Mechajammer - Spring Stuff!

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Spaceman
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February 13, 2014
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A new update for Mechajammer updates us on development progress.

Spring stuff!

Greetings everyone,

Hope everyone is safe and sound, and all your collective 5G reception is appropriately augmented (or soon to be).

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There's fun news about the game coming this month along with release dates, and we'll be expanding testing for feedback to all of you. A huge thanks to all the alpha/beta backers for their input getting us this far, and shout out to Allen M for encouraging us down the warpath of the tick/tile way back when we were toying with the broader companion micromanagement. It has paid off splendidly. The feedback we've received from beta testers has been incredibly helpful as we've finalized the gameplay systems, and we've added an in-game bug reporting button recently as well.

There'll be a campaign update for alpha/beta backers this weekend that we hope you can take a punch at, so if you have some time to check it out that would be wonderful. The forum has build notes you can comment on as well as the in-game reporter. Once everyone has their mitts on it, all you backers have exclusive access to the forum and can share your thoughts and dreams you have in those build notes, and about the game.

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[:.][:][ ][::][. ][ ]


One of the remaining musical endeavors we're doing are with the 13 gangs occupying the city, whom are going to have a unique score to go with them as you decide to level their facilities or strong arm an alliance for a pool of allies to buy. These are both fun to design as the main "dungeons" of the city (though most aren't in actual dungeons, sans Faith and a few others, most are offices or various city buildings), they all have their own flavored map for some puzzle of infiltration, NPC enemies and companion pools to (potentially) buy from, and enemy agents to (potentially) kill for level advancement.

Kevin has been making some absolutely wonderful tracks, emphasizing the game's focus of drenching you in ambience and getting just the perfect amount of camp for the gangs.

[slam this link for some jams]

[ In order ]

Tanked (dungeon crawl Mad Max style on the outskirts of the colony walls, things currently going wrong for you)


  • Dim (just dynamite ambience)
  • Fueled (some of the local bars and dives to find companions for hire and information)
  • Inside the Hive (The Hive gang, creep factor getting amplified, don't want to KO around here)

Finding the right company for a limited run vinyl version of the soundtrack that we'd like to send out early as well, as Kevin should be finishing the tracks this summer.



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[ ][::][:.][. ][:][::]

We'e also been adding a plethora of vehicles, I think we're up to 30 now, including a rickshaw that up to 2 companions can jump in the back in (for shooting while driving), and Barry's starting vehicle of choice for your gang which rivals the mystery machine, spawnable from your base.

[...]

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solving mysteries
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vehicles have a great variety of gear crunchy & metal SFX, a feast for the ears
We desperately need a wiki-like page devoted to the ruleset and items in the game that you could peruse (and that will also be part of the physical rewards), and we're planning to get to that this summer so we don't have to go outside.

[::][. ][ ][:.][:][ ]

Reward updates

On other reward stuff, we almost have all the backer heads in at this point and are missing some of you, so expect a reminder email pertaining to that. Working toward ~100 unique talking head portraits in the game including all your faces, and besides some inevitable arthritis we really like the way they've added to the visuals. You range from PC portraits, companion NPCs, to enemy agents from the gangs or syndicates.

We'll be finalizing our selection for the miniatures this summer as well, to ship out early. We've broadened the model count for that for you to choose from, we have your three main companions and an NPC or agent representing each faction of the gangs and syndicates (MFI, Agrofax, Quinton, Arms Guild, and Faith). We also have the Pasaaran hunter from our fantasy game, because bird people are neat. We hope the final tests all turn out acceptable before the mass production, we have some new molds that should work quite well. We have decided that instead of the ~medium~ quality auto-coloring job we can print with the those, we'll be getting a finer detailed plastic and give them a wash and double-coat (dark up, light down) primer to get a nice shadowed effect on the models. It's quick and easy and looks nice, a common way to start painting a model because it highlights all the details nicely. In any case we'll catalog the process for your amusement.

As for any reward addresses, we'll be asking for those again this year before we ship anything, so if those changed don't worry about it we'll be getting that new info before sending.


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make me [:][ ][ ][::][. ][:.]

As always, hope all of you are doing well.

happy spring.
Thanks Farflame!

More information.
 
Joined
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So will this ever get released. Still remember this game being called Copper Dreams. Still waiting for the expansion that was supposed to finish Serpent in the Staglands also.

Still I'm probably being to harsh on a small two man team.:disappointed:
 
Last edited:
Joined
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So will this ever get released. Still remember this game being called Copper Dreams. Still waiting for the expansion that was supposed to finish Serpent in the Staglands also.

Still I'm probably being to harsh on a small two man team.:disappointed:

Damn, youre grumpy these days. Even more then usually if I dare to say. Heads up, most of delayed games will get released ... eventually :)
 
Joined
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Blast! I lost the bookmark for this amazing game and was trying to remember its title, looking everywhere…. Argh..
Mechajammer, Mechajammer!!
Such amazing truly creative art.
Don't care if its not turn-based. Looks so good, I have to play this!! :-ooOoOOoo~~~~~~

Whalenought StudiosCreator
4 days ago

Thanks! Still simultaneous turn based, just can play fast if you want (step-by-step, as we used to call it). We get like <4 MB on twitter for showing stuff off, so we usually cruise through turns. Every tile movement is a turn, and then whatever actions you choose could take a few turns. Since enemies do that too with various action times and play them simultaneously with yours, you get more 'real-time' like tactics with kiting and cover and a much improved way of interacting with their sensory mechanics. The abstractions used for most turn based games aren't needed, and it's super simple to play, like a traditional turn based (rogue?) like game.
 
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Still remember this game being called Copper Dreams.

Ha! I was thinking about Copper Dreams just yesterday. Didn't realize they changed the title... to an equally vague, so-so title.
 
Joined
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Ha! I was thinking about Copper Dreams just yesterday. Didn't realize they changed the title… to an equally vague, so-so title.
Yeah the developer rebooted the game. The biggest change was the graphics and for a time I was worried everything would end up being neon colors. Thankfully it didn't.
 
Joined
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Glad these guys are still in business after a year of pandemic. That was hard on the indie companies.
 
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Yeah, it would have irked me to see them go belly up after such a splendid game like Serpent in the Staglands in their repetoire. One of the better kick starter campaigns of distant past.
 
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I think part of the reason it has taken so long (aside from Joe changing art styles) is they have day jobs to pay their bills. This shouldn't really surprise anyone as two people can't live on $40,000 for years, not to mention hire a composer.
 
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Just watched a preview video (that I won't link to avoid the usual comments on the "*RPG" word), it looks quite interesting.

They say it's turn-based, though from the gameplay footage it rather looks like "Real-Time with Automatic Pause" since everyone continues moving during anyone's turn? Or a sort of mix between the two. Original.

I also liked the earlier graphic style, but the new is fine by me too. The presentation of dialogues seems a bit off-putting though. Isn't it light on the story side?
 
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