Kyzrati

Coming soon...

Just a quick update here to share some good news:   The Scrap Engine is coming to a build near you, and pretty soon! My goal is to have the experimental release out for you by the weekend, and see what you all make of this weird thing.

I've been a bit disappointed at the progress for a number of reasons, not least of all because squeezing something this unorthodox into Cogmind felt like a lot of wasted time compared to all the other content progress that could've been made in ...

Random Parts in My Cogmind?!

Okay so things are a bit behind schedule. Beta 11 is supposed to be mainly about a new faction, and then there was the whole Garrison thing, and then the whole Garrison+W thing, and more recently a whole... other thing that's beyond the original scope, like really beyond xD

So the new faction of course needs to have new tech, and for a long time I've had a general idea of what this new tech would be, adding at least two new big mechanics to the game. But then I had this idea for a third...

Garrisons 2.0, the Article

Okay it's finally here, my design and technical summary of the new Garrisons introduced for Beta 12, as released for X1. Inside you can read about how new content is mixed in, and about clock tweaks, balance considerations, and the inclusion of events.

I'll be continuing my first X1 Garrison stream tomorrow with part 3 (Twit...

Beta 12 X1 Prelease - Encrypted Comms

Aw yeah, smooth sailing this week while working on the new Garrison events--no unpleasant surprises, so I've finished the first Beta 12 prerelease a little earlier than predicted in my previous announcement. Sure took longer than expected overall (sheesh a little side project I let you all vote in ended up being not so little at all xD), but I think the results are pretty good so far and will add a lot to the game.

As you probably know by know, the vast majority of this particular relea...

Garrisons Coming to a Holiday Near You? +RL Tutorial Event

New Garrison content and mechanics are mostly complete at this point.

This week I was originally considering putting together an article that covers the architecture of merging the usual encounter system with Garrisons, which have always had a different sort of mostly prefab-based procedural generation, but doing so would push the actual prerelease beyond this week, and it was pointed out that the coming weekend is a long one in the US, where some players might want to take advantage of...

Garrison Encounters

So the Beta 12 voting was closed, and the results are in... how surprising (okay not really), more people preferred revamping Garrisons to make them even cooler rather than redoing the combat log:

This does, however, mean that Beta 12 is going to take a bit longer because, oh my, if the combat log was going to be an...

Kyzrati's Game Design Philosophy

Courtesy of HeavyRisk the Curious, I have finally written an article summarizing a good bit of my design philosophy, much of the higher-level stuff that I often imply elsewhere, be it in articles or just talking/chatting about design, but haven't necessarily expounded on in a clearer manner as you'll find here.

You can also access it directly on the blog here using the pas...

The poll to end all debate

Okay, so we've got a serious poll going, one which is just about done since I think the results are clear now, but there is another I thought we could do real quick, this one simply to express your opinion on the fine hack that is the BOTNET trojan. What thinks you?

Be honest now!

(In other news, next thing on my list is an article on game design philosophy...)

Cogmind Beta 12 Feature Voting

It's time to have your say in Cogmind development! Okay, aside from the usual complaints, suggestions or begging ;)

As usual, the winning entry will be among the features/content included in the next major release (Beta 12):

• Full mouse UI for machine hacking: A set of mouse-driven menus would be added giving keyboard-free access to every single machine hack, including all (known) manual Trojans/brute force hacks. Technically this menu system would also be av...
  2022-04-17 23:07:15 +0000 UTC View Post

Up Next / Beta 12 then 13? 13 then 12?

Have some no-context graphs! For the most part they're probably fairly self-explanatory, though context will be coming soon when I finish processing the Beta 10 player stats (and ...

Beta 11 [no X!] "Mechanical Renaissance"

The final prerelease! It is ready. Now not quite everything on my Beta 11 list is included, but setting ambitious goals and not accomplishing them is par for the course ;)

Most of the Beta 11 plans , and certainly all the major ones, have been executed, and the results have been pretty decent, I'd say. Beta 11 good, now let's get ready to share it with everyone!

I didn't actually get to finish the Active Sensor Suite branch data (can blame that on the complicated end-game...

Rebalancing Cogmind

Huge article incoming! I've just published "Rebalancing Cogmind" over on the blog (password "beta11soon") which serves as a pretty good summary of the recent item review process that went into X9~X10. Some of the topics therein I've written a bit about before on Patreon, scattered here and there among various posts, but now it's both organized and also includes lots more details.

Yest...

Beta 11 X11 Prerelease - It's Special

This is it, folks, the last version before Beta 11. How fitting that it's X11 :P

There is one more prerelease to come, but that'll be the actual Beta 11 put out shortly before public release for last-minute testing. This one includes the Special Commands interface I wrote about last time, as of which I've now completed all the major features to come with Beta 11--the remainder are smaller bug...

Special commands get the QoL treatment

After a day and a half of coding and testing, the Special Commands console is finished! I was originally thinking the implementation could take less than a day, but I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that a new interface which hooks into numerous other actions and UI features would take longer on the debugging and polishing side of things.

The good thing is that this is purely an interface, so there wasn't much work to do regarding fundamental architecture--just hook up existing met...

Beta 11 X10 Prerelease - Big Gunz

First the bad news: Last Monday I got a fairly serious concussion, again xD

But the good news is that the next prerelease was close enough to completion that I still managed to finish it this week, and it is a mighty one.

Really wish I could play this version with you all on stream (and talk about it), but now I can't stream at all for the time being, hence the lack of a continuation of the sterilization run earlier. Unfortunately this week happens to be the CNY holiday, ...

D-minus 5

Soon!™

That's the goal for finishing the next prerelease, which involves quite a lot of changes across the board for items, that's for sure! We're a week behind due to that content detour I mentioned earlier, otherwise it probably would've been ready for the weekend, but as is I'm hopeful it can be done within the next week. There's actually still a lot left to do, but it's a ton of little things that individually shouldn't take much time (for example applying all of the weapon change...

Throwing Architecture

No, I don't mean tossing buildings around.

This has been a very productive week, and I would've about finished implementing all the item updates I've been streaming about lately if I hadn't gotten mega-sidetracked starting Monday...

I had this little idea which turned into a big idea (as they often do) and most of this week was spent working on new pieces of architecture to support certain mechanics we couldn't have before. I'm going to be vague here beca...

Cogmind Weapon Stat Rebalancing

Work on the latter part of X9 continues, most recently going through all the weapons for a comprehensive review of their balance. This week I actually streamed an overview of the process, and we also made a few changes during the stream as well: https://youtu.be/s_dxVKmBbyc. Attached are the latest charts in image form, but that can be pretty unwieldy considering how many weapons we have, so it's also available as the Excel ...

Beta 11 X9 Prerelease - If Santa were a Hauler...

X9 is not "done." At least not as done as I planned for it to be on release, but released it is, as of now.

I was reminded the holidays are here and some people would like to enjoy the gift that keeps on killing you, so with at least having finished a majority of X9, this did seem like a good opportunity to put out what I've completed so far. Consider it an chance to explore the already large number of changes and see what you think about them, maybe providing some feedback as I finish ...

Great Utility Update, Parts 2~N

Over five years ago, there was a plan to do a sweeping review of Cogmind's parts, especially utilities (as they represent the bulk of Cogmind items and offer the widest variety of unique effects), basically to ensure that everything was working together smoothly and had its proper place in some compelling Cogmind build or another. So-called "Part 1" of this process began during Alpha 12 with a f...

Maps Between Maps, and DSFs

The DSF article is here! (password "authchiporized")

If you want to explore them on your own then probably avoid this one for now since it doesn't tiptoe around spoiling details (except the things no one knows yet :P), but otherwise have an overview of Cogmind's smaller optional maps linking regular maps, with most of the emphasis on the new Distributed Storage Facilities added...

Design Overhaul 4: Fabrication 2.0

Overhaul 4: Fabrication 2.0: Beta 11: Prerelease X8: [insert more here]

Having already covered the notes on this topic a couple times here before, and then a little bit during the X8 release itself, we finally have this "definitive fabrication article" now that the system is implemented and complete.

I've embedded the article in image form below, but you can also 2021-11-15 09:59:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Beta 11 X8 Prerelease... #2

And here we have some more X8. Most importantly this update includes 1) all the stuff I wanted to release with X8 but decided to release it early instead, and 2) a fix for the non-authchip fabrication system where the changes ended up not being as harsh or consistent as intended due to a bug.

This update does break saves, a lot, so it's on a separate Steam branch, beta_11_x8_2, accessible with the code "FabsUnleashed". DRM-free links are going out automatically to everyone already on th...

REXPaint Art Gallery +63

It had been over a year since I last updated the online REXPaint gallery, so it was definitely about time to organize all these images and I spent all day doing just that.

I'm sure there are a ton of cool works out there that I miss and will likely never know about since I don't actively search for it (and more importantly many people don't explicitly point out what tools they use!), but I am always keeping an eye out for anyone indicating that they used REXPaint for a given project so ...

Beta 11 X8 Prerelease - Fab the Planet

First of all a big thanks to all the extra supporters who've been joining up lately! I'm reminded of the random internet person a couple years back who claimed it was a waste of time to start doing this since indie game devs just end up putting time into extra updates but don't really make much to show for the effort, like tiny amounts on the order of $50 at best, but no this is actually really helpful <3

Second of all: Prepare yourselves for a big new prerelease!

X8 is here, a...

Spicing Up Primary Maps 2: Area Denial

The new Heavy class is now solidified in the design, so let's talk about about everything Heavy! Awesome loadout (i.e. loot), Cutters, Specialists, distribution, and other mechanics...

I've embedded the latest article in image form below, but you can also check out the text version here. The password for access is "veryspicy".

2021-09-27 22:35:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Beta 11 X7 Update

Time for the fourth X7 update :P. Technically two of them were silent Steam-specific updates, so I didn't even announce those, but this one's bigger, big enough to 1) get its own post and 2) break saves.

I would normally just fold all this stuff into X8, but if you've been hanging around on the Discord you might know that X8 is going to be a pure experimental build, one that has a whole new fabrication s...

Spicing Up Primary Maps 1: Cargo Convoys

Yauler time! I've not written much about these before, since they were released as part of a prerelease in which I just said "try it out and see" :P. And now I'm starting another Beta 11 blog series using them as the first topic. I held off on doing this for a while since I wanted to make sure their design was decently stable, which I think will be the case by the time X8 releases (after making tweaks over all the previous updates, too), so here we are.

I've embedded the latest article ...

Map Comments

So I was watching the first Tone+MTF combo stream a few weeks back, and listening to them repeatedly strategize aloud so they could collaborate brought more than the usual planning talk to the forefront of the conversation, through which I noticed the occasional potential for manual map comments to be helpful.

This is actually a potential feature I've brought up here before, and there's been a bit of sup...

Fabrication 2.0

Okay, so earlier this month I shared my first [somewhat distilled] batch of notes on a new concept for fabrication, which was pretty raw and still not thought out in great detail, but worth throwing out there for people to see the kind of direction it might be headed in. That post was followed by a good amount of feedback and discussion, and after taking a bunch more notes I let them sit for a while whi...