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

[Irenaeus]

Ok....I've gone from full chub to raging hard on. Have upped my pledge to $125. Irenaeus's face WILL be in this game...unless he object like a weakling.

Ok, I'll pledge just because of this.

 

[grimace]

introducing that new mega-boxed edition tier we had talked about for those interested

Interesting! Will this be a $500 tier?

 

[sstacks]

Whalenought_Joe and Hannah popped on at the beginning of the show today to help promo the Copper Dreams KS, and they are this week's Matt Chat interview subject so hopefully that will give some boost as well.

 

[grimace]

Whalenought_Joe and Hannah popped on at the beginning of the show today to help promo the Copper Dreams KS, and they are this week's Matt Chat interview subject so hopefully that will give some boost as well.

Got a direct link to your show from today?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Damn. This needs to get funded! I believe it will. Arcadian Atlas was looking a bit bleak at times yet it made a huge final push. Fully expect this one to do the same. There's no reason an incredibly creative team can't get this amount of money to build another interesting RPG with more creative ideas than most developers out nowadays.

 

[Trash]

Upped my pledge to $50 because I want to see this fucker made. Plus made a nice post for it in a facebook group for nerds. Hopefully that will lead to something.

Personally I feel that the faltering campaign has to do with both the fading phenomenem of kickstarter and the aesthetics. My first look at the kickstarter did not instantly got my enthousiasm. The initial video was great, with some nice art and efficient synthwave/80's overtones. Then you see the gameplay and graphics and it looks decidedly meh. Especially compared to the distinct style of SITS. Cyperpunk IS grey and grainy. It is also rain, neon and flashing lights. It just looked too dreary. Especially with the, initially, crummy 3d.

Still got quite a bit of confidence that they'll make it. Sad to see the enhanced soundtrack having a snowball's chance in hell though.

 

[Volrath]

8k in 6 days. They won't make it.

 

[ArchAngel]

8k in 6 days. They won't make it.

They should if you count on last two days bringing in more money. If I was them, I would prepare another video (with better combat this time) for those that get a 48h reminder so they find more incentive to fund it instead of just looking at it again

 

[Lacrymas]

The game is going to be made regardless of the KS, but I want to see the game bigger and better, sooooooooooooooo let's hope they make it.

 

[sstacks]

Whalenought_Joe and Hannah popped on at the beginning of the show today to help promo the Copper Dreams KS, and they are this week's Matt Chat interview subject so hopefully that will give some boost as well.

Got a direct link to your show from today?

It goes out as a podcast a few days after the live show. I post CRPG related stuff in the Shane Plays LPs and Interviews forum that Infinitron created for me.

However this show their time is pretty quick, around 5 minutes since I already had other guests scheduled but I invited them on just to help remind folks

 

[Zombra]

I wonder why there's no digital soundtrack tier?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Apparently VioletShadow is a good girl and backed Copper Dreams too.
Now I'm out of aces up my sleeve, unless I recollect the names of my ex-coworkers and buddies from gaymedev and persuade them into backing the game.

 

[Ninjerk]

she dindu nuffin

 

[Blackmill]

I didn't see any mention of whether higher-tier ailments would also count towards lower-tier ailments. It would be pretty stupid if an enemy could die from five lesser ailments but live through four lesser and one greater ailment.

 

[Bubbles]

It would be pretty stupid if an enemy could die from five lesser ailments but live through four lesser and one greater ailment.

Well, that seems to be the intention behind the design. Otherwise they could just put all ailments into the same pool and say "one lesser ailment fills one slot, one greater ailment fills two slots, and once you reach 10 slots you're dead". Keeping them in three different pools tells me that they're meant to be separate; otherwise it would be pointlessly confusing.

 

[Zombra]

I agree, Blackmill. It should be "Five Lesser+, three Greater+, or one Mortal". It really only matters between Lesser and Greater (unless there are people out there who can keep fighting after a Mortal wound), but it doesn't make sense to be in a position where a Lesser wound will take you out but a Greater one won't.

 

[Sensuki]

My thoughts also. Will relay that across if they don't see it.

 

[Bubbles]

it doesn't make sense to be in a position where a Lesser wound will take you out but a Greater one won't.

It also doesn't make sense to have two broken legs and then die from a graze to the left arm. Or to die from five grazes on your right foot when you're otherwise in the prime of health. The whole system demands a certain degree of abstraction.

 

[grimace]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lt_pQ9gWnQ

It's here!!

 

[Ninjerk]

Rats with cameras on them confirmed.

 

[ushas]

Ok, abstractive and fictional rules are great. But in the end what matters is how it plays out. Blackmill's objection was also one of the first things which popped to my mind, while reading the update.

If all three ailment pools are truly separated, it could be really frustrating to roll 6 with a ray gun (= one greater wound) when the target had already four lesser ailments. Trying to be open minded, I guess it's possible to have a system where it will be fun and tactically challenging (eg. dealing with various outcomes while deciding which tools/weapons with different probabilities towards different type of ailments to use). Though that could be tricky to balance. But mainly hard to sell. Because, just simply psychologically, by default players may expect that if they are rolling a bigger number and it yields to a bigger damage (as "Greater" word evokes), an outcome should be also bigger (aka better)... Now I know ailments are also giving debuffs, but usually totally incapacitated enemy is perceived as a better outcome than partially incapacitated.

However, the update doesn't give a whole picture. And, although I basically don't disagree with Bubbles' arguments, is it really set in stone that ailment categories are by all means separated? Because otherwise there are still many options not ruled out. For whatever reason it's possible to have it partial. For example:

• Working in one direction only: higher level wounds may count into the lower level pool (eg. 4 Lesser + 1 Greater -> fills up 5 Lesser therefore he will be dead), as Blackmill proposed, but lower level ones wouldn't contribute to the higher pool of death (2 Lesser + 2 Greater wouldn't kill the guy). Though at first glance that looks like a pointless complication, not really dealing with confusion.
• Additive only for the same body part: If additivity of [all] ailments towards death would hold in case of damaging the same body part, it would be useful to target already battered area. But I dunno, that's already useful from similar reasons (wound stacking).
• Contextual separation: From the dropping dead/unconscious perspective it could be all additive, eg. filling up those total 10 slots regardless of type and area of wounds as Bubbles mentioned above. Hm, this may indeed make those three pools meaningless. But in the same time it will be separated into different categories from the healing point of view (eg. ~lesser ones heal in short time, greater need some more assistance/kits, mortal call for extensive treatments and rest). I don't know exact wound/debuff results when mixing different weapons, body parts and categories of ailments. Thus another reason for possible separation. (Though it would be boring if lesser ailments are just simply "lesser" versions of higher ones, eg. -1/-2/-5 to Movement Speed).
  
• etc...

Obviously, I'm running just a wild imagination, not having enough info about the system to be constructive. So don't take me seriously

 

[Zombra]

If all three ailment pools are truly separated, it could be really frustrating to roll 6 with a ray gun (= one greater wound) when the target had already four lesser ailments.

Exactly. This could lead to situations where the player tries to kill a guy by switching to a weaker weapon to deliberately inflict a lighter wound. Abstract is OK, but this is downright silly.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I just watched the Matt Chat interview with Joe and Hannah. Really interesting stuff. They seem to make a great team and I love some of the interesting ideas they are using for this game. I think the limited healing via the Wounds system is going to provide a tense, engrossing struggle at times to maintain health and complete missions.

I think this will make a big ending push and get funded, just like Arcadian Atlas did.

 

[ArchAngel]

If all three ailment pools are truly separated, it could be really frustrating to roll 6 with a ray gun (= one greater wound) when the target had already four lesser ailments.

Exactly. This could lead to situations where the player tries to kill a guy by switching to a weaker weapon to deliberately inflict a lighter wound. Abstract is OK, but this is downright silly.

That is if players know what wounds enemy suffered.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

What about giving points to the wound? Lesser is 1, greater is 2, mortal is 3 or something like that, and people will die when it reach certain threshold (i.e. 6).
.
.
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Oh wait, it basically HP with added status effect for each HP lost now.