About Gamedecverse #5: Everyday life in the 22nd century [Part II]
Last time we presented an article about everyday life that covered Social Media, Privacy, and what a typical day of 22nd century Warsaw City looks like, and now, it's time for some fun stuff - weddings!
We know that the cities are closed, and nature is dangerous, but modern problems come with current solutions. People play in sensory worlds, so a big no-brainer is that some would like to get married the same way. We've prepared a piece on that topic, so you can better understand the trends and customs of Gamedecverse. Enjoy!
Weddings
After the Pharma Nanolabs company introduced ways to overcome the limitations of brain and body to the market and humanity embarked on the fragrant road to immortality, questions began to be asked about the wisdom of "lifelong" weddings. Starting with celebrities, people began to return to the pagan custom of temporary marriages (e.g., for one year). But one step at a time: how do you get married in the GamedecVerse, and where do you spend your honeymoon?
Wedding ceremony
In the GamedecVerse, an entire relationship can be entered into only virtually, for example, in Paradise Beach, with an NPC, and entirely virtual children can be born from this union.
A virtual union can also be entered into by an organic man with an organic woman (gay and lesbian couples can also enter into such relationships) and decide to have only virtual children.
A virtual relationship can be combined with a real relationship. Virtual children are "fathered" independently of real children (if the couple chooses to have real children).
Generally, there are three options regarding the wedding and the marriage.
Virtual Wedding
The cheapest and by far the most attractive in terms of spectacle. Guests don't have to leave or come anywhere because they sit in their apartments. They lie down on their beds. After a while, they are in a fairy-tale setting of a fairy-tale wedding. Only imagination sets the limits (although so does your wallet. Organizers of virtual weddings make you pay for every extra set of fireworks, decorations, rays, etc.). Wedding venues are usually located in extremely spectacular places: on hanging rocks, mountain tops, cosmic asteroids, and often these are dynamic (more expensive) locations: space stations speeding through flaming meteorites, basalt pillars rising to infinity, etc.
Guests hand "envelopes" to the bride and groom, which are automatic wire transfers to the newlyweds' account. After passing through a line of dragons / saluting giants / stargate-type rings, everyone sits down behind tables (sometimes these tables float in the air) and consumes unrealistic but delicious dishes. Then they get drunk and dance until they drop. Such a wedding can last for two and three days. It is recommended not to exceed this time because drinking and eating, although virtual dishes, over-stimulates the autonomic nervous system, promoting more intense work of the intestines and secretion of urine into the bladder.
The memories and pholos of such events are unforgettable, and those who attend cannot wonder why others choose weddings hooked on the real thing.
The moment of getting up from the bed can indeed be disappointing, but the custom is that the newlyweds lie on the bed next to each other (hence the tradition that if there is only one bed in the groom's or bride's place, another one should be bought before the wedding).
Augmented Reality Wedding
The most expensive and the most exclusive kind of wedding. If you want to show the world that you're rich and fabulous, throw your kid an "augmented" wedding. Your kid will love you, your friends will hate you (out of envy), and the world will comment. The rule for such a wedding is one: no guests are allowed without glasses/lenses, and everyone must have a program uploaded, [for example "Wendy & Jack Happy Wedding Day (It's today! Hooooray!)"] before leaving home and traveling to the wedding venue.
Weddings are generally held outdoors (in a regulated poly climate, there is no risk of rain, unless we're talking about a thunderstorm holiday), on wedding walking platforms (these are special platforms. Some of them - the cheapest - also run on regular days, but their layout is adapted to weddings and receptions). Dedicated Wedding Walking Platforms look like something taken out of a fairy tale: castles, palaces, as if flying fragments of amusement parks, but decorated relatively tastefully. For the time of the wedding, such a platform usually leaves the center of the polis and flies to the perimeter, outside the ring of ropes, to provide guests with more freedom and (relative) silence. Sometimes it flies far from the city, but this is rather when the newlyweds' parents have a lot of money.
During the ceremony, guests see the real thing, complete with virtual decorations (moving sculptures), colors (rays from the sky), sounds (heavenly choirs), and people/creatures (flying angels, birds, dragons, etc.). The guests themselves are also "decorated" virtually, according to the rules of the wedding so that they can be dressed in gold (although in reality, they are wearing other colors), they can have feathers stuck in their heads, colorful sheets, veils, etc. can follow them. Of course, the food at such receptions is real, which doesn't mean that its color or smell isn't augmented. The custom is that anyone of the uninvited guests who comes within 500 yards of the celebration is offered to upload a program so they can see the true splendor of the festival. In many cases, onlookers are blocked from shooting pholos of such an event, which is somewhat understandable.
No augmentations Wedding
For snobs and connoisseurs of reality and for those who generally don't give a damn about anything.
How does it look? A celebration like today: a hotel for lovers somewhere within the anti-bios barriers, many of which are located on the perimeter of a glade just above the treetops, vodka, cucumber, borscht, and tartar. The place is decorated richly and tastefully with garlands. If you can afford it - a player playing on the omnichord (a virtual device that listens to the musician's intentions). Omnichord operator can create live music consisting of multiple soundtracks, where melody and harmony are arranged according to his intentions. If someone can't afford it, we recommend a digital muse. Okay, that was the inferior version of a no augmentation option.
For the snobs: the ceremonies are so sublime and sophisticated that regular mortals can only admire them on pholos in gossip magazines. Where are the palaces where the guests are entertained? Do they fly over Florida? Are they pummeling the waves of the Pacific? They probably do. Don't strain yourself looking for answers. This is the world of the biggest celebrities, and until you make your first ten million, you have no chance of joining their ranks.
Tech weddings
During these weddings, only the bride and groom and the priest are equipped with G-Pods. The other participants do not have these devices on their heads because an overly intense experience of the presence of Allah would draw their attention away from the bride and groom. On the other hand, the bride and groom feel very clearly that Allah / Yahweh / Christ / Buddha / Shiva / Brahma / Vishnu / Thor / Odin, etc., are participating in the marrying with the other person.
First Night
The most popular wedding night option is the "Low G night" offered by many specially designed hotels and suites that are always present near the wedding, whether the couple is getting married in real or virtual reality. The bride and groom indulge in the pleasures of the alcove in conditions of gravity lowered by half (sometimes more, sometimes less), often in augmented reality, assisted by specially created floating couches, supporting legs, loins, arms, whatever the lovers can think of. "SexCoach" couches have their own AI system, thanks to which they adjust themselves to the bodies of lovers, making the wedding night an unforgettable experience. So unforgettable that many couples decide to buy SexCoach permanently, and they are expensive.
If the bride and groom who have had a virtual wedding decide to have virtual sex, they can choose their custom skins. What is worth remembering is that basic devitalization does not disable sexual function, so any emotions you might typically feel in the game will be transferred to realium. The rule is that after having virtual sex, the couple does not have actual sex because the cognitive shock could be too great (this is related to organophobia – one of the "gaming diseases"). Some couples make love for years only in the virtual environment.
Honeymoon
The most exclusive option is going to the Moon. The most expensive is Mars. The most popular are other fields, and the tradition of newlyweds is to "fall" with the use of transgrav (heavy, gravity trains). As for the Free Europe area, the station in Paris is trendy. The couple visits the polis and then transgrav "falls" to the chosen exotic location, where they enjoy the time spent together.
How did you like the article? Which wedding would you like to attend?
we will see in 4 months.
Monthly Changelog - April 2021
After a very exhausting March, we knew April wouldn’t be easy. There is no time to waste as we’re entering the last phase before finalizing the locations and cases before the polishing kicks in. What was going on with Gamedec in April? Check it out below!
First and foremost – we are grateful for all of the feedback we have collected from the backer’s build #2 survey — lots of great ideas and reasonable points on making Gamedec even better. We hear you – the UI needs tweaking, and we’re on it!
We have spent a considerable part of April finishing some of the locations, whether about filling them with sounds, animations, or just optimizing the graphics. As you can see below, Twisted & Perverted Virtualium gained a lot of depth when our sound design team added some cool sounds to the build.
While working on the SFX, we wanted to pump up the VFX as well, but it’s not on a location we’re ready to show you because it might contain massive plot spoilers for those who don’t want to know a lot more than they should before starting the proper game in September.
Let’s take a look at how our Gamedec will look in one of its Virtualium costumes.
In terms of new things, we’re working hard on customizing the UI for each of the Virtualias so that you won’t feel dragged out of the immersion. Every virtual world will have its character matched with UI elements, which will supplement the theme & genre as a whole.
Feeling tired? Had a bad day? Hop on one of the couches just like our Gamedec does. But there’s more! New animation will make it smoother and more realistic than you saw in the demo. Want to take a look?
One more thing. We decided to withdraw the free demo. We've heard your feedback and indeed, the threshold to enter the second demo was too high, and the players were thrown into the further part of the story where, without knowledge of the lore and mechanics, the game could be hard to pick up. We have taken your comments to heart and will try to straighten things out.
But don't lose hope because, for the time of certain events, we're going to release an extended version (which was previously released to the Kickstarter backers), with a completely new location to explore and adding additional gameplay time with unique conversations and deductions.
And this concludes our changelog. April was very exciting, and we cannot wait to show you guys what we have planned for May! See you in the next changelog!
The Great Pandemic in the Gamedecverse
Is Gamedecverse a postapocalyptic universe? From a certain point of view – yes. How come? How about not knowing what is the exact date since everything you knew fell apart?
This part of the story takes place around 80 years before the game’s storyline, It was (probably) 2120 when TRID – a Time Recognition Impairment Disease caused by a virus RAC-5 attacked the whole Earth population. The disease symptoms were bizarre, as the virus attacked only particular brain centers - those responsible for time orientation. People affected by the virus ceased to understand what year it was, what was „before,” what will be „after” they stopped understanding those concepts. They lost track of time. The death rate was extremely high in the population of people over 65.
Most historians say the whole fuss was started by Temporist - terrorists, who wanted to destroy the system that ran the world those days. It was they who constructed RAC-5 and spread it around the world. To make things worse, they infected the world wide web with viruses that cracked the computers and destroyed their time measuring programs. They also created a lot of fake monuments, pictures, and souvenirs „from the future.” They put them on the city squares, in workplaces, even in private houses. There were over ten million of them, and they were highly active.
During the pandemic, chaos engulfed the world. Everybody got sick. Even the astronauts on space stations and scientists in oceanic complexes, no one could resist the virus. Factories ceased working, banks got shut, stock exchanges stopped their operations, people got out on the streets, riots started, and blood was shed.
Luckily, after several weeks after the apocalypse, it occurred that the illness is self-limiting. Most of the infected recovered and started to understand the time flow again, although the memory of the past was confused and irreversibly twisted. After the pandemic passed, another problem emerged: nobody knew what year it was. There was no material evidence to state it. Since Temporists produced many fake objects with bizarre dates, there was no way to solve this puzzle, especially that computers were also hacked.
Torkil Aymore by Tomasz Maroński
Suppose you want to understand this problem better. In that case, you should know that an Information Era began in the late ’70s of the 21st century. One of its main pillars was the prohibition of recording information on material carriers. The reasons for this prohibition were varied: first, it was the care of the natural environment, then the conclusion, that there is such an amount of growing faster and faster pile of information, that quicker and quicker got outdated, that writing anything down on material things lost its sense. Everything started to be digital.
That is why 50 years later, after the TRID disease pandemic, there were no trustworthy sources to lean on when trying to establish which year it was.
Only one company – The Tao – created a solution and found the lost time. After thousands of analyses, The Tao programmers stated it was 2120. Or something like that.
Yet, not all agree with official historical statements. Conspiracy theories claim there is something wrong with the time. The great polis could not be built to such enormous sizes just by the end of the 22nd century. Some claim that The Tao (the company changed its name, and it is Way Dao now) shouldn’t have been trusted. And as far as the Temporists are concerned, well, that they never existed.
Who knows what the truth is? And, what is maybe more important, who cares? After the TRID pandemic, the Era of Renewal had come a joyful, colorful time, when people wanted to forget the horrors of RAC-5, death, blood, and loss. They wanted to live again. New fashions were started, new words arose, new names and new surnames. The end of the 22nd century, when our game takes place, is the heir of that time. The year 2120 was a turning point that cut humanity off from the old days. New times have come. The times of individual freedom, freedom of words, fashions, looks, views.
So.. 80 years (or something) have passed since then.
Does it matter what year it is? To you? To anybody?
Dev-Diary: Testing Gamedec isn't easyWe've asked our tireless QA representatives about their heroic job to keep Gamedec free of bugs and how their daily routine looks like. To make it easier to read, let's do it as a Q&A session.
QA Team in this article:
- Marlena Kasińska
- Kacper Byrdziak
- Szymon Misztal
How to test a game with extended branching system? What causes the most difficulty in the whole process?
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SZYMON:
Basically the testing process suffers from the same problems as the production itself. Gamedec is a game genre we don't have much experience with, and then there's the sheer scale of the project. We don't have ready-made and proven solutions at our fingertips. We have to experiment a lot, we often make mistakes, and we change things very often.
Our main problem in QA is that we are at the very end of the production chain, so any changes affect us and force us to adapt. More changes.
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MARLENA:
A lot of changes in a project. A well-tested project requires you to be up to date all the time, and that's not always possible.
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KACPER:
I would say lack of time, but it's a standard issue in gamedev, as well as in other creative industries. I think the biggest problem is the complexity of the branching system mentioned above and keeping the storyline consistent from case to case.
Routine in QA department seems to be one of your biggest enemies. What are the processes to fight it?
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SZYMON:
I don't know of any process to combat it. You can try to nonstop juggle your schedule and the things you work at so that you're constantly dealing with some change. You can also try to escape to another project or change positions. Unfortunately,
QA work is a very repetitive and monotonous job. I myself have a problem with it and my only relief is to move on to the test automation subject in which I am absolutely fresh - but unfortunately for that you need to have proper conditions and... time.
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MARLENA:
This question is a bit related to the mentioned difficulties. A lot of changes in a project is also an advantage because it doesn't allow to get bored for a longer period of time.
If there are repetitive elements it doesn't bother me too much. I like to have a planned time for a few days ahead and I don't mind the routine if it already appears.
Sometimes it happens that I feel bored with testing a particular thing, but I try to think that sooner or later I will finish testing it and I will be able to do something else. If it is not very important at that moment then sometimes I take a break to test something else and I come back to it after some time.
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KACPER:
I try to divide my work into different smaller tasks instead of spending many hours on one big task.
What are your biggest challenges because of the vastness of the game's branching?
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MARLENA:
One of the biggest challenges is checking out all the available branching in interactions. Extensive and sprawling interactions are up to several days of work, and it takes a lot of time to understand how different choices affect each other within not only that particular interaction, but also the other interactions throughout the game.
Mostly I start by looking at the documentation and dialogue structure in Artica and then try to go through all the lines of dialogue in different ways checking that everything makes logical sense, triggers in the right place, allows the player to get the right information and get through the whole dialogue without problems.
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KACPER:
Due to the fact that Gamedec is an rpg game with a non-linear plot, there is a possibility to choose many non-standard paths for passing a given level of the game. With over a dozen different professions to choose from, the player can ultimately go through the game in many different ways, each time choosing different solutions and attitudes towards NPCs.
The difficulty in testing the branching choices results mainly from the number of possible combinations that the game provides. The more branching choices, the more dependencies between them, variables, bluprints, etc. Another challenge is the text itself, which is abundant in Gamedec.
The codex, deduction system, professions and most of all the dialogues provide a huge amount of words, which have to be checked from different angles many times.
And finally - is it true that QA department doesn't play games after their release because they know them by heart?
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MARLENA:
As far as I'm concerned, I mostly do, but it's not entirely because I know them by heart. It's hard for me to look at a game as a casual player rather than a tester. Automatically when you play a game that you've tested, you notice what's wrong, you figure out what might not work and what might look better. It is hard to play such a game just for fun.
Besides, a game that you've tested is usually no longer able to surprise you with anything and the way certain game mechanisms work is no longer a mystery.
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KACPER:
You definitely need a break and some time off from the project but fortunately RPGs are so unique that you can come back to them and try them in many new ways discovered by other players.
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SZYMON:
I don't know if everyone does, but I personally wouldn't play for the very reason stated in the question. But unfortunately not all of us have the pleasure of "choice", because postrelease is another phase of work on the game and in the end someone of us has to play it or test it while putting the final build in the store or while preparing for a patch.
Monthly Changelog - May 2021We've reached the end of May, which can only mean one thing – the monthly changelog is here!
We're entirely focused on getting the game ready for the launch, finishing some UI screens to make it more eye-candy and easier to use. Your feedback was invaluable, so thank you very much for being active on our Discord and Steam community page. Let's get into the news:
Character creation screen and more UI stuff
Since we reached many Kickstarter tiers, one was about adding more playable avatars and skins to the game. To make the process of choosing whom you will play, we've spent a lot of time creating an easy to use, yet great-looking character creation screen. We're not yet ready to show the final outcome, but it will be available in the near future.
New deduction UI
Game localization
We're starting to contact our translation agencies to secure the timing of localizing the game. Since the dialogues and codex descriptions are still a work in progress to assure the highest quality of writing, some parts of the game are ready to translate. Remember, Gamedec will be released in 7 languages: English, Polish, German, Simplified Chinese, Russian, French and Spanish. That's a big undertaking considering the amount of text and languages. Still, we want to make sure most of you will have the possibility to play in your native language.
We are an indie company, and Gamedec is our sweet, little indie gem with a limited budget. The decision of choosing the languages for translation depended on interest (wishlist).
Sound design (music + ambient sounds)
One of the most commented parts of our backer's builds was about the sounds and ambient sounds. We understand that's a crucial part of immersion for many of you, so we decided to hire additional folks to focus entirely on that task. So yeah, we now have our very own Audio & SFX team entirely focused on bringing Gamedec to more audible life.
Save menu
Enriching the virtualias + filling locations with NPCs
Some of the sensory worlds are in the closing stages of development, so it's time to bring some life into them so players will feel engaged in these games, filled with many players and opportunities to interact. You can read more about the creation of our NPCs from one of our previous Dev Diaries: >> Developing a minor NPC<<
Expanding Gamedec encyclopedia for the game
Marcin Przybyłek is a full-time member of our team. Despite being the Author of the entire Gamedecverse, he writes a lot of stuff to fill the codex and help the team understand his world better. When we say a lot, we really mean A LOT. Marcin likes to play with words and expand his thoughts, so a player or a co-worker leaves the conversation with a sensation of being a lot smarter than before. We love you, Marcin, don't you ever change <3
Interactions and outcomes
Conclusion
And that's it! You should really wait for what we prepared to show you in the upcoming three months. We are very excited about the forthcoming release, and we cannot wait to read the first community reviews. We're doing all we can to deliver the best game possible, and your feedback along the way made us assured we're going in the right direction.
Thanks for sticking by, and have a great day!
Not to sound corny, but that just might be you.
I'm sorry but this sounds absolutely retarded. This is the kind of world building I would expect to see in a Japanese light novel, because the concept of common sense is completely alien to their authors.
it's just too stupid to be believable.
Extended demo available to download for limited time!
As a part of the #FutureGamesShow, we've decided to go public with the extended demo available previously only for our Kickstarter Backers.
In this demo, you will have a chance to further investigate the case, entering Yet's bar and... no spoilers! You will have to see it for yourself! We've read your comments about having no intro to the game mechanics, which made some of you confused. Guess what - fixed!
This treat will be available only for a limited time, so don't wait any longer, download it now and let us know what you're thinking!
If you already played the demo and you liked what you saw, consider adding Gamedec to your Steam Wishlist and tell your cyberpunk-pals about it
And as for the dessert, check the montage reel from @gamesradar and let us know if you saw a familiar Gamedec here and there.
Thank you for your attention!
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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!
Gamedec wants you to put more in to get more out
It’s a huge undertaking to make a game that reacts to the player’s actions – that is, as Gamedec’s developer calls it, ‘adaptive’. More so when the main thrust of the title is its story. But that hasn’t stopped Anshar Studios, the Polish team behind the upcoming cyberpunk-themed detective RPG – this aims to be a game where the player’s input can be right, it can be wrong, but it’s always one thing: accepted. How far this translates to getting things entirely wrong in a murder investigation, for example, isn’t completely clear from Gamedec’s early demo released this year.
But there was enough going on in this stylish world of tomorrow to pursue further investigation and find out just what is going into the magic recipe of role-playing mechanics, story focus, and a lack of combat.
The initial idea for Gamedec came from the author of the book series, Marcin Sergiusz Przybyłek, who put the call out for developers who’d be willing to help bring the project to virtual life. “The goals were simple,” explains Mateusz Greloch, community manager at Anshar Studios. “We wanted to ditch the combat and focus on a branching story, detective work, extracting as much data from the environment and interrogations as possible, and then proceeding with a deduction that allows progression in the case.” From the beginning, it seems this was a game being made with patience and thoroughness in mind, rewarding players who take their time to pore over things – almost in a pixel-hunting, point-and-click adventure game style, but far less irritating.
Simultaneously, the aim of the developer has been to make a game that keeps you on your toes – with its adaptive nature, Anshar wants players to question their choices. “Was the decision I made good? Did I support the right part of the conflict? What will be the consequences [of my actions] on this case, and how will it affect my playthrough?” Greloch says. “These are the questions we’re hoping you ask while playing Gamedec. We don’t recommend rushing the game to see the end credits, but we allow players to choose how much of the story they want to unravel before going forward.”
While the desire to make a game that encouraged patience and adapted to your approach was there from the start of development of the RPG, the actual genre of Gamedec wasn’t the same from day one – an adventure game was discussed, or even a collectable card game, though “that didn’t feel right”, according to Greloch. But once the move to a classic computer RPG style was adopted, isometric view and all, development remained focused on that style, and the goals of making a responsive title focused on the player’s input.
Geoffrey Haggis is a wonderful name and more people should be called it
Of course, being open to a player’s individual whims is an approach that makes for… complex situations, let’s say. And it’s something the team has been working hard on, with the direct input of Gamedec’s original author, for a while now. “[Marcin] has fantastic ideas on what and how to introduce to his Gamedec-verse,” says Greloch. “Our designers sit down with him and think about the subplot, NPCs, twists, and interactions. We try to play every case as a pen-and-paper scenario, with different players to emulate the ideas for interactions and dialogue, and then try to implement them into the actual gameplay. This way, our characters feel more human and present various behaviours to cover most communication approaches.
“What is the most challenging is the branching system,” he continues. “It is so extensive that testing all possible options takes tens, if not hundreds, of hours. Branching is complicated, and it is a challenge to maintain such a system throughout the game because the decisions are supposed to influence the whole game, not just another case – that’s why there’s quite a big emphasis on these branches, their refinement, and overall perception.”
Avoiding combat, Gamedec instead relies on dialogue and investigation for the player’s kicks
The big aim, then, is to make a game that progresses regardless of what you do – of what you choose. A game that reacts and responds, that adapts accordingly and shows players – regardless of their experience, age, moral compass, or whatever else – the consequences of their decisions. “Is Gamedec challenging?” Greloch asks. “Only if you want it to be. You can rush the case, make a lousy deduction, and still finish the case. If you spend more time looking for clues, and focus on interrogating, the game will reward you with a more complicated plot and more complex deduction dilemmas. Suddenly, people turn out to be someone different from what you expected, and you must become a real detective to figure out who’s lying and which of the parties is better to be partnered with.”
With such ambition on show, it’s going to be interesting to see if Anshar can pull it all off. Gamedec certainly looks the part, oozing the sort of cyberpunk-ish atmosphere that can be so alluring. Starting out as just a couple of people working on an indie passion project, development is now being handled by around 25 people – designers, artists, writers, and audio designers, with more still being hired even as the announced 16 September release date approaches. “Managing a team of that size is not an easy task,” Greloch says. “We have an experienced team of producers and a clear road map planned, so we are ready for whatever the future brings. We have learned a lot along the way, and let me say, that was an incredible journey with tons of knowledge picked up.
