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KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
I considered the notion, but man..., I'm not exactly known for brevity. It would likely end up being as long as the Mahābhārata if written in cuneiform script. But I'll try; maybe if I keep only the truly vital parts, it'll be more digestible.
Nothing worse than a nugget of pure gold sank somewhere in a lake of steaming shit.
Uh. You might be onto something there. That would serve to explain why the player character can't so much as try to target the Copperheads (well, actually the game calls them Copper Face, but I prefer Copperhead).
Anyhow, here's a bit of progress. I won't put it in spoiler since it doesn't seem to bother AdolfSatan and Saduj; and besides, I won't write down the actual solutions to the puzzles, which I suspect might change from playthrough to playthrough anyway, as do the computes codes as well's those for the taxi system.
It turns out I had missed something in the Temple of the Faith—because everything in this game is muddled and imprecise, and there is no key to highlight interactable item:
Excitment, baby! And, in the vicinity of this head-containing jar, can be found an interesting note offers information anent the dealings between the Faith and the Mayflower Initiative:
Moreover there lay on little shelves six disks each labeled with a color. Those can be used as such:
As to what to do next: I suppose this immortal head serves only to feed me the sounds required to solve the voice puzzle on Dome Six Island, which will doutlessly be converted in one way or another into a numerical value, eventually allowing me to operate the shaft elevator I had discovered below a scrapyard since said elevator, upon being interacted with, indicates "Initiating Translation Program" and only accepts numbers as inputs. Below that, in the bowels of Calitana, must be the Copperhead lab I've been questing after this whole miserable time.
Hopefully, I'll be done imminently and can put this whole ordeal behind me—save for, probably, a solid attempt at aggregating some form of palatable review, as well's gameplay advice aimed at anyone foolish enough to give this game a serious try.
Oh glory be! for I have become the master of puzzles and numbers. (I mean, I'm a moron but for once I managed on my own, so that's nice)
After inputing a sequence of 20 numbers—53741783174561685374, but I suspect it changes from playthrough to playthrough—the code matched!
And down below:
After inputing a sequence of 20 numbers—53741783174561685374, but I suspect it changes from playthrough to playthrough—the code matched!
And down below:
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And I've reached the ending.
Just in case a lurker might be reading and does want the smidge of satisfaction can be reaped by figuring the code out for oneself (given that it's the only real pleasure I've derived from this game), I'll write how to come to its solution in a spoiler.
All in all, I'd say that Whalenought could proffer some serious puzzle-making lesson to the dumbasses at Owlcat who worked on Nenio's puzzles in Wrath Of The Righteous.
As for the short spoilerful rest, here it follows.
In this video you'll see me inputing the code to the final elevator. Man was that a satisfying moment for my retarded self! Tell you what: that's gonna go on my résumé. (apologies for the unnecessary pause between each set of four numbers, but I needed to check my notes):
Below, there is... well... not much to see actually. Given that i could feel the end coming, and knowing full well I'll never replay this game, I decide to finally try and hire what allies I've made along the way. This forces me to dismiss a number of my drones (max number of followers and all that), and, as expected, the whole affair comes with its fair share of bugs.
So with my new guys in tow, I go west. And find naught but a huge empty area:
Also can be seen on that screenshot: the fact that when I called for reinforcements from the Temps, the Cyberfreaks, and the Scavengers, I received men from the Temps, the Cyberfreaks, and... the Fishmongers. The Fishmongers; you know, the guys I've destroyed down to the last man? Yeah. I suspect Whalenought have mistaken game development and cookery, since their whole game runs on spaghetti-code.
So I go back to the entrance, and go the only possible other way: north. I murder a couple of Mayflower Initiative's soldiers (incendiary ammo galore on their part), then find a lab and some scientists:
But what's that, lay tentatively on the tables?
Score!
At this point I briefly debated with myself the possibility of trekking back to Sullivan's place, to give him the good stuff. But I'll be honest and say I hate this game with a passion goes behind simple hate, and I couldn't wait to be done. Retrospectively, I'm glad I didn't succumb to go meet Sullivan, as I suspect he would not have acknowledged my possessing a Copperhead's head, or it would have outright broken the game.
Then, a revelation. I was entirely wrong about the floating things in Calitana being Copperheads. As it turns out, they're just scanners from the Mayflower Initiative. Too bad; I really liked the idea of powerful psionic weapons being already deployed throughout the city, only waiting for full activation of their capabilities.
So, what's a Copperhead? Well, that is a Copperhead:
And while not invincible per se contrarily to what Sullivan had claimed, these are some damnably resilient mofos.
Notice that, again for some ungodly reason of what-the-fuck-kinda-code-did-they-write, the Copperhead drops Three Hand Harry's Key. Three Hand Harry being the very first boss you face, less than an hour after the game's beginning, in order to lower the bridges. Six or seven years of development went into this...
Then, well, there was not much else to the place, really. There was a room positively a-crawl with scientists who, evidently, gave not a single shit about the fact that I was oblitering the guards:
One of the two big computers in this room opens a big door, which leads to an overly long flight of corridors winding their way ever up and up, towards the ending.
As for the ending in question, here it is in the next video:
I was on the verge of losing my mind, because I had to replay and record that part eleven times. Eleven. It felt like a sick joke. The first time, Franklin was nowhere to be seen. The second time, Sullivan did not drop his key. The other times were a mix of the game lagging massively, or the conversation with Pelican hanging indefinitely, or the ending 'cinematic' playing with the looping sound of a gun firing in the background, or, once, the game outright crashing to desktop.
The only reason I did it is because, as far as I can see, the ending is nowhere to be seen on the internet. So, now, if somebody struggles with the game as I did and decides to say, "Fuck it; I'll look for the ending on Youtube," they'll be able to.
And with that, there are about another 200 screenshots or short videos of various bugs sitting on my computer.
As well, a few things I don't have answer to.
1) What was the point of the Rope items? I never found a use for them.
2) What was the point of the Arms Guild Jammer provided by Barry, that was supposed to counteract psionic waves? Tried and tried, but couldn't find how or where to use it.
3) What was the point of the Dog Tags? Was someone supposed to react differently, should they encounter me wearing them?
4) What was the point of the Evangelists, who take you away for 12 hours at a time, to dig in the soil? I supposed I come out of this afflicted with some manner of mutation (as is suggested by Three Hand Harry in the beginning of the game). So does this affect the recruitment by Quinton Industries, who refuse to hire anyone with traces of mutation?
Etc, etc...
Perhaps more importantly, what the hell was the point of me wasting a few days on this game? I know a bottle of whisky that will serve me well tonight.
Just in case a lurker might be reading and does want the smidge of satisfaction can be reaped by figuring the code out for oneself (given that it's the only real pleasure I've derived from this game), I'll write how to come to its solution in a spoiler.
Disclaimer: since the computer codes and passwords and the taxi numbers seem to change from playthrough to playthrough, perhaps it is likewise for the colors and voices samples. I don't know if there's only one set every player will see, or if it's different every time.
Begin by feeding—so to speak—the colored cartridges to the preserved head of the Quarryman in the Temple Of The Faith. I would suggest to either record a short clip with audio while you do this, so you can clearly re-hear them at will; or scribe down what the spoken syllables sound like to your ear. For example this is what I wrote on my notepad:
Orange — Yo-al (because the garbles produced by the Quarryman sounds to me like someone saying yo-al; keeping in mind that I'm french-speaking first an foremost so it might color the way I write what sounds I perceive)
Green — Eh-eh-aï
Yellow — Ya-oh-eh
Blue — Mé-ah-ah
Purple — Al-ah
Red — Bé-ah-oh-oï
Strong with this aural knowledge imparted to you by the remnants of a lobotomized forced laborer elevated to a figure of godhood, make your way to Dome Six Island, where the computers are located.
Once there, take a look at the Colored Sketch you found in the Gershwein Estates; it should be a series of blots, each being a single color. In my case, five blots, respectively Green - Red - Orange - Blue - Green.
Now, activate a computer—doesn't matter which one as there is no puzzle proper here, it's only the last piece of a big one. It will emit a voice sample, which you should be able to identify correspondingly with one of the Quarryman's garbles. For example, in my game, the first computer starting from the left sounded like it said Eh-eh-aï, which corresponds to what the Quarryman said when I fed him the green cartridge, meaning the first computer says 'green'.
On the computer's screen, you'll see little blue squares. Count the number of squares that constitute each of the four on-screen vertical rows. For example, in my game, it was 5 - 3 - 7 - 4 squares. Write that number down.
This is what it looked like in my game:
Continue by associating each color that figures on Gershwein's Colored Sketch with the corresponding voice sample produced by the computer, and dutifully note how many little blue squares make the four rows of each voice sample.
In my game, green was 5374, red was 1783, orange was 1745, blue was 6168. Thus, since Gershwein's Colored Sketch was blots of green - red - orange - blue - green, my code was 53741783174561685374. Purple and yellow were unused, and two computers voiced unnamed colors.
Then you simply have to go to the underground elevator found by searching about Calitana with the Psionic Detector in your inventory, and input this string of numbers into the elevator pad.
Begin by feeding—so to speak—the colored cartridges to the preserved head of the Quarryman in the Temple Of The Faith. I would suggest to either record a short clip with audio while you do this, so you can clearly re-hear them at will; or scribe down what the spoken syllables sound like to your ear. For example this is what I wrote on my notepad:
Orange — Yo-al (because the garbles produced by the Quarryman sounds to me like someone saying yo-al; keeping in mind that I'm french-speaking first an foremost so it might color the way I write what sounds I perceive)
Green — Eh-eh-aï
Yellow — Ya-oh-eh
Blue — Mé-ah-ah
Purple — Al-ah
Red — Bé-ah-oh-oï
Strong with this aural knowledge imparted to you by the remnants of a lobotomized forced laborer elevated to a figure of godhood, make your way to Dome Six Island, where the computers are located.
Once there, take a look at the Colored Sketch you found in the Gershwein Estates; it should be a series of blots, each being a single color. In my case, five blots, respectively Green - Red - Orange - Blue - Green.
Now, activate a computer—doesn't matter which one as there is no puzzle proper here, it's only the last piece of a big one. It will emit a voice sample, which you should be able to identify correspondingly with one of the Quarryman's garbles. For example, in my game, the first computer starting from the left sounded like it said Eh-eh-aï, which corresponds to what the Quarryman said when I fed him the green cartridge, meaning the first computer says 'green'.
On the computer's screen, you'll see little blue squares. Count the number of squares that constitute each of the four on-screen vertical rows. For example, in my game, it was 5 - 3 - 7 - 4 squares. Write that number down.
This is what it looked like in my game:
Continue by associating each color that figures on Gershwein's Colored Sketch with the corresponding voice sample produced by the computer, and dutifully note how many little blue squares make the four rows of each voice sample.
In my game, green was 5374, red was 1783, orange was 1745, blue was 6168. Thus, since Gershwein's Colored Sketch was blots of green - red - orange - blue - green, my code was 53741783174561685374. Purple and yellow were unused, and two computers voiced unnamed colors.
Then you simply have to go to the underground elevator found by searching about Calitana with the Psionic Detector in your inventory, and input this string of numbers into the elevator pad.
All in all, I'd say that Whalenought could proffer some serious puzzle-making lesson to the dumbasses at Owlcat who worked on Nenio's puzzles in Wrath Of The Righteous.
As for the short spoilerful rest, here it follows.
In this video you'll see me inputing the code to the final elevator. Man was that a satisfying moment for my retarded self! Tell you what: that's gonna go on my résumé. (apologies for the unnecessary pause between each set of four numbers, but I needed to check my notes):
Below, there is... well... not much to see actually. Given that i could feel the end coming, and knowing full well I'll never replay this game, I decide to finally try and hire what allies I've made along the way. This forces me to dismiss a number of my drones (max number of followers and all that), and, as expected, the whole affair comes with its fair share of bugs.
So with my new guys in tow, I go west. And find naught but a huge empty area:
Also can be seen on that screenshot: the fact that when I called for reinforcements from the Temps, the Cyberfreaks, and the Scavengers, I received men from the Temps, the Cyberfreaks, and... the Fishmongers. The Fishmongers; you know, the guys I've destroyed down to the last man? Yeah. I suspect Whalenought have mistaken game development and cookery, since their whole game runs on spaghetti-code.
So I go back to the entrance, and go the only possible other way: north. I murder a couple of Mayflower Initiative's soldiers (incendiary ammo galore on their part), then find a lab and some scientists:
But what's that, lay tentatively on the tables?
Score!
At this point I briefly debated with myself the possibility of trekking back to Sullivan's place, to give him the good stuff. But I'll be honest and say I hate this game with a passion goes behind simple hate, and I couldn't wait to be done. Retrospectively, I'm glad I didn't succumb to go meet Sullivan, as I suspect he would not have acknowledged my possessing a Copperhead's head, or it would have outright broken the game.
Then, a revelation. I was entirely wrong about the floating things in Calitana being Copperheads. As it turns out, they're just scanners from the Mayflower Initiative. Too bad; I really liked the idea of powerful psionic weapons being already deployed throughout the city, only waiting for full activation of their capabilities.
So, what's a Copperhead? Well, that is a Copperhead:
And while not invincible per se contrarily to what Sullivan had claimed, these are some damnably resilient mofos.
Notice that, again for some ungodly reason of what-the-fuck-kinda-code-did-they-write, the Copperhead drops Three Hand Harry's Key. Three Hand Harry being the very first boss you face, less than an hour after the game's beginning, in order to lower the bridges. Six or seven years of development went into this...
Then, well, there was not much else to the place, really. There was a room positively a-crawl with scientists who, evidently, gave not a single shit about the fact that I was oblitering the guards:
One of the two big computers in this room opens a big door, which leads to an overly long flight of corridors winding their way ever up and up, towards the ending.
As for the ending in question, here it is in the next video:
I was on the verge of losing my mind, because I had to replay and record that part eleven times. Eleven. It felt like a sick joke. The first time, Franklin was nowhere to be seen. The second time, Sullivan did not drop his key. The other times were a mix of the game lagging massively, or the conversation with Pelican hanging indefinitely, or the ending 'cinematic' playing with the looping sound of a gun firing in the background, or, once, the game outright crashing to desktop.
The only reason I did it is because, as far as I can see, the ending is nowhere to be seen on the internet. So, now, if somebody struggles with the game as I did and decides to say, "Fuck it; I'll look for the ending on Youtube," they'll be able to.
And with that, there are about another 200 screenshots or short videos of various bugs sitting on my computer.
As well, a few things I don't have answer to.
1) What was the point of the Rope items? I never found a use for them.
2) What was the point of the Arms Guild Jammer provided by Barry, that was supposed to counteract psionic waves? Tried and tried, but couldn't find how or where to use it.
3) What was the point of the Dog Tags? Was someone supposed to react differently, should they encounter me wearing them?
4) What was the point of the Evangelists, who take you away for 12 hours at a time, to dig in the soil? I supposed I come out of this afflicted with some manner of mutation (as is suggested by Three Hand Harry in the beginning of the game). So does this affect the recruitment by Quinton Industries, who refuse to hire anyone with traces of mutation?
Etc, etc...
Perhaps more importantly, what the hell was the point of me wasting a few days on this game? I know a bottle of whisky that will serve me well tonight.
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Dhaze
Proving that this game can be finished is impressive enough but doing so in a few days makes you some sort of mad genius.
If you are taking requests for a future Let's Play, I would humbly suggest a locally grown gem known as Redaxium.
Hasn't the man suffered enough? Let him play a good game for awhile, or at least one that was made by a sound mind.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2015
- Messages
- 20,656
Like KotC 2?Dhaze
Proving that this game can be finished is impressive enough but doing so in a few days makes you some sort of mad genius.
If you are taking requests for a future Let's Play, I would humbly suggest a locally grown gem known as Redaxium.
Hasn't the man suffered enough? Let him play a good game for awhile, or at least one that was made by a sound mind.
True Ukrainian
Arcane
So nothing about the mystery mattered in the end. This goes beyond a bad reveal. It's outright disrespectful to the player and shits all over the detective work the game made you do.
rusty_shackleford
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2018
- Messages
- 50,754
7 years and their house for this
gaussgunner
Arcane
Yeah, this game would still be vaporware if they hadn't signed on with a publisher last year. Productivity requires pressure, especially for artsy developers like these ones.
I kinda saw this trainwreck coming..... lol, 5 years ago:
I was being polite because I was still hoping they'd stick to their original plan for Copper Dreams and overcome the flaws of their first game, but they fell into the trap of trying to make a perfect second game. They didn't reply or even acknowledge my posts (because I wasn't a kickstarter simp?) so I stopped paying attention to this project except to laugh about the art changes and lateness.
I played them all a few years ago, I only regret playing MD (didn't even finish). All I remember about IW is that it's streamlined and consolized, the excuse being that it's in the far future where augmentations "just work", main character is female, and the endings are ridiculously epic. But the original is the only must-play, with HR a distant second in my opinion.
Have you played Serpent in the Staglands? Even the demo (that's as far as I got). I'm curious what you think of the contrast between both games.
gaussgunner
Arcane
True Ukrainian
Arcane
Serpent like mechajammer has some very severe design problems in its rule set. Most offensive magic in Serpent is completely useless, like doing 1D1 damage. Or utterly broken like providing free refills of ammo. This is the same retarded thinking that believes 2d6 is an upgrade over 1d6 +5.
Oh I feel like such a winner right now.
It might be the best clip I've recorded during my playthrough. And one that bathes the game in a most flattering light, as most of the rest of the time my followers simply did nothing, or wandered about; but here for some reason, when it mattered the most, they actually decided to heed my commands and unloaded a trainload full of ammo into the Copperface's facehead face.
You are a hero
Is... is that what it feels like, to be a hero? Why does it feel like shit? It's not like anything I've been told it would be.
Proving that this game can be finished is impressive enough but doing so in a few days makes you some sort of mad genius.
Scratch the genius part, replace it with obsessive weirdo, and I think you're onto something.
If you are taking requests for a future Let's Play, I would humbly suggest a locally grown gem known as Redaxium.
Save another potential shit-encrusted, speckle-sized gem that no one is playing but strikes a special part of my fancy, Mechajammer will probably forever remain the only game I'll do a sort-of-Let's-Play for.
And Redaxium... what the hell is even that thing? My god. The textures; the models; the lighting; even the U.I. and the fonts are terrifying. No way am I ever touching that stuff.
Before deciding—unwisely—to buy Mechajammer, I was about to start either Wizardry 8, or Avernum: Escape From The Pit, or Atom. I think that, taking into account what I've had to push through in the last few days, playing these games will be like drinking a magistral might rid me of nightmares.
It is so weird. I was sure it would have to do with the underground passage leading to the Black Market.
Imagine the following (this supposes that the Copperheads were what I thought they were, i.e. the floating scanners can be seen all over Calitana):
You input the string of 20 numbers into the elevator, and descend into the Mayflower Initiave's underground lab. There, Copperheads are being fabricated, and one of them patrols the area along the many Mayflower Initiative's soldiers. This Copperhead, upon seeing you on the verge of uncovering the secrets of its make, is remotely activated to its full potential; and it starts blasting something fierce.
By the skin of your teeth you manage to take it down, after hooking the Arms Guild Jammer (the one Barry had filched, that blocks psionic waves) into a communication device located in the fabrication lab. You take the broken-but-still-kinda-intact Copperhead with you to give to Sullivan, and re-surface via the elevator.
Only, while you were down there, the proverbial hell has broken loose. From orbit, the powerful Earth Collective is now dropping pods of shock troops everywhere in Calitana. In reaction, the Mayflower Initiative has activated all its Copperheads, and said Copperheads surpass the Earth Collective's technological might—though something is wrong, and the massive psionic waves they emit are pushing almost everyone into a manner of madness, madness somewhat impeded by the mutations that affect Calitana's residents.
Everyone is having at it. From the biggest syndicate to the smallest gangs and random rioters and even vagrants; everyone is fighting for their lives. The streets are sent a-tremble by gunshots, explosions, plasma weapons, and screams. Those factions you've allied with help you somewhat—while the others help only themselves.
You don't know if Pelican, Medic and Barry are still alive, and can't contact them, for the Earth Collective has downed the communications. Also downed are most transports like trains and the taxi system; so to the best of your abilities, through the underground passage, you endeavor to reach the black market where you hope Sullivan is still hiding.
But the black market has it worst of all places (especially if you destroyed the Medics faction, as they could have treated the wounded and sent them back out to fight), and it's one hell of a struggle to reach the Melrose Apartments. Entire streets are no-go zones, for the sheer number and destructive power of the Earth Collective's troop facing the Copperheads. Still, you make it to Sullivan who is hunkered down in his home. Following a short exchange of informations, he reveals that atop his apartment tower can be found an old but powerful communications array which, if functionning, could be coupled to your Arms Guild Jammer. Of course there is no power... but there is Sullivan's ship, also parked atop the apartment tower!
Pelican and Medic and Barry barge in (with Franklin in tow?); when chaos started and communications went down, they immediately decided to make it to Sullivan's, hoping you would do the same. Alas, with such orbital presence from the Earth Collective, fleeing aboard the ship is become impossible. A hard decision is taken: tech-savy Pelican will power the old communications array with the reactor from Sullivan's ship, and connect the Arms Guild Jammer—at the risk of frying the ship. This succeeds, and disables all Copperheads in Calitana, reducing the chaos. But the ship's reactor is rendered unoperationnal.
So now the Copperheads are disabled, and the madness they'd induced recedes somewhat. The Earth Collective's troops have been severely weakened, enough so that the various factions and syndicates, not exactly allied but not exactly warring with one another anymore, can prove a challenge.
Calitana is a mess of bodies and concrete. And you're still on it. Launch another Kickstarter, for Mechajammer 2: Psionic Boogaloo.
I mean, that's just off the top of my head. I came up with that in a minute, and it doesn't include various loose threads. Give someone smarter than me a week or two, and they would write a better ending.
In the end, given that its strengths lie firmly in its background stuff and theories anent the game world, this game could well find its most fervent players amongst the ranks of Dark Souls or Marathon ultrafanboys—those that come by the bucketfull every time someone so much as whispers the word 'lore'.
7 years and their house for this
It's enough to make me depressed via empathy for them.
I think they should have released what they had around the second trimester of 2018; doubtfully a full release, more likely Early Access. And from there, work on it a solid year or two, giving ear to the players' impressions about the game's every aspect.
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True.
Playing it, it distinctly feels like devs who tried for a game that, upon release, would be perfect in every way they wanted it be. Not a game that, in order to become perfect, would require a little tweaking here and a little re-vamp there; no, truly a game that would be perfect straight out of the gate, period.
Of course I might well be wrong, but it feels like this.
Provided you've any want for it, I would encourage you to give Mankind Divided a second try.
It is deeply flawed in a small number of its facets. Its ending comes abruptly in a manner that leaves much to be desired, which has the fingerprints of Square Enix's greedy paws all over it; pretty sure Squeenix wanted to make two games, because double profits. Some stuff about the story and its beats feel forced, unnatural, and make Adam Jensen seem like an oblivious moron (though that continues a tradition started in earnest with Human Revolution). And many threads—moreso little tidbits you can discover to the sides—are left loose and dangling, curiously separated from the others, which I think circles back to the whole two-games thing.
Still, in my opinion it is nonetheless a very good game, with some of the most excellent level design I've had the pleasure to experience.
I've had it on GoG for a while now, and wanted to start playing it many times, but every time coincided with the release of another game I was really wanting to play. So I never got to it, but most likely will at one point. I've also grown curious as to how it might compare to the mess that is Mechajammer.
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Tyranicon
A Memory of Eternity
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2019
- Messages
- 7,801
I'm fairly certain it is. There is nothing or almost nothing on Steam, GoG, Gamefaqs, Reddit, and Youtube. If you search "Mechajammer ending" through Google or DuckDuckGo, the video I uploaded yesterday evening on Youtube is the first and only pertinent result.
So now I've joined the Mechajammer Discord channel. For some reason only a mental health specialist might be able to explain.
Firstly, a handful of people are still playing it. Glancing quickly through the talks, the general impression seems to very much echo mine; that is, the game is a little nugget of gold buried deep, deep deep deep deep deep into a midden of bugs and questionnable design decisions. In fact the vast majority of the bugs I've seen have already been reported there; though some bugs appear to take a few different forms, and I've reported a couple nobody seemed to have encountered.
Also, through the search function and a very prompt and helpful moderator by the pseudonym of Rithrin, I've found answer to a couple of questions I had.
1) The Arms Guild Jammer was supposed to be used in the Copper Face lab, to disable the Copper Faces that were patrolling.
2) Most things are indeed randomised from playthrough to playthrough. Computer codes; passwords; coordinates for the taxi system: everything about the voice-and-colors-and-numbers puzzle. Only the Cypher Wheel seems to remain unchanged.
3) The Rope item was apparently used to go down manholes.
Still no idea about a possible use for the dog tags.
So now I've joined the Mechajammer Discord channel. For some reason only a mental health specialist might be able to explain.
Firstly, a handful of people are still playing it. Glancing quickly through the talks, the general impression seems to very much echo mine; that is, the game is a little nugget of gold buried deep, deep deep deep deep deep into a midden of bugs and questionnable design decisions. In fact the vast majority of the bugs I've seen have already been reported there; though some bugs appear to take a few different forms, and I've reported a couple nobody seemed to have encountered.
Also, through the search function and a very prompt and helpful moderator by the pseudonym of Rithrin, I've found answer to a couple of questions I had.
1) The Arms Guild Jammer was supposed to be used in the Copper Face lab, to disable the Copper Faces that were patrolling.
2) Most things are indeed randomised from playthrough to playthrough. Computer codes; passwords; coordinates for the taxi system: everything about the voice-and-colors-and-numbers puzzle. Only the Cypher Wheel seems to remain unchanged.
3) The Rope item was apparently used to go down manholes.
Still no idea about a possible use for the dog tags.
And if bugs make the clues generate for the puzzle incorrectly, you'll never know if the game screwed you or if you're just dumb.
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AdolfSatan
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2017
- Messages
- 2,028
Hats off, Dhaze
I decided to drop it a couple of hours in, after infiltrating the Gershwein mannor and robbing the psionic detector, or whatever it was.
Charming as it might have been at the beginning, trudging trough endless corridors of drab to find a place you'd swear you'd seen around before right around this spot has taken its toll on my will to continue. Compelling as the mysteries and puzzle part were (I agree that they should have doubled down on this as their selling point), the godawful controls and poor UI finally got me, and I decided to simply check your last posts to satiate my curiosity. I didn't even experience many bugs, it was simply shitty design.
I'm glad I didn't push onwards, what an anticlimactic ending.
Know what's worse? The slightest punch to contrast and saturation would have made it much more readable.
And that's just a 1' hack job.
What a shame.
I decided to drop it a couple of hours in, after infiltrating the Gershwein mannor and robbing the psionic detector, or whatever it was.
Charming as it might have been at the beginning, trudging trough endless corridors of drab to find a place you'd swear you'd seen around before right around this spot has taken its toll on my will to continue. Compelling as the mysteries and puzzle part were (I agree that they should have doubled down on this as their selling point), the godawful controls and poor UI finally got me, and I decided to simply check your last posts to satiate my curiosity. I didn't even experience many bugs, it was simply shitty design.
I'm glad I didn't push onwards, what an anticlimactic ending.
Know what's worse? The slightest punch to contrast and saturation would have made it much more readable.
And that's just a 1' hack job.
Sorry to hear that AdolfSatan. Based on an earlier post of yours, I had hoped you'd know a better time with the game than I did, but oh well. For my part, retrospectively, I think that what bothers me most in Mechajammer—aside of course from the plethora of bugs—is that it constantly felt as if on the verge of becoming really good, but almost never delivered.
It has nice ideas starting at character creation, but stops short of greatness due to a lack of balance and interactions with some other systems. I want to create a guy who worked his whole life on the docks and as a result of transporting chemicals has lung damage, so he coughs loudly and regularly, disrupting attempts at sneaking. And some places are clearly designed with sneaking in mind. But badly communicated zones of light and shadow make the experience a misery.
Targeting limbs, and wounding an enemy or destroying his weapon so that he's less of a threat in combat? Great idea. But aside from the Copperheads, anyone can be and is killed in one or two hits, so that doesn't mesh well at all with the idea of wounding an enemy.
Hacking computers? Great stuff of course; always fun to have. Save for the fact that many computers and various interfaces you might want to hack outright do not offer you the prompt to do so.
Recruiting companions, and followers, and building your own drones, and assigning them squads, and giving them commands? Yes pretty please. Only, they often don't react to what orders you give them, so what's the point?
Much helped by the music, the background of the world and its atmosphere are thick... and then the ending comes and nothing matters, nothing happens.
Almost everything is like that. A shame indeed.
That is indeed much better.
But then, at one point the game had this amount of clarity (the U.I. was messy though):
I can't stop thinking about what they were on the verge of achieving, before deciding to switch it all over god knows how many times. Words are not enough.
It has nice ideas starting at character creation, but stops short of greatness due to a lack of balance and interactions with some other systems. I want to create a guy who worked his whole life on the docks and as a result of transporting chemicals has lung damage, so he coughs loudly and regularly, disrupting attempts at sneaking. And some places are clearly designed with sneaking in mind. But badly communicated zones of light and shadow make the experience a misery.
Targeting limbs, and wounding an enemy or destroying his weapon so that he's less of a threat in combat? Great idea. But aside from the Copperheads, anyone can be and is killed in one or two hits, so that doesn't mesh well at all with the idea of wounding an enemy.
Hacking computers? Great stuff of course; always fun to have. Save for the fact that many computers and various interfaces you might want to hack outright do not offer you the prompt to do so.
Recruiting companions, and followers, and building your own drones, and assigning them squads, and giving them commands? Yes pretty please. Only, they often don't react to what orders you give them, so what's the point?
Much helped by the music, the background of the world and its atmosphere are thick... and then the ending comes and nothing matters, nothing happens.
Almost everything is like that. A shame indeed.
That is indeed much better.
But then, at one point the game had this amount of clarity (the U.I. was messy though):
I can't stop thinking about what they were on the verge of achieving, before deciding to switch it all over god knows how many times. Words are not enough.
hello friend
Arcane
Man I'd forgotten how good that alpha looked. What could have been, eh?
AdolfSatan
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2017
- Messages
- 2,028
Indeed, it seems like they stuck with the worst of all the artstyles they cycled through.
I was also rather annoyed by all the useless skills. I swear that, at the very least, half of them didn't have any practical use.
One day we'll get a good open-world cyberpunk game, but this wasn't it.
I was also rather annoyed by all the useless skills. I swear that, at the very least, half of them didn't have any practical use.
One day we'll get a good open-world cyberpunk game, but this wasn't it.
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