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[sambojin]

Lol. I'm just dipping my toes into a Magic Carpet style game, with a voxel engine for destructibility of terrain through spells. There's little reason to not be able to make blocks, in fact, it's projected on basic pre-alpha release for engine tests.

I've just got this horrible feeling that I'm going to get asked to do Minecraft 2.0 by anyone that likes it, with movement types, multiple resource systems, character styles, FPS shooter-isms, PvP and awesome spells being a total waste my of time.  Which defeats the "game" aspects of anything I'm trying to make.

You've got it easy Kyzrati. At least yours' is original in concept, and has an audience that won't go "blah. This?!? Now!".

It's better to be a hard taskmaster on yourself and never shatter anyone's illusions of what the game could be. For them. To them. From them.

[Kyzrati]

Cogmind high scores table for fun and testing!

You've got it easy Kyzrati. At least yours' is original in concept

This is one reason (besides the scope aspect) I decided to go with Cogmind as my first commercial game, rather than my own version of X-COM.

[RoguelikeRazuka]

Can't wait to purchase it on steam. Glad that it's not in the stale fantasy setting.

[Kyzrati]

Wish I could more quickly get it in a state more appropriate for Steam, since about now seems like a really good opportunity. Won't be happening until next year :/

Anyway, making a great game is more important!

It does open up a lot of relatively unexplored areas to make roguelikes in a setting other than fantasy. So many possibilities, even beyond sci-fi...

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

Too be fair the reason why so many Roguelikes and expanding it outwards, RPGs, are fantasy is because of their origin. Since it all flows from D&D it is somewhat difficult to expand outward as we have walked that road so often we now can call the rut that formed the second grand canyon.

[Kyzrati]

For sure! I was about to write more on that, but figured it was understood by most . It's become somewhat risky to expand beyond familiar tropes because you alienate a lot of players who enjoy relying on those tropes to have a basic grasp of what's going on. Creating a completely unique world that can properly teach players about that new world without too much difficulty (and be fun at the same time) is more challenging than sticking with tradition and tacking on new elements.

And it's not just roguelikes, either--the same principles apply to nearly all genres. We do eventually reach a point (now?) where the majority starts to tire of the sameyness of it all and is so starved for something different that pushing that something becomes easier.

[Darkening Kaos]

   My T-Shirts have arrived, Kyzrati....Totally awesome!
   I'll wear them until they wear out.

   Still another day before my corporate-based, profit-mongering internet service resets my monthly cap, then I can download the newest version and get back to playing....Also, unemployed again, plenty of time to play. Yay!(?)

[Kyzrati]

Yay!

When you do get on join the weekly seed run with us. I'm in Research myself--almost done with my run, but it got really late last night so I didn't quite finish it.

[Ygdrad]

Is there a demo for the game that properly represents its current state? I know there is the free 7DRL version, but I doubt it is anything like the current game. As unusual as this price point is for a roguelike, I have nothing against paying 30$ for a game of this type(although I'm broke till next week, moving was expensive) seeing as they can result in hundreds of hours of fun, but I'd never fork over that much money to a game I haven't tested. I'm not afraid to say I always pirate my games before I buy them(and I've bought ever one I've enjoyed and kept playing) seeing as the gaming industry in general is going for trends I dislike, making the games I can enjoy few and far between and companies no longer offer demos or the demos don't accurately represent the final product. This unfortunately doesn't seem to be possible with Cogmind since it is so new and the less scrupulous internet denizens haven't turned their eyes to it yet.

TLDL: I'm looking for a way to make sure I want to spend 30$ on this game before I do.

[Kyzrati]

While the 7DRL isn't anywhere close to the game's current state, anyone who enjoys that (= most who've played it) will without a doubt absolutely love the new one.

The aim of alpha has been to sell only to those who have followed development for years, are aware of how Cogmind plays (detailed on the dev blog), and want to support the development of additional features. This is why I've done almost no outside marketing so far.

Maintaining a demo is also not something I want to mess with while still in alpha, and I think the many LPs found on YouTube give a really good idea of what Cogmind is about and how it plays.

That said, I always advise potential players new to the game to simply wait until next year when it's done, and cheaper, and on Steam/GOG!

[RoguelikeRazuka]

Will the game include a storyline of any kind or at least single quests in its final state? Or then, which RPG elements will it ultimately have?

[Kyzrati]

There is a lot of story, yes. The background is already accessible in game via terminal hacking, the rest will be coming piecemeal as the branch maps are added. There will be NPCs, one-way dialogue, multiple subplots, and multiple endings of increasing difficulty.

I haven't written a dedicated post about the story element yet, but you can read some of how it's already shaped the world structure here.

(There are already a few NPCs in the game, and bits of dialogue, just to give a little taste of things to come.)

[Kyzrati]

Two things for those of you already playing:

1. There's a 2c hotfix for a bug in one of the new features :/

2. I put up a test page for the new high score system, a prototype for the tournament that will follow the next major release:



Already one player can consistently beat the game every time he plays! He takes the easier speed hacker approach, but full combat builds are getting closer and closer to winning...

[EagleV]

PC Gamer just wrote a short article about Cogmind, in case you didn't notice.

[Kyzrati]

Thanks for the heads up! I got home a short while ago, noticed my Twitter feed for the "Cogmind" keyword had started to go wild, and traced it back to their tweet

I haven't been seeking mainstream publicity since I don't think Cogmind is ready for it, not at it's current price, but oh well I can't stop them so at least it will satisfy my curiosity about what the wider audience thinks.

I don't anticipate this will sell a ton of copies at this stage. Right now there's not a ton of activity on the site, but a majority of the potential players are in the US, after all, where it's still really early. Will be interesting to see how it turns out... The article has sold only ONE copy in its first hour, compared to RPS where the article went up and there was a new sale every 5 minutes

I'm sure the price is a roadblock for most beyond the core community, but I guess it will at least get the game on some more radars.