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

Used the AP cheat to finish the game. Honetsly the Mycelium Bunker was too short and too difficult, I really hope you guys can make the final dungeon more interesting.



Atom RPG is the biggest gaming surprise of the year for me.

Atom RPG achieves so much with it's limited budget. The world building is simply fantastic, I can hardly believe that it's the first game in this fictional universe. The world really feels organic with it's mysteries culture and folklore. The circus alone is one of the most memorable locations in any RPG. Though the valley as well as the dead city are have to little content and feel unfinished, the same applies to the villages in the south. There were so many instances where I heard some crazy unbelievable rumor and then it turned out that there was some truth to it. The quest design can only be compared with the Fallout games, so many quest have multiple solutions and different endings that I really want o go back and see them for myself. The RPG mechanics though clearly "inspired" from Fallout are good but I have the feeling like some skills feel underdeveloped. I do not remember a dialogue where I needed the stealth skill or the first aid skills. I really like how it's possible to avoid pretty most encounters with skill checks.

Visually the game looks good enough for a 15Euro Indie RPG made with unity though some of the animations are really good like the pole dancer . Still the inconsistent styles within the NCP portraits are weird. The loading tmes are short and the performance is good as well.

The writing is a bit hit and miss some of the villager dialogues are pretty weak and uninspired but i appreciate that they even have unique dialogue. Some of it is really good like the mercenary lady in Peregon these small moments make the world feel so much bigger and create this dark atmosphere that makes Atom RPG so good. I personally liked the humor, despite the countless references because they often worked even if you do not know what is being referenced. The story is sadly a bit disapointing and the ending feels rushed
Ending Spoiler !!!

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Atom guys turn up near the end but they don't seem to do anything. The mushroom story is cool but it kinda lacks a big moment. Though I might have missed some things.

Basically I love most of the game but I hate the combat. The patched aiming mechanic seem to something because i got more crits in the last bunker with the patch then I got in the last 5h.

So many encounters are too difficult on easy and if you spawn while being surrounded you can press F9 immediately because you will simply die. Some guns are too rare for example I never saw the VSS again until the final bunker. I never even saw a single weapon that uses the 12.7 ammo. The Perk system is weak, a lot of perks are just bonuses to skills and most perks you will never get since the costs are too high. I don't even want to waste too much time talking about it since I know I am not an expert.

I hope you can improve the game even more in the coming months and this game deserves more mainstream attention, I am already mentioning as often as possible ion German gaming websites.

TLDR

Buy this game if you enjoyed Fallout and other text heavy RPGs it's definitely worth it's price.


Sorry for the countless typos and my poor writing.

 

Alright, so, all one needs to do to unlock the Kickstarter/Bonus stuff in Options is to write in the code "atom".

This will unlock two extra items when you start the game (in the tent): ATOM Dog Tags that gives +9 Speechcraft, and a hunting knife called "The Leningrad Knife". This will be given to every new character.

It will also unlock three extra outfits in the game, and each outfit comes with one extra item:
Veteran - A black parade uniform for ATOM officers; in the tent there will be an Officer's Cap that gives +1 Strength.
Chosen One - A STALKER-esque thick coat; in the tent there will be a gasmask that gives 100% poison protection, and it's literally called STALKER Mask.
Ranger - A simple olive/khaki shirt/jacket with matching pants; in the tent there will be a funny hat with a feather that gives +10 Survival.

Two of these also comes with an extra distinction:
Ranger: "Ranger - You are well experienced in surviving the wastes!"
Chosen One: "Chosen One - Since the moment of your birth, everyone knew you had a special fate before you..."

What these distinctions do, I have no idea, but it's worth mentioning.

I'll be hard pressed to ever take anything other than The Chosen One, because the gasmask is awesome and the clothes probably looks the best out of all the available options. Running around in a parade uniform feels silly, and the ranger hat just looks retarded. I really wish that these clothes would just be added options, not locked on creation.

 

Atomboy Any way to rebind Q and E keys? They are driving me up the wall.

I just want to swap one with the other.

 

The core of the game is really good. I think the combat balance needs to be tweaked as the end just becomes a game of burst fire and dragging people into doorways. (Which may have already happened with aiming changes)

Also I'd agree with Quillion, the info dumps could be handled better and the same 5 questions reminds of Daggerfalls conversation system.

 

In the circus you could enter the plane. There is an old woman there that you could talk to.

As for the killing...sure why not,they are mutant filth.

 

Yea I know you can do that. What I meant was health acquired when you cooked food. As the consumption is immediate, you're the only one who gets the benefits of cooked corn porridge or cooked canned meat.

Also, please allow us to feed doggo with corned meat and canned meat

 

Where is the mayor in the first town? Katya gives me a note to see him, but his assistant guy claims he is out in the fields or could be anywhere. I feels like I'm missing something.

 

Uniformed old man in the first building.

 

Nah, you just have to pick between those kind hearted, friendly misfits and an evil corrupt politician! No chaining either way.

Damn,

We really try not to, most of the time! But blatantly showing how much skill you need to win a dialogue check was just... I don't know! Like that other game. Its almost always round numbers, though. If you fail at speech 70, it's probably 80, 90 or 100. We have just a few of those that go even higher, and they usually protect some secret wacky stuff or sexual encounters.

We're working on it! Won't be in this patch, but maybe the next one. I

Nah, you just have to pick between those kind hearted, friendly misfits and an evil corrupt politician! No chaining either way.

Damn, I'm really sorry about that. Did that happen even after we nerfed those guys? Do you use grenades? That's a huge bummer. I'll tell the guys.

Oh, there's a whole story about it! Way back when I was a b2b salesman, me and my buddy found the first Marauder book online, and shared funny quotes from it around the office all the time. I don't mean to disrespect the book, but it has some funny written passages, like that one chapter about Kazakh dwarves. It influenced my writing for ATOM in a lot of ways, mostly because of it some wastelanders mention carrying or storing grain in plastic bottles, or saying stuff like "I was on my last bottle of grain!" or "My wife is a FOOL!" and sometimes I parody its prose, and there's an Ahmed reference or two. Can't speak about my buddy, maybe he added even more stuff from it. Or not.

Well, I'm from Latvia, but despite that I can still remember people calling other people Comrade for at least 4-6 years after our independence was proclaimed. Some use it even nowadays, though mostly as a joke. But not always. One of my neighbors was a former Party official, so he used the "proletariat" and other funky buzzwords for the longest time. And I was around 10 already when we still had overgrown ruins of a pioneer boyscout camp complete with a railroad and barracks and other derelict stuff. And people in rural areas even here in Latvia were like we portrayed in the game - they sorta come over and asked you stuff about the outside world, and let you ask them stuff and in some places vodka could buy you things money could not. Even though there was no apocalypse. I bet the same went on in all other former USSR states when everything went down the shit hole in the 90's.

Oh come on! It's not that bad. Aniskin, Trus, Balbes, Bivaly and what? Some Gorbachev reference? That's 6 NPCs out of almost 500. And some jokes are supposed to be bad anyway!!!!11

I'm probably missing a lot of important questions but I just can't help to stop at your post and say thanks for liking the circus! It made me so nervous as I made it. Like... Would people get what I tried to do, or will they think I'm retarded and terribly unfunny? Maybe both? But it seems like the majority actually felt what I tried to

Thank you! We actually fixed or began fixing some of the stuff you mentioned - there's combat speed toggle now, a few perks were reworked, some additions to balance.

We patched some stuff tonight. Try playing it as is. It's beatable. As far as I can tell everything depends on how you like our combat. If it's completely impossible, you might like to wait a couple of days until we rebalance a few more things and make an optional tutorial map.

Hey Sloul, I honestly don't remember if I answered this post before or not, because I'm sleepy, but let's pretend I didn't!
Yeah. Combat is still WIP unfortunately. Would love to hear from you if you decide to try it post patch. Crits should be much better, blindness and weapon knock out cooler.
While the inventory was a concious decision and a throwback I see what you mean. I don't do UI stuff at all, but I'll be sure to share info.
And the dogs idea is really nice. Its simple, but you are right - it adds a whole lot more life and logic to that map. Well what else can I expect from you? You were always a great help to ATOM, just wish we had the time and ability to make more of your older advice work.

 

It's done! Update the game and rebind in any way it pleases ya!

 

Wait, i just realized companions dont get exp from quest, just combat. Is this supposed to be like this?

 

It's a way we are currently using to nerf them from becoming ultra gods, but a search for a more elegant way is also attempted.

 

Also, I would like to ask some of the famous Codex law experts for a helpful hint.

There I sat, googling Atom's name, like I always do, when suddenly I saw this reddit thread, that talked about me adding my favorite internet celebrity likenesses into the game as a homage to my favorite internet celebrities - the Red Letter Media people. They got that idea that we were stealing stuff with some sort of an internet scraper thing, so I came over and told them that it's a homage, and I emailed the guys (no reply tho) and we don't use those likenesses in commercial materials for the game, and we'll delete them as soon as they tell us if they tell us... But there are still people saying it's not legal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedLetterMedia/comments/aapsi8/this_npc_in_atomrpg_looks_kinda_hacky/

I'm by no means American, but I consider myself a man of culture and I heard of what you call fair use. Isn't drawing a picture that looks like a real person and using it as a homage considered transformative and thus fair use? Did Ethan Klein scam us with FUPA for nothing? Will Sam Hyde take me to court for using his likeness in a wanted poster as a joke? Jokes are transformative and fair use, aren't they? Aren't they? Makes me kinda worried, honestly. Here I was thinking I'm referencing people in good fun, building my time capsule and all that. I don't get it. What's fair use then? Will it be fair use if we put mustaches on the homages or give them silly hats? I'm using "humor" to mask real dread here, guys!

Edit: I also used a line from Depeche Mode, and a line from Dune, and several lines from movies and stuff. Is that fair use at least?

Edit 2: What are you yessing tho? ((((( My thoughts, or the inevitability of punishment from Sam?

 

How does this run on a slightly older system? (In my case, an i5-2500 and a Geforce GTX 660 Ti)

 

For a week now, I'm playing on:

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4400
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Chip type: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
Display Memory: 1696 MB
Dedicated Memory: 64 MB
Shared Memory: 1632 MB

And I only sometimes get lag when playing with medium settings!!!
It can run on a PI!

 

I am not a practising barrister, but I did spend a substantial amount of time studying law from a media management perspective, so I do have some basic knowledge of this area.

What they're referring to is the right of publicity, more commonly called likeness rights, which essentially means your ability to control your image and make money from it. Now, in your case, they would have to show that their likeness had been used for an exploitative purpose, and they had not consented to that. On a technical level placing someone's likeness or name within a game is going to be classed as using their image for an exploitative purpose, and you've said you didn't get consent. The issue you'll have here is that the right of publicity is different from state to state in America, or at least was when I was studying this, and so the relevant law will depend on where the person you included as a homage is based.

Anyway, given that they don't appear in your advertising material, that you have edited their likenesses, you are not profiting from their likenesses appearing in your game, and there is a general acceptance for this sort of thing in video games of this type, at least at a low level highly edited point, I would imagine you'd be fine. Having said that do try and get consent if you're doing something like this again. I would also advise you to stop popping up on Reddit and publicly stating that you're making usage of the likenesses of particular people. There is a world of difference between something thinking you might have done something and leaving a written record saying you have.

In relation to fair use it relates to copyright, which is a related field but is distinct from likeness rights. Having said that the 5th factor of fair use, 'transformative work', would generally also be considered to cover you in this instance if the works were seen as having taken the images and made them something new and your own. As to if what you have done would be considered transformation, I'd have to see the images, but the Americans seem to wildly disagree on what is, and what is not, transformatory.

EDIT: On your point about referencing lines and things from movies in the game. I've don't recall the specifics here, but in general anything taken from movies, music, books, etc, is all copyrighted material. Again, I wouldn't really be worried about it given the way you've used it.

 

I don't know how its in Latvia Comrade but here if you want to use real people likeness you need their written permission but... for example if you put Boris Putinov and give him mustache as your ex KGB Kolhoz director for example it becomes however pastiche and you can include them anyway and sometimes public persons have lesser protection but its ALWAYS ask for a permission first... if you think about making real game studio its best to contact Latvian lawyer about Latvian Copy Right and google about Kwan one since Valve is US corporation and they have this we consider hole globe under our jurisdiction (but we are not beholden under international law mindset .) instead of asking random comrades on internet. By the way did you asked whoever owns M-16, Makarov, Kalashnikov or any other gun made in XX century if they are OK to be put in your game? I doubt Russian State or Arm factories will sue you (its unpaid advertisement for them) Comrade but its better to be sure than sorry. Short citations from books and songs are fair use in Potato-land where Commissar lives and remember that copy rights litigation is business so they won't go after small fly.

Ninjaed by Canus So yes its better to ask and best doing it in future cause you don't want to admit you used their image without consent its always better to wait for their action.

 

Have you checked Codex Member Picture thread?

 

Do you think Fallout 2 got the permission of Tom Cruz and Nicole Kidman?

 

The way to avoid this is to usually include a sinister disclaimer at the end of every product claiming that "This work is purely fictional, and any and all resemblances to people alive or dead are purely coincidental and all characters are to be considered ficticious and in no way representative of any imagined counterparts. Any and all situations or references are to be considered works of parody." or something to that effect. The fact that you've asked for permission (and didn't get it) is actually potentially more of an issue than if you'd just not asked and then claimed the above or "parody" if anyone asked (or even better, not answer any such inquiries unless they're legally backed).

The main potential issue I see here is that the image almost looks like a photograph or direct tracing of one, which I guess could constitute a copyright violation. However, given that none of this is in any way necessary for the game or in any way representative of it, I think the worst thing that can happen is that you're issued a cease and desist/takedown request, which would (arguably) force you to remove the "photos" unless you choose to fight it (and if issued such a thing from Red Letter Media itself, especially since you asked permission first, why would you?). Unless they can claim damages for some sort of defamation, I doubt they'll be able to do much.

And yes, using lines for books, etc., is definitely Fair Use in pretty much the entire western world. Fair Use expressly covers making references and parody work. Half our cultural sphere would not exist without such things.

Unless you're actually contacted by Red Letter Media first, I wouldn't give a shit. At the very least, they're practically obligated (AFAIK) to at least make a good will effort first, unless you're directly profited from their work or actively defamed them in some way.

Or the tracings of the Baldur's Gate portraits. Direct tracings of mostly B- and C-list people, with fantasy elements applied.

 

Black Isle did not put Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman or Richard Nixon or Lenin forbid Scientology onto their game Comrade.

What they did was clever Pastiche/Parody though:

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The sheriff in Redding, Earl Marion, is a triple reference to John Wayne who was born Marion Robert Morrison and nicknamed "The Duke". Both earl and duke are titles of nobility, duke surpassing earl. John Wayne is famous for playing sheriffs in various western movies.

If they put the ''church'' of Science into the game they would be sued for sure Comrade.

 

The scientologists is really a special case, though. They'll try to sue whether they've got a legal leg to stand on or not.

That said, putting a mustache on something pretty much solves anything.

This is not Tom Cruise, it's.. uhm... Com Truise, french scientifico enthusiast!

Edit: Solves everything, I tell you!

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Don't take anything I say as actual legal advice. I take responsibility for nothing.

Edit 2: I also want to echo what Canus said earlier in the thread. Don't go around confirming legal things on places like Reddit. Or here, for that matter. In general, when it comes to legal things, the less you say, the better. If you need to ask for advice from people, make sure to ask in general terms without confirming what you may or may not have done. "They claim I used XXX, and that this is an issue because YYY, is this true?" In general, saying anything in law is always a potential issue, and you're always the one to potentially lose something based on what you've said. Staying silent always leaves options open, but saying anything (and I do mean anything) related to the subject only has you on the losing side, as you're adding potentially exploitable details to something that is otherwise supposition, conjecture, and baseless theories (or so a lawyer could argue - unless you've confirmed otherwise, which you now have).

In general, don't do anything unless you're actually contacted by legal representatives that can show some type of credentials, and at that point, seek actual legal counsel unless it is something you're prepared to immediately agree on (say, should Red Letter Media now contact you and ask you to stop using these portraits, given that you've previously asked for permission, you're likely prepared to do so without arguing).

And even if you do agree to it immediately, it can still be important to maintain innocence, and you're in no way obligated to confirm that these even were portraits based on real-life people. Had you not already done so, it would have been possible to agree to the request along the lines of "Yes, I will remove these portraits, since the similarity is striking, now when you mention it. We apologize for any confusion regarding their fictional nature."

Always, always, always, the less you say outside of a court of law benefits you.

 

I dunno, but how about saying

"Anyone likeness in this game's graphic is totally accidental and not intentional at all."

from start to finish.

You know nutink. you admit nutink~