September is here and autumn is just a few weeks away. As the seasons make their steady progress across the year, we continue to make steady progress on Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. As we hit each new milestone, our work and focus shift from one area of the game to another and September is a month of changing priorities.
We’re still hitting updates every 2-4 weeks here on Kickstarter, but if you want to keep up with us more regularly, we’re putting extra emphasis this autumn on connecting with our fans on social media. In addition to our regular
@Tresebrothers on Twitter, we’ve launched a new cyberpunk focused account,
@CyberKnightsRPG. Plug in to see the latest concept art, gameplay previews, news & interviews, highlights from the forums & discord, shout-outs to other awesome cyberpunk creators, and more. If you want Cyber Knights on a drip, follow us here:
https://twitter.com/CyberKnightsRPGBig Summer Milestones
All summer long we have announced major milestones and our progress on the game’s foundation components and infrastructure, as well as new features and stretch goals. In the June Report, we shared the exciting addition of multiple language support in the game. In July’s Update, we shared that with your funding we were able to license and integrated top-tier audio middleware Wwise from Audiokinetic, giving us features you’d expect from AAA games like dynamic audio, game-state reactive music and a fully 3D sound stage for combat. Finally, in August’s Update we announced the support of cross-platform cloud save that will let you backup, restore and sync your games across any number of machines and devices. Along the way the art team has completed a major milestone – the concept art team is now completely done! All remaining work is now in completing all the game-ready 3D assets and final animations!
Of course, as we are working through all of these major items progress is being made on the core gameplay, a new saved game format, the character professions that will be offered, the intricacies of the battle map, cover, safehouse, sight lines, stealth and more.
Integrating Systems
September is a month of change and integration. The majority of the game’s systems are now in and functioning per their design. The process of plugging them together and tightly integrating them has begun. For example, you can now train your teammates in their second Jobs. Some of those Jobs – like Hunder or Hacker – require certain cybernetic enhancements – like an Evo Rig or a neural nanowire interface. If you need a new implant to train in a Job, you can go to your Safehouse’s medical clinic and pay for a new implant. Now, such surger properly takes your character out of action for a while and you have to advance the game clock before they are available for a mission again. Advancing the game clock also lets your workshop run, which might produce your new rifle scope from the blueprint you fed into it. You can snap that rifle scope onto your current AR for some extra optimal range and drop into a mission and the rifle’s 3D model will rock that scope.
That might all sound very ho-hum, that’s a game – but it's a critical turning point in the game dev cycle to move from isolated play loops to integrated play loops. There are months of work still to go but the shift to integration is a big one.
Job Skill Trees
As August closed we were digging deep into the variety, mechanics and balance of the starting Jobs that are planned for the game’s alpha. The last few months have allowed us to build out a new, powerful and dynamic Talent implementation. Now we’re working at a detail level to spec out the separate functional domains within each Job – Soldiers can have a territory control focus while Knights can build to be powerfully anti-drone – as well as the exact active and passive Talents for each of these domains and how they intersect.
We have drawn on inspiration from other deep RPGs as well as our previous games like Templar Battleforce to craft a powerful skill tree system for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. As your characters level, they will gain points to spend on the skill trees of either of their 2 Jobs. Each node on the tree can grant a wide array of bonuses, including training in new active Talents (you pick when to use them) and passive Talents (they proc automatically on game events). Other skill tree nodes can grant permanent bonuses, such as improvements to weapon accuracy, increased movement speed or additional attribute points. As you craft your build, you’ll also seek out nodes on the tree that can change the meta of your active and passive Talents, increasing their use refresh rate, increasing their max use count, increasing their effects or even adding completely new aspects to their effects. Soldiers can quickly snag a solid active Talent that increases defensive bonus from cover and buffs critical hit percentage, but by investing down one branch of your skill tree, you can change its aspects. On one node, you might alter the Talent to allow you to also recover Recoil, making it perfect for on-the-move mercs who dash between cover, hunker down and still need to take accurate shots on the same turn. Down another branch, you might alter the same Talent by increasing your overwatch angle of fire while reducing your movement rate, improving it for mercs who are more defensive and more focused on territory control than rapid advances. You’ll be able to plot your own course through the skill tree, picking one, both or neither of these nodes with your points.
Let’s just say – we cannot wait to see what characters you create with this new system.
As we know the structures of the trees and their bonuses will be some of the most revised and tweaked data points in the game up to and through the alpha, we’re building to be flexible and ready to adjust the meta without a lot of groaning and pain. Just another place where Cory’s 10 years of data-driven game development is helping us cope with big systems and large data sets without losing our agility.
Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
As always, we’ve included the progress bar infographic to ensure our progress and commitments are clear. With this update, we’re excited to say that three of the big art stretch goals have been completed.
Both stretch goal dog breeds – the Support Beagle and Fast-Attack Shepherd – have now had both their 3D models fully completed and their animation packs done as well. They’re ready to join your hunder in the game! We’ve crossed these off the list in the progress bar.
The original cyber lynx cat has now completed its animation pack which is supported by a beautiful 3D model. This goal had been planned under Alpha Access but has been completed early. The cyber snow leopard also has a completed 3D model and is waiting for its animation pack.
Both the stretch goal Support Drone and Scout Drone have completed 3D models but are waiting for animation treatment similar to the previews we checked out in the last update. The Battle Drone’s high poly 3D sculpt has just started. These are close but not ready to be struck from the list.
We’re making continued progress on the 50+ backer faces in 3D. This game is going to have a lot of face options!
The next set of items to flip will be more completed art stretch goals – we'll probably be marching right down the list. For every new strike off the list, the closer we get to alpha!
Streaming on Twitch
You can find Cory (and sometimes Andrew) on the
Trese Brothers Twitch where we are streaming game development, answering questions and talking about the studio Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4PM EST.