To anyone who has not played it yet, please stop reading here. SPOILERS await you below.
Thank you for offering this UGC to the community. I played it through this morning and enjoyed it quite a bit. I hope this is a good place to provide feedback. I own SRHK on GOG, so I do not think I can post comments to the Steam Workshop. Some specific comments:
- Download link: Thanks for providing the Drive link on the Workshop. That was way easier than using the other methods to download workshop mods.
- Music: I use Cirion's custom music mod for Caldecott and CalFree, but I did not download your additional files. So I played through with no music, except for perhaps one brief moment. Maybe I will try your additional files for the next update. How easy is it to recover the original music? Like you say, I guess I would just have to back it up and recopy it later. Actually, perhaps Cirion's mod can even restore it... Hm have to experiment.
- Dream Sequence: I enjoyed the dream sequence. I enjoyed the characters Mary, Bartholomew, and our troll friend, though I cannot recall his name. I wish I could have remembered it for the doctor's office scene! I did not install the mod for children, though I could see going back to do it now.
- Apartment scene: Is it possible to turn off Brandon's light before you leave? I could not seem to do it.
- Wage slave scene: I enjoyed the boring tasks at work. I also enjoyed the memories at the Seamstress' Union. It would be helpful to add a yellow objective arrow that points to the Mortgage office. I had to wander around for a bit to find where Brandon works.
- Truck scene: I thought the scene on the back of the moving truck was really, really cool. It reminded me of the old arcade game Bad Dudes. There was no scene like that in any of the Shadowrun trilogy games, right? How did you do it?
- Gas station scene: The timer was way, way too slow for me. I cannot imagine anyone being quick enough to avoid backup arriving. Fortunately, the extra four dudes were not too tough when they arrived. The technique of requiring a runner to jump the wall was very cool.
- Tutorial: The tutorial help was extremely handy. I never would have figured out how to rig the truck or jump the wall without it.
- Story: It takes a little while to get into it. Like I said, the dream sequence was great, but once it ended, I did not find any of the other runners to be particularly compelling. Maybe they will become more interesting when Brandon meets up with them again. Once Brandon finally wakes up, I was 100% engaged. Now I can't wait to find out what is going on. Overall, the transition from dream, to getting fired, to mysterious run, to chop shop is a memorable start for a UGC.
- Bugs: You surely already know this, but the only bug I encountered was the conversation in the chop shop sets your handle to "null."
- Difficulty: I play on normal. I found the combats to be challenging due to cover locations and to the sheer number of opponents, but the shadowrunners are well-outfitted to compensate for the difficulty. I used many DocWagon kits, but I do not think I game-overed at any point due to a combat. I did accidently step inside the gas station once. Oops.
- Suggestion: All of us closely associate that image and that sprite with Glory. Would it be possible to use another look for Foxy?
- Minor gripes: The UGC takes place in Seattle. We need to be calling the sport soccer! Hah-hah.
Thank you again for your contribution to the community. I look forward to learning more about Brandon's story.
EDIT: His name was Barton, wasn't it? Back to the chop shop computer now...
All you have to do is make a copy of the exact files contained with the music files I provided. Maindata, resource.assets, resource.assets.resS, music.mlib.bytes
I spent many hours for the soundtrack, which contains the best remix's of my fav video game music tracks past and present. So next update, definitely check it out. I will be updating the soundtrack anyways, as I didn't include all of the tracks, as it's a massive download with all tracks included.
The truck combat scene uses this track. I also got permission from LegendOfRenegade who makes a lot of Sega Genesis remix's, and a lot of his tracks will be making an appearance. If you liked them old arcade games, Intercity 5 track is from double dragon 3
I grew up in the arcades during the PlayStation era, so expect a lot of nostalgic fighting game tracks.
Main character is Brandon or Brenda, depending on gender of the player. I'm from Australia where we also call it soccer. But have a few hardcore soccer fan friends that get angry when I call it soccer, and say that it should be called football.
Originally I wanted the player to play NFL, as I use to be a big NFL fan, but didn't have the props for an NFL field. Being a long time Carolina Panthers fan was too much, I couldn't take the constant heartbreak of following that team anymore!
As for Mary she is also one of my favorites.
Apartment scene, yeah I probably missed the off switch. I'll have to fix that. As well as add a pointer to the office. I'll add a longer timer for the truck too.
Moving the truck, I made 4x4 moving props (guard rails, plus paint line down the middle), move props with speed to the edge of the map, then reset it back to the top based off of a timer which repeats over and over. And I have like 9 integer variable triggers constantly changing alongside the timer. So the engine knows which prop to reset back to the top of the road.
As for the truck base, I went into the editor and placed ground tiles onto the base of the truck. Then I screenshotted it, and used that screenshot to create a new prop. Lastly I made a copy of the music tracks for the road scene, and I used Audacity to place a Lamborghini driving over the track to simulate driving noise. The triggers for the truck combined with Intercity map was resource intensive, so I had to limit what I could do. But I promised the person that drew the truck base that I would use it again. Next one will be an all on road action sequence, with no holding back from another large map taking up resources.
The objects contained on the back of truck are already in place, I obscured vision by using invisible objects to create a fog of war so you can only see the shadow. And moved the truck along with the front parts once you interact with it. Once the truck gets into position, I teleport all the actors onto the back of the truck, then deleted all the fog of war invisible blocks when you rig it.
Phinx and crew was already in the middle of an action based mission sequence, so it was quite hard to show their personalities during that small timeframe outside of everyone always picking on Civil War. My goal was to portray a somewhat new, but skilled group of Shadowrunner's who were extremely cocky. Which sets up their story arc. I also refrained from adding descriptive text as well as any sort of fleshing out for them, as the dream into office sequence was dialogue heavy. This was also the first story and UGC I've ever a worked on. So learning to write took time, as I've never even played a table-top game before which is something I've always wanted to do.
The first crew of runners joining will be extremely unique. A anti-technology native from Nootka Tribe, and a psychotic vigilante inspired by a very infamous criminal from Australia. And the Christmas video I uploaded to YouTube was just a joke conversation to portray some of the unique abilities that the Shadowrunners will have. None of their personalities will anything be like that.
The story is slow at the start, which was my biggest woe as I knew it would be hard to keep players engaged. But to flesh out somebodies life, attach a connection with the characters in their life, within such a small timeframe was no easy task. I even cut out another scene with the parents at their house in the intro. Even Bonton had a conversation cut out in the soccer field scene as I was worried it was too much dialogue.
A lot of the other UGC creators were against my idea of playing various sets of characters before you get to control the character you created. But I refused to go against my vision of the story I wanted to tell.
The petrol station scene was originally built so that, if the timer goes off you get mobbed by 4 carloads and get overwhelmed. With longer timer, but many players are soft these days, and I couldn't be bothered dealing with the backlash. You can also use a drone to get to the back of building.
Difficulty wise, hardest difficulty is super hard. Especially the Lonestar battle, as they get the initiative and use over watch to stun the runners that try to get to cover. I've set it so enemies use their turns properly, by attacking twice. Hence the need for a lot of medkits. But if you pay attention to surroundings, you can use some nice strategic moves. Such as in the docks fight, you can lure the enemies with Civil War onto the bridge, block the chokepoint with the drone and blow them all up along with the bridge.
I'll look into switching out the portrait for Foxy. Since yeah, she was a main character in Dragonfall. The name handle in the Chop Shop I've already fixed, but didn't bother to upload the updated version. As uploading onto steam is a major pain, sometimes you have to do it 5+ times before it finally works.