KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[Alienman]

You need a Jack from China Town as well:

With broken nose and all.

 

[udm]

Loving the portraits and artwork so far! Olga's a good illustrator

 

[Timeslip]

nice...
hm...

By any chance, does Ray Case smoke, play chess and quote Plato or Shakespeare from memory?
(I suppose asking if he has a group of drinking buddies called Rat Pack would be overly presumptuous)

In any case, HB was hunting down crime syndicate bosses in movies more than 60 years ago:
The movie is supposed to contain flashbacks inside of flashbacks storytelling and one of the first to bring in the language of hitmen. The criminal organization there is inspired by Murder, Inc ThoughHaven't seen it yet.

He's definitely a character in that cast. Got a lot of enjoyment from hardboiled detective novels (try to drop lines from them into conversation whenever possible), and Ray Case is a tip of the fedora to this character type and genre. Have read a bit about Murder Inc, would be interested to see the movie.

 

[Timeslip]

You need a Jack from China Town as well:

With broken nose and all.

It's been on my watch list for some time. Maybe this weekend!

 

[Timeslip]

Loving the portraits and artwork so far! Olga's a good illustrator

Thanks udm - I'm with you on that. Passed on your feedback and Olga said thanks, along with a smiley face I've been unable to replicate!

 

[Timeslip]

Updated interrogation illustration, with criminal displaying a level of fear appropriate to his predicament.

And below... well, not sure this guy will be doing much talking...

 

[ArchAngel]

I have been watching a lot of The Wire these past few days and got inspired by it to suggest another mission for your game.
How about being able to get a CI (informant) into one of the organizations, then have missions to take out his one level above boss so they get that job until the moment the CI can start providing really useful info (maybe have it represented as CI giving certain amount of Intel and then give more if you manage to get them promoted).

 

[V_K]

Updated interrogation illustration, with criminal displaying a level of fear appropriate to his predicament.

I'm a very bad person and I'm going to burn in Hell, but to me that criminal looks more like he's getting ready to blow a giant cock. And the interrogator's pose doesn't really do anything to contradict such reading.

 

[Alienman]

Just one of the interrogation methods

 

[Timeslip]

I have been watching a lot of The Wire these past few days and got inspired by it to suggest another mission for your game.
How about being able to get a CI (informant) into one of the organizations, then have missions to take out his one level above boss so they get that job until the moment the CI can start providing really useful info (maybe have it represented as CI giving certain amount of Intel and then give more if you manage to get them promoted).

Have been meaning to watch the wire for ages. Understand that Denis Lehane was involved in the writing and really like his work. Cheers for the idea ArchAngel - I like the idea and it's been added to the list. The plan is to head for early access in the fairly near future - all the key features could conceivably be in place in the next 2 updates, then 1 update for polish/bugs. There's loads of things we'd like to add, and will do our absolute best (it would help if EA or release launch goes well) to get as many meaningful additions in as possible.

 

[Timeslip]

I'm a very bad person and I'm going to burn in Hell

Put on the kettle for me...

 

[Timeslip]

Just one of the interrogation methods

Maybe the illustration (as perceived by V_K ) is hell?

 

[V_K]

Hell to some, heaven to others...

 

[Jimmious]

The fact is that now I can't see the picture in any other way. Thanks man.

 

[ushas]

Not even the scream makes unsee?

What about diplomatically suggesting to Olga fear-enhancing the picture? Eg. more prominent eyes, especially the whites, mouth and lips to the back, teeth.

Spoiler

Codex exhibit:

Perhaps even closer to fetal position, preparing to be beaten - eg. chin down protecting the neck, hands protecting the head, etc.

 

[Timeslip]

What about diplomatically suggesting to Olga fear-enhancing the picture? Eg. more prominent eyes, especially the whites, mouth and lips to the back, teeth.

Spoiler

Codex exhibit:

Perhaps even closer to fetal position, preparing to be beaten - eg. chin down protecting the neck, hands protecting the head, etc.

Nah, easier to rewrite the character:

When idealist morally dubious Sam Contino turns a corner and walks right into the tail end of a violent mugging...

Will devote the rest of the evening to writing lewd barks.

 

[ushas]

Have a nice evening and don't forget to hook everything up in the game, you know different three gangs et cetera.

 

[anus_pounder]

I don't suppose you have an ETA, not on the full release per se, but a feature complete beta or such?

 

[Timeslip]

I don't suppose you have an ETA, not on the full release per se, but a feature complete beta or such?

It's subject to change (would like to talk to a few more developers before going on early access), but the most likely outcome right now is:

Version 17 (Starting today ~ 1 month - these are just the main features)

• Add player facilities
• Add enemy facilities
• Add 1 map for each enemy facility

Version 18 (~1 month)

• Investigate reaction fire & attacks of opportunity (Am a bit hesitant to mention this incase people are disappointed if we run into problems. Have definite concerns, as it involves interrupting complex processes and a lot of different conditions need to be accounted for, so will experiment with it for a few days and make a decision.)
  
• Ally relationships
• Player reputation
• 1 new mission type

Version 19 (~1 month)

• Emphasis on polishing / balancing / bug fixes

So V19 (around 3 months from now) is likely to be the first Steam and potentially feature complete release. I say potentially feature complete, because if we get a decent early access launch, it will buy us more dev time, which we can use to building in additional features and content, assuming owners of the game are happy to wait longer for a bigger, better game.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

• Ally relationships

• Player reputation

Can you tell any details about these?

 

[Timeslip]

Can you tell any details about these?

Sure. There are more advanced possibilities for ally relationships, but at a minimum, you will have a relationship with each ally, which provides an indication of how much they like you. This will primarily be modified by:

• Taking them on missions & making progress
  
• Killing enemies in combat. Some will be against killing unless you are severely pressed, others will be mostly indifferent, others will demand a certain amount of blood.
• Choices in encounters, primarily non combat.

The higher the relationship, the more effective they become and vice versa. This will likely take the form of increasing the effectiveness of their unique perk. There's potential to build this up further, but will require a fair bit of writing and additional coding. Definitely something would like to work more on, but it's too far down the line to have a clear idea if we'll have the chance.

Player reputation will be a barometer for the amount of chaos you cause taking the gangs down, and will likely be the determining factor in which ending you get. If you kill everyone you encounter in combat, causing the situation in Reiker to violently escalate, you'll be perceived as a threat to public order on a similar magnitude to the gangs. Certain choices/skill checks in encounters can modify this value to, and it will affect how some NPC/temporary allies react to you. Again, there are a lot of possibilities here, but it's not clear at the moment how much time we'll have, and if this represents the best option to invest additional dev time into.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Timeslip]

Cheers Infinitron

Here's the release notes and a TLDR: Version 16 adds interrogations, gang leaders, a gang intel screen and 2 new maps.

 

[ushas]

From listening to the video (didn't really play v16 yet) the climbing the gang hierarchy sounds promising.

If I understood correctly you cannot get intel on the higher level at the beginning, not just because the stairs, but the enemies first need to rise their tier in time. But otherwise it isn't restricted(?) So still can eliminate one gang much earlier than the others and so forth.

I can imagine after the long plateau of chasing and interrogating enemies getting FINALLY (yeah!) the last and oddly hard to get piece of information - that "The boss' eyes are blue.". The games have actually better position than any other media to give sense and satisfaction to things like this, don't they...

So till corrected I assume the order in which we get the intel pieces (name, place, look) for an (under)boss is randomized. The game can still build up the tension though. The simplest is rising the difficulty for the next piece (not sure about it though). But also, for example, adding a fluff line or two during interrogation to simulate that it's gradually harder to get. It doesn't need to be explained why the the boss' looks are the most guarded secret (it emerged from a random roll after all). I think it's enough that the questioned subject would act like it is. The player's imagination fills the rest...

A suggestion for the interrogation screen (apart frowning at the pointless clicks to get there): I think it would be better if the view contains the subject. Meaning instead of this:

right

moving UI elements to the left side, eg. like this:

left

Unless... Timeslip, do you want us to specifically watch Sam's posterior? :D
(one of your favorite illustration, hm?)

In that case, perhaps the interface can also be on the top. Just a quick mock up to illustrate:

top

all the important image quantities conserved

TZ3K mentions Liberal Crime Squad... then the Sam's character is being rewritten... now I'm finding out that 'choose your own torture adventure' was one of the most requested features by Kickstarter backers... Bros, what are we getting ourselves into?!

 

[Timeslip]

From listening to the video (didn't really play v16 yet) the climbing the gang hierarchy sounds promising.

If I understood correctly you cannot get intel on the higher level at the beginning, not just because the stairs, but the enemies first need to rise their tier in time. But otherwise it isn't restricted(?) So still can eliminate one gang much earlier than the others and so forth.

Glad you like it. That's the present set up, need tier 2 subjects to find lieutenants, need lieutenants to find bosses, but it's very much a sketch for now. Rackets will also likely serve as sources for intel on the gang's leadership. You're right that it would be possible to take out one gang earlier than the others, the snag is that while you are focusing on one gang, the others are becoming more powerful. It's going to require some play testing to get a feel for, and strike a good balance.

I can imagine after the long plateau of chasing and interrogating enemies getting FINALLY (yeah!) the last and oddly hard to get piece of information - that "The boss' eyes are blue.". The games have actually better position than any other media to give sense and satisfaction to things like this, don't they...

So till corrected I assume the order in which we get the intel pieces (name, place, look) for an (under)boss is randomized. The game can still build up the tension though. The simplest is rising the difficulty for the next piece (not sure about it though). But also, for example, adding a fluff line or two during interrogation to simulate that it's gradually harder to get. It doesn't need to be explained why the the boss' looks are the most guarded secret (it emerged from a random roll after all). I think it's enough that the questioned subject would act like it is. The player's imagination fills the rest...

I can't remember right now if order is randomised, but will take a look at it. Will see what can be done for adding some extra writing to the interrogations - writing is the area which is most bottlenecked (I'm not very fast and end up never being happy with a piece of writing until it's been edited 5 or so times), but once more of the game is in place, I can look at devoting 2-3 hours per day to bulk up the writing.

A suggestion for the interrogation screen (apart frowning at the pointless clicks to get there): I think it would be better if the view contains the subject. Meaning instead of this:

right

moving UI elements to the left side, eg. like this:

left

Unless... Timeslip, do you want us to specifically watch Sam's posterior? :D
(one of your favorite illustration, hm?)

In that case, perhaps the interface can also be on the top. Just a quick mock up to illustrate:

top

all the important image quantities conserved

TZ3K mentions Liberal Crime Squad... then the Sam's character is being rewritten... now I'm finding out that 'choose your own torture adventure' was one of the most requested features by Kickstarter backers... Bros, what are we getting ourselves into?!

Good suggestions concerning UI. That's one less thing to think about The dead enemy illustration went a bit further into the right of the screen than intended, so it's going to require some adjustments to layout - some combination of changing size and position.