Company of Crime - criminal empire builder with tactical turn-based missions set in 1960s London

[Lemming42]

This looks great, always up for some turn-based tactics. My grandma lived in London briefly in the 60s and said it was a proper shithole, so playing as the cops and beating the shit out of some gangsters will be a great way honour her memory.

 

[AwesomeButton]

in the 60s and said it was a proper shithole

Unlike now you mean?

 

[Lemming42]

True, and nowadays you also have to pay a congestion charge while you're getting mugged.

 

[Zyondyne]

So is there any non-shady way of playing the demo anymore? I know these demos were only temporarily published to 'simulate' playing them at PAX or something, but honestly I don't see any reason not leave them available.
Ghostrunner and some other demos are still playable.

(And to be completely honest, there's also no shady way of playing the demo, I checked)

 

[udm]

DAFUQ! I actually took leave next week just so I could sit down and sample some incline. Curse you developers

 

[udm]

Thankfully I installed the demo prior so I could still access it without Steam.

Storyteller I think the game has some interesting ideas. I like that melee combat engages players through multiple options, and that positioning plays a major role in determining what you can or can't do. This is the kind of granularity I look for in my tactical games.

What I didn't like was the 2AP system and cooldowns. These mechanics work for games that have more abstraction, like Shadowrun Returns; in contrast, they feel out of place here given how your team has chosen to approach melee combat. Also, from the demo, fights felt like they were over in a few rounds and all I was doing was just identifying flanking spots and doing certain actions ad nauseum. Most of the time I was done with fights before cooldown-based abilities were even reset.

I also can't believe I'm agreeing with edgy drama queen Burning Bridges, but I'm not sold on the gender composition of the gangs. Given what I've played, I'm certain the game isn't aiming for historical accuracy, but nonetheless I find it hard to understand why London in the 60s would have female bouncers and such. When I think of female criminals in this context, I think more of Amy Adams in American Hustle, characters with more finesse than brute force.

Just my take and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on these design decisions.

 

[Storyteller]

What I didn't like was the 2AP system and cooldowns. These mechanics work for games that have more abstraction, like Shadowrun Returns; in contrast, they feel out of place here given how your team has chosen to approach melee combat. Also, from the demo, fights felt like they were over in a few rounds and all I was doing was just identifying flanking spots and doing certain actions ad nauseum. Most of the time I was done with fights before cooldown-based abilities were even reset.

Bare in mind, that in the demo, you were only attacking civilians. They don't have any special abilities. The other gangs however do (as well as the Flying Squad, if they arrive to the scene). Using skills strategically becomes much more important against them. The 2AP system is somewhat a default in the genre, and we saw no reason to deviate from it. I get that it feels funny that you can't do a nutkick two rounds in a row, but it all boils down to balancing the power levels of those skills, as well as bringing variety and decision to the fights. In the demo version the skills that the units have have been completely re-arranged now (as well as changed a bit here and there).

I also can't believe I'm agreeing with edgy drama queen Burning Bridges, but I'm not sold on the gender composition of the gangs. Given what I've played, I'm certain the game isn't aiming for historical accuracy, but nonetheless I find it hard to understand why London in the 60s would have female bouncers and such. When I think of female criminals in this context, I think more of Amy Adams in American Hustle, characters with more finesse than brute force.

I understand why this is an issue to many of you, but it's just something that you'll have to tolerate if you play the game. We could go as far as 60/40 ratio, but from a production stand-point it wouldn't make sense, since we'd essentially limit our assets to be seen less (and repetition seen more). I have to remind you, that you should be able to make a all men gang, if you so wish (not in the demo though). One of the main reasons we have so much women in the game, is aesthetics. Women of that era had so much more iconic clothing than men (as with all eras of human history), that we wanted to represent the youth cultures through those as well. The male/female ratio of players in this genre is roughly 80/20. I'd imagine that the 20% of women playing the game would find it entertaining to play with females as well. Men and women in the game have no difference when it comes to their stats, so it's just a vanity choice for the player, and more options should be better than less when it comes to personalising your crew. It might feel funny that a frail female is tossing big men around, but then again it doesn't feel dissociated (at least to me) when a torturer-lady does dirty tricks like poking eyes and kicking nuts.

And you're right, we're not aiming for historical accuracy. We have the real history as a base, but obviously we're doing a popularised alternative history of 60s London for the game. We had a conversation about the female/male ratio when we were starting out the project, and decided then that we can bend the historical accuracy in favour of variety. Empire of Sin and XCOM and other similar titles have also women in them, so maybe it's just this particular setting, or do feel bothered by those too?

 

[Mark Richard]

Between the art direction and whacky prompts I looked at Company of Crime as more of a comic book set in 1960s London rather than a simulation of 1960s London, so stuff like gender compositions doesn't seem bothersome at all. Calling it now to earn a Nostradamus tag - when you send your goons to take over a local disco, there's going to be a civilian on the dance floor who looks suspiciously like Austin Powers. It's too juicy to pass up.

 

[Storyteller]

Between the art direction and whacky prompts I looked at Company of Crime as more of a comic book set in 1960s London rather than a simulation of 1960s London, so stuff like gender compositions doesn't seem bothersome at all. Calling it now to earn a Nostradamus tag - when you send your goons to take over a local disco, there's going to be a civilian on the dance floor who looks suspiciously like Austin Powers. It's too juicy to pass up.

*Takes notes discreetly*

 

[udm]

And you're right, we're not aiming for historical accuracy. We have the real history as a base, but obviously we're doing a popularised alternative history of 60s London for the game. We had a conversation about the female/male ratio when we were starting out the project, and decided then that we can bend the historical accuracy in favour of variety. Empire of Sin and XCOM and other similar titles have also women in them, so maybe it's just this particular setting, or do feel bothered by those too?

Thanks for clarifying my questions. I suppose it's just this setting as I never had an issue with X-COM and female soldiers, but I guess if it's more of a comic book / Austin Powers kind of alternate style, that would be more acceptable. I guess my initial expectation was a bit misaligned too.

 

[Catacombs]

We had a conversation about the female/male ratio when we were starting out the project, and decided then that we can bend the historical accuracy in *favour of variety.*

Or not be torched by the SJW mob.

 

[udm]

Adding on to my earlier post, I would also suggest giving players the option to manually draw a route for pathfinding. Automated pathfinding doesn't take into account Zone of Control; additionally, there might be moments when players don't want to move units through the shortest route possible since they don't want their units to stop after spotting an enemy (or they don't want to enter an enemy's LOS).

I was going to suggest letting players not immediately consume an AP when moving less than the max number of allowable squares in one AP, but that might break the balance of some actions like Kick.

 

[Storyteller]

but I guess if it's more of a comic book / Austin Powers kind of alternate style, that would be more acceptable

The game is not meant to be comedic per se. It's exaggerated and Hollywood-ish in many places, and there is a 'light-hearted' (in lack of a better word) feeling to it. Like beating up people is fun, like a good sport. A good insult makes people fuming and want to kill you. A well placed threat makes people run away in panic. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, etc.
Austin Powers does not represent what we're doing, but old movies from Michael Caine and the feeling of Guy Ritchie movies is what we try to convey.

I would also suggest giving players the option to manually draw a route for pathfinding. Automated pathfinding doesn't take into account Zone of Control

This is a feature that I would like to see too, and even XCOM2 has it as a hidden feature (press CTRL to set up waypoints), but it's not as easy to do at this point of production. Adding that feature could open up a lot of bugs, that we don't have the time to tackle at this point. The feature is currently on our list of "features that we could add post-launch".

I was going to suggest letting players not immediately consume an AP when moving less than the max number of allowable squares in one AP, but that might break the balance of some actions like Kick.

That's a good suggestion too, but for that to work, we would have to have a completely different system. Like maybe having 10 points for movement (meaning 10 tiles), and then a separate point system for the actions. While that could be fun for the player, it's not that fun when you watch the AI doing their turns with the same rules. "Tactical intelligence" with 2 points is hard enough to program for the AI.

 

[veevoir]

Hmm.. the recruit-able crewmembers are generated or a premade list? Looking at the demo coverages those were the same, but for now assuming this is a limitation for demo purposes.

 

[Storyteller]

Hmm.. the recruit-able crewmembers are generated or a premade list? Looking at the demo coverages those were the same, but for now assuming this is a limitation for demo purposes.

You assume correctly. The crewmembers in the demo were from a premade list for demonstration purposes. In the actual game the crewmembers are randomly generated.

 

[Mark Richard]

Christ, that eye-gouge animation made me reflexively touch my eyes.

 

[Storyteller]

Christ, that eye-gouge animation made me reflexively touch my eyes.

I was about to come here, and post the trailer, but you beat me to it. The eye-gouge makes me flinch too. Not to mention headbang. But there you go, you have a release date.

 

[rashiakas]

All that fist fighting women look so fucking stupid.

 

[Nortar]

It's out:

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

New trailer.


Still no footage of police campaign anywhere.

edit.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

1e is a cool publisher.

 

[Zombra]

Consensus of Steam reviews so far seems to be "not yet or wait for $10 price". The devs have responded to a lot of reviews and there are apparently several patches already in the works. Basically it released too early. Keep watching, Codex.

 

[Zyondyne]

Okay. So I was going for a non-lethal playthrough but if you're really gonna spawn 30 policemen PLUS F*CKIN' FLYING SQUAD for my 4 little feeble guys doing a simple extortion in a two levels building, then that's how it is going to be. Eye for an eye, cheap tactics for cheap tactics.

Jokes aside, I don't know if one of the developers is still here but the game is not very balanced. It would make more sense if police would only be able to arrest you from the backside. And it would be nice if they would fight you once in a while instead of spamming "Arrest". Also please add a fast forward button, I cannot stay through the civilian animations any longer waiting for their "dummy turn" to end. The levels are already repetitive enough, but I understand you are a small team on a tight budget.

 

[Storyteller]

Jokes aside, I don't know if one of the developers is still here but the game is not very balanced. It would make more sense if police would only be able to arrest you from the backside. And it would be nice if they would fight you once in a while instead of spamming "Arrest". Also please add a fast forward button, I cannot stay through the civilian animations any longer waiting for their "dummy turn" to end. The levels are already repetitive enough, but I understand you are a small team on a tight budget.

Yes, I'm still here. We're working on a full AI remaster/balance fix as we speak. In the future you should actually feel like the enemies have at least half of a brain in many situations. Currently it's scheduled in patch 3 (because it requires intense testing), but as with all in development, everything is subject to change. The police is only able to arrest a unit from the front if they are disoriented or knocked out. Otherwise the arrest requires them to get to the backside of the target. There was a bug in the police AI, that causes them to favour arrest almost exclusively. That is already fixed, and will be in patch 2 (patch 1 came out yesterday, and it was the fixes from about a week before the launched game, so no community reported bug fixes and balances yet). I'll make a mention to our tech team, that the civilians' turn could be faster.

In patch 2 we're also doing a lot of work on Heat balancing, because it seems to be a game stopper for many players. Obviously we're fixing game breaking stuff first, which there are luckily only few. Give us a few days, and we'll start updating the roadmap for upcoming changes. We're also quite active in the steam discussion forums, so feel free to report bugs and opinions etc there, to make sure they get better noticed by us. Balancing work (and player feedback) is really important to us, and when everything starts run smoothly enough, we'll start considering possible feature updates.

 

[Zyondyne]

Jokes aside, I don't know if one of the developers is still here but the game is not very balanced. It would make more sense if police would only be able to arrest you from the backside. And it would be nice if they would fight you once in a while instead of spamming "Arrest". Also please add a fast forward button, I cannot stay through the civilian animations any longer waiting for their "dummy turn" to end. The levels are already repetitive enough, but I understand you are a small team on a tight budget.

Yes, I'm still here. We're working on a full AI remaster/balance fix as we speak. In the future you should actually feel like the enemies have at least half of a brain in many situations. Currently it's scheduled in patch 3 (because it requires intense testing), but as with all in development, everything is subject to change. The police is only able to arrest a unit from the front if they are disoriented or knocked out. Otherwise the arrest requires them to get to the backside of the target. There was a bug in the police AI, that causes them to favour arrest almost exclusively. That is already fixed, and will be in patch 2 (patch 1 came out yesterday, and it was the fixes from about a week before the launched game, so no community reported bug fixes and balances yet). I'll make a mention to our tech team, that the civilians' turn could be faster.

In patch 2 we're also doing a lot of work on Heat balancing, because it seems to be a game stopper for many players. Obviously we're fixing game breaking stuff first, which there are luckily only few. Give us a few days, and we'll start updating the roadmap for upcoming changes. We're also quite active in the steam discussion forums, so feel free to report bugs and opinions etc there, to make sure they get better noticed by us. Balancing work (and player feedback) is really important to us, and when everything starts run smoothly enough, we'll start considering possible feature updates.

Alright, great to see you are making efforts to improve the game. So many developers nowadays are releasing unpolished game, completely ignore the community after launch and then move into making another game.

Thank you for the answer and I'll wait for some more patches before proceeding further.

PS: I think a fast-forward function for overall combat would be better than just increasing civilians' turn speed. But you know better whether this could be implemented or not.