KickStarter StarCrawlers - indie sci-fi dungeon crawling RPG

[SuicideBunny]

i hope they'll have more enemy variety than just recolors of those same two or three models.

 

[Dieithrio]

I just noticed that... Kickstarter campaign is live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125859261/starcrawlers Backed, for the moment. I need to know more details about it through the campaign, tough.
Man, this + Darkest Dungeon + (upcoming) Zaharia... I'm going to starve this month.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Awesome, I hope they can pull this off.

 

[Maelflux]

Looks interesting, so backing it for now, and hope for even more info later on.

 

[SuicideBunny]

fapping cautiously to:

 

[Eyeball]

This actually looks like it could turn out pretty great. Just one thing: Combat needs to be sped up a bit. The "combat mode engaged!" announcement is unncessary and you don't need to have the enemies pause to announce the name of their attack like they do. It's so....JRPG.

 

[SuicideBunny]

nice. unlike those darkest dungeons twerps i got an asap response from them about paypal:

We are working on setting up paypal backing, check back again in a few days!

 

[Damned Registrations]

This actually looks like it could turn out pretty great. Just one thing: Combat needs to be sped up a bit. The "combat mode engaged!" announcement is unncessary and you don't need to have the enemies pause to announce the name of their attack like they do. It's so....JRPG.

From what I could see the attacks started animating at the same time the message was displayed. No harm in that. It was a bit slow paced for my tastes, but that has more to do with the number of attacks being exchanged, hopefully later on you'll be using stronger attacks that ends things faster. The pre-battle warning thing was stupid though.


Actually, one of the things that bothers me is that grid based exploration just doesn't translate well to 3D. The animations for moving and turning slow everything down by such an immense factor it'll make the exploration tedious unless the maps are tiny (which would also make the exploration tedious.) I wouldn't mind honestly if 75% of the frames for moving were just cut out, but I know some people would flip their shit at how choppy it'd look.

 

[SuicideBunny]

alpha is out now. downloadin.

 

[almondblight]

alpha is out now. downloadin.

Any good?

 

[Metro]

Steam or gtfo.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Any good?

alpha is pretty barebones and somewhat buggy so far, but it definitely has plenty of potential and the stuff that's already implemented is fairly neat.

Steam or gtfo.

it's been greenlit, so stfu.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Crooked Bee]

Video preview by devs at Gametrailers:

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/20f20o/starcrawlers-indie-games-live--cyberpunk-rpg-demo

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
I like randomness as an enhancing factor, not something permeating every single aspect of the game. The dungeon layout is random, the encounters are random, the loot is random, your mom is random...come on just stop.

(snip...)

Random Mom Table

d20

1. Your mom was a housewife. Because of your happy childhood, you start with a +2 to an attribute of your choice.
2. Your mom was an office worker. Since you had to take care of yourself, you start with +2 to survival. You also inherit 1d10 paper clips, 1d6 post-it paper blocks and 1d4 pens.
3. Your mom was a tour guide. You have knowledge of 1d6 random exotic locations.
4. Your mom was a taxi driver. You start with a car and 1d4 random wounds.
5. Your mom was a politician. You start with +3 to Edu, and you can ignore failures for colledge rolls. You also start with 1d3 political contacts.
6. Your mom was a hippie. You can roll 3 times on the rogue skill list.You also start with the English (60s slang) and Guitar skills.
7. Your mom was a paranormal investigator. You start with the Knowledge (Pop-Occult) and Performance (Backstage Tricks) skills. You also inherit a infra-red camera, 1d8 thermal sensors, 1d4 microphones and your mom's paranormal channel on Youtube.
8. Your mom was a famous singer, but you are tone deaf. You start with the tone deaf disadvantage. You get +3 to an attribute of your choice, as the lack of bonding with your mother drove you to compensate by over-achieving. However, you are emotionally sensible.
9. Your mom was a baker. You get the overweight disadvantage, but you start with three rolls on the chef skill list, and the baker skill. You also start with 1d12 common recipes and 1d4 uncommon ones.
10. Your mom was an industrial spy. You start with -2 to Edu thanks to always changing schools, but your social class is set to Upper (roll for lower, middle or upper).
11. Your mom was a prostitute. You start with 1d3 psychological problems an 3 rolls on the survival skill table.
12. Your mom was a cat lady. You start with 3 rolls on the veterinary skill table. You also inherit 1d3 cats.
13. Your mom was considered insane. You start with 1d3 childhood traumas. You also start with a curse you don't know about yet.
14. Your mom was a witch. Roll a d%: (1-60) Your Str is 2d6 + 18, but your Int is 2d6. Your Edu is 5 and your size is 21. You are male. (61-90) You get a +3 bonus to Int and Edu. You get 3 rolls on the occult skill table and two on the sorcery table. You start with 1d5 common spells and 1 uncommon one. (91-100) As before, but you have 1d5 horrific mutations, and you are aligned to another plane.
15. You mom was replaced by a doppelganger. You start with the Knowledge (Doppelganger) skill, with a roll on either the science, firearms or rogue skill table and an enemy (doppelganger).
16. Your mom died, but you were raised by your auntie. You were underfed and undercared, so you start with the thin and the emotionally sensible disadvantages. You also start with a scar on your forehead and the Delusion (I am a Wizard!) disadvantage.
17. Your mom was a bearded woman. You start with 4 carnie skill table rolls and the hypertrichosis disadvantage.
18. Your mom was the leader of a suicide cult. Roll a d% (1-40) You start with the Performance (Acting) skill and two rolls on the rogue skill table. You inherit the remnants of her cult. (41-90) You start with 1d3 psychological disadvantages and the skill Knowledge (Your Mom's Cult). (91-99) You start dead. (100) You start with 1d3 mutations, one occult skill table roll and the ally (Being from beyond this reality) advantage.
19. You don't know who your mom was. You start with 3 rolls on the detective skill roll and 1d4 leads.
20. Roll twice and apply both results.

 

[LESS T_T]

Soundtrack Preview Trailer:



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125859261/starcrawlers/posts/1023993

Development Progress

We’ve been making so much progress on the game in the last few weeks its hard to know where to start! The team has been pushing themselves like never before and it shows. Here are a few of the many things we’ve been working on:

• Character Abilities - all characters now have a full set of unique abilities, complete with particles and effects. We are currently working on balancing, tweaking and SFX from the talented team at PowerUp Audio.
• Itemization - randomized weapons are in and we are working on randomized art for them - armor and shields are in progress. There are currently thousands of possible unique weapon drops that can be encountered in game. Weapon class specific upgrades are coming soon.
• Character Art - Final art for male and female versions of all character classes is complete
• Mobs - new enemies are in and can be encountered on runs - rarespawns have started to appear also.
• UI Overhaul - the UI has been completely redone in the past few months to improve functionality and appearance - we can’t wait to hear what you think!

New Desktop Wallpapers

Since we put the finishing touches on our character art, we thought we’d make up some new desktop wallpapers based on the StarCrawlers character classes. This month we have the Soldiers, Void Psykers, Smugglers and Force Psykers - the other four classes will be featured in upcoming wallpapers.

Download the first set here: StarCrawlers Wallpapers

 

[Dorateen]

It looks pretty stunning to me.

But am I the only one who wishes these scenes could represent the sci-fi elements of a latter Wizardry or Might & Magic game?

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Looks fantastic. Any word on release date?

 

[Tzaero]

Well well well, you're back.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Random everything = yawn. A randomly generated dungeon will never be as good as a hand crafted one done by a person who knows about good dungeon design.

Screw you, i loved Daggerfall.

 

[Alex]

Random everything = yawn. A randomly generated dungeon will never be as good as a hand crafted one done by a person who knows about good dungeon design.

Screw you, i loved Daggerfall.

I loved daggerfall too. But I think it would have been much more interesting if the random dungeons had some aspects more customized. As it is, the point of the dungeon is to be one huge maze. If someone had created different kinds of rooms, if you could find things in the dungeons that actually had to do with the dungeon's history (this history could be randomly composed of different handmade parts), etc, I think the game would have been much better.

It is like the quests in Daggerfall. The problem with the quests isn't that they were "mad lib" like. But that they had very few moving parts, and the stuff that got inserted in the blanks didn't matter.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

So apparently the beta has been released. Will report back.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

There is a lot to like about this game so far. It looks beautiful, there's a lot of variety in classes and builds within classes (there will probably be "most efficient" builds, but too early to really say). At the same time, this game has a LOT of work. In less than an hour I hit two freezes that forced me to quit the game - it wasn't like the program froze, but more of like the combat just stopped. Still, I'm really excited - this looks like an almost perfect dungeon crawler.

Can't speak to the real variety in dungeons or how leveling works in practice yet, but I'll play more and give updates. It's worth a buy if you like dungeon crawlers, but you may want to wait for release (or at least a later build).

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Alright - second play I had a good bit of stability (no crashes) and was able to clear a whole dungeon and level up once. Impressions:

The good: Once again, it's really sharply designed. Weapons have very great variety (there are trade-offs) so bigger number isn't always better, or at least not without drawbacks. Same with armor - you can either get armor with a high block rating, or a high dodge rating, or neither. Shield generators you can go for either high damage blocked, or more charges - everything is a balancing act, which is fantastic. There's also a good bit of loot to be found, either in credit sticks, garbage that's meant to be sold, or some usable items. Some of the items have quirky descriptions if that's your thing. Each of the classes plays very differently, which is pretty awesome, and there seems to be a ton of variety even within the class how to build them. It looks like battles are meant to be pretty long in some instances (cyber ninjas put "combo points" on a target when they hit them, and then special abilities are based on how many combo points are on the target, for instance - with similar but different types of things with other classes).

The neither good nor bad: Only leveled once, but leveling seems to only give you an ability point and increase your HP a bit. Not a big deal - there aren't traditional stats to increase or decrease - but rather your abilities seem to increase through equipment. There wasn't a ton of combat in the dungeon either, so it didn't feel like too much of a slog. It was very easy though - but it's just one dungeon so I'm not going to put too much stock on it yet. You choose which dungeon from a mission list at a bar, which will have which company you're working for, and which will get pissed off by the job (most are +5 relation with one and -5 relation with another). I don't know what effect that really has long term on the game, but it has promise. There are a lot of companies, as well (maybe around 20?). I don't know if this has any effect other than the missions they provide or any plot-type elements later on - it seems light on plot right now which doesn't bother me one bit, but your mileage may vary. Also - whenever you enter a room it shows you the entire room, including any exits, on the map, so there is no hunting for secrets. If you want your dungeon crawls to be pixel hunting for secrets, so far I haven't found that.

The stuff that needs fixing: I only did one mission, but walked out of it with more money than I knew what to do with. I upgraded everyone's weapons and armor, both in actual weapons and in "upgrades" you can do at the store to give them slight bonuses (nothing colossal +1% crit chance type stuff). The junk you pick up just has too much value, and the weapons/upgrades are too cheap. That doesn't seem like a huge deal but should be fixed. In my mind, one of the best ways to really make dungeon crawlers great is a feeling of scarcity - but right now it doesn't have that. There also wasn't a ton of environmental interaction in the first dungeon - had to make a decision on whether to pick up some spores to sell (did and it cost me like 4 damage on the character, no big deal) and a few hints that later dungeons may have more severe ones, but it just really didn't have that feeling.

Overall it's a great experience, and one that I am looking forward to continuing. Very solid game, but the money balancing really needs to be fixed.

 

[Zombra]

Hope you're communicating all this with the devs.

Don't like the sound of that vendor trash. Even if it's valuable vendor trash, I hate useless items bloating the inventory system.