ, will there be a number of factions within Trudograd competing for control of varius parts of city and suroundings? Would you even try to pull that of seeing as in base game quests and conflicts where straightforward?
In another post somewhere once there was mention of concealed carry places or zones, will these be in some parts of the game?
Is Demo still planed and is it within reason to ask when this might be?

Hope that in Trudograd, unlike real life where bayonets are used to open cans -we get to mount it on a rifle and use it in anger! :argh:

Yeah, you'll have a bunch of factions! One that is in control, and at least two that want control, but then surprise the ruling faction is actually two factions!
Conceal carry places are on our mind, but no progress yet. I think we need a few. Depends on the programmers skill and whether Atom's system will allow for this. As for the demo - we're going EA in winter or spring, I wanna say December, but it's a long shot.


----
THERE! I answered again! And I really hope to be back real soon.
News I guess I can share for some reason - we'll do a tiny special thing for Halloween. Nothing much, just an item or two I guess. It won't ruin the immersion. I wasn't entirely sure on the idea. But I guess a little something for the Samhain night won't hurt the game. It's a pretty special night. Tho nobody in the post soviet space celebrated it until a few years ago. However, our western players who celebrate Halloween are part of the reason we're afloat and it doesn't hurt to give em some pumpkin themed stuff on the occasion. I'll try to fit a lot of puns into the English version of the announcement post like "we have a BONE to pick with you" and "this update is going to be SPOOKtacular" and "here's hoping you won't think this idea is CANCER".
Also, someone and I can't find the post for the life of me, told me that the game doesn't have the huge backpack we promised. I checked and it's in the game! In Dead City! So if you read this, go to Dead City!
 
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Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
Atomboy

The lighting you guys have in game is pretty cool (especially say head-lamps in tunnels, or the car at night). Were there any thoughts about implementing areas where lighting matters more than just a penalty to range/accuracy?

For example you have fire-gated, poison-gated, and radiation-gated areas, have you considered darkness gated areas that would require you to use lighting to effectively navigate around -- perhaps link lighting to functions. You did this with electricity too in some of the bunkers.

Maybe even adopt a metro-2033 style 'light on certain enemies causes debuffs' to even influence what direction you should face with a head-lamp, or use torches (could be a melee weapon with a light source radius), etc.
 

SkiNNyBane

Liturgist
Patron
Joined
Dec 13, 2017
Messages
1,090
Location
NY
Grab the Codex by the pussy
I am ready to admit the game is just not that interesting it terms of story and quests. The game failed to engage me on even the most basic level past the first few towns. I really wanted to like this game. Maybe it would be better if I played it in Russian but I somehow doubt it.
 

SkiNNyBane

Liturgist
Patron
Joined
Dec 13, 2017
Messages
1,090
Location
NY
Grab the Codex by the pussy
Atom doesn't even have fanboys. Dude, the NPCs tell you stories and nod and wink to quests or happenings in the game as much as they are for flavor. You never spot an NPC that looks like it does not belong in this world (unless it's a time traveller from the circus or the Warhammer parody thing). NPCs build this world, and ofc you can ignore most of them, there's no problem.

I've never played a game that does NPCs the way ATOM does. I believe there is a reason for that, it should tell you something. The documentary film crew interview approach is boring and conditions the player to ignore the NPCs. If people are ignoring the NPCs, or any content in the game, that's a problem. Saying that people can just ignore NPCs It isn't a good answer to the criticism. It isn't good design. Players shouldn't want to ignore things, they should be excited to interact with them. Imagine if I identified a problem with pistols in the game, and you said, well you can just ignore pistols! It's true, I could just pick a different weapon, but that doesn't fix the problem with pistols. If you were writing a book, and included background stories for every person on the street unrelated to the plot, the book would be bloated, plodding, meandering and tiresome. Any editor would tell you, hey you should cut some of this. It's the same with the game and the NPC dialogue. It should be efficient, interesting and as spare as possible. I'm a person who really likes to read, and I feel like a lot of the writing in this game wastes my time. No one likes to have their time wasted.

Consider the containers in ATOM. You acknowledge a problem:

Also, I recently figured out that containers can just be made to look broken or opened and empty to lessen the amount of containers.

Not every container shown on screen needs to be interactive, it's exhausting and bad design - some can be broken or already opened. I agree! Otherwise, I just start ignoring the containers. It's the same deal with the NPCs. Not every NPC needs a full backstory, some can just give simple barks and that's fine. It keeps the game going at a brisk pace.

This x100. The game needs to be trimmed down from all the small talk bullshit. There is absolutely no need to have every single person tell me about how much they enjoy watching grass grow. Trimming is an essential part of polish.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
^ To hell with that, I loved the banter and small talk. If you don't like the particular style of the game, I can see it not working for you, but the various NPCs and randoms you encounter have a ton of character and style written directly into them and it contributes to the game's whole atmosphere.

edit: Not only that but many NPCs, ones that look like total randos that in a fallout would have a non-interactive throwaway line, will often give quests or some skill check if you talk to them.
 
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Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Atom doesn't even have fanboys. Dude, the NPCs tell you stories and nod and wink to quests or happenings in the game as much as they are for flavor. You never spot an NPC that looks like it does not belong in this world (unless it's a time traveller from the circus or the Warhammer parody thing). NPCs build this world, and ofc you can ignore most of them, there's no problem.

I've never played a game that does NPCs the way ATOM does. I believe there is a reason for that, it should tell you something. The documentary film crew interview approach is boring and conditions the player to ignore the NPCs. If people are ignoring the NPCs, or any content in the game, that's a problem. Saying that people can just ignore NPCs It isn't a good answer to the criticism. It isn't good design. Players shouldn't want to ignore things, they should be excited to interact with them. Imagine if I identified a problem with pistols in the game, and you said, well you can just ignore pistols! It's true, I could just pick a different weapon, but that doesn't fix the problem with pistols. If you were writing a book, and included background stories for every person on the street unrelated to the plot, the book would be bloated, plodding, meandering and tiresome. Any editor would tell you, hey you should cut some of this. It's the same with the game and the NPC dialogue. It should be efficient, interesting and as spare as possible. I'm a person who really likes to read, and I feel like a lot of the writing in this game wastes my time. No one likes to have their time wasted.

Consider the containers in ATOM. You acknowledge a problem:

Also, I recently figured out that containers can just be made to look broken or opened and empty to lessen the amount of containers.

Not every container shown on screen needs to be interactive, it's exhausting and bad design - some can be broken or already opened. I agree! Otherwise, I just start ignoring the containers. It's the same deal with the NPCs. Not every NPC needs a full backstory, some can just give simple barks and that's fine. It keeps the game going at a brisk pace.

This x100. The game needs to be trimmed down from all the small talk bullshit. There is absolutely no need to have every single person tell me about how much they enjoy watching grass grow. Trimming is an essential part of polish.

Yeah, but that's Polish, not Russian!!!
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
709
Hey guys! This was quite the one and a half months I tell you what! Here's a copypasta of our latest update which is today. As you can see, I wrote it as well as I promised I would.

New Update and Halloween Sale!
7864079c218a035f812316c0b874d8cf929754cd.jpg

Good mourning, friends…
The time has come for yet another patch to be uploaded. And with it - a small surprise, to commemorate this year’s All Hallow’s Eve. From October 28th, ‘till November 1st, you will have a chance to encounter enemies with unique pumpkin helmets, or battle endless waves of bloodthirsty mutant freaks that crave for your succulent flesh in another encounter we developed (only for level 10 of higher characters).
While we really hope that you’ll enjoy this spooktacular festive addition, we also get how weird Halloween themed events look in a game about former USSR, where no such holiday ever existed. If this content ruins your immersion, you can turn it off in the main menu.

221742f8c11b5d0d080524bfc48d22f91f3089de.png


Also, we added an option that makes informational pop-ups appear above the character’s head. It is off by default, but you can turn it on in the options menu.

a575497714144b57380b33e1002bac647df03020.jpg

c2ece8d7fcf1f8c4c3461d7a55d58fb241fa3f03.png


Fangs for sticking with us, and let there be BLOOD!... I mean ATOM!
Stay spooky!

The horrifying changelog of doom and devilry:
  • Fixed a ghastly bug which allowed characters to phase through trucks and carts;
  • Dzhulbars got an armor fix to stand a better chance against blood-starved beasts;
  • Wind now moves grass and other plants bug-free and with deadly precision;
  • Artemyev’s dialogue fixed;
  • Skill points can now be added en masse by holding the left mouse button on “+” on the character screen;
  • The Woodpecker’s quest ending fixed;
  • Lesser bugs obliterated;
  • Newly discovered typos and translation errors snuffed out;
 

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