Useful Links and Info

[Kyzrati]

Welcome to Cogmind! There's a lot of info out there, so below I've put together a quick summary of what kinds of info you can find where.

Sources of Info

• Website[www.gridsagegames.com]: The main portal for general information about the game. The FAQ[www.gridsagegames.com] there also answers a lot of common questions, including both a roadmap and a list of ways you can help at the bottom.
  
• Roadmap[www.gridsagegames.com]: The FAQ contains a visual roadmap that indicates what features are probably coming up soon. It doesn't contain all the little day-to-day stuff, instead focusing on the bigger picture.
  
• Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]: For both general roguelike news and Cogmind-related announcements.
  
• Discord[discord.gg]: I hang out on this chat server where we have Cogmind-related channels and lots of experienced players available for daily discussion. (This is also to where a large portion of the feedback and design discussions moved beginning in mid-2016, thus the general decline in forum activity from then.)
  
• Forums[www.gridsagegames.com]: The Grid Sage Forums are home to many topical boards and discussion by non-Steam players, active since 2015, but mostly supplanted by Discord except for occasional threads and announcements, and the official Release History.
  
• Wiki[www.gridsagegames.com]: Links to a ton of Cogmind-related tools and info!
  
• Cog-Minder[noemica.github.io]: Aoemica has built an amazing site full of tools and its own Cogmind wiki, which is updated frequently based on the latest game data, and includes full lists of basically everything such as parts, robots, and even a combat simulator.
  
• Dev blog[www.gridsagegames.com]: I don't post release updates here, but the blog might of interest to anyone looking for more in-depth articles about a range of development topics, and deep dives on various Cogmind features.
  
• Newsletter[www.gridsagegames.com]: Sign up for the newsletter to be notified via email whenever there is a major release.

Other Communities

• /r/Cogmind
  
• IndieDB
  
• Bay 12[www.bay12forums.com]
  
• TIGSource

Help / Strategy Guides

The spoiler-free "Survival Tips[www.gridsagegames.com]" section towards the beginning of the in-game manual (also included as http://gridsagegames.com/cogmind/manual.txt) is recommended reading for new players who are having trouble. It'll get you up to speed and vastly improve your early-game survival rate.

If you're having trouble getting past the first few floors, check out my video "Pwning the Early Game" (this also includes an intro to the UI and basic mechanics--see the YouTube description for timestamp links):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml0to9JTQqw

I stream runs (and talk strategy and answer questions) on Twitch[www.twitch.tv] (older runs are archived here). Most of the other expert players stream directly on Discord[discord.gg], where realtime help is also available in the Cogmind channels.

For lots more videos and topical written guides, check out the wiki front page[gridsagegames.com].

[Wildfire]

The discord invite is dead.

[Kyzrati]

Originally posted by Wildfire:

The discord invite is dead.

It's active and appears to be working fine in all four browsers I checked it with. Try again? We have people joining every day using that same link, though note that it currently drops you into the main Roguelike server's door channel, where you have to read the rules and enter the passphrase for full access to all the channels (anti-spam measure since we were having bots join earlier).

[Kyzrati]

leiavoia has set up a "Cogmind New Player Strategy Guide" with lots of categorized tips here: https://leiavoia.net/cogmind/guides/new-player-guide.html

(note the guide is based on Beta 11, and therefore may have some differences from the current public release, but that version will be arriving next month!)

[0x41414141]

Originally posted by Kyzrati:

Hey quick suggestion: add a button to the highscore page on your website (https://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/scores/). This is something I looked for there and couldn't find it. Had to search a bit here in the forums for that direct link.

[Kyzrati]

That and more are linked more indirectly from the wiki[gridsagegames.com]. Also the URL is given to you at the end of each run, at the bottom of the game over screen.

[0x41414141]

Oh I never noticed the url at the end of the run 😳

[0x41414141]

Originally posted by Kyzrati:

That and more are linked more indirectly from the wiki[gridsagegames.com]. Also the URL is given to you at the end of each run, at the bottom of the game over screen.

Just checked and the URL given is www.gridsagegames.com (ref: https://imgur.com/a/LLldjfl); a page that doesn't have any mention of the leaderboard.

There's a link to https://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/ and like I said, on that page there is also no mention of the leaderboard.

[Kyzrati]

Oh yeah you're right! I thought it was there, but actually on the game over screen the full URL doesn't fit :P

I'll reword it a bit and use a shortened form such that it can be edged in there, since that might help people who miss it elsewhere.

Remember that leaderboard uploading is disabled by default for everyone, and to activate it you have to go to the Options menu, where the option "Upload Scores" tells you "Leaderboards can be found here: gridsagegames.com/cogmind/scores/"

There's a link to https://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/ and like I said, on that page there is also no mention of the leaderboard.

Yep, that's the way it was built. Didn't want it on that site, which isn't community-oriented, but it's linked from other relevant locations (the wiki, Steam, Discord, r/Cogmind, the forums, and so on--basically all the player-oriented spots).

[Kyzrati]

Oh one other thing I recalled as to why it's always been that way (which might be obvious from the Upload Scores option describing player age and GDPR etc :P) was that the original reason behind that notification of a successful file transfer was for for legal transparency purposes, rather than to point people to the leaderboards. Though I guess since it's possible to edge it in without causing too much of a layout issue that could be worth it for the extra info :D