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[Purkake4]

Wow, those lightning fast updates.

I really like the idea of dialogue outcomes being emergent when the game isn't really about talking to dudes. Makes it much more fun to either get a lucky break or end up having to cap them anyway.

 

[More_Badass]

Another new update
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/copper-dreams/posts/1901287

The character models look so good. I didn't really like the ones in the original pitch, but I love the new ones

 

[Purkake4]

Nice, appreciating these more regular updates.

 

[More_Badass]

Another massive update
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/copper-dreams/posts/1940200

As we mentioned in the last update, the gameplay wasn't feeling as impactful towards the goal of being able to react to enemy turns on the fly. There also wasn't a way to clearly visualize these elements. It was competent on paper and execution — turns for players/NPCs just take a variable amount of time on the combat bar to execute, however, wait times, lack of clarity of predicting enemy turns and not wanting to get stuck in a long turn during combat was hampering player actions, encouraging you to play too carefully. There was the promise of reactivity in turns, but gameplay and use of time just wasn't allowing it. Ticks, tiles and shorter phases allow the player to have the intel to make more calculated and reactive decisions.

What we've implemented instead is a solution that replaces the general idea of ‘time’ with chunks of time for actions we call ticks. We also brought back tiles to quantify distance, in the pursuit of clarity.

Ticks are represented by a quarter second of gameplay, but are abstract in that longer animations can play-out during these, or multiple hits shown off individually. So behind the scene, these play out like regular turns where gameplay they appear as more linear time.

Importantly, on a bar with other combatants these are super easy to compare. If an enemy is targeting you with a pistol and takes 3 ticks to aim, and 4 to recover from, you have the insight to know to start running and to attack after their bullet is airborne, as it obviously won't follow you. So with ticks, you can quantify how long your action will take compared to your enemy’s actions, allowing you to plan your moves and have the payoff of dodging and taking cover.

Other cool stuff

Swimming. When you want to infiltrate while getting really wet. Create wet tiles to slip on!
Cruising the grid. Your civilian grade vehicle options are a combination of an 80’s sci-fi vehicle and the Peel P50, really adorable for the cyborg agents stealing them to get around on. You can drive onto the electro-magnetic powered freeway grid to navigate to new city maps quickly.
Chemistry. Find icky and fun glowing substances and put them in jars. You can fill these mixtures in 1/4 increments, with increased potency the more you the fill, or seal it off and then utilize it as a thrown chemical agent. It’s like canning fruit, but instead using radiation and chemical waste.

 

[SaylorMan]

Just recently discovered this game. Has a very unique look, excited to see how it feels to play.

Do we have an estimated release date?

 

[Purkake4]

That's a crazy long update, nice.

 

[More_Badass]

That's a crazy long update, nice.

I love how it's coming together. Not to mention the art style looking better than ever

The super granular detail on specific wounds just for the head is so exciting

 

[More_Badass]

Some recent Twitter stuff

First look at a street corner/urban area

Shuttle transport

===

And a lengthy interview from last month
https://www.indiegraze.com/2017/09/25/interview-copper-dreams-hannah-williams/

Erik Meyer: The release of games like Fallout, Diablo, and Ultima Online in the '90s established isometric RPGs as a genre, but recent projects like No Truce With The Furies seek to expand standard conventions, such as dialogue. Your project uses a health system comprised of wounds in the place of a more abstract HP meter. Similarly, you have extensive sneak and weapons options systems. What other novel features and content do you see yourselves adding to Copper Dreams? What do you see yourselves implementing that you haven't seen done elsewhere?

Hannah Williams: The heart and soul of Copper Dreams has always been creating a cozy, p&p roleplaying experience. A comfortable playground that allows you to approach the world as you would in a tabletop game, a ruleset that won't hamstring your adventure by limiting your tools to those fed through specific dialogue options or one-note item uses. When an RPG does just that, rationing out your actions or even suddenly gifting you a narrative tool that allows you to do something that isn't possible in game mechanics, it takes away the joy of actually roleplaying without being told what to do. Partially because the game designer spoon-fed you your actions like they did the narrative, but also because it also creates a sense of disorientation. Dice are rolled and actions are performed on the result, that's a great start, but beyond that there's a lot we wanted to rethink what a player has control of and what to do with it.

Here's an example: I'm talking to a guard and I pick option A to palm him five gold coins so he'll let me pass unmolested. Neat! Glad I didn't have to stab him, he looked like he had a nice family at home waiting for him. But wait, can I do that with anyone? I never got that bribe option in dialogue before. Why did it pop up with him and not the now-dead guard downstairs? Was one less important on my narrative path? This one has a red vest, does that mean something? Did a writer get distracted and forget to add the dialogue option in before? Was there a secret charisma roll that I finally passed? Am I overthinking this? I'm scared, help! I wish I just had a button that let's me try to bribe someone whenever I want to!

Most players, of course, are used to a bribe option popping up in dialogue and don't need to dig out their smelling salts when it happens, but you get the idea. If you give a player all their tools to be used at will, it makes them feel like they can do anything they want, and also gives a sense of security, despite running around in an hostile environment, because you always know what your options are. If you want to try to bribe the final boss, by all means, give it a shot. If you want to bribe a chicken, do that too. Making the DM miserable is mostly what p&p is about, and the least we could do is give the player the freedom to do that to us.

The challenge of this is creating all these tools for players to use at will. Manually jumping over obstacles instead of clicking their hit box to disable them, climbing a roof for height advantage, dropping to a crouch to avoid a missile, dragging cigarettes out of your backpack to an NPC so they will spill their secrets, using your crossbow like a hammer when you're out of bolts or just throwing it against the wall to make noise. These are the kind of things that we think create that cozy tabletop experience, and what will make our ruleset feel different.

Much more at the link

 

[Purkake4]

Good to get some info, it was getting a bit quiet again.

 

[whalenought_joe]

Hey guys, our first public alpha mission testing starts February.

There's a new video Kickstarter update showing off some new features leading up to that:

https://youtu.be/JjTqRgIZgZA

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/copper-dreams/posts/2022737