1eyedking Gyre: Maelstrom (meaningful c&c, procedural narrative, transhumanism, parkour, ex-Bioware)

[Leechmonger]

We’re promoting Gyre on Facebook right now because that’s where where all of you are and, well... we think you’re pretty awesome.

Ugh.

 

[adrix89]

Is this a sequel to Scrapland?

 

[eXalted]

Bioware and their Facebook fetishes. Like how they closed their forums because Facebook was beter.

 

[vortex]

The Design of Gyre:
Crafting a Steampunk Boomstick
Deep and robust crafting systems are quickly emerging as a dominant characteristic of computer and console RPGs but crafting is also an inextricable element of steampunk. We have often joked that adopting the attitude of “sticking a gear on it” would do a disservice to one of the aspects of steampunk held most dear by the community.

A good crafting system is impossible to implement independently of both the game economy of resources, loot drops and balancing, and therefore the system described below is still very much a work in progress. But if nothing else, it should serve to illustrate some of the principles we’re working under.

In Gyre: Maelstrom, players are not compelled to play the game in any particular way. Outside of tutorial sequences that let you explore without commitment, there are no obligatory systems that compel you to engage in combat or engage in crafting. But if you do decide you want to engage in these systems, then we need combat and crafting to still offer meaningful choice with wide-ranging latitude.
We offer three forms of combat -- melee, ranged & psionic. Bear in mind that our characters are all androids so their mental attacks might be what organic people understand as software-based hacking. But that would be anachronistic.

If we offered crafting recipes for specific weapons, then players might search for ingredients, rare and common, and combine them to create the desired weapon. But if we want to invite players to create any weapon they want to match their desired playstyle, we needed to think more atomically about weapons.

• Melee weapons have a part that is grasped. They have a part that goes bonk and gives someone a bad day. They may have some kind of X-factor part that powers the weapon with a special effect, like an electrical discharge.
  
  
• Ranged weapons must spew damage at a distance. The damage can be energy-based or ballistic-based. The weapon must be grasped. There must be a way to reload the weapon.

And then psionic weapons… Well, our psionic weapons have gone through the most evolution. In their earliest form, we thought the psionic weapon could be a special punch card reader the character wields and then the attack is like a spell the character learns and discharges for damage. Ultimately, that proved to be unsatisfying for two reasons. First, it denied psionic wielders the ability to really engage in crafting and secondly, it was far too spellcastastic. We constantly navigate the thin line between fantasy and sci-fi and psionics as spells felt like it risked being a transgression of our self-imposed rules.

So, for now, we’re decided to keep psionics simple. If a psionic weapon looked like a wand or rod, then it would need a part that is grasped and a part that focused the energy discharge and, unlike melee weapon power effects, this would be a mandatory component of a “legal” psionic weapon.
Once we divided our weapons into atomic components, it became clear we could begin to categorize:

• Slashing blades will look different from thrusting blades or chopping blades.
  
  
• Bludgeons and spikes are different still.
  
  
• Grips can be angled or straight, with or without hilts or pommels.
  
  
• Ranged weapons have different kinds of barrels, ammo feed mechanisms, grips and stocks.
  
  
• Psionic weapons could inherit the same granularity of grips as the melee weapons to give them a martial feel but instead of blades and other pointy bits, they could be topped with gems and lens and other repositories of psionic power.

For characters interested in combat, we think crafting will be a satisfying process for players to invest in. Players will be able to tune their fighting style to a degree rarely seen in RPGs as there is more opportunity under the hood. Among the 45 different crafting materials, there are materials that increase rates of attack, chances to hit or score a critical, boost damage output, inflict status effects or much more.

The crafting system will continue to evolve during production, but we hope this glimpse into the principles we use to empower and reward player agency gives you a sense of the potential flexibility of the combat that may lie ahead for players who don’t mind the odd tussle.

 

[commie]

Fuck Steampunk and the retarded over elaborate weapon/machinery designs. That rifle whatever looks fucking awful.

 

[deama]

I like how you play as a robot.