Mechajammer - Matt Chat 486

Might finally give the game a go since GOG finally caught up with the patches.
 
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I'm still not sure if the updates/patches are done with this one, I've got it all ready to go when that time happens, though.

Someone who works for the publisher stated on the Mechajammer Discord awhile back that Whalenought has no further plans to update the game. I get the impression that the game did not sell well at all (even less than what a very niche retro RPG could expect).

I last tried it out a couple weeks ago. I like the character creation. Its reminiscent of Fallout & Arcanum. The actual game however, wasn't impressing me. initially I tried to make a stealthy character but I found it too hard to avoid combat. So I made a combat oriented character and found combat to be mediocre.

I was also having trouble figuring out how to advance. Seems you basically just have wander around aimlessly, kill or avoid any enemies you find and hope you find something useful. I'm not someone that needs quest markers but prefer to get some general clue where to go. I might give it another try some time, but I'm thinking the game is probably just not my cup of tea.
 
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Bummer it does indeed sound like the game was a huge flop. If I can be honest I'm not surprised as the developer changed the name, and style to be something different.
 
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Bummer it does indeed sound like the game was a huge flop. If I can be honest I'm not surprised as the developer changed the name, and style to be be something different.

Agreed. It also didn't get the same pre-release buzz that SitS got as well. Maybe that was because of not having something like the Darklands influence that attracted some fans or just the setting difference.
 
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Yikes, that doesn't sound enjoyable at all, and nothing like their previous game.

Well, if you already own it, you should try it yourself sometime. That's just my impression and some people do seem to like it, so maybe you will too. I didn't enjoy what I played of Serpent in the Staglands either, though in that case I just chalk it up to me disliking RTwP combat.
 
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I played a little with it when it was released and found it enjoyable enough, but it needed some polish and there were bugs. I prefer to wait until it's in a better state.

Progression is sometimes difficult but that's a feature, you have to explore, find the passwords, understand how the world works. Write everything down on paper or using the in-game basic notepad.

The combat is very uneven, as is the character build. I didn't have enough social skill points so I couldn't get followers to help in the combats, and I wasn't proficient enough to fight more difficult enemies because my build was not good. The stealth approach doesn't always work indeed, you can't rely only on that, only partially.

So I think the biggest issue besides bugs & polish was, or still is, balance. And they should drop the clumsy automatic pause in the combat system and make it a normal pause. It doesn't bring anything original, it's just annoying.

The other thing I wasn't fond of was the unreadable map and undistinguishable items because of the pixel art, but there's nothing for it, so you've got to like that style and know that your eyes will probably lose a little acuity after playing Mechajammer :p
 
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The game was a huge flop, and is still barely playable with a ton of bugs.
And even if it had no bugs, the game has so many issues from a design standpoint that it's just one gigantic mess. Such as the dice system actually discouraging improving skills because the devs were unable to figure out that 1d6+5 is vastly better than 2d6… Yes, really. I'm not making this up.

Not even speaking about how the game in the end wasn't even remotely close to what the original Kickstarter was talking about.

Honestly, the game's development itself shows that some people truly need a producer behind them to keep them on track and on time.
Without that, the talent of these two devs to create something unique just seems to go to waste.

I do get why they abandoned it, though.
Patch it for who? The 3 remaining players (at peak)?
 
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So I think the biggest issue besides bugs & polish was, or still is, balance. And they should drop the clumsy automatic pause in the combat system and make it a normal pause. It doesn't bring anything original, it's just annoying.

Well, the game was supposed to be (simultaneous) turn-based, if they got rid of the automatic pause it'd just be a RTwP game which is definitely not what they pitched on Kickstarter.

The original plan for combat was compared to Grandia (I played the second game but only vaguely recall it). But as per the original KS pitch, each action was supposed to take a certain amount of time, so actions that took longer carried more risk of failing as your target might move or take cover. All that was scrapped at some point.

The end result plays more like some roguelikes; e.g. I remember Dragon Fin Soup had similar take on combat. I understand it's pretty common for games to change over the course of development, things require multiple iterations as cool ideas don't always translate to enjoyable / fluid gameplay. But in this case what they ended up with just isn't fun IMO.
 
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Oh yeah I own it, helped with the kick starter and all, and I'm a huge fan of their earlier game. So aye, I will be playing it at some point, for sure, and I'll just have to hope I find something appealing in it.
 
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There's a guy on the Codex named Dhaze who actually managed to finish Mechajammer, and he kind of blogged it all along the way in this thread, starting with this post:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...lenought-studios.103709/page-146#post-7856353

It was fairly amusing. The game sounds like a massive clusterfuck. It seems he's the only person on the Codex who's managed to finish it, and I don't think anyone here has finished it (if they have, they've been quiet about it). You know an indie RPG is bad when nobody on the Codex or Watch can even be bothered to finish it.
 
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He must be a masochist considering how much he seemed to dislike it. Kudos for taking one for the team though. :)

He sounds like a prime candidate for the Shit Games Liberation Front!

I do intend to play this game - I supported it financially and all - but the demo left me underwhelmed and it seems it's quite different from what I was originally sold on.
 
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Such as the dice system actually discouraging improving skills because the devs were unable to figure out that 1d6+5 is vastly better than 2d6… Yes, really. I'm not making this up.
Holy shit, that's dumb.
There was a TTRPG I played where there is a dice upgrade system (OpenD6?*) where you upgrade when you reach half the max rollable number on the dice. Like D6+3 upgrades to 2D6, or something like that. Even that has problems (gain 3 at the upper end but your min reduces by 2), but not as egregious as what you describe.

(*it was a long time ago so I'm not certain it's that one :p)
 
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There's a guy on the Codex named Dhaze who actually managed to finish Mechajammer, and he kind of blogged it all along the way in this thread, starting with this post:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...lenought-studios.103709/page-146#post-7856353

It was fairly amusing. The game sounds like a massive clusterfuck. It seems he's the only person on the Codex who's managed to finish it, and I don't think anyone here has finished it (if they have, they've been quiet about it). You know an indie RPG is bad when nobody on the Codex or Watch can even be bothered to finish it.

Frankly, I don't see the point of spending so much time just to bash a game one doesn't like. It's clear it needs more development anyway.

He should probably write articles for RPS, like the other Mechajammer-hater who wrote a so-called "review" about it. :lol:
 
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Seemed like he was driven more out of a sense of morbid curiosity than anything else. One of my favorite bits was that he restarted the game specializing in spears instead of guns (since firearm ammo apparently disappears from your bag on a regular basis), and then posted the spear-throwing combat animation: https://i.imgur.com/E5Ig6nr.gif
 
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