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

[Tito Anic]

Why not conduct a poll showing the same screenshot in all the different styles and see what the majority likes most?

Majority always thinks wrong

 

[PEACH]

Can't argue with any of that. Have to concede that you're probably on the right side of this and my biases and expectations may be unfair when it comes to this specific situation.

I appreciate the level headed perspective and though I admit to still having some issues with the endeavor perhaps I should've taken a step back from what I wanted before being as rough and myopic as I was because reading your rebuttal has made those aspects of my argument more clear to me, especially your point re: the Kickstarter format, wherein my involvement is my choice and that comes with the good and bad of it

Edit: still hate this latest take on the art though

We'll be doing another detail model pass on the characters after the alpha is out — you might be interested again once that's ready to go! Now that we're doing more finalized art for this style we're actually using most of the same principles we were using when they were more Vagrant Story-esque pixel art, now just high resolution showing them more as a rendered illustration so it isn't so needlessly janky.

I didn't mean to suggest I was no longer interested. As much as I might bitch about my preferences I'm so into what's been said and shown regarding the gameplay concepts and the design philosophy that it could look like the Jetsons and I'd play it the minute it came out regardless. I have my grievances but it never crossed my mind not to play it or keep following development

That said, I'm looking forward to a more detailed look at the newer visuals as well as any enhancements to the look that come in the future. Id especially like to see anything that fits in with the horror influenced elements that were mentioned in the Kickstarter because I'm curious how that will translate into the vibe and atmosphere now that it's less overtly gloomy than it had been originally

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

If it's shaders they can make the visuals change depending on the quality and brand of your cybernetic eyes

Whalenought_Joe I hope you read this.
Inb4 alpha delayed.

Does this system take into account status effects caused by various drugs that PC could use?

Yeah, all the Character Virtues, Mental Stability, and some of the actual movement/gameplay ones can be influenced by drugs or mind control. Two skills we're still implementing are Bio-Hacking and Chemistry, the later of which allows you to be a hobo-chemist and creating anything from hallucinogens to fire bombs from different things you find in the environment. Drugs and Medicine are focus of the civilian part of the world, so popping pills can do various good and weird things to characters.

 

[Tito Anic]

Sykar

Because majority doesnt have their own opinion but repeats most popular

 

[Diggfinger]

Can't argue with any of that. Have to concede that you're probably on the right side of this and my biases and expectations may be unfair when it comes to this specific situation.

I appreciate the level headed perspective and though I admit to still having some issues with the endeavor perhaps I should've taken a step back from what I wanted before being as rough and myopic as I was because reading your rebuttal has made those aspects of my argument more clear to me, especially your point re: the Kickstarter format, wherein my involvement is my choice and that comes with the good and bad of it

Edit: still hate this latest take on the art though

We'll be doing another detail model pass on the characters after the alpha is out — you might be interested again once that's ready to go! Now that we're doing more finalized art for this style we're actually using most of the same principles we were using when they were more Vagrant Story-esque pixel art, now just high resolution showing them more as a rendered illustration so it isn't so needlessly janky.

So this art-style is out the window now, are you are still going with that?

(PLEASE STICK TO IT)

Or will different areas of the game simply look more dark/gritty vs. more flashy inner-city type style?

 

[Infinitron]

The Kickstarter update we should be firing off tonight

 

[conan_edw]

Well by tonight they usually mean tomorrow or after so don't pressure them

 

[Diggfinger]

Well by tonight they usually mean tomorrow or after so don't pressure them

and by "a week" they usually mean 4-6 weeks (+ a few additional months). It's cyber-punk, augmented reality time! Codex punks aint cool enuff for it

Dont really care how long it takes though, as long as the game is awesome!

(just give me the damn Alpha, already!!)

 

[Lahey]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/copper-dreams/posts/2298666

Last upgrades video before the Alpha release!

Hello everyone!



Check out a short spotlight video with some of the bug fixes, interface, user experience and improved stealth, group, and AI we got in the past few weeks since the last update:

We finished some of the crucial AI we wanted to get into the alpha build around last weekend and then tackled something big for the beta (the main campaign) and time seemed to have gotten away from us. We're really sorry about the delay on that. We're very excited to show you the structure and content for the main game, and that should happen pretty soon after the Alpha launch, but first we really want to get some feedback on all these mechanics from you guys. We are in a crunch working on the last of the bugs so you don't have to worry about them, and some of them turned out more difficult than expected to squash. We'll have a new date by the end of the week, but expect the update on Steam to happen shortly thereafter, as well as the trailer.



Loading and "Death" Events
One aspect of note that we wanted to follow up on was our death events in the game. We have always wanted to focus the challenge of the game not on how optimized you can win individual fight by redoing them, but on the entire adventure, a challenge of resource and event management.

There's a lot of similarities with games with permanent death or rogue-likes in terms of randomization and structure we'll go into when we're talking about the main campaign later, but you'll probably get grounded playing the Alpha too.

So two things happen when you(r party) loses all their health. We'll have a dev post about all the event types that can happen in the game in more detail, but in short:

1. Reload Last Autosave

2. Play it Out

Reload Last Autosave

As before, only the game autosaves for you constantly except when an enemy is on the timeline with you, which means it does so after you do any non-combat action (open a door, jam a lock, talk to someone). Once combat starts that stops, if you get a party wipe you can jump back in right away from the last safe location. You can reload that anytime, so if you know combat is going south and you want to try again you can quickly jump back in.

Play it Out

We wanted to design something around the concept of what we do when players might be incapacitated in a tabletop game and the DM doesn't want to make everyone re-roll. There are some fun narratives that can occur that we wanted to explore as a part of normal gameplay, and thought that was worth experimenting with for the main campaign. As the nature of the previous option, choosing to Play it Out saves immediately after, so when they are available it can be more or less of a gamble given the situation/location.

1. Clinic

Your agent in the alpha and main campaign have wicked good health insurance, thanks to your plum job. Playing it Out in a location that isn't heavily fortified or a dungeon lets your HealthInsurance Body-Bots come find you and fly you off to the nearest clinic location. The randomized city is divided up into blocks, and with a few exceptions every one of those has a clinic, so you'll never be far from where you fell.

At the clinic, a half-day passes (! this important for events), and you can choose to stay longer and heal or get back to it. Clinics are automated and will automatically bill you, or if you fail to have the funds bill your Syndicate which will keep a tab on you and make you pay for lunch.

2. Jail

If you fell due to or near by MFI, the city overlords, you'll be tossed into a procedural jail. Like the clinic, every city block usually has an (otherwise inaccessible) jail attached, and depending on your method of breakout you'll be outputted back into the block you were at. These jail maps are relatively small, isolation cubes for the city riff-raff, but will always have your equipment stored in an office that you'll want to loot before leaving. Maybe you can steal other inmates stuff!

3. Event

These can be a gamble for a session. Events occur when you fall in an atypical location, like surrounded by cyber-mutants, in a Syndicate compound, in a sewer system with monsters, or other unfortunate places. Syndicates will throw you in the sewer drain which will put you in a different location, maybe to get help after, or maybe some other problems. At worst you might come out of these situations with a permanent disfiguration or ailment before a Body-Bot finds you, maybe mutants spread a mutation to you before throwing you out, or maybe you have a limb eaten off before you're found.

On the flip side there are potentially rewards and secrets to be found. Those sewer drains might throw you out into an otherwise inaccessible location where you are healed and able to discover cyber-quests, treasure, or other secrets. Some mutants are friendly and you could be rescued with augmented with beneficial mutations.



1 tile characters! Harder to hit.
There will be a Musings post this week going into some additional detail on the alpha map, so be on the lookout at our Community Page. We'll be in touch soon!

Cheers

Hannah and Joe

 

[Lyre Mors]

Goddamn this game looks fun as hell.

 

[buffalo bill]

Mechanically looks amazing--I love simultaneous turn-based, as in roguelikes (awesome to see this in a non-roguelike). Graphics are OK, though again I still prefer the more Moebius-like look from before. Might be fine if the character models and some objects (boxes, smoke) are made less cartoonish and more painterly (or something like that). Highly anticipating the game, regardless of visuals (cuz at the end of the day, caring too much about gfx is idiotic).

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

What's that spinning thing at top left of the screens?
Alarm indicator?

 

[Jedi Exile]

Why not conduct a poll showing the same screenshot in all the different styles and see what the majority likes most?

Democracy is bad for computer games.

 

[Merlkir]

Not sold on the new rim lighting. Not by itself, but the way it's overlaid (?) onto the outline, removing it in places. It looks messy and moves the visuals further from a comic look.
(why not a proper outline and the rim lighting inside? That's how a comic artist would do this.)
It looks odd.

Or am I misreading it and the outer line was not always all around the models, but only on some of the edges?

 

[Diggfinger]

Really love the jail- hospital thing too. I'm totally the kind of player to save-reload and replay combat* until perfection, but in this game I will try to push myself and just deal with the various situations.

May there will be end-game rewards for completing main story with broken-legs and other ailments?

*like playing 50 times in row the Lukan the Witless battle in Arcanum's Shrouded Hills

 

[Diggfinger]

Wait, is this still the same game?Looks awesome!!

So timeline-wise, where are we?
Alpha in 2-3 weeks?
"We'll have a new date by the end of the week"
So by the end of (next?) week we will have a new date (which is likely to be delayed by another month?)
???

 

[geno]

I don't know what's the point on discuss visual changes anymore. CD has one new with each KS update

 

[buffalo bill]

Spoiler

Man, I know some people didn't like these graphics (or though they would get annoying eventually/induce epilepsy), but damn they really excited me. Really too bad not to have a game that looks like this.

 

[agris]

buffalo bill i think that style is still in, it just depends on the lighting and area.

 

[Diggfinger]

Just found this on the forum: https://whalenoughtstudios.com/community/forums/topic/drawing-3d/

Update from Joe, October 4th:
"Starting to finally get to some inking for the characters in during some off-time while we’re working our way through final bugs. This is going to be on of the old man heads, and is currently sitting on disproportionately jacked up Quinton Quality Assurance guard armorset (which isn’t quite done yet). This head reminded me of Tarkin, so I was quite fond of it, and is how I assume the backer we used for it will look in 40 years. Old-aged characters have a lower cap on physical Virtues, but a higher cap on intellect-based ones, so they are certainly better for builds using those, despite the fragility and crankiness.

Back in June we started developing the art for the game after toying with some styles during the core development. We’re using the same color-blocked geometry technique that we’ve been using since the pixel art, so it’s been an easy transition. We’re starting to finally ink actual characters after having them flat for a while, so that’s starting to get nice, the technique is similar to a sketchy 2D comic — ink all the linework and hatches in, followed by assigning flat colors per inked shape, and then some additional watercolor variation.

I’ll post some more as they get in."

 

[grimace]

The art's really starting to take, err, shape!

So this is how the sausage is made. Seeing a game "take shape" from the earliest stages of development to some kind of public release keeps me on the edge of my seat.

 

[Diggfinger]

Update on (Alpha) release:

 

[Merlkir]

It will be the ghost of an alpha. So no alpha.

 

[Diggfinger]

Alpha slated for upload to Steam this Friday(for 35$+ backers)