Incline ATOM RPG: Trudograd - standalone expansion sequel to ATOM RPG

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I've found the ultra-rare Test Wolf.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

something I disliked in ATOM and in Trudograd is having to go to a different map just to cook food when you're on the worldmap. Would prefer just skipping the loading/running to exit and just having it be a dialogue on the world map. Doesn't really add anything.

the game is very pretty btw, surprised at how good it looks especially at night with the winter effects going

 

[Modron]

something I disliked in ATOM and in Trudograd is having to go to a different map just to cook food when you're on the worldmap. Would prefer just skipping the loading/running to exit and just having it be a dialogue on the world map. Doesn't really add anything.

the game is very pretty btw, surprised at how good it looks especially at night with the winter effects going

The world map camp in Trudograd was an infinite source of scrap/wires/newspaper/wood but yeah would save time here and there if it was just a dialog.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

btw I didn't see this mentioned anywhere, but it appears you can use your companions for tinkering now. In ATOM it used your main character's tinkering skill, now the area where it tells you the chance for a successful craft changes when you switch characters.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It warms my heart to see how rusty has finally found a (recent) game that he enjoys.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It warms my heart to see how rusty has finally found a (recent) game that he enjoys.

I'm one of the few people around here who isn't constantly bitching about new games

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It warms my heart to see how rusty has finally found a (recent) game that he enjoys.

I'm one of the few people around here who isn't constantly bitching about new games

Still seems that you are far less enthusiastic about other recent releases such as Wrathfinder and what not.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

ATOM games are proof how much attention to detail is important for a good crpg. I decided to drink the <<special concoction>> before interacting with the myrmic queen and it talks to you.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

in the gunpowder plot quest I sided against

Spoiler

...the Redguard, because they lied to me. Lying is heresy!

Spoiler

Bonus points for dev foresight to realize people would do it solely because they lied to you.

 

[Humbaba]

really dislike the narrator for the text scenes btw, should have went with a rugged older man with a russian accent

Idk, he has the same comfy quality of BG1's narrator. But I don't know why he keeps slipping into deep southern either.

 

[Humbaba]

Where exactly is Trudograd supposed to be located? I figured it's supposed to be like Vladivostok i.e. far east on the account of the Chinese but then people keep mentioning Astrakhan, which is like kavkaz region.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

ATOM games are proof how much attention to detail is important for a good crpg. I decided to drink the <<special concoction>> before interacting with the myrmic queen and it talks to you.

Another example(one of many):

It's all the little things the game pays attention to. How many other games would have bothered to check if you have a full-face helmet on?

 

[Humbaba]

I still find it immersion breaking that a gang of street thugs can get it into their heads that they can take on a space marine. Granted, if they crit me in the eyes often enough, they actually might.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Spoiler

you can solve the northman cipher yourself instead of following what the game tells you to do to take it to the guy
no idea if it plays out different that way, I didn't realize I was supposed to take it to the guy until after I already solved it and checked my journal
but it does let you skip past that part and go directly to where the cipher says

 

[rusty_shackleford]

ATOM games are proof how much attention to detail is important for a good crpg. I decided to drink the <<special concoction>> before interacting with the myrmic queen and it talks to you.

Another example(one of many):

It's all the little things the game pays attention to. How many other games would have bothered to check if you have a full-face helmet on?

Spoiler

if you bring the blank prisoner requisition form to the guard you can try to hand it off to him

pretty sure I could make an entire topic about "amusing dev foresight in ATOM games"

 

[bobocrunch]

how would you compare trudograd's quests and writing to atom? i like how trudograd seems to lean into the interconnected politics and generally influencing other people, is it just the few times like in atom or is there more of it?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

As someone who just played both back to back: The quests/writing were a marginal improvement over something already great. They feel about the same as Dead City in ATOM. As a whole, it's more ATOM. Anything else unrelated to the difficulty is just nitpicking.
It lacks the feeling of being on a journey (with a questionable goal) that ATOM has but trades it for something that is much more narrow and focused.

The areas it suffers in is difficulty(much too easy most of the time) and pacing due to it being shorter. Trudograd starts off stronger than ATOM, but finishes weaker. ATOM felt good the whole way through, with a slow constant incline peaking at Dead City.
Visuals are stunning, not just graphically but the presentation as a whole. At night with the winter winds blowing and the dim streetlights look fantastic.

The strange part of the difficulty is sometimes they do throw a couple hard fights at you then it goes right back down. I have no idea what's going on there?
Trying to think of some examples. I think the bridge random encounter before a bunker, the fight was way higher difficulty than anything actually in the bunker.


Things I loved in Trudograd:
Extensive reactivity & dev foresight
Presentation, looks great

Things I liked in Trudograd:
New ability system. Just needs more abilities and a couple more trees.
Weapon mods. Not diverse enough choices though, so it often felt like you were just straight upgrading your weapon rather than picking between competing choices.

Things I wanted to like in Trudograd but couldn't:
Tinkering. Still can't do anywhere near enough. Ammo requires way too many metal scraps, far easier to just buy it from vendors. The tinkering skill required to work on the power armor & weapon mods is laughable.

Things I did NOT like in Trudograd:
The CYOA slides. I just don't like 'em.
The english voice actor who does everything but the end part. Really bad casting choice.
Survivability mechanics felt like an afterthought. I had to monitor my hunger a lot in ATOM, I never paid attention to it at all in Trudograd. Cold temperature was never an issue either.

Things I'd like to see if Trudograd ever gets any more major patches:
Something I was expecting but never happened was the detective from Dead City, he never showed up.
More unique random encounters. Not all of them have to be combat or overly long or complex. ATOM had a similar issue, I wish it had more unique random encounters.
Questline affecting Grey Corner dependence on black lotus. I habitually killed anyone dealing black lotus, including the you-know-who duo after their request. Being able to attempt to stop the flow of it or on the other hand, dip into the profits, would be nice.

General ATOM 2 stuff I'd like to see addressed:
Technology needs to do something more. Don't know what it should be, but it currently feels a lot like a dead weight skill until very near the end of the game for some lore info.
On the other hand, speechcraft is probably too good. If you trace its history in Fallout, it was actually created by combining multiple GURPS skills together into one which made it into a dominant skill. For example, someone who is a charismatic speaker that can convince others to follow them may be a terrible liar.
Armor mods, because weapon mods were cool.
Maybe tie merchant prices to the difficulty? It's hard to blame either ATOM game here as it's a common RPG trope at this point, but you're rolling in rubles by the end of either game. Basically the moment you start fighting people who carry non-makeshift weapons, you're set for the rest of the game due to their sell value.

--

To some extent this felt a lot like a testbed for a much longer ATOM 2 due to the lack of time to actually experiment with many things given to you, especially towards the later part of the game.
This game being only $11 feels incredibly cheap. I bought both supporter packs.


Thanks for another great game, Atomboy

 

[rusty_shackleford]

btw it took me entirely too long to realize how open-ended the item-use mechanic is. You can even use it to get people drunk/high to reduce their awareness to make them easier to steal from. I'm the good guy!
use medpacks to heal wounded people, etc.,

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Where exactly is Trudograd supposed to be located? I figured it's supposed to be like Vladivostok i.e. far east on the account of the Chinese but then people keep mentioning Astrakhan, which is like kavkaz region.

Looks to me like it's supposed to be somewhere out on the steppe.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

People probably mention Astrakhan because Razdor village is a place that exists irl. There's two of them, both in the same oblast as Astrakhan and both very near Astrakhan. I'm sure there's probably more as it's not the most uncommon name, but it seems rather uncanny that it's so close to a city that roughly fits the geography of Trudograd.

As we don't technically see very far off the port, it could very well just be a river that leads into the ocean. Which would fit Astrakhan.

 

[bobocrunch]

 

[jackofshadows]

btw it took me entirely too long to realize how open-ended the item-use mechanic is. You can even use it to get people drunk/high to reduce their awareness to make them easier to steal from. I'm the good guy!
use medpacks to heal wounded people, etc.,

Oh, you mean like in that game, how was it called, uhm... Nevermind.

 

[Humbaba]

Let me join in the feedback giving, seeing as I just now finished the game.

Overall, I like Trudograd better than the base game. Atom really was just a Russian riff on Fallout, hitting almost the exact same beats and using basically the same mechanics. Trudograd in contrast is much more it's own thing, benefitting heavily from its urban setting and weapon mods, which was the buildfaggotry I craved.

Combat is still the same as Fallout's however, with all its flaws, especially now that power armor is a thing. Once you get it, every fight becomes either completely trivial, or an exercise in frustration as you get crit for 0 damage, drop your weapon or go blind, forcing you to either reload or waste a precious medkit to restore your eyesight. Random encounters are still complete cancer, because often there's too many enemies involved, which pre-power armor means that you get burst to death immediately and post-power armor that you have to stand there, take no damage and very slowly blow away all 8 thugs with no strategy involved whatsoever.

I'm very glad I chose to respec from melee/pistols into melee/rifles because it allowed me to use the big anti-materiel rifle, which rendered the final fight piss easy. Melee sadly is rendered obsolete by the proliferation of high HP enemies with burst weapons, who this time around actually have the AI to kite you. I still would've liked more atompunk kind of weaponry tbh, because it would've been much cooler if high level enemies started using laser guns n shieet instead of the regular ass warsaw pact weaponry we've really seen enough of.

The game's premise is much stronger. Atom's was just "find the guy". In my playthrough I found the mushroom lord, he tells me about the meteor and I stood there thinking

"Damn, that sucks, anyway I see no reason why I should kill you seeing as I have no personal attachment to the wasteland whatsoever and you're not hostile to me, so uh Imma just go ahead and report this to my boss, you do you mushroom men, buh bye!"

And then I left. Had no impact on Trudograd either. According to the prologue the city gets taken over by Atom anyway, retconning the ending slide I got where the mushroom men take over no matter what.

Anyway, Trudograd starts off with "find the macguffin, or we're fucked", which a simple but infinitely more effective premise, because now, there's an actual conflict. With newfound motivation, I was much more eager to talk to people and find information. Uncovering things also happens a lot more organically, whereas in Atom you just did the bidding of the shrigmas, hoping to maybe somehow find shit out. In Trudograd you still carry water for either the police or the communists but at least there's a specific goal, namely gaining access to seventh heaven.

The writing is also much improved, because it is a lot less silly. Atom was silly 24/7 and I hated that, took me right out of the game. Atom feels like a comedy game. I can't go 5 minutes without asking an NPC about anything and him giving me le ebin quirky answer about how his prolapse got caught in the door of his Lada while working on the kolkhoz or some other bullshit. After a certain point, as soon as I realised most of these dumbasses had nothing to say, I skipped most dialogue in the game. Trudograd is way more restrained in that regard and that's for the better.

Simple annoyances are gone, like canned food no longer radiating you for some reason and the skill tree is a lot more interesting too. I still don't get the point of walking on the overworld. Just make it BG style and have us pop into a random encounter sometimes. It's just a huge waste of time otherwise. I've never had to rest once on the overworld map because there's enough campfires in fixed locations.

Final dungeon sucks. Between Trudograd and Wrathfinder I'm starting to think easterlings have trouble designing the endgame. Tbf, great games like BG2 also fizzled out towards the end but not as hard as either of those two.

If I'd allow myself to dream, I'd tell the devs to implement JA2 style combat and a BG style map but let's face it, they're not gonna do that. Still had fun with the game though. If Atom was 7/10 then Trudograd is 8/10 for all the marginal improvements and the better setting and writing.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Forgot to add that I didn't play the game in "isometric" mode this time. Unity's orthographic camera doesn't support deferred rendering which is required by most of the screenspace image effects(including SSAO) used by unity. Which I'm fine with, however -- the performance of the forward renderer is also in general worse, which made an issue this time due to the increased graphical fidelity. This is most noticeable in the docks area, the main area where I noticed slowdowns. I dropped down to 20-25 FPS in isometric mode there.
Comparison shot btw:

OTOH, object labels probably make playing isometric mode much easier this time around.

An orthographic camera can be approximated using the perspective camera and a very low FOV, I might try to mod it in for the best of both if I get bored.