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

[Dhaze]

As any trve barbarian should, for he knows bashing heads in is an art.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Are there mechs in this game? Do you get to ride a mech at some point?

 

[Dhaze]

Unfortunately no.

Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure why the game is called Mechajammer. At the very end of the game you can use a jammer to rid yourself of two or three powerful enemies, but it's a big stretch to call them 'mechs'.

 

[thesheeep]

Probably planned to have mechs at some point during development, in one of the 12 art styles, in the 23rd design iteration.

 

[Dadd]

How do you conclude it's a good idea to sell your house to fund the game if your vision is so vague that you couldn't even decide on the art style

 

[Dhaze]

Probably planned to have mechs at some point during development, in one of the 12 art styles, in the 23rd design iteration.

Yeah, there's about 99% chance that's the reason. Kinda sad, really; as far as titles go, Copper Dreams had a very nice novel-like ring to it.

How do you conclude it's a good idea to sell your house to fund the game if your vision is so vague that you couldn't even decide on the art style

Unshakeable faith in one's project? The pernicious creeping of sunk cost fallacy? Sheer bull-headedness? We'll probably never know. But I don't envy the devs one bit, as it can't have been an easy period in their lives.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There were Mechas demoed at one point.

 

[Dhaze]

Wait, seriously? Holy hell, what amount of content did they throw away? It's incredible.

 

[ArchAngel]

Wait, seriously? Holy hell, what amount of content did they throw away? It's incredible.

Not enough considering what is left is still buggy as hell.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Lots of content

 

[Dadd]

Unshakeable faith in one's project? The pernicious creeping of sunk cost fallacy? Sheer bull-headedness? We'll probably never know. But I don't envy the devs one bit, as it can't have been an easy period in their lives.

Sounds terrible. Many such cases with small businesses around 2020. I hope they somehow find a way to recover in the future.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Lots of malcontent

Fixed

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Wait, seriously? Holy hell, what amount of content did they throw away? It's incredible.

yep, not going to go through all the pages again but there were mechas you could pilot at one point

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ultimately a ton of good ideas were there. But they didn't have the ability to follow through with them I think. Not for lack of skill or desire, but lack of manpower.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ultimately a ton of good ideas were there. But they didn't have the ability to follow through with them I think. Not for lack of skill or desire, but lack of manpower.

Nah, lack of skill = lack of manpower. There is a lot of games that were finished, not buggy and awesome with 1 to 2 people working on them.

 

[thesheeep]

Ultimately a ton of good ideas were there. But they didn't have the ability to follow through with them I think. Not for lack of skill or desire, but lack of manpower.

Lack of any kind of reasonable time and scope management IS lack of skill.
In addition, not completely changing your whole art and game design multiple times during development is certainly also some kind of skill, not sure what it's called...

You make games for a living, you have to at least be decent at that stuff or you'll either end up with one of those endless early access titles that receive one update per half year or with something like this.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Sounds great. I am confused about the 'time-based resolution' bit though. What does that mean?

The way it was presented at some point was "rtwp action", think max pain bullet time meets actionpoints. It looked real good

 

[rusty_shackleford]

from reading this thread I got the impression a few unfinished game prototypes were just thrown out and they started over almost from scratch

 

[buffalo bill]

for a few months there was a playable and fun deathmatch alpha build, which does not at all resemble the finished game. I wish they would just put that deathmatch game out tbh

 

[Dhaze]

It would be so interesting, and such a bold owning-one's-mistakes move on the devs part, if they suddenly published a bundle of every major build they've worked on during Mechajammer's development, along with an in-depth post-mortem of the final product.

Damn it. I'm so discomfited I never got answers to my many many many many questions.

What's up with the save files; am I right in thinking that it's such a bloated mess because they implemented it almost at the last minute, since for long they had decided upon a system without manual saves?

Why can the spear, when used in melee, hit—with a delay—enemies at the other end of the screen; am I right in thinking that when they extended the spear's range in a patch, they did so by giving it a hidden projectile as if a gun bullet?

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

So many questions; so few answers.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

That would be pretty fucked if so considering there's a lot of codexers who backed the game, some at the higher figure marks.

 

[Hag]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

Really ? That's shitty man. But I guess it says a lot about the care and attention given to a game when its developers don't care about what the only guy who made it through and tried as hard as he can to like the game has to say. Incompetency to the end.

 

[Dhaze]

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

That would be pretty fucked if so considering there's a lot of codexers who backed the game, some at the higher figure marks.

At least those who funded the Kickstarter and received a physical edition of Mechajammer can boast of owning a strange piece of gaming history.

Is the fact that the devs never answered me on Discord due to them being aware of this thread, and now they think I'm the worst kind of shithead?

Really ? That's shitty man. But I guess it says a lot about the care and attention given to a game when its developers don't care about what the only guy who made it through and tried as hard as he can to like the game has to say. Incompetency to the end.

I received various answers from the three or four other guys who frequented the Discord at the time, and the moderator was very friendly and helpful. But alas, no, the developers themselves didn't answer my @.

Fun fact: on that Discord I briefly talked with a guy about Escape From New-York; then shortly after that, the last time I checked, Hannah was talking about organizing a viewing of Escape From New-York. So I guess that at least got her attention. Perhaps if I talked to Kurt Russell and asked him to contact Whalenought with my questions, then I'd get answers? "Hey, mister Russell, great movies and all that, but, uh... could you do me a solid?"

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I pinged them sometime in 2021 and didn't get any response. I hope they're alright.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I pinged them sometime in 2021 and didn't get any response. I hope they're alright.

Well, they're pretty big dorks (I don't know them, but seriously) - I'd be highly surprised if they didn't find the way things turned out to be pretty disheartening and embarrassing. It can be pretty hard to deal with that in a public sphere. Especially if you're dealing with internet edgelords.