Copper Dreams - Role-Playing & Keyword Dialogue

Copper Dreams has a new kickstarter update out about Role-Playing and the Keyword Dialogue system.

We wanted to talk a little bit about events and how they are organized, the branching paths of your syndicate, and the flexibility of dialogue.

Branching quests, extended replay value and event density make up what is largely meant to extend the game from our base game plan, and what most of the Kickstarter funds will be used for.

Quest Design Overview

Copper Dreams features a very open-ended campaign that is filled with intrigue, combat, puzzles and bureaucratic bookkeeping. (Minus the bookkeeping, your agent has the Operations Department take care of that.) As we've said in the main page, we are holding true to our philosophy behind Serpent in the Staglands to give you a very hands-off experience. We find that this is the most rewarding type of game to play, which means no quest markers or auto-populating journals to coach you into what to do. There is a joy to following street addresses to mysterious locations that just isn't the same with a pop-up patting you on the head for your orientation skills.

Copper Dreams is ripe with corporate espionage, conspiracies, and mysteries hidden throughout the city. Without a narrator or journal telling you what clues you found, you get the reward of actually piecing together the puzzle that is the city of Calitana and discern how you want to frame your findings.

Your reports influence how your syndicate operates, and the fate of the characters you meet will begin branching very early on and determine how Wolffz Bay plays the game of corporate warfare.

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Dialogue

From a role playing perspective, keywords give you the freedom to choose dialogue choices without an authored tone of the conversation guiding you. From a mechanics perspective, keywords turn dialogue into a puzzle. While sometimes your conversations are trivial, asking directions or reporting results of a mission, at other times you'll be trying to gather much needed information and can use items or saved keywords to open up new conversations paths.

If there is a rogue agent that needs intel and you would like to help him, dragging confidential data diskettes into the dialogue screen (literally handing them over) will turn the flow of your current conversation. NPCs retain their personality and character to drive the conversation.