KickStarter Gamedec - Definitive Edition - cyberpunk detective RPG set in virtual worlds

[Alienman]

Have to say the character artist they have is pretty damn good. Clean colorful characters.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/917720/view/4859919742283648051

Dev Diary: developing a minor NPC
In Gamedec, you are a game detective solving crimes in the virtual worlds. You collect the clues for your investigation using your software deck, professions, and most importantly – your social skills.

With hundreds of NPCs in Gamedec, wouldn't that be great if a player could have a deep, immersive conversation with every character in the game? Even with that somewhat random NPCs just loitering and minding their own business? Then again, some players would feel compelled to talk to everyone in fear of missing out on a hidden quest, a clue, or collectible codex information. That would result in a terrible experience.

This is why we have a mixed bag of NPCs in the game - amongst some complex, heavily branched interactions, there are smaller roles, such as Cowgirl_1, a minor resident of "Harvest Time" - a Wild West-themed, FTP farming multiplayer game you can visit as one of the sensory worlds in Gamedec.

Developing a minor NPC

In the design document for "Case: Harvest Time", Cowgirl_1 was described as a minor NPC, a source of 1-3 clues for the investigation. This limited description gives the designers plenty of creative opportunities. One way to design this interaction would be a simple hub with four dialogue options:

1. Gamedec receives a piece of information along with Clue 1 - no special conditions required.
2. Profession condition - this option is available only to gamedecs with a specific profession, which grants them Clue 2.
3. Branched dialogue: a short exchange with a player decision: one leads to Clue 3, the other results with alternative reward (in this case, Aspect used for character development).
4. Goodbye - conversation end.

Here is a flow of this conversation with some color coding: clues (green), profession condition (orange), choice (yellow), Aspect reward (blue). Such a simple, bare bone design is called "skeletal" and needs to be developed further, even for such a minor NPC as Cowgirl_1.

First, let's call the NPC "Millie" and set up a scene: The player encounters Millie and her horse in a local town center. Since she's not difficult to notice, I decided to drop a few obstacles at the players to prevent them from grabbing precious investigation clues too fast.

At first, Millie will not speak with a gamedec - she is busy with her horse. Instead, she'd only reply, "Don't bother me, can't you see I'm grooming The Princess?". No other conversation will be possible until she is approached again later in the game. This looks good on paper, but our internal tests showed no one would revisit Millie after getting repelled at the first encounter. Apparently, she was too harsh, so her response was modified to "Hi, please, come back later, I'm grooming The Princess now." That small change not only made her appear friendlier, but players would return to her, as intended.

The internal tests also showed that it was relatively easy to get most of Millie's clues, which wasn't fun enough. One more small obstacle had to be implemented to address this issue: Millie only gives the clues if the gamedec wins her trust first. I needed to explore the cowgirl's background a little: horses are her passion, so I started there. In the GamedecVerse, the virtual worlds are practically the only way for people to experience livestock. Millie loves horses and considers herself a horse expert, and she is full of horse-related trivia. But what if all her knowledge comes from games? This is not a plausible scenario, even in our reality. She'd claim that "horses are always awake" (because sleeping horses are not implemented in the game), or "Never come behind a horse… cause horsetail might hit you super hard and even kill!" (probably a game bug in "Harvest Time" that an uneducated player takes for real).

In fact, this exact bug happened to us during the game development. We were tempted to leave it because it was hilarious, but eventually, the bug was fixed.

One way to win Millie's trust would be sharing some weird "horse trivia" collected by examining different horses in Harvest Time. Additionally, if Gamedec owns a horse (you can get one on a playable farm), Millie finds her new horse-buddy and happily shares some gossips (clues).

At this time, I needed to briefly explore who Millie was in her "real life"; perhaps a teenage girl playing "Harvest Time" every waking hour alone in a dark habitat compound, cocooned in her virtual couch. Was she addicted to the game, or maybe there was another reason for her confinement, such as a physical disability? I decided that Millie lost her real arm, a fact that could be reflected in the virtual world: she would occasionally unusually wave her hand. A negligible detail, however a gamedec with a medical profession could take notice of that and discuss the subject with the girl. A sincere conversation with a doctor would surely win Millie's trust, along with a few investigation clues.

Then came a moment of reflection: are there even any disabled people in the Gamedec Verse? I reached out to Marcin Przybyłek, the author of the books and curator of the world consistency. He warned me that I should "hold my horses" as there are hardly any disabled people in his universe thanks to the medical advancements. He added, much to my relief, that the girl might be still recovering from surgery - regrowing a lost limb could be a long and expensive process. The girl's father works day and night to support her treatment, hoping she recovers soon – that's the reason Millie is alone at home. She dives into the virtual world of Harvest Time - a happy, colorful place with horses.

The final interaction turned out a bit more complicated than initially planned. Some color coding for the pic above includes Clues (green), Codex entries (red), Aspect rewards (blue), and Profession condition (orange).

This minor NPC gained some backstory, and while it's not essential to the investigation, it is a vital piece of the world-building. Hello, Cowgirl_1 - you are now Millie from the futuristic Warsaw. See you in the game!

written by: Krzysztof Kurek, Narrative Designer at Anshar Studios.

 

[Sweeper]

But is it better than Cyberpunk 2077? Tentatively, I'm going to say... yes, yes it is, based on the 30 seconds of gameplay footage I saw.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/917720/view/6344981867808929104

The origins of Gamedec the game - PyrkONline 2020 [Part 3]
Our creative director Marcin Rybiński and writer Marcin Sergiusz Przybyłek talked about the beginning of the game's production. They spoke about how to transfer ideas from books to a virtual environment.

This time, we dig deeper into the story branching, interactions, and possibilities that await players in one of the cases. Listen very carefully if you want to spot all the details, possible outcomes, and step-by-step guidance through the complexity of Gamedec.



The video is once again in Polish, but for your convenience, we have added English subtitles.

Video edited for Allegro PyrkONline. You can find more at www.pyrkonline.allegro.pl

 

[Hellion]

A new preview beta build was sent to the press and probably to KS backers as well. Compared to the previous beta, this one features a different mission and a pre-made character with a set background and preallocated skill points.

 

[Matt [Anshar Studios]]

 

[Abu Antar]

https://twitter.com/GamedecTheGame/status/1373997961106100228

https://twitter.com/GamedecTheGame/status/1374360373546131458

Use the media button to embed tweets.

 

[Matt [Anshar Studios]]

Sorry, my forum times reach as far as d2jsp and almost zero media integration :D

 

[Infinitron]

Release date:

Gamedec Cinematic Trailer World Premiere that reveals a new look at the game which is a single-player cyberpunk isometric RPG.

There is a free demo available March 26th and the full game releases on September 16th 2021

In GameDec you are a game detective, who solves crimes inside virtual worlds. Use your wits to gather info from your witnesses and suspects, getting to the bottom of deceptive schemes. The game continually adapts to your decisions and never judges.

 

[Matt [Anshar Studios]]

New demo release dates according to specific time zones. The demo itself is not time-limited, so you can wander as much as you want. Demo availability won't end until the game reaches its release on the 16th of September.

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/917720/view/3001060096218851686

NEW DEMO available today! Check time zones for specific download hour.

Hi guys! We've decided to share a new, public demo. This build is the newest, and it won't be taken down until the full game will debut in September. Enjoy it when you feel most convenient.

What's new?
New locations and a new case
NPC avatars
Female gamedec model
Improved VFX, and SFX
Better notifications
Many fixes and quality of life improvements

In this demo, you will walk the streets of 22nd century Low City, so it's completely different than the one you had a chance to play before. We don't want to spoil too much, so let us share the time-zones table below and encourage you to share the feedback about this demo in a special section in our community-hub - DEMO FEEDBACK.



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If you'd like to talk with our team members, want to ask a question to the Author of the Gamedecverse (Marcin S. Przybyłek), or chat with enthusiasts like you - join our Discord channel.



Stay safe!

#TeamGamedec

 

[Infinitron]

Demo is out, on GOG too: https://af.gog.com/game/gamedec_demo?as=1649904300

Official version of trailer:

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/embargoed-this-new-cyberpunk-rpg-lets-you-solve-crimes-in-virtual-worlds/

This new cyberpunk RPG lets you solve crimes in virtual worlds
Become a VR sleuth in Gamedec.

This tabletop-inspired isometric RPG has a neat premise. You're a private detective hired to solve cases in virtual worlds. A game detective, if you will. You know, a... gamedec? Yeah, it's a terrible name, but the concept of diving into simulated worlds and solving crimes is a strong one. Set in Warsaw in the 22nd Century, VR has become so convincing that people rarely spend time in the increasingly grim, dystopian real world. And who can blame them? In this dark cyberpunk future, life sucks, which has contributed to the sheer popularity of VR.

But the problem with spending all day hanging out in virtual worlds where there are no real consequences is that it tends to bring out the worst in humanity. I mean, play any popular online game today for more than ten minutes and this isn't hard to imagine. And as a result, crime has become an issue in these VR worlds, to the point where cybercops like you have to be brought in. You create your own detective, using abilities and professions to determine what kind of sleuth you'll be, although I've yet to get a sense of how deep this actually is.

According to the lore, gamedecs are also experts at the VR games they investigate, which means they're kinda like a crossover between an esports pro and a private detective. Some of the crimes you investigate happen on the very real, very rain-soaked streets of Warsaw, but you'll also be able to venture into virtual worlds too. These include a seedy 21st Century city where people role-play, GTA-style, as criminals, or a romanticised feudal Japan where players can pretend to be ninja and samurai. It's kinda like Westworld minus the robots.

I played a demo of Gamedec, set in a tiny, closed off crime scene somewhere in the depths of Neo Warsaw. It presents only a miniscule fraction of what the final game will offer, with a lot of dialogue options, decisions, and menus locked off. But I did get a bit of a taste of the game's detective systems. A man with a pair of holographic bat wings is lying dead on the rain-slicked pavement, seemingly shot out of the sky by an automated drone the city uses to kill vermin. But come on, I've read enough detective stories to know that something else is up.

Refreshingly, there's no combat—although you can still die, albeit temporarily until whichever VR world you're in respawns you. This is a game about conversations, investigation, and piecing together clues to paint a picture of the truth. I get a sense of this as I explore the crime scene, interrogating witnesses, hacking CCTV cameras and drones, and using my detective skills—in the form of RPG dice rolls—to root out hidden clues. These clues are then added to a codex that you can access, linking them together to make deductions.

I don't know if Anshar Studios, Gamedec's developer, is a fan of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, but the deduction system is very similar. You're given several conclusions, and must create a path towards the correct one (or what you think is the correct one) by linking clues to it. Sherlock was great because you could easily draw faulty conclusions and pin the crime on the wrong person, and I wonder if we'll see something similar here. The developer says the game "never judges" your choices, which makes me think it might.

As I explore the crime scene I learn a few things that add weight to the theory that the victim was shot down by one of those anti-vermin drones. Apparently giant fruit bats are a problem here, and it seems the drone may have mistaken the dead man for one as he fell from above with those wings on. But why was he falling through the air in the first place? And why was he wearing holographic wings? The best detective stories throw up a lot of intriguing questions, and Gamedec does a decent job of making me want to find answers to them.

This involves quizzing people, including a robot, loitering around the crime scene. And, of course, a lot of hacking—which in this demo involves little more than standing and watching a meter fill. I'm not the biggest fan of hacking minigames, but I'd like a little more to do than just stand there. A cop I meet doesn't seem to be a fan of gamedecs, so I have to appeal to his ego by telling him how great he is to get access to the drone. These conversation options are determined by your stats, although I didn't get a chance to experiment with this.

As a fan of detective games, in theory I should be pretty excited about Gamedec. But I'm not there yet. The investigation mechanics are sound, but the writing is not great—especially after being spoiled by Disco Elysium. It feels flat and amateurish, and the future slang (gamedec being a prime example) comes across very forced—in the same way everyone calling you 'choom' in Cyberpunk 2077 does. A non-combat RPG relies on quality writing, but Gamedec's script isn't working for me yet. I hope the finished game does a better job.

I want Gamedec to succeed, because Disco Elysium proved that you don't need turn-based battles to make a compelling RPG. Gamedec seems to be carrying that torch—or at least attempting to—by letting you talk your way out of problems. Of course, for any detective game, it all really boils down to the quality of the cases. If Anshar can create compelling mysteries with satisfying solutions, it might just make up for the game's other shortcomings. I guess we'll find out when the game is released on September 16.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Tried playing the demo, but it doesn't support Windows 7

 

[StaticSpine]

Man, that demo is 15 Gigs on Steam...

 

[Beowulf]

Does this demo again has some strict time limit instead of being a slice of the game?

 

[Matt [Anshar Studios]]

Does this demo again has some strict time limit instead of being a slice of the game?

It's not time-limited. The demo will end when you reach a certain point.

 

[hell bovine]

Does this demo again has some strict time limit instead of being a slice of the game?

It's not time-limited. The demo will end when you reach a certain point.

What is that point? Because when I chose the 'search the bar option', the game quit.

 

[Hellion]

Searching the bar worked normally for me, you can enter and pursue your leads at will up to a point. "Return to Apartment" is the option that ends the demo.

 

[Matt [Anshar Studios]]

Backers have access to the bar scene as well, the free demo on Steam/GOG ends when your character goes to the bar.

 

[hell bovine]

Backers have access to the bar scene as well, the free demo on Steam/GOG ends when your character goes to the bar.

Yep, that is how my run ended. It is fine to restrict it to a small area (though I'd expect more from a 9 GB download), but then showcase all the options available there. As it is, my character was just stumbling through locked/not there yet content to find the few available options. Tbh, it doesn't do a good job of advertising the game.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/917720/view/3001060096233718412

Monthly Changelog - March 2021

What a great time to be a Gamedec fan! March was one heck of a ride with a CGI trailer made almost entirely in-house [kudos to Tomasz Bentkowski!] and the second demo's release. But that's not all – let's recap what we've done in the past month.

New Public Demo
This task was the top priority for our Gamedec Team. We promised a new bit of story to our fans and backers, and we delivered it without any delays. The free demo available on Steam will take you to the streets of Low City, where a mysterious murder has to be examined. The demo is not time-limited, but it will end when you reach a certain point of the case. If you're a Kickstarter Backer, you will get access to an extended version of the demo, where another location will be available – a bar ran by no other than Old Yet, a military veteran.

Even if you already saw these two locations before, they were slightly redesigned and went a complete lighting and VFX retouch. I mean, have you seen the rain in Low City? The neons on buildings? Try talking to Sgt. Brut if you're not afraid! The demo is available on Steam:



f you already played the demo, be sure to share your thoughts on either Discord or Steam discussion boards, where we lurk in the shadows and note everything for the glory of our bright-minded designers and always hungry QA team members.

Spoiler

CGI Trailer
We wanted a CGI trailer. We felt that Gamedec deserves it to tell a story and intrigue those who didn't know about the game yet. Fortunately, our very own Tomasz Bentkowski mesmerized us with his usage of the Unreal Engine. With a bit of help from Quixel tools, he created astonishing and climatic environments we couldn't wait to share with you guys. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a direct link:

From the gamedec's apartment through various virtual worlds, we tried to explain what a gamedec profession is.

Editing & Animation:
Tomasz Bentkowski & Mateusz Cios
Music:
Marcin Przybyłowicz
SFX and Mastering:
Przemyslaw Laszczyk
End-Screen Animation:
Radikal Studio
VO:
John Q Kubin

Did you like it? What do you guys think?

Release Date
The abovementioned trailer debuted on the Future Games Show 2021 and contained one huge reveal – a release date. That's right, Gamedec will hit the virtual shelves on the

> 16th of September, 2021<

That's less than six months from today. No pressure, guys, no pressure at all

New Avatars and adjusting animations
We've spent some time with our concept artists and made avatars for major and minor NPCs. Their hard work can be seen during dialogues and in the Codex. It's always better to see the character, to visualize it. That fulfills the need to match the name and image together, creating a better context. At the same time, we had to adjust some animations for the in-game 3D models because, you know, there is always room for animation improvements, especially when you change the main character model for a female this time. You have to make sure that the animations match the body type and won't look clunky.

Preparing models for a new minigame
This one will have to remain a mystery. No one likes spoilers, especially in a story-driven game. Patience, young padawan, the time will come.

Improving NPC evasion system
While working, we've noticed that some NPCs liked to bump into each other and cause some disturbance intentionally. We've spent some time polishing the paths and teaching them how to walk without making too much trouble, so they won't be these weird peeps who never know how to behave on a crowded street. It may sound easy, but it's something immersive-breaking, and we had to take care of it for the sake of everyone who was triggered by it—your welcome, people of 22nd century Warsaw City.

There's more, but we tried to focus on the most critical aspects of our work and leave something behind the curtain. It was a challenging month for everyone in our studio, but once again, we proved ourselves to be working well, even with an inevitable deadline.

Go #TeamGamedec!

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/917720/announcements/detail/3092259257868524803

Gamedec @ The PAX Indie Showcase [10.04.2021]

The PAX Indie Showcase starts on April 10th at 12:00 PM PT. See playthroughs of great games live on their Twitch and visit Discord for an opportunity to join the conversation in exclusive Q&As! Link for Discord will be submitted soon!


Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/PAX

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If you'd like to talk with our team members, want to ask a question to the Author of the Gamedecverse (Marcin S. Przybyłek), or chat with enthusiasts like you - join our Discord channel.



Stay safe!

 

[Infinitron]

The Gamedec Q&A has started on that Discord channel.