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

[PrettyDeadman]

It's happening!.jpg
They changed everything again!

Hello, I was considering buying a smartphone from a Vietnamese company Vsmart after reading a news article about them and not buy chinese phone.
What are you thought on them?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Santa Maria.

 

[Fenix]

My mouth fills with saliva, but I must beer.

 

[toro]

This looks like placeholder visuals. Is this the right moment to panic?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Is this the right moment to panic?

He who panics first panics best.

 

[luj1]

They changed everything again

inb4 they rip off stuff from Disco

They lost a ton of momentum

 

[Butter]

Vapourware

 

[toro]

When I look at those screens I feel like the artstyle is missing a certain 'je ne sais quoi' ... like a dry wine.

 

[Ninjerk]

When I look at those screens I feel like the artstyle is missing a certain 'je ne sais quoi' ... like a dry wine.

There's probably another drug that could be added to the next art style. We've seen shitty weed from the outside of the block (the Kickstarter style), LSD (the Moebius-esque style), and now on to some mixture of freebase cocaine and heroin. What's next?

 

[toro]

When I look at those screens I feel like the artstyle is missing a certain 'je ne sais quoi' ... like a dry wine.

There's probably another drug that could be added to the next art style. We've seen shitty weed from the outside of the block (the Kickstarter style), LSD (the Moebius-esque style), and now on to some mixture of freebase cocaine and heroin. What's next?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I would like to ask people who waited/are waiting last alpha, did you get it soon, or is it still lost in some nook of Whalenought time?

 

[Diggfinger]

I would like to ask people who waited/are waiting last alpha, did you get it soon, or is it still lost in some nook of Whalenought time?

Been a few weeks since I loaded up the Alpha-build tbh.
Hard to see much structure emerge, it's still just different art overhauls each time

Spoiler

latest one has a Joe-esque character with torso nu

 

[Infinitron]

September, November, what's the difference: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/copper-dreams/posts/2670247

No-load maps and cars in the urban wasteland

Greetings!

We wanted to share some of the final tech that went into the beta that we mentioned in the last update.

The game starts at the clinic on this street after an especially rough day at the office

Due to some pesky life stuff, we haven’t been able to finalize what we needed to for the beta — primarily driving enemies and some visual anomalies that need updating like mesh-swapping armor pieces working and some effects that will make gameplay more clear. Our newest alpha build featuring the start of those will be up in the next few days, followed by a video showcasing the beta, and releasing it on the 15th of November. A thousand apologies for the delay — we're very excited to finally get it in your hands, and will be on track for a 2020 release.

Beta testers, you’ll be getting an email when that’s available regarding what help we’re looking for with the start of the game. It'll explain what we can focus on tweaking with your suggestions while adding more of those maps in as we continue to finish stitching them together.

Dialogue


The new dialogue layout is pretty slick, using the power of multiple cameras! The characters are all animating 3d models from the game-world who gesture with their chat bubbles. Keywords are thought bubbles, and you get a little report card for people you meet with any known info you've obtained that's important. Aptitudes also use this and show their roll info in their own panels nearby. This was a social roll to get this drunk to follow you around.

Ruleset

The last update we talked about the RISK meter and segmenting turns to different party members. Shortly after we tested and discussed this companion-combat with some of our Alpha backers, we decided to roll back to single-player turn-based combat. Companions will remain auxiliary and the player can direct general commands to (move/attack/talk) as originally planned. Defend is now a normal action you can roll for while playing. Companions are both other agents, hires, and anyone on the street if you can charm/bio-hack them.

Map Stitching

A big part of 2019 activities involved revising some code to get more enemies on screen, better performance with the line of sight transparency and black, as well as stitching together the map. Map loading is so 1999 [insert plethora of games that already got around it], and 20 years later I think we can dismiss it as lazy. And disruptive! I think back to a game like Dungeon Siege, and it was really neat that the whole game was just one enormous map you wade through — it really pits you in the world, rather than seeing it as a small art piece or tactical map.

For a more modern city, having interiors, rooftops, and underground all webbed together gives a much more organic feel, and a lot more tactical variance. This is also effective for the combat and NPC sensory mechanics — with a wide open and expansive the map, not having the safety of a loaded room also makes you vulnerable. Climb a roof and jump into a 3rd story window to escape some gang members, and they could follow, or be welcomed by a bunch of winos with broken bottles inside to surround you.

The Mega-Map is also a very organic way of going from block-to-block in the wilds of Calitana, and it's fun to just rage-drive your way out of a block if you need to get outside quickly. Prior to this map to map points always bottle-necked into large gates to transition scenes, but now there can be multiple streets that exit.

Between more populated towns (city blocks) there lies the urban wilderness, or more appropriately, urban wasteland. With grids down, civilians abandon these areas, and the streets are held by the gang and the gun, and a good taxi or a Treader with a turret attached are your best bets to get through.

Treader

The treader is the most common street car you'll find in the game. Quinton, the local syndicate that produces tech and machinery, supplies these on the colonies from surplus and outdated military supplies from the Ci-War. Tread-based vehicles were the most common militarized vehicle and transport for navigating uneven terrain before the bipedal tanks became standard. Any vehicle that uses military treads form tanks into re-purposed single seat all terrain vehicles are referred to as Treaders. Fast and durable, you'll find these throughout the city from Quinton manufacturing as well as cobbled together junkers.

Upgrades.

QWC

Not everyone wants to ride a repurposed tank around the city, and you'll find a small number of Quinton-produced family vehicles as well.

Wait, not that picture.

There it is! Quinton's Washington Carriage, or the QWC, is supplied with a full 3 seat car allows for two employed parents and their officially issued child to ride in comfort and safety.

Jetter

These sleek pods are designed for speed. Quinton manufactures these for races on earth and across the colonies. You can find them in the races on the Calitana circuit at their headquarters, and if you find one in the streets you can bet nothing will catch up to you when you take it.

BusinessExpress

A VERY sleek vehicle in an agile package — taking up just 4 tiles (like your character!) this is the smallest vehicle provided by Quinton. Don't let the exterior fool you though, a very spacious interior allows you and a briefcase* to fit! A favorite of desk jockeys city-wide, a driven employee knows sitting is for quitters, so stand tall as this little guy gets you from A to B while easily avoiding flaming trashcans and bodies on your way to the next big meeting. Just don't get hit! It takes about 1 bullet before it starts on fire.

*briefcase not guaranteed to also fit

Treader with turret

A Treader with an auto-turret allows citizens to drive in safety. Depending on the weapon fitted to it, the turret fires automatically at nearby enemies every X turns on its own while you're moving. If your character has cyber-arms with guns they can also automatically fire at targets while you move.

Moving and shooting is something we're looking for feedback on during the beta. Right now some cars are equipped with a boost which you can R-click to use to ram into enemies/other cars and do damage. Since when you stop moving the game needs to stop to allow you to do your next turn, firing and moving on and off would be stupid. We could have you use an off-hand item to shoot with after selecting a target to auto-shoot it while moving around, which you could select while stopped. Sort of tedious, but we'll wait for feedback before implementing something.

You control vehicles like you control your character, just faster, but the turn-radius takes a turn and de-acceleration also takes another couple turns based on your speed. You'll be cruising through turns until you reach a dead stop. One of the final things we're adding to that is some turn-tile drift turns if you turn while moving too fast to simulate some turn/tile physics while moving.

When you come across the mega-corp Quinton's headquarters you'll find the Calitana Circuit, you can sign up for races for some extra Wondoos and fame, not that you may want the attention either of those bring.

Beyond just making maps easy to drive on, stitching also lead to a more streamlined, cheaper and easier process for navigation behind the scenes. That's more boring to write up, but prior to this we were using a more or less traditional pathfinding rigged to work with the overlapping of floors and buildings in a map. Each node point on the a* path would have cached all the normal tile information, as well as shortest paths to get to different points for attacking or patrolling. Stitching those together map-to-map were more trouble than they were worth, and it was hampering us not to go roof-to-roof on maps due to the volume of points to connect, both static and dynamic. Instead, we now have NPCs move the same tile-to-tile at will like the player instead of set paths, checking on-the-fly as they move around cover and patrol points. This has worked better in all circumstances, and is a much cheaper solution, so that means more mobs.

Cheers

Joe & Hannah

 

[HoboForEternity]

What Is this even anymore?
Looks incline tho so i am not complaining

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Looks damn nice.

 

[buffalo bill]

Our newest alpha build featuring the start of those will be up in the next few days, followed by a video showcasing the beta, and releasing it on the 15th of November. A thousand apologies for the delay — we're very excited to finally get it in your hands, and will be on track for a 2020 release.

lol

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Our newest alpha build featuring the start of those will be up in the next few days, followed by a video showcasing the beta, and releasing it on the 15th of November. A thousand apologies for the delay — we're very excited to finally get it in your hands, and will be on track for a 2020 release.

lol

Which calendar?

 

[grimace]

Romances confirmed?

 

[Prime Junta]

And then they say nobody's making RPGs for the Codex.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Looks promising and much, much better than the earlier pictures. I don't doubt they can make interesting things, but Sitis was more like a cRPG project than a full-fledged cRPG. I hope they manage to deliver because they are really trying to make an engrossing cRPG. The fact is that even as a cRPG project, Sitis was more interesting and charming than more polished expensive cRPGs released in the same period.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

And then they say nobody's making RPGs for the Codex.

The Codex is too busy playing the latest Obsidian shooter to notice this. We have our "grognard" priorities, you know.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yeh I'm digging this new art style. Going after Moebius was a bad idea, this is more like Muñoz/Sampayo. Both more and more appropriate to the theme.

[citation needed] https://www.google.com/search?q=ala...8jlAhXqoosKHQrtCR8Q_AUIEigB&biw=1796&bih=1316

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

The new dialogue layout is pretty slick, using the power of multiple cameras! The characters are all animating 3d models from the game-world who gesture with their chat bubbles. Keywords are thought bubbles, and you get a little report card for people you meet with any known info you've obtained that's important. Aptitudes also use this and show their roll info in their own panels nearby. This was a social roll to get this drunk to follow you around.

It looks like a comic book interaction. Lovely, refreshing.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

The last update we talked about the RISK meter and segmenting turns to different party members. Shortly after we tested and discussed this companion-combat with some of our Alpha backers, we decided to roll back to single-player turn-based combat. Companions will remain auxiliary and the player can direct general commands to (move/attack/talk) as originally planned. Defend is now a normal action you can roll for while playing. Companions are both other agents, hires, and anyone on the street if you can charm/bio-hack them.

Incline in this front too.

A big part of 2019 activities involved revising some code to get more enemies on screen, better performance with the line of sight transparency and black, as well as stitching together the map. Map loading is so 1999 [insert plethora of games that already got around it], and 20 years later I think we can dismiss it as lazy. And disruptive! I think back to a game like Dungeon Siege, and it was really neat that the whole game was just one enormous map you wade through — it really pits you in the world, rather than seeing it as a small art piece or tactical map.

For a more modern city, having interiors, rooftops, and underground all webbed together gives a much more organic feel, and a lot more tactical variance. This is also effective for the combat and NPC sensory mechanics — with a wide open and expansive the map, not having the safety of a loaded room also makes you vulnerable. Climb a roof and jump into a 3rd story window to escape some gang members, and they could follow, or be welcomed by a bunch of winos with broken bottles inside to surround you.

No map loading. Great. RIP kiting.