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Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

gridsagegames.com

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Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#31

Post by imdsm »

Kyzrati wrote: post #7
Pyxl101 wrote: post #2

After seeing the demo, I felt like the Reddit commentator who wrote, "I've never gone so quickly from seeing something to buying it" [or wanting to!]. Unfortunately, the buy page is pretty complicated: http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/buy.html The page has a lot of graphics and characters using strikethrough which confused me and looks somewhat unprofessional. I suspect the author might be losing conversions due…

Hey thanks so much Pyxl101! As per my reply to another commenter, the buy page has been morphing constantly over the past several weeks, and has gotten increasingly messy (it already looks better than it did last week, so good thing you didn't see it then =p). I'll swap it out with a simpler version soon, but the idea is that I want to make sure players know what they're getting into since this is alpha. (That and th…

I just want to echo what OP said. I am a hardcore roguelike player, and I look forward to games like this more than any other type. I usually get my fix from dwarf fortress but this looks amazing. I am going to check how much it costs and then probably buy it anyway. If I hadn't refreshed HN just when I did, I might not have seen it, and that would have been unfortunate.

[strikethrough goes here ->] ~~Do you have any plans for marketing this game amongst people such as myself?~~

Edit: just read that you're not advertising the game yet. Fair play. Do you have any feature lists showing what is done and what isn't? Is it a 30 year plan like we have with our Fortress Simulation game?

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#32

Post by ZenSwordArts »

Out of curiosity I have to ask another question..

When you started the project did you consider using libtcod ( https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod , http://roguecentral.org/doryen/libtcod/ ) ?

Did you even know it at the time and if so why did you decide not to use it? I always thought libtcod was THE way to go for fancy ascii games. I would be very interested in your opinion on this.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#33

Post by Kyzrati »

imdsm wrote: post #31
Kyzrati wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey thanks so much Pyxl101! As per my reply to another commenter, the buy page has been morphing constantly over the past several weeks, and has gotten increasingly messy (it already looks better than it did last week, so good thing you didn't see it then =p). I'll swap it out with a simpler version soon, but the idea is that I want to make sure players know what they're getting into since this is alpha. (That and th…

I just want to echo what OP said. I am a hardcore roguelike player, and I look forward to games like this more than any other type. I usually get my fix from dwarf fortress but this looks amazing. I am going to check how much it costs and then probably buy it anyway. If I hadn't refreshed HN just when I did, I might not have seen it, and that would have been unfortunate. [strikethrough goes here ->] ~~Do you have any…

Haha, not a virtually never-ending DF plan, no :).

I have a very specific goal, an epic story to fill out, and a path to reach it. Cogmind will be done next year, then if it's performed well enough that I can continue making games we'll probably get Cogmind 2.

And after that I'm going to make this game much, much bigger (and rebrand it): http://xcomrl.blogspot.com/

For Cogmind's current state, see this old post linked from the buy page: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2015/03/alpha-release-stat... (Since then the final release date is looking more like Q2 2016 due the unexpectedly early burst in popularity, which will slow things down.)

See the other links in the first section of the buy page for more info: http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/buy.html

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#34

Post by imdsm »

Kyzrati wrote: post #30
haasted wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May have missed it somewhere on your homepage, but are you planning a Mac version?

Not native, no. Cogmind works nicely in Wine (better than many natively ported games due to the simple rendering engine), and we have plenty of Mac/Linux players in alpha. What I hope to do instead is eventually provide a Mac version as a one-click wrapper, but for now there are instructions on the forums for getting up and running on your own.

I am used to bootcamping, I'll see what it's like and post an update.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#35

Post by imdsm »

Kyzrati wrote: post #12
Derpdiherp wrote: post #10

Been watching the development of this title for a while now - brilliant stuff. I'm so pleased the release has worked out well for you so far - even if only alpha. When I have the spare funds I'll be sure to pick up a copy!

Many thanks! And feel free to wait until the price drops next year if you need to :). I've got enough funds to see it through to completion, though I'd like to use any surplus to hire a professional composer for the OST.

I recommend Lifeformed (https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/), their music is the best.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#36

Post by imdsm »

Kyzrati wrote: post #33
imdsm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to echo what OP said. I am a hardcore roguelike player, and I look forward to games like this more than any other type. I usually get my fix from dwarf fortress but this looks amazing. I am going to check how much it costs and then probably buy it anyway. If I hadn't refreshed HN just when I did, I might not have seen it, and that would have been unfortunate. [strikethrough goes here ->] ~~Do you have any…

Haha, not a virtually never-ending DF plan, no :). I have a very specific goal, an epic story to fill out, and a path to reach it. Cogmind will be done next year, then if it's performed well enough that I can continue making games we'll probably get Cogmind 2. And after that I'm going to make this game much, much bigger (and rebrand it): http://xcomrl.blogspot.com/ For Cogmind's current state, see this old post linke…

Thanks man. I have one remaining question before I buy it.

I noticed from reading the material provided that you've said we're in a complex from start to finish, and it looks quite story based. This is great, I love lore like in Uplink. But more than that I love replayability in games. I like procedural generation such as ADOMs Unremarkable Cave (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Unremarkable_Dungeon), as this allows each game to be fresh.

So, how much of the game is procedurally generated? and how much replayability is there? I see that you can evolve and change your play type and that seems cool but what about the environment, is there some randomness there?

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#37

Post by Kyzrati »

imdsm wrote: post #36
Kyzrati wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, not a virtually never-ending DF plan, no :). I have a very specific goal, an epic story to fill out, and a path to reach it. Cogmind will be done next year, then if it's performed well enough that I can continue making games we'll probably get Cogmind 2. And after that I'm going to make this game much, much bigger (and rebrand it): http://xcomrl.blogspot.com/ For Cogmind's current state, see this old post linke…

Thanks man. I have one remaining question before I buy it. I noticed from reading the material provided that you've said we're in a complex from start to finish, and it looks quite story based. This is great, I love lore like in Uplink. But more than that I love replayability in games. I like procedural generation such as ADOMs Unremarkable Cave ( http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Unremarkable_Dungeon ), as this allows…

With regard to procedural generation, think of it as a normal roguelike in the vein of ADOM/DCSS. Endless replayability.

The world is entirely dynamic, even more so than other roguelikes because there is an overarching AI (http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2015/04/living-dungeon/). For a general overview of the game that should answer most of your questions, see this: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2015/04/cogmind-roguelike/

The story is secondary and optional (very much out of your face--you have to go out of your way to engage it, and most of it hasn't been added).

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#38

Post by Kyzrati »

ZenSwordArts wrote: post #32

Out of curiosity I have to ask another question.. When you started the project did you consider using libtcod ( https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod , http://roguecentral.org/doryen/libtcod/ ) ? Did you even know it at the time and if so why did you decide not to use it? I always thought libtcod was THE way to go for fancy ascii games. I would be very interested in your opinion on this.

I actually contributed a bit to libtcod back when it was in active development :D

The roguelike I worked on before Cogmind was originally written to work with libtcod's frontend, but I wanted to do a few unorthodox things and rather than continually patch up libtcod decided to build my own frontend from scratch. that bit was all I was using from libtcod as I already had my own game library and roguelike engine at the time. My version supports mixed font sizes out of the box and is written in C++ rather than C.

Re: Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem

#40

Post by Kyzrati »

shocks wrote: post #39

Is it cross platform? Is it DRM free? Couldn't quickly tell from the website and I would've instantly bought it if I knew the answers...

The System Requirements section on the buy page addresses the cross-platform issue (as does the FAQ). I don't make a big point of it because while it works fine through Wine etc., it's not natively cross-platform.

As for your other question, I should really put a notice on the website that Cogmind is completely DRM free. That's not currently indicated anywhere... (I'll add it tomorrow, thanks!)

Edit: Just quickly added it to a header since the site's getting a lot of traffic right now.

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