Note of the outskirts - blobber by Cryptrat

[CryptRat]

Link : https://cryptrat.itch.io/note-of-the-outskirts

Note of the outskirts
Close future. Rumors say megacorps are getting mad over a possible treasure. Bandits, mercenaries and opportunistic merchants are showing up, and of course you're too. Whatever it is, you're determined to find it and sell it to whoever will propose the best price. That's where the adventure begins.



Note of the outskirts is a classic party-based role playing game in the vein of titles such as the original Wasteland.



Features :

- One big handcrafted open dungeon : with a secret in (almost) every corner and multiple paths to the end

- Sandbox approach and interactive environment : solve riddles or use dynamite, swim or freeze water, melt ice, cut trees

- Party creation: bring up to 7 characters to life with 6 main attributes and dozens of skills and feats

- Classic round-based combat : weapons have different modes, and some can also be used out of combat

- Resource management : buy grenades, bandages and shield creation nanobots before travelling forth

- About 10 hours of gameplay

- No story : you'll have to make it yourself

- An automap : but don't use it

- Mod support.



Credits to :

- Wall textures by Jestan : https://jestan.itch.io/

- Portraits by Ashen Victor : https://ashen-victor.itch.io

- Robots and other monsters by Ækashics : http://www.akashics.moe/

- Music by Louise Byrne : https://louisebyrnemusic.com/

 

[CryptRat]

Sorry.

V1.0.1 released

Fixes a bug which would make the size of save files explode. Just normally reload your last save, the further ones you'll make will be much smaller.

Note that you may need to identify again some items you'd already identifiied.

 

[CryptRat]

I'll probably release one more version before going to bed. Nothing utter critical but some QoL and such.

- Eating frequency will be switched from 8 hours to 16 hours. Besides many more enemies will own rations. *

- I've found a case of crash during fights when fallen down.

- Would be nice if the shopping window displayed the selected character's weapon skills, or at least had an option to look at the character sheet, since at least at the beginning it's hard to keep track of who is good with what. Also would be nice if weapon descriptions specified the relevant skill - while melee/guns divide is self-explanatory, what qualifies as a heavy weapon isn't.

Will be in.

- Would be nice if haggling just used the character with the highest skill automatically because there really doesn't seem to be a point in having to select one manually.

Yes, it should at very least be an option (some players like to always choose who does what), it's some half-baked feature but I'll take the time to see if it works properly and then make it toggable soon.

The option seems to work (at least to haggle) so it'll be toggable now.

- Would be nice if the "movement keys" setting affected only movement and not the menus. As it is, switching to WASD turned out a very weird experience since I had to press right arrow to save (remapped from S), and especially in character creation, entering any character names that contained letters W, A, S or D turned out impossible.

Not sure about this one, working on it, maybe there'll be something and maybe not.



*I spent the last weeks adding more and more rations in the game as players tried the game (it's not completely finite either, random encounters vs animals and some other enemies can give some), but there is still not enough for most players, hopefully it'll be enough now.

 

[V_K]

*I spent the last weeks adding more and more rations in the game as players tried the game (it's not completely finite either, random encounters vs animals and some other enemies can give some), but there is still not enough for most players, hopefully it'll be enough now.

Can't you just make the shops restock them every X days?
I have no idea how stringent the food requirements are, of course.

 

[Dorateen]

I always got a Heavy Metal/Captain Stern pulp comic vibe from the art and overall tone of the adventure. I dig the way the design is implemented.

 

[bandersnatch]

What engine was this programmed in?

 

[Abu Antar]

I'll give it a shot and added to the released rpgs thread, tomorrow.

 

[CryptRat]

What engine was this programmed in?

My own, I'm using base JAVA.

 

[Strange Fellow]

So, anyone got through a combat encounter yet?

 

[V_K]

Well, if "getting through" means being alive at the end of it, then no. Unless fleeing counts.
After three parties dead to traps and one to enemies - all within five steps from the starting point, I can't say I enjoy the game's approach of throwing the player in at the deep end. And then to add insult to injury, the settings file suggest that this is the easy difficulty.
It would also benefit from the "look" command because figuring out what the read floor tiles mean by stepping onto them and burning to crisp isn't very fun.

Some other small things:
- Automap tiles are way, way too small. Needs a "zoom in" function.
- There's a "telepathic helmet" for sale at the armor shop whose description says that it improves spellcasting - but as far as I remember, you decided not to have spells in this game.
- Would be nice to get a message in the log window when the party walks into a trap or onto a damaging tile.
- Combat log scrolls way too fast.

 

[octavius]

The name of the game...uh...

 

[Butter]

Well, if "getting through" means being alive at the end of it, then no. Unless fleeing counts.
After three parties dead to traps and one to enemies - all within five steps from the starting point, I can't say I enjoy the game's approach of throwing the player in at the deep end. And then to add insult to injury, the settings file suggest that this is the easy difficulty.

Sounds like Chaos Strikes Back.

 

[V_K]

Well, if "getting through" means being alive at the end of it, then no. Unless fleeing counts.
After three parties dead to traps and one to enemies - all within five steps from the starting point, I can't say I enjoy the game's approach of throwing the player in at the deep end. And then to add insult to injury, the settings file suggest that this is the easy difficulty.

Sounds like Chaos Strikes Back.

Only CSB assumes you have finished DM and already know the systems inside and out. Here you have to learn the systems at the same time.
I mean, in some twisted sense the beginning does work as a very frustrating tutorial on the viability of different parties. But parts of it is pure trolling, like placing a trap behind a door (so you have no way of seeing it's there) in the shopping districts where all the other doors have so far lead to shops.

 

[CryptRat]

So, anyone got through a combat encounter yet?

Maybe give a quick look at the default party for reference, the range of base stats the game was tested with especially, I can't say the encounters don't get hard as you advance through the game (my friends didn't really check the ending parts of the game so I'm not really sure, I just can say that from my experience they're not easy) nor that random encounters can't occasionally be both hard and hard to flee (the number of enemies is very randomized, you can also meet a single lonely enemy with strong equipment that you'll gladly loot, and it's hard to flee when they start very close to the party) but the fixed encounters in the beginning should not be too hard.

- There's a "telepathic helmet" for sale at the armor shop whose description says that it improves spellcasting - but as far as I remember, you decided not to have spells in this game.

Oops, thanks, must be some of that sort of things in the game yes, I checked the skill description but there still may be some things like that, and I can't say I doublechecked item descriptions recently indeed, I will. This helmet increases resistance to mental (and noise) resistance and have some charge to raise the mental resistance of all the party during a fight.

- Automap tiles are way, way too small. Needs a "zoom in" function.

I'll work on that.

But parts of it is pure trolling (so you have no way of seeing it's there)

You detect traps two tiles away even if there's a wall or a door in between, it's not impossible to detect it. You're right that there's really no tutorial part though', don't get the false impression that it'll only get worse from there, it won't, but the level design is aggressive from the very start.

 

[V_K]

You detect traps two tiles away event if there's a wall or a door in between, it's not impossible to detect it.

I mean the red X on the ground that marks the trap after it's been detected. You can't see it behind a door.

level design is aggressive from the very start.

Are there hidden teleporter tiles in the starting area as well? I just had this weird thing where my party started in the upper left corner of the map, then got lost - and when it regain their bearing, they were in the upper right corner, even though they couldn't have walked that far.

level design is aggressive from the very start

TBH, I'm not sure it's a wise decision - if you actually want people to play the game. On its own, it would have been fine, but as I've said - there's also quite a complex system to learn at the same time.

Maybe give a quick look at the default party for reference

Oh, I just did - and found out it's level 2!

 

[Reinhardt]

Another game too hard for codex. Why i'm not even surprised...

 

[CryptRat]

- Would be nice to get a message in the log window when the party walks into a trap or onto a damaging tile.

I like that there's no, I know it's stupid not to know when you're damaged, but traps are often not anywhere overall, I like that you don't always automatically realize that you're inside a minefield.

- Combat log scrolls way too fast.

There's an option in the settings to make it slower. I need to add tool-tips of the options.

 

[V_K]

Another game too hard for codex. Why i'm not even surprised...

Well, go on, try it. Let's see how many restarts it will take.

 

[Reinhardt]

I prefer my blobbers set in fantasy.

 

[CryptRat]

Are there hidden teleporter tiles in the starting area as well? I just had this weird thing where my party started in the upper left corner of the map, then got lost - and when it regain their bearing, they were in the upper right corner, even though they couldn't have walked that far.

(don't overinterpret this one either though', there's indeed one teleporter in the very beginning, which does not mean there's everywhere).

Oh, I just did - and found out it's level 2!

Might and Magic style. You can roll much stronger characters if you really want to (I recommend at least as strong as the default ones rather than weaker, and slightly stronger is no luxury), and you can spend your gold much better (they spent around 5000, without any haggling and also buying only moderate strong stuff to fullfill the entire party, what is not what you traditionally do as a player).

 

[V_K]

I like that there's no, I know it's stupid not to know when you're damaged, but traps are often not anywhere overall, I like that you don't always automatically realize that you're inside a minefield.

It's not so much about detecting a trap by walking into it, it's just if I walk onto an undetected trap, I only notice that my party became poisoned or bleeding when they die from it. Simultaneously keeping track of the adventuring window AND the log AND the party status all the time is kinda bothersome.

 

[V_K]

I prefer my blobbers set in fantasy.

Coward.

 

[CryptRat]

I like that there's no, I know it's stupid not to know when you're damaged, but traps are often not anywhere overall, I like that you don't always automatically realize that you're inside a minefield.

It's not so much about detecting a trap by walking into it, it's just if I walk onto an undetected trap, I only notice that my party became poisoned or bleeding when they die from it. Simultaneously keeping track of the adventuring window AND the log AND the party status all the time is kinda bothersome.

Yes but it's normal that at least one character starts to bleed as soon as the party set its feet on the trap in the beginning (because bad armors) so saying the character starts bleeding is kinda the same as saying you've walked onto a trap, which I prefer not to do.

 

[V_K]

I like that there's no, I know it's stupid not to know when you're damaged, but traps are often not anywhere overall, I like that you don't always automatically realize that you're inside a minefield.

It's not so much about detecting a trap by walking into it, it's just if I walk onto an undetected trap, I only notice that my party became poisoned or bleeding when they die from it. Simultaneously keeping track of the adventuring window AND the log AND the party status all the time is kinda bothersome.

Yes but it's normal that at least one character starts to bleed as soon as the party set its feet on the trap in the beginning (because bad armors) so saying the character starts bleeding is kinda the same as saying you've walked onto a trap, which I prefer not to do.

Honestly, the game is hardcore enough even without that

Another small thing: "damaging trap" sounds rather awkward. Better call it a spike trap (would also better indicate that it causes bleeding).

 

[CryptRat]

nother small thing: "damaging trap" sounds rather awkward. Better call it a spike trap (would also better indicate that it causes bleeding).

Sure, thanks.