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Game News Consortium: The Tower, a Deus Ex-like first person immersive sim, now on Kickstarter

Carrion

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Played an hour or so of the first game, and I've got to say it seems really cool. So far I've especially liked the dialogue system (things like being able to move freely during dialogue, having multiple people take part in conversations and being able to choose who to talk to, and the disposition system that makes you think about what to say instead of just mindlessly exhausting every dialogue tree) and the fact that it doesn't seem to just revolve around the player, with events seemingly taking place on their own even if you're just screwing around and other characters moving around the ship, talking to each other, doing their own things and apparently even moving the plot forward even when you're not around. It's really refreshing to play a game which manages to make you stop metagaming for a while and instead encourages you think about what is actually the smartest thing to do for your character at any given moment. The introduction to the setting felt pretty gimmicky at first, but it actually works really well in establishing this aspect of the game — in most games you'd just shower every character with all sorts of ridiculous questions at the start of the game, but in Consortium people think you're either joking or out of your mind if you display all of your ignorance to them, as you're supposedly taking control of a rather knowledgeable person and are also expected to act like one. It's possible that this is all just early-game smoke and mirrors, ordinary scripted events that are just masked a bit better than in an average game, BioWarian choices etc. that try to portray the game as deeper and better than it actually is, but the first impression is definitely very good.

Haven't seen any firefights aside from the tutorial, which probably doesn't tell the whole story, but combat unfortunately seems to be shit, with bullet sponge enemies and guns that have zero recoil, feel rather weak and lack such basic things as a reload function. Oh well, I guess you can't have it all.

Too bad that the Kickstarter campaign hardly looks like it's going to succeed, although I'm not sure whether "small-scale" Kickstarters follow the same pattern as the huge ones. Only 21 days left and they haven't even made a quarter of their target sum.
 

Shevek

Arcane
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Sep 20, 2003
Messages
1,570
The first game was pretty great. Just ran through it today (who can say no for 3 bucks?). Its one small location but VERY well realized (cabin thriller mystery). Will immediately start run #2 and contribute to the KS.
 

J1M

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Promise of daily dev updates? Smells amateur.

On the up side, if this proves popular it will result in improvements in the Deus Ex franchise.
 

J1M

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Promise of daily dev updates? Smells amateur.
Why? Just go around the office and ask people "watcha doing?". More interesting than those monthly PR pieces.
I can't believe I have to explain this, but it is not going to be interesting to read "Dave worked on the new gun model, John fixed a particle bug, Suzy collected everyone's status report for the forums" every single day.

The fact is that game development is difficult and attempting to show meaningful progress to a non-technical audience is extremely challenging even on the monthly time-scale. The only way this daily thing won't backfire is if they don't actually report what was done each day and have a bunch of concept art queued up as filler for 5 days a week.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium II

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I can't believe I have to explain this, but it is not going to be interesting to read "Dave worked on the new gun model, John fixed a particle bug, Suzy collected everyone's status report for the forums" every single day.
I find it interesting.

The fact is that game development is difficult and attempting to show meaningful progress to a non-technical audience is extremely challenging even on the monthly time-scale
Well there's your problem. If you're gonna make it daily it can't be PR pieces but actual progress reports. Which would be cool specially in the long run. Doesn't need to be super formal either just "today I did this".
 

Zombra

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I actually like constant nothing updates. Even if I don't read them, it's great to have that much communication. And often those little details are cool.

What's amateurish about it is the expectation that they can follow through. No devs have ever stuck with such a declaration. Even something as unambitious as a weekly update gets blown off. Finding the energy to post every day will be impossible for this small studio.

Prove me wrong, guys. Prove me wrong.
 

ArchAngel

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I don't want them to do updates daily, I am sure that time can be better used. Weekly updates would be better.
 

ArchAngel

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Could anyone from codex try to get Chris Avellone to join these guys at some level ? :D
Chris said he wanted to do different kinds of storytelling and these guys are doing just that.

And these guys could use a big name to help promote the KS.
 

Melan

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They are saying all the right kind of things, and I pledged, but there is no way they are going to raise their 450k Beaverbucks within 18 days. They have no coverage and no word of mouth; and the first time I heard of their project was here on the Codex. Kicktraq says they can expect to make 265k, some 57% of their goal.

Then what?
 

Zombra

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http://wccftech.com/consortium-tower-shelved-indefinitely-kickstarter-fails/#ixzz3ywpTys6J
  • What happens if you don’t reach the minimum goal of the Kickstarter campaign? Do you have a backup plan, or will it just take longer to make CONSORTIUM: The Tower?
  • We’ve honestly put all of our eggs into this basket and will have no choice but to shelve the project indefinitely if we do not reach our goal. This very much is a passion project for us, and we will get it made eventually, but Kickstarter was our only viable funding option at this time. If the market decides it doesn’t want us to make the game now, we are prepared to accept that and put it on the backburner until a later date when other options present themselves.
 

almondblight

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If some youtube celebs got behind it they could still probably make it. That's what happened with Mandate. Of course, that's a pretty big if.
 

DwarvenFood

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Maybe we could get some Fargo to tweet about it or something.. but fuck, I also don't see it happening.. am enjoying the first game - funny how it doesn't present itself as a game from the very start - ie. the menu. It is presented as a service to the user (you) for taking over a person in an alternate timeline, all with disclaimer you have to accept. Very nice flavouring, can't believe I only heard about it now because of this Kickstarter.
 

grimace

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What's amateurish about it is the expectation that they can follow through. No devs have ever stuck with such a declaration. Even something as unambitious as a weekly update gets blown off. Finding the energy to post every day will be impossible for this small studio.


Posting daily updates consistently can be a challenge. Some developers struggle to post weekly updates. The smaller the studio the harder it is to keep up with housekeeping. I would be very interested in see Star Citizen daily standup notes.

Here is an example I am aware. Please share other such studios who do this.

Shroud of the Avatar devolopers have daily morning "standup" meetings where each team member declares what they are working on.

Started Friday June 14, 2013 and made publicly available to everyone in November 2015.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/standup-corner.2315/

I can't believe I have to explain this, but it is not going to be interesting to read "Dave worked on the new gun model, John fixed a particle bug, Suzy collected everyone's status report for the forums" every single day.

I agree that for most people the daily update of every team member may not be interesting to the majority of Kickstarter backers. Day to day updates, as they are happening, my be more valuable for historical purposes.
 

Vault Dweller

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Daily updates or not, 450k is way too much for an indie game even if it comes from a proven studio. 250k would have been a more reasonable number.
 

Doctor Sbaitso

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OK backed. The hacking looks 'press X to win' but I will support them on their aspirations alone.
 

Desur

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BattleTech A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
The first game was actually free on Steam some three weeks ago (as in 'add it to your account today and it's yours forever' free, not 'free for the weekend'), might give it a shot later this or next week. From what I've seen and heard thus far the game is pretty unstable (had to actually redownload it due to some data corruption error, a friend of mine lost his saves and gave up on it). Anyways, if it proves to be good I might even back it. Not that it really matters, how likely is it that they manage to get the remaining 300k+ CAD?
 

ArchAngel

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The first game was actually free on Steam some three weeks ago (as in 'add it to your account today and it's yours forever' free, not 'free for the weekend'), might give it a shot later this or next week. From what I've seen and heard thus far the game is pretty unstable (had to actually redownload it due to some data corruption error, a friend of mine lost his saves and gave up on it). Anyways, if it proves to be good I might even back it. Not that it really matters, how likely is it that they manage to get the remaining 300k+ CAD?
With that way of thinking nobody will support it and it 100% will not reach it. Good thing KS works in a way that if you do support it and it does not reach it you are not charged for it :)
You just need to take up to 5 minutes of your time and support it and you get the game (eventually) or don't lose any money.
 

Bashar

Literate
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Nov 14, 2015
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10
I remember when Consortium kickstarted their first game. I chose not to contribute because I didn't think a small indie team could build a game so ambitious. I'm really glad to have been proved wrong. Consortium 1 is essentially a tech demo with a plot, but it proved to me that IDGI has the chops to follow through on their vision. I'm definitiely a supporter this time around and really hope that posts like mine will help convince people who are on the fence.

A few weeks before the campaign started I exchanged a few e-mails with IDGI lead writer, Steve MacMartin. He acknowledged a lot of the criticisms aimed at Consortium's first point and demonstrated to me that the team has learned from past mistakes. For one, Consortium got a lot of flack for being buggy. That was true on release but the game has become more stable with patches. For The Tower they plan to expand on beta testing and maybe use Early Access as a test platform so that the published build is more stable. Combat is going to get more love, and I think that can be seen in the new campaign videos. In the first game, the only mandatory combat was a training simulator, which was pretty weak. In The Tower, they plan to make combat more prominent and dynamic but still avoidable. And they're going to make a conscious effort to telegraph lore so that players have an easier time orienting to the game world without feeling dependent on the in-game encyclopedia to figure out what's going on.

I think it's a good thing that Consortium was scaled back and the Churchill Tower location moved to the sequel because it enabled IDGI to make mistakes and figure out their pipeline. If it gets funded, I think that The Tower will prove to be the game that we wanted Consortium to be.
 

Desur

Educated
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BattleTech A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
I remember when Consortium kickstarted their first game. I chose not to contribute because I didn't think a small indie team could build a game so ambitious. I'm really glad to have been proved wrong. Consortium 1 is essentially a tech demo with a plot, but it proved to me that IDGI has the chops to follow through on their vision. I'm definitiely a supporter this time around and really hope that posts like mine will help convince people who are on the fence.

A few weeks before the campaign started I exchanged a few e-mails with IDGI lead writer, Steve MacMartin. He acknowledged a lot of the criticisms aimed at Consortium's first point and demonstrated to me that the team has learned from past mistakes. For one, Consortium got a lot of flack for being buggy. That was true on release but the game has become more stable with patches. For The Tower they plan to expand on beta testing and maybe use Early Access as a test platform so that the published build is more stable. Combat is going to get more love, and I think that can be seen in the new campaign videos. In the first game, the only mandatory combat was a training simulator, which was pretty weak. In The Tower, they plan to make combat more prominent and dynamic but still avoidable. And they're going to make a conscious effort to telegraph lore so that players have an easier time orienting to the game world without feeling dependent on the in-game encyclopedia to figure out what's going on.

I think it's a good thing that Consortium was scaled back and the Churchill Tower location moved to the sequel because it enabled IDGI to make mistakes and figure out their pipeline. If it gets funded, I think that The Tower will prove to be the game that we wanted Consortium to be.
That's all good and I realise that just because the first game is buggy doesn't mean the second one will be too. I also really like how they present 'The Tower' in the KS trailer but the first game still keeps crashing for me (after I had to reinstall it *twice* to get it running at all) - sure, I got it for free, so I shouldn't hold it against them, however, if I saw the KS campaign and decided to buy the prequel before backing I would be sorely disappointed and unwilling to give them my money. My point here is: if you're making a sequel and put the first game on sale (or give it out for free) you had better make sure it runs smoothly and encourages potential backers not deters them. And yet I still want them to succeed which is why I decided to back the project - somehow my 50$ don't seem to have made a difference though and they are still some 300k CAD shy of their goal.
 

thesheeep

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450k for an indie game that is known for one title (which had many problems on launch) is just completely ridiculous.
Plus, from what they tell on the page, where does all that money go?
I'm sorry, but paying good industry level compensation for the whole team is just not what kickstarter should be used for. IMO, Kickstarter should be for small-time indies or really well known and established devs.
 

ArchAngel

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This is from KS comments from one of the devs.
If we could create and show longer gameplay footage we would. We are simply not at that stage in making this game. All of the footage we have released represents pre-production work we did internally to proof out new mechanics and environments beyond what we already made for CONSORTIUM and to learn Unreal 4. We polished it all considerably so that it would *also* work well for pitching to the public for this campaign to raise cash for actual production of the game.
 

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