Another 10 Ton-produced Neon Chrome clone? :)

[BlackjackGT]

Don't get me wrong -- I love 10 Tons' Neon Chrome, it's one of my favorite games on Steam of any genre -- but sometimes it feels like you guys are remaking Neon Chrome as a half dozen other twin stick shooters. Some truly differentiated, some not.

A couple of them -- the Tesla game in particular -- seem truly different than NC in terms of environments, or what you're playing as, or weapons.

What's different about JYDGE beyond the configurable weapons? A lot of the graphics and weapons seem near identical to Neon Chrome.

I've associated 10 Tons with Neon Chrome and Crimsonland. I worry you guys are stretching yourselves too thin with too many twin stick projects emulating Neon Chrome, and it may water down your "brand," so to speak.

Also, I question the use of the word "awful" in the game store description. I think people skimming the description may get the mistaken impression the game is billing itself as "not good."

[BlackjackGT]

I never knew anyone who didn't want free games off their wishlists. Very noble. :)

If you go into your Steam profile, you can change privacy settings. While there isn't one specifically labeled as 'wishlist,' I think if you set your Profile Status to "Private," this *may* prevent people from viewing your wishlist. You might try that and ask a pal to check if your wishlist is no longer viewable to him.

I'm not certain it works that way, but I know some folks on my Steam friends list set their profiles to private, privacy-wise, and I can't seem to view their game wishlists.

Alternatively you can choose to 'Follow' a game, and any news updates will show up in your Steam activity feed. This typically includes any sales announcements though not all devs/publishers do that.

You can also just monitor PC-game focused news sites that tend to include Steam sales in their news postings. Blue's News for example tends to do that.

[Mr. Matt]

Thanks for the recommendations. Hopefully they'll make a private wishlist option someday. I don't want to seem too hermit-y by setting my whole profile private. Well, that or folks might think I'm trying to hide after they read some of my negative reviews of games. My opinions can be kinda controversial. ;p

[Grimoirian]

OK, I wasn't aware of Neon Chrome already (bad job on Steam's part considering my love of twinsticks), but the art style is a touch too pink for me, despite the fact the game looks really good. Now I like the aesthetic of Jydge, as I've read every 2000AD form 1st to about 2015, but the vague explanation of "roguehate" confuses me.

If the game has distinct levels but the enemys change, it could have been said as such. If the levels are handcrafted but they are modulated (i.e. the rooms might change about or the levesl might come around in a different order), it also could've been explained. If the upgrade drops are randomised, I don't think that counts enough to be classed as a difference from a normal twinstick shooter.

I don't mean to sound "anti", I'm just insterested in what the term actually entails from a gameplay perspective. I guess I'll try and find out if you can re-colourise Neon Chrome whilst I wait for a reply.

...but good job on the ddevs for being so active in the steam forums, being such a wretched hive of scum and villainy as they are

[Mr. Matt]

Did you mean to say too "punk" or too "pink?" I guess certain colors can turn folks off on games. I hadn't thought of that before. That said, other than the title screen, Neon Chrome didn't have much pink in it to my recollection. Blue, green, and purple seemed a lot more frequent to me.

If any pink is a massive turn-off, then that sucks. The good news is that most games don't have a lot of pink in them, so that's good for ya. ;)

[Scary Scarlet]

Suprised to see you here. I added this game to my wish list cause it looks quite like HELLDIVERS.

[Mr. Matt]

I'm fairly certain this is incredibly different from Helldivers. The perspective seems to be the only similarity I can think of.

[BlackjackGT]

10tons doesn't do online co-op so don't hold your breath for that a la Helldivers.

It's cool they have multiple teamworking on mutliple twin-sticks and I pretty much either have all their games, or have wishlisted what they're working on now.

[temper]

Yeah there is no online multiplayer in this one, local "couch" co-op only.

We are looking into doing some online multiplayer in the future, and have a few tests running already, but it all depends on the game itself. We haven't yet decided what we'll do after Time Recoil, JYDGE, and Tesla vs Lovecraft though. We'll be starting multiple new projects, and they won't be all twin-stick shooters. :)

[Mr. Matt]

I feel like I the term "twin-stick shooter" almost undercuts something like Neon Chrome, because that game has so much tactical gameplay possibility, whereas twin-stick shooters typically imply erratically running around or even bullet hell implications. I loved how slowly I could play most of Neon Chrome to make the most of my runs and avoid death by being careful and executing quick kills by planning then ahead and being careful.

[temper]

Originally posted by Mr. Matt:

I feel like I the term "twin-stick shooter" almost undercuts something like Neon Chrome, because that game has so much tactical gameplay possibility, whereas twin-stick shooters typically imply erratically running around or even bullet hell implications. I loved how slowly I could play most of Neon Chrome to make the most of my runs and avoid death by being careful and executing quick kills by planning then ahead and being careful.

I think we'd need more subcategories for twin-stick shooter genre.

Sneaking and backstabbing (back-gaveling?) is definitely in bigger role in JYDGE, but you can also skip it completely if you'd just like to run-and-gun-and-dodge. (You will have to be pretty good at it to make happen though, but we've tried to design this one so that you can complete the game with many different play styles. I don't think you can max out the game (get ALL medals etc) with only one play style though. Also it isn't that black and white: stealthy C4K planter seems to be viable tactic against stronger foes -- with right combinations you can even one-shot bosses.)

[Mr. Matt]

That sounds pretty cool. Having options for various playstyles is great while keeping an overall vision in check, since the challenge-seeking badasses can make things as hard on themselves as possible by taking on rooms full of guys at once and head-on, while I can weasel my way through sneakily using precision, controlled assaults on solo enemies and small groups.

[Brtzlmo]

Originally posted by temper:

The game is definitely built upon Neon Chrome, and we're very honest about it too.
The game code has so many changes to Neon Chrome that it would have been very difficult to do this as a Neon Chrome DLC without breaking tons of stuff.

it`s not that you are doing a similar game as Neon Chrome, it`s that you are doing 3 games at once that all feel very similar to NC in terms of graphics and/or mechanics. Time Recoil has time mechanics and missions, Jydge has a upgradeable "jydge" (some would say a perk system...), graphis and gameplay look almost identical to NC. Tesla vs Lovecraft has a unique look at least.
I love Neon Chrome, played till Overseer 13 I think, best topdown shooter in my book. just hope you give us a proper sequel at some point...

[Shadow]

Originally posted by temper:

Originally posted by Mr. Matt:

What is a "roguehate" game, though? It's being presented like everyone knows what it is, but I've never heard of it, and Googling it just turns up a bunch of results about people complaining about the Rogue character class in various games (especially World of Warcraft). Roguehate...does that means it's harder than most rogue likes or rogue lites? As in the game hates you? Or it's for people who hate rogue games? If the latter, wouldn't that just be called "any other genre?" =p I'm confused here...

I'm a person who plays stupidly large numbers of games, tends to dislike roguelikes and some roguelites (though I really, really liked Neon Chrome...probably more than Rogue Legacy!), but I have never heard of "roguehate" before, meaning many people reading the description won't either. If it's for huge fans of the rogue genre, though, and I'm the outsider/not the target market, then that's fair, though.

I don't think there's a real definition for a roguehate, just something we made up trying to describe the game... In JYDGE it aims to mean two things:

1) literally JYDGE absolutely hates rogues and thieves, and
2) the game is simply not a roguelike game. Elements such as random generation are not big part of this game. (Although Rock Paper Shotgun did like to describe it as "roguelikelike", whatever THAT means :))

Originally posted by Mr. Matt:

Stating "lawful but awful" in the description...I dig the rhyme, but describing your game as awful in almost any way on the store page is a questionable business decision.

It'd be interesting to a/b test the awful thing... I would like to think people reading it don't really think we think JYDGE is an awful game, as it isn't , but not sure if it subconsciously sets a negative tone? Or does it simply stand out as it's not something generally used in game descriptions? Or has no meaningful effect on purchasing decision the way or another?

BTW. added a mention regarding Neon Chrome (and Crimsonland) in the description text. Hopefully that will align the message for Neon Chrome players better (before playing the actual game).

@temper: just my two cents on the store description thing: I liked Neon Chrome, so I took the "aweful" as just tongue in cheek, but the "roguehate" I interpreted as "this is a roguelike, we're just super edgy about how to call it". I think you need to be more clear with what the game is, because most people won't come to the forum looking for clarification. I think you should stress the handcrafted content, because ever since no man's sky "procedural" has lost its positive ring to it, and the permanent meta progression, if there is any. This is something I really liked about Neon Chrome, even failing a run I had made some progress. I think Totalbiscuit calls such games RogueLite or something like that. He's made a video about it, which you might want to check out.

[temper]

Originally posted by Shadow:

@temper: just my two cents on the store description thing: I liked Neon Chrome, so I took the "aweful" as just tongue in cheek, but the "roguehate" I interpreted as "this is a roguelike, we're just super edgy about how to call it". I think you need to be more clear with what the game is, because most people won't come to the forum looking for clarification. I think you should stress the handcrafted content, because ever since no man's sky "procedural" has lost its positive ring to it, and the permanent meta progression, if there is any. This is something I really liked about Neon Chrome, even failing a run I had made some progress. I think Totalbiscuit calls such games RogueLite or something like that. He's made a video about it, which you might want to check out.

Hmm that's a good point. I don't mind people not knowing what roguehate is, but I don't want them to think it's roguelike as the game really is the opposite of that. We'll go through the texts as the release date starts looming in the horizon (we're thinking early oct). At the moment we've been a bit busy with Time Recoil though.

[Wesoły Kupiec]

Maybe change first paragraph to something like that:

JYDGE is a lawful but awful first roguehate top-down shooter in history where you get to build your own cybernetic JYDGE and eradicate crime in the never-sleeping megacity of Edenbyrg through handcrafted levels and missions (or maps and missions?).

Or just add somewhere in the description, preferably at the start some definition of what roguehate is.