KickStarter Dex - a 2D Cyberpunk Sidescrolling RPG

[Siobhan]

Turn based games abstract things like speed of the units, their armament, terrain and other factors into quantifiable variables in order to simulate probable outcomes. Good TBS games should produce life-like results with life-like set up (force dislocation, real terrain and whatnot).

No. That may be true of JA2, but it certainly doesn't apply to many TB games, e.g. the majority of blobbers. Blobbers are so far removed from actual fights that the same mechanics could just as well be applied to conversations or baking muffins. Yet they have some of the best TB combat in RPGs. Dex is very gamist and not simulationist at all. The rest of your argument boils down to "I don't find it fun". Okay, whatever. The only real problem with the hacking mini-game is that it can be cheesed by shooting enemies at the edge of the screen, but they had to do something like that because otherwise some sections would be very difficult without points in hacking. And Dex clearly doesn't adhere to the design philosophy that players should be punished for bad builds. Lucky for you it's a single-player game: don't use cheese tactics if that ruins the fun for you. Go right in, dodge projectiles without getting sucked into black holes or getting cornered, and it's a decent little shooter. Not Gradius 3, but a nice 15 minute diversion.

 

[Beowulf]

No. That may be true of JA2, but it certainly doesn't apply to many TB games, e.g. the majority of blobbers. Blobbers are so far removed from actual fights that the same mechanics could just as well be applied to conversations or baking muffins.

I must confess that not only I'm not that familiar with blobbers, but I still don't get your point. Doesn't combat in most blobbers have weapons with stats like damage and penetration and armors, and so on; so while the fight is abstracted you are actually fighting and not baking cake?

it's a decent little shooter. Not Gradius 3, but a nice 15 minute diversion.

That is the point where we differ and subjective opinions come up - not only I don't think it's decent, I actually spent hours on hacking (as I tend err on the side of completionist playstyle).

 

[Siobhan]

Doesn't combat in most blobbers have weapons with stats like damage and penetration and armors, and so on;

As far as mechanics are concerned, no. It has what one might call a "conflict algebra", which can be instantiated in various domains. You can just as well call weapons ingredients, give them certain attributes like sour, sweet, and creamy, give your team of cooks skills like flour sifting and speed whisking, and say that your cake baking is successful when your team has replicated the necessary sequence of steps to produce a cake¸and has done so in sufficient time and with sufficient skill without depleting all available resources. The end result will play exactly the same, just with different names and graphics. So the mechanics are in no way tied to combat.

Alright, but are they maybe inspired by combat? To some extent, but they're still driven by gameplay first. There's tons of stuff in the mechanics that does not simulate combat:

- combat isn't phase-based
- combat doesn't have well-defined turn order rules based on speed stats
- a single hit is often enough to incapacitate, HP sponges don't exist in the real world
- combat is mostly about positioning, both before and during the actual engagement
- you can't have a group of 6 people with giant weapons fight in a narrow dungeon corridor
- in the other direction, the enemy won't nicely align in rows of 6 each, with only the first two rows able to attack you
- you don't magically get experience from killing opponents
- you can't gamble by drawing a special event from a deck of tarot cards
- AOEs aren't really a thing in melee engagements
- wounds in combat frequently mean death due to infection
- you can't parry axes or two-handers with a dagger
- slings, bows, and crossbows don't all take the same time to reload
- armor is pretty useless if it only covers a small area of your body
- even the most devout monk can't punch a guy in plate armor without breaking his hand,
- in the real world, being vastly outnumbered in a melee fight reduces your chances of winning to almost 0, even against weak opponents
- you can't just make the fight disappear by fleeing and then coming back 5 minutes later

For more stuff like this, you should talk to some of the local connoisseurs of medieval fighting styles, they can tell you all about how this or that in RPG fights is not realistic, built on clichés, and so on. So I don't see how the mechanics of turn-based combat are closer to representing actual combat than Asteroids is to blasting through defense perimeters in cyberspace in a distant future.

not only I don't think it's decent, I actually spent hours on hacking

 

[Beowulf]

not only I don't think it's decent, I actually spent hours on hacking

Perhaps reading the full sentence would make it easier to understand. But I'll humour you - I wanted to finish the game and learn as much as I can, so I hacked everything I could and that is why I spent so much time on this minigame, which made its flaws more visible for me.

Unless you just wanted to be butthurt edgy I'am-always-right. In that case go for it, whatever floats your boat.

 

[Iznaliu]

Blobbers are so far removed from actual fights that the same mechanics could just as well be applied to conversations or baking muffins

I think that is a bit extreme.

 

[Siobhan]

Unless you just wanted to be butthurt edgy

Relax, I'm too dull for codex edginess. I am genuinely befuddled that you'd spend hours in a game on something you don't enjoy and mostly don't have to do to progress. Completionist or not, that's just bound to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I think that is a bit extreme.

Sure, so is deriving all of mathematics from the axioms of ZFC. Extremeness tells us nothing about validity. I gave my reasons above, and I stand by them.

 

[Iznaliu]

Sure, so is deriving all of mathematics from the axioms of ZFC. Extremeness tells us nothing about validity. I gave my reasons above, and I stand by them.

Just because something is unconnected to actual fighting does not make it equally viable for anything else.

 

[ghostdog]

I've been playing this and having a blast. It's like a hybrid of Flashback and Deus Ex.

I haven't encountered any bugs so far, (mapping controls works fine -it seems this was an issue at some point). It looks like the game is more or less patched up by now.

It's pretty impressive that you've got all the world available from the start. You get some pretty cool quests that overlap/interconnect, which is great. You usually have multiple ways to tackle obstacles and one way doesn't block the other, which means you can attack, sneak, talk, hack, however you want it, if you have the appropriate skills of course. Combat could be better but it's not that bad. Interesting Cybernet environment, better than most games. Decent writing and surprisingly good voiceovers. Good quest structure, very nice exploration, beautiful 2D graphics, serviceable -if a bit bland- combat, multiple ways to deal with stuff, interesting cyberspace/hacking. There's some C&C too, which it pretty cool.

 

[ghostdog]

Finished it. Pretty cool game.




Anyway, I see that the current Dex avatars are somewhat crappy. How about some high quality pngs?

I've uploaded them here

I[S]nfinitron[/S] ?

DarkUnderlord ?

 

[Infinitron]

Don't tag me. That's another thing people who aren't admins can't do.

 

[ManjuShri]

Don't tag me. That's another thing people who aren't admins can't do.

DarkUnderlord Is it possible to give Infini avatar privileges (sans admin status)?

 

[Iznaliu]

DarkUnderlord Is it possible to give Infini avatar privileges (sans admin status)?

It probably is somehow, but it's not worth the effort.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

After watching this video I slammed down a few Czeckel Shekel. Discounted till November 1st.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

After watching this video

IndigoGaming is a bredy gud youtuber. Also note his Troika retrospective.

 

[Iznaliu]

There's a thread on it somewhere.

 

[Ivan]

This is damn fine. Caught me completely off guard. Quite lengthy too.

 

[Ivan]

Bros, I just finished this and I must say I am very impressed. I'm particularly pleased with just how much content they managed to squeeze out of the meager number of locations and characters it presents. I felt like the progression was well handled for the first two thirds of the game and the level design was pretty uneven. I definitely felt the love and care that went into its creation and for that I will hitherto recommend it as a worthwhile indie title.

 

[SwiftCrack]

85% off still.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, I just finished this and I'm surprised. I was a bit disappointed you can't stealth your way through the entire game and it's very heavily encouraged to take down your entire opposition because the xp does rack up and you become a god in the end. The environments were slick and very well done even though I'd have liked to see more punk locations if you know what I mean. Even more neon and color, a dance club and more young people doing cyberpunk things and living cyberpunk lives. But that's just a whim of mine and isn't in any way a criticism. There's nothing much more to say about the gameplay, except that they should've given you more stealth options, but the way the game is presented in 2D I don't think that was even possible without finding a way to completely remove enemies from certain zones which don't have easy stealth options. The augments were a bit boring, there was a felt lack of speed and strength increasing augments, but the strength ones aren't there because there isn't anything to pick up and move around, unlike the Deus Ex games with heavy objects to move away from hidden paths. The game also kinda funnels you towards a specific build in which the only true options you have are whether you use guns or melee combat. You'll more than likely get lockpicking and persuade with the other two 2-point skills being optional. Speaking of, I didn't use the ability to stun people, but it seems like it totally breaks any kind of balance and you never need to increase your skills in either guns or melee if you play your cards right. Luckily, I avoided that by not picking up the skill, but it's definitely a minus. Anyway, enough about the gameplay, it's not Deus Ex by any means but it's satisfactory and gets the job done of getting you from point A to point B. Oh, it's worth mentioning this game heavily revolves around side content and 90-95% of the time you'll be doing that, which isn't a bad thing at all. The writing in general is a bit ...on the nose and unsubtle at first, but it gets a bit better the more you go into it. The focus on side content also divides the game into vignettes that don't really connect all that well and I'd like to have seen more of a focus on characters (which are fun, I especially liked Toni), rather short stories, but maybe that's a personal preference. There was quite a missed chance with the prostitute (the female one), her dialogue hinted that your relationship might blossom into something more and I'd like to have seen that happen, learn something more about her and connect to someone on a personal level, something which is incredibly important in a cyberpunk setting, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

On to the main story, which I'll put in spoiler tags and I'd recommend playing the game first if you have any interest in doing so.

Spoiler

The story is kind of rushed, starts really awkwardly and the ending events are a bit backwards, but I think this is the only cyberpunk game (IP in general?) which makes a case in favor of (some) gigantic corporations, namely the Complex, even though I don't think the devs were aware of that or wanted that outcome. Or maybe they were, depending on what they wanted to achieve with the last 2 "tests". These two tests, however, should've been before you can betray Raycast. Namely, they show the humongous difference between Dex and "normal" people, basically legitimizing the research the Complex is doing. That would've made Hammond's arguments more persuasive and less of a leap of faith from Dex' perspective. I actually chose to betray Raycast because I was aware of the huge leap in power she had achieved and, in the slew of anti-science propaganda (meant in the most neutral way possible) our real world is witness to, I wanted to see what the Crow had to say (there is no indication you'll meet her if you don't betray Raycast) coupled with Hammond's insistence this will never stop and the appearance of genuine desire on his part to help further humanity.

The Crow's arguments are insane from any kind of perspective, especially since we don't know if what she's proposing will work, and they are a bit too abstract for what the game is showing us. When Hammond offered the chance to lead the Complex, I jumped at the opportunity because he does indeed offer the most practical and intelligent course of action given the events of the game. This is not some kind of edgy "the ends justify the means, let them suffer if we can have technological progress" take on my part and/or a sign that I can't empathize with the aforementioned suffering, only an observation that perhaps the clones were the most humane way to go about doing this research that actually bears unbelievable fruit, and it might mean the eradication of countless human problems, including poverty and hunger. The case is strengthened by Raycast saying most of the clones will never actually be conscious or have any kind of brain activity. Yes, it sucks you are betraying a guy who has only known suffering his entire life and has helped you up to now, I don't know what to say that will make it better, it hurts and it is indeed terrible, I can only hope the advancements help everyone else. Sooo, yeah, I was surprised a cyberpunk story went there and I'm very sad to hear the lead dev passed away, I'd still like to see more games from this studio if they can somehow manage to continue.

The problem, however, is that this is not how giant corporations work irl, they aren't headed by idealistic leaders bent on using the profits to fund personal research on such a scale. It's a band of shareholders interested in the profit in of itself. Dex isn't very good at criticizing or acknowledging that ;p But if such a thing were possible (it kinda is, but very unlikely), Dex does justify their existence.

So, yeah, if someone has anything they want to add or fill me in on something I've missed that makes my interpretation wrong, I'm all ears.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention cyberspace. It's pretty awful and repetitive and the only really bad con I can think of. It was probably cobbled up in about a week.

 

[GarfunkeL]

That reminds me, I never finished this. Will have to go back. I agree with combat being mandatory as stealth is just impossible at certain places.

 

[Lacrymas]

Well, you can get the invisibility augment and use that to get past otherwise unstealthable places, but the stealth mechanics just don't work well, it's not worth it and you miss out on a lot of xp if you don't kill everything in sight. There isn't even a stealth tree you can put points into, so I'm not sure how much of a priority stealth even was. The real choice is between ranged weapons and fists, the other option of stunning everything with cyberspace and using ambush seems tedious at best, and you get enough points to start putting them into melee or firearms even if you have maxed out all the others.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Please write a codex review

 

[fantadomat]

The game is great,the worst part is that we don't get more like it. Also i don't think that we will get another game from the studio,from what i remember the dev kicked the bucked some time after release,could be mistaken tho.

 

[ghostdog]

Yeah, unfortunately that's the case, the main dev died just after finishing it, at the age of 26.

We should be grateful they managed to release a final version with most bugs fixed, without him.

 

[fantadomat]

Yeah, unfortunately that's the case, the main dev died just after finishing it, at the age of 26.

We should be grateful they managed to release a final version with most bugs fixed, without him.

The game is very solid,don't remember having any bugs.