KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios

[mediocrepoet]

So kind of curious, how did Joe and Hannah become so well-known here? As far as I know, SiTS is as small as they come and not very well-received on the codex. Were they frequent posters at some point in the past?

And as I recall, SitS was coming during a period of relative RPG drought and had most of the right things going for it. Clear tabletop inspiration and dice base, interesting ideas, apparently a passion project with an interesting physical package, etc.

 

[Tyranicon]

It's always a shame to see a small indie stumble, especially since it is an industry that kind of chews people up and spits them out.

Hopefully they'll manage to address most of the bugs, but it seems like there's plenty of fundamental issues that need to be overhauled too.

 

[Mortmal]

So kind of curious, how did Joe and Hannah become so well-known here? As far as I know, SiTS is as small as they come and not very well-received on the codex. Were they frequent posters at some point in the past?

Joe was active here taking feedback and bugs, then it was radio silence for years, no contact during the kickstarter at all. No idea why, possibly too many dick pics in pm . If you read the old threads many codexers were enjoying sits and playing it. But mechajammer, there's only Fluent , the jesus of RPGs he loves them all , who can possibly enjoy that. My experience with it is worse than that RTS review , its missing quite a few horrors.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

December and cyberpunk game releases are not a happy union.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Serpent had many of the gameplay problems that Mechajamner suffers from. Flooded with trash combat with a single strategy to make a joke of all the encounters, healing cocoon and tank. Serpent was however well put together despite the player punishing twist at the end. Mechajammer is falling apart at the seams.

 

[gaussgunner]

It's always a shame to see a small indie stumble, especially since it is an industry that kind of chews people up and spits them out.

Hopefully they'll manage to address most of the bugs, but it seems like there's plenty of fundamental issues that need to be overhauled too.

Yeah, well, Serpent was a stumble, but I had a feeling they'd stumble again. I've seen other indies do this. They make one half-decent RPG that's warmly received in spite of a few glaring flaws. If they had any sense they'd recycle most of it, fix the flaws, and crank out a sequel in a year or two. Instead they cram it full of all their big-brain gamer kid ideas and copy everything gamers hate about Witcher 3. They can't handle all that, so they rethink everything and start over. Pretty soon they're in their 30s and they're realizing their ideas are trash. Back to the drawing board again. And again and again until failure.

Joe and Hannah could possibly land jobs at another game studio but barring a miracle, their indie career is over. Back to the wagie cagie.

 

[Gradenmayer]

We should make a term for this type of development cycle. Let's call it CP77. It's a development approach where, instead of spending a year or two putting the full design of the game on paper, you start shitting out expensive prototypes and use them for marketing. Shortly after, current prototype gets hastily thrown into the garbage and next one goes into development. The cycle repeats, until all the money and time are wasted. Last experimental turd gets put out as a product.

Actually starting to prototype the game early to check if your ideas are valid is a good approach. It's continuous changes of direction and throwing previous work away that are the problem.

Most devs I know use placeholder art/models (royalty free trash from the internet) for prototyping until gameplay mechanics are settled.
Swapping art directions after putting time and money into each one, like these devs did, is a very dumb approach and can be avoided by making the most basic design documents.

 

[wishbonetail]

It is so happens, im browsing SitS thread for a while now, trying to get inspiration for an actual game. It's a brofisting circlejerk fest, like it's a third coming of BG or something.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

RIP: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/mechajammer-review

That reviewer, that Sin Vega woman, obviously didn't spend that much time with the game before writing her "review". Usually you would at least give some comment on the story in a game review but since she doesn't it's apparent that she didn't progress that. She didn't spend enough time with Mechajammer and since she didn't manage to figure the game out she decided to hand in a negative review out of frustration.

She also praises the health regeneration and seems to have a gripe with rats even though rats are epic and should appear in every RPG. I would say that Sin Vega isn't qualified to write game reviews.

 

[ArchAngel]

After playing for 6 hours and giving the game a solid chance in its current state, I can say that RPS review is probably 25% her being an impatient retard, and 75% accurate, which is better than most RPS reviews. What she nails in it is that, regardless of what details she might be missing here and there, the game feels like a prototype more than a proper game. Not only because of the bugs, but because finding actual content in the endless expanse of random mobs battling it out on the street feels like an easter egg rather than a properly implemented part of gameplay.

The systems are half-baked, the combat seems like some absurd abomination created to appease both rogue-like fans and ARPG fans - rather than the tactical combat fans that supported them from the beginning. You can get through any situation by simply knocking your opponent out and walking away while they are passed out. And hell, since there is no experience gained from killing enemies, and rarely any loot worth picking up from their corpses, you're missing almost nothing by doing so. I walked into a random room on the side of the road, and got ambushed by a gang of six thugs that crawled out of some sewer grates behind me. A legitimately cool and hand-placed encounter that was completely trivialized when I knocked them each out one by one, grabbed the loot containers, jumped over their sleeping bodies, and walked away with my health regenerated. This is a character with ZERO skill in melee. And yes, regenerating health goes even further to illegitimize nearly every encounter, or the consequences of said encounter.

I can't fathom how a publisher decided to pick this game up, how they felt comfortable with it being released in this state, how Hannah and Joe could feel good about this releasing in this state, or really how any of this occurred to begin with. I walk away from this game confused and extremely disappointed, and without any hope of it amounting to a solid game someday. I left some feedback in their discord last night, but it was all so obvious that I couldn't help but feel the hopelessness in the effort. If Whalenought survives this, it'll take a lot for me to ever buy another game from them. I'm sorry if you guys are reading this and it is hurtful in any way, but man, what the hell happened?

Reading this all I could think of is: SitS was like that as well.

We bet on their next game being better. It seems they are not capable of that. I gave them 15$ for Copper Dreams, this is also last $ they get from me. I no longer think they are capable of delivering the game we expect from them.

Although I don't mind changing my expectation for this game and now I expect it to be a kind of fun Syndicate Wars type of game.. once it is properly bug fixed and some more QoL is added.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Hello and my first post at the Codex. Sin Vega of RPS is in my view of the best writer and reviewer of indie PC games. I follow her modest reports and enjoyed her recommendations. She normally promotes indie PC even if in a terrible state if she sees potential. Maybe here she struggled to find potential with all the issues. Nevertheless, still hopefull that my dream of backing Copper Dreams will pay off sometime, and wish Whalenaught all the best.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Yeah I've played SitS... It's not all that great past the honymoon period. Thinking it was is historical revision.

 

[Jinn]

Reading this all I could think of is: SitS was like that as well.

This is actually worse than SitS for a number of reasons. Take all the problems I was hoping they'd fix from SitS and somehow make them worse. Throw all that in with a combat system that is also worse and lacking in challenge completely, and you've got this. The world is interesting, but the miniscule amount that was revealed to me in a meaningful way in 6 hours of play was not enough for me to hang on, whereas I completed SitS and had a reasonably entertaining time throughout.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Hello and my first post at the Codex. Sin Vega of RPS is in my view of the best writer and reviewer of indie PC games. I follow her modest reports and enjoyed her recommendations. She normally promotes indie PC even if in a terrible state if she sees potential. Maybe here she struggled to find potential with all the issues. Nevertheless, still hopefull that my dream of backing Copper Dreams will pay off sometime, and wish Whalenaught all the best.

I dunno anything about this bitch but her name sounds like a highly demanded stripper in a Spanish Harlem dive.

 

[almondblight]

Specifically, I thought the beta that was out around October 2020 (page 108-ish of this thread) had promise

This one?



It seems to still have cybernetics. But I think the alpha I posted earlier from five years ago still looks the most promising:



Here's some more footage of it:



There's even more footage in the Kickstarter video.

Always hard to tell how far along a game is from videos, but they seemed to have at least a decent base developed. It's too bad that instead of refining the engine and creating content, everything seems to have been scrapped and another game made. Seriously, watch the Kickstarter video and read the Kickstarter pitch, and compare it to what was released with Mechajammer. If you showed those to people, they'd have no idea the games were related at all.

 

[buffalo bill]

Specifically, I thought the beta that was out around October 2020 (page 108-ish of this thread) had promise

This one?

Nope. I may be getting the month wrong tbh

 

[don_tomaso]

Hello and my first post at the Codex. Sin Vega of RPS is in my view of the best writer and reviewer of indie PC games. I follow her modest reports and enjoyed her recommendations. She normally promotes indie PC even if in a terrible state if she sees potential. Maybe here she struggled to find potential with all the issues. Nevertheless, still hopefull that my dream of backing Copper Dreams will pay off sometime, and wish Whalenaught all the best.

Agree with this, she´s one of few who feels like she fits with the rps of old.

 

[PEACH]

In 2016 they allegedly had the entire ruleset finished and systems implemented if the Kickstarter is to be believed.

All they had to do was stay on track and they would've come up with something better than we got. It might not have been great, but it wouldn't be a directionless mess cobbled from countless kneejerk changes and alterations either.

 

[HoboForEternity]

This is one of the saddest game development tale ever. It makes me think thrice to support their future endeavors too. Maybe they will channel their talent better under someone.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

You know what the cause of all this is?

Pillow talk.

Imagine laying there and your wife goes, "You know I was thinking..." probably the scariest words uttered to a man. I'm fuckin'... I'm callin' it out... I'm blamin' Hannah, baby. I think she's to blame. She had ONE job and that was provide lemonade in lingerie, but no, she thought she was bigger than the business and look where we are now.

thinks hard while taking a drag of his cigarette

Look where we are now.

 

[undecaf]

Sin Vega

Sin Vega?

Is she a porn actress, or are game reviews now considered artsy enough to warrant flashy stagenames for their writers?


Anyway… I was just about buy the game, but it seems like a handful of patches are needed before that.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Bought it. Haven't had time to play it yet.

 

[Ninjerk]

Looks like they released 1.01 yesterday. Judgement forthcoming.

 

[toro]

The Steam reviews are hilarious.

Man, this game looked super cool and I REALLY wanted to like it, but the bugs and difficulty basically make it next to unplayable right now.

Tried going through the tutorial twice, got soft-locked in combat on the first attempt, then on the second, my robot buddies with guns all decided to just freeze up and stop working as combat started, and I got swarmed and killed by the enemies. Well screw it, I'll just start the game proper and roll a character.

Did something like Trooper/Recon for my careers and took PTSD and Exhausted for my disadvantages. After the opening scene, exhausted kicks in as soon as I take three steps and my character falls unconscious. Waiting doesn't work to advance the timer on the stun, so I'm basically stuck and have to reload. Next attempt, I'm able to explore a bit. I'm kind of just messing around with random stuff, checking out rooms, looting junk, etc., but then my dude shoots a signpost that I misclicked on. PTSD activates (from shooting an inanimate object?), so he panics and starts running around the whole map randomly, aggroing a swarm of teenage mutant murder weasels or something, which then just kill my character because PTSD never shuts off and gives a chance to actually fight back.

Not gonna refund because it's like 20 bucks and I wanna support my indie folks. Devs, this game looks cool as hell, but please fix the above shenanigans so I can actually play the damn thing.

 

[Ninjerk]

The character creation is a bit more coherent. When choosing jobs, the information panel now displays pip bonuses you may receive if you choose to take a disadvantage from said job (if you choose flawless, you get nothing). There appear to be some bonuses when choosing the job that are not subject to the disadvantages, e.g. Syndicate Vendors get 10% less on merchant transactions (I chose this to attempt to negate the "Naive" disadvantage from a previous occupation). The pips are reflected on the character sheet.