Cyberganked news thread

Discuss text adventures here! The classics like those from Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls, Adventure International and Level 9 and the ones we're making today.

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RealNC
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Post by RealNC »

I'm gonna cancel that pre-order then.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I'm still at 314 yes votes. I need to advertise the thing on RPG Codex and maybe some other sites. I'm amazed it's going this slowly with some of the shit on Steam. Those games all got, what, 1500-2000 yes votes. Incredible.

So progress has gone slowly since I wrote this. The biggest enemy was procrastination, or excuse-making when I did have an hour to work at night. In the short term, I eliminated that. Now the only problems has been that the fixer upper house we moved into needed to be fixed up this entire weekend. But! The house looks better. We do have progress.

I have a college football fantasy draft tonight. I don't like college football. I should get some time to work on the game during it. I'd like to finish off one room.

There's a lot of "connecting" rooms. For those, I like to do the following:

1) Identify one interesting thing about the room.
2) Either put in a joke or funny/clever/wry writing for that room.
3) Make a default image for the room. Sometimes I need to do a day and night image.
4) Scan through the 20+ actors and see if any of them had their picture taken in the room. If so, then I create graphics of them and add code to the game to randomly display their image if the player selected them as a character.

At that point, a room where nothing is going on is finished. You can't have all the rooms just be connecting rooms, though -- many of them need to have something interesting to the plot or side quests or something going on.
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Garth's Equipment Shop
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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

More of these daily or weekly peeks into your creative process please. Great stuff!
Which of you is interested in my fine wares?

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Thanks, Garth. I do have some progress that I'll collect and turn into an update post here.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I made some cuts to some levels I was going to do in the future to get this game out sometime in my lifetime. I realized I did not have 100 unique, usable pictures of arcades and pinball parlors for a level. It has been downsized.

I am going to contact artists to make some graphics for scenes I can't depict with the photos I have. There is one scene akin to the "4 groups of 99 berzerkers" bit in Bard's Tale. I cannot photomanipulate 99 people and not make it look like trash. The trick is finding artists taking commissions that are OK working in a medium where I'm going to send them down to 4 colors. :/
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Post by pinback »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I made some cuts to some levels I was going to do in the future to get this game out sometime in my lifetime. I realized I did not have 100 unique, usable pictures of arcades and pinball parlors for a level. It has been downsized.
This is a real slap in the face to all the original Kickstarter backers.
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

On one hand, if this was a Kickstarter, it would be horribly late and filled with snarky dickheads in the comments.

On the other hand, EVERY SINGLE GAME Kickstarter I've ever backed has been one to five years late. It's expected.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Just a quick update:

* I am still working on the game every night.

* I am in "Wrap it Up" mode, but I don't want to imply I am close to finishing the content, or jokes or class-based abilities.

* The Greenlight page goes from like 37% to 44% based on what other games Steam accepts. I probably need to get to CRPG forums and talk about the game because I have been stuck on 321 votes of yes for a while.
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RetroRomper
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Post by RetroRomper »

I'm MIA for six months and there isn't a single post about Cyberganked to pull me back in? Come on man!
"Don't you DARE get me started on RetroArch!"

This has been a...
RETROROMPER CLASSIC TM

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

RetroRomper wrote:I'm MIA for six months and there isn't a single post about Cyberganked to pull me back in? Come on man!
It's... complicated. I do still work on it most nights of a given week, but my social schedule is such that I'm not hitting it up 7 nights a week. On the other hand, going out and seeing people does tend to fill the comedy fridge with more comedy, and all of that makes it into the game.

The Greenlight campaign petered out, I am not sure when I'll be done but I think what is in is fun for people that like CRPGs. I do regret not posting more about it!
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Tdarcos
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Post by Tdarcos »

I have a thread about something you should be aware of about this or future games. Read it here:

http://www.joltcountry.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=84539

And be aware of this so it doesn't cause you problems with games you produce. If I hadn't seen the video I would have had no idea.
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I decided to get every program into the game before going any further. My philosophy behind that was, if I know that there are programs that unlock doors or disable security systems, then I'll be more likely to code uses for it in the game maps.

There's two classes (Hacker and Unix Programmer) that can run programs. 7 levels, 4 spells each... so that's 56 programs in the game. It will take a while.

(I appreciate all the comments keeping my head afloat on this game, by the way.)

I am thinking it's time to go to a BBS like the InExile ones (makes of Wasteland 2) or No Mutants Allowed, or RPG Codex once and for all and try to find someone to get me some feedback on the UI. I had been sort of saving those bullets until I really needed them, but because the end is not in sight with the game I may need the pick me up.

I am never, ever making a game that takes me more than a year to complete ever again. I said I wouldn't do that after Cryptozookeeper and I did it again.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Looking at the logs, I started working exclusively on the spells on February 11th. I am now halfway through one of the two spell paths. :/
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Post by pinback »

How about phoning in the rest of it so we can get it out to the fans?
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Post by ChainGangGuy »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:There's two classes (Hacker and Unix Programmer) that can run programs. 7 levels, 4 spells each... so that's 56 programs in the game. It will take a while.
Will the spell Magic Jar be made available to players?

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RealNC
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Post by RealNC »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Looking at the logs, I started working exclusively on the spells on February 11th. I am now halfway through one of the two spell paths. :/
I don't know if that boat has sailed now, but it would make sense for the two classes to share most of the programs, with only a few being unique to each class.

I mean, in other RPGs, mage classes do share a lot of spells. The class determines how effective the shared spells are.

Is it too late for that?

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It is indeed too late for that, friend. :(

In unrelated news, anyone up for portraying a character by the name of The Leechmaster? I got a need to have an enemy in the game that just throws leeches at people. I need a photograph with a post where you're -- whoever you are! -- are FLINGING LEECHES towards the camera.

I know you're out there, somewhere?
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RetroRomper
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Post by RetroRomper »

Screw leeches, I want to know why you went through the trouble of adding Cyberganked to your Steam Library!
"Don't you DARE get me started on RetroArch!"

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RETROROMPER CLASSIC TM

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I wanted to see if it would work over the Steamlink. It appears to work over the Steamlink.

In other news, it's been Greenlit. Here's more details:

http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... n-greenlit
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Billy Mays
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Post by Billy Mays »

I have been replaying all of the old ADD gold box games, and was hoping that Cyberganked contains that classic staple of CRPGs: rerolling stats for hours into the night during character creation?

It is still as addictive as when I first played them a couple of decades ago. This time I thought to myself "ok, I am just going to hit the reroll button a couple of times until I get some halfway decent stats and send the character to the party"....WRONG....It reality, it was "I could do better than this, just one more role...."

Thank you.

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