Cogmind News

IndieDB has begun voting for Indie of the Year 2018, and I'd appreciate it if you head on over to the Cogmind page and give it a click!



The voting happens in two phases, first (now) just to determine the Top 100 group, then those 100 compete for one of the Top 10 spots. It's not really worth going for a top 10 slot since there are too many games with huge following that compete for those (it's a popularity contest, after all, and Cogmind's audience is pretty niche!), but I'm pretty sure we can make the Top 100 again. Cogmind has been in the Top 100 for several years now thanks to fans helping vote it past the first round, which is pretty good considering there are well over 10,000 games on the platform. Thank you! (This is nice as a fairly easy way to get a little extra exposure when we've got as much support as we generally do.)

Registration isn't required.

I won't be posting a dedicated reminder about the next phase, but will mention it in the news assuming Cogmind makes it past round one.

(Also if you haven't done so yet, for those of you with Cogmind on Steam, leaving a review is really helpful! (We're also working towards a specific goal ;)))

(Also, on IndieDB go vote for your other favorite roguelikes that have an IndieDB page--you can vote for more than one game!)

This week I'll be posting my annual dev review, so be on the lookout for that :D



Many thanks to everyone for your votes! We made it into the Top 100 :D

Once again, from here there are a number of extremely popular games which will vie for the Top 10 spots so I don't think we stand much chance competing for those, but the voting continues... (you can vote again, and also check out all the other games that made the cut)

New parts, new art, more streaming, an interview, a blog post... it's been busy around here!

First, how about some new item teasers :D



I don't want to spoil the surprises, but can at least say this has been a very productive couple of weeks. More on that later.

In more immediate news we have the Thanksgiving sale period, for which Cogmind is 10% off for another half a week or so, both on Steam and the website. (Reminder: This is the lowest EA discount we'll have, barring extra promotion from Steam in exchange for a slightly higher discount, though the chances of that don't seem very high anymore.)

The Steam Awards have also begun, and the community consensus so far has been to vote for "Most Fun with a Machine," so consider adding your vote to the pool!



One of the more exciting (scary?) milestones that was hit this week: I've hit the 10,000-hour mark with Cogmind development!



The "little project" that started in 2013 is still going full speed ahead, all these years later... At some point I'll be doing a blog series on this, making all my time records public alongside an in-depth analysis of the data.

For now, though, there's the much more important Beta 8 to attend to!



Beta 8 is adding a bunch of brand new mechanics, including some which are very... out-of-the-box stuff, meaning I've been very busy breaking things left and right as I treat the code base to new experiences :)

As much as I'd enjoy sharing the more exciting advances, I'd like the future Beta 8 release to recapture a little more of the "surprise factor" that we used to get with Alpha releases back in the day, where each one always included chunks of unannounced content.

I do, however, have a few shots taken during development so far which I'll present here without necessarily much in the way of explanation.



Using the Lightning Gun to test a new mechanic, and it started open walls like doors! o_O (this is not the mechanic, just an unexpected side effect xD)



Weapons with the DISPOSABLE tag are getting a counter number. Wasn't needed before seeing as all disposable weapons are single-use, but... who knows ;)



Cogmind pushes past immobile allies rather than swapping with them.



Teach me your secrets!



Here's some stuff which is not actually in the game, but was used or encountered while working on certain features:











Continuing on the tail end of that massive surge of fan art from last time, here's some more :)

Don't get the wrong idea, this is most certainly not happening, but PlasticHeart sure has just the right concept to get your imagination running wild. #ChooseYourFaction



JackNine brings another cogmic, this one about "turn matters"



Zyalin continues to impress with more concept bots, like these "super derelict bros"



And if Recyclers give you nightmares, what about this "T-70 Combat Excavator"?





RIF is dead, long live The Gunslinger!

Last week we finished the RIF run in its fourth stream, which ended rather early on -4, but such is the potential result of playing Cogmind inflexibly, as it further ups the challenge. Still, sticking to a certain conduct is fun so I plan to do more of this in the future.

Part 3 (summary w/images):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3H9ieNSXVA

Part 4 (summary w/images):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55GDc0_P4k

Since Part 4 came to an end before time was up that day and I wanted to play some more, we started up a separate stream. Despite intending to do quick-play runs with decisions made more for fun rather than optimization, that stream went on for another couple hours, and its second run even spanned 24 maps! It had some pretty epic moments, summarized here and available on YouTube below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIUM_8tWXMQ

Fast forward to this week and a fresh run has begun! This time it's a guns-only combat run, as we go for some related achievements and try out the gunslinging modifications in Beta 7. Using four guns to destroy three Swarmers in a single attack? Check :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWLYK6almG8

Zyalin was busy during the stream as well, drawing this "Gunslinging Ladybot" to go along with the theme!



Part 2 coming next week, same time (Twitch ~7pm ET).



John Harris interviewed me for Extended Play, talking about Cogmind and related stuff. It's a very long interview which spanned a couple years of intermittent questions, and was very interesting to participate in. At this point I dont' even remember all the topics we covered , but it touches on a lot of different areas.



Normally I write articles featured on Gamasutra, not have an article written by someone else about me there :P. Alternatively you can check out the same interview on his own blog, or find it in John's retro magazine Extended Play (Issue #2), which contains an assortment of other content, too.

Over on my blog I do have a new article, this one on how I recently solved a rare long-standing bug in Cogmind that might affect players using manual seeds, causing some maps to possibly have different content than expected. "Debugging Mapgen Seed Divergence" offers a relatively detailed look at both the definition of this type of problem and how to isolate it, showing the steps taken along the way.



And that's all I've got for this SITREP! Plenty more work to do on Beta 8, and as always it'll be quality and quantity over speed, so no dates to announce yet.

A note about SITREPs: These are regular progress updates where I often share features coming to the next release, but aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 6 and Beta 7.

There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums or r/Cogmind.

Since the 7.1 release last week I've been hard at work on Beta 8, with a bunch of that time spent in REXPaint on new art. Some of you may know what that means... yet more parts!



That's just a small sampling to whet your appetite ;)

Fortunately it's not just me who's been up to producing art, so we can also feast our eyes upon Cogmind-related works from the community! There's been quite a lot of it over the past few weeks...



Zyalin has been enjoying the world's atmosphere so much that he's chosen to share his impressions of the Heroes of Zion. These are only minor NPCs which don't play a part in the plot lines, but they have a lot of personality, making them good candidates for portraits. Over the past few weeks he's been sharing them with us over on Discord, having just recently finished the series.

ME-RLN



1C-UTU



7V-RTL



NK-0LA



P1-3CE



AD-0RF



99-TNT



CL-ANK



12-ASH



Having finished the heroes, Zyalin has continued drawing more bots, though now simply inspired by the world rather than anything directly from the game.

There's Zerbe-RIF:



A scary escaped prototype which has reportedly "stolen the last copy of NetHack" xD



And this great derelict with what could be a stolen pair of nice legs and a whole bunch of duct tape!





Not too long ago KernelPanic initially started sharing pixel art conversions of Cogmind's ASCII parts (their first attempt at pixel art, no less!):





Also eventually experimenting with new styles:



But then the parts started finding their way into these cool data sheets:



"Halloween version" for the Recycler :P





Pioneered by PlasticHeart, I've shared a few before but so-called "cogmics" have recently become a wider thing in the community, with at least 5-6 separate people (lost count xD) using their own cogmic style to share Cogmind jokes about the world, strategies, or even the community itself. Here are a few I've picked out...

PlasticHeart cogmics:



Gotta hate those surprise ARCs! (or any number of other surprises when opening doors without sensor data xD)



Using the new 7.1 RIF to loop garrisons (this one was specifically drawing Pimski doing it in -1/Access for what has become the second-highest ever scoring Cogmind run, which you can see on the leaderboards now).



New players are generally inundated with good advice on arrival on the Discord, but sometimes there are jokes as well :P



Lots of strategy discussion and sharing regarding established builds...



Decinym's impression of discovering nothing desirable after using CRM ("alien magic," haha xD):



Same scenario depicted by Zyalin (apparently Core Expanders are an artifact hunter's worst enemy :P)



Zyalin draws Raine as she goes for the Mad Max achievement, then accidentally picks up a prototype flight unit next to the wheel she wanted. Oops!



Allied Operators are great, by Zyalin.



8FPS lamenting the Beta 7 fix which blocked the cheese tactic of safely crushing a certain major NPC via treads without the usual repercussions.



Most recently, JackNine has been sharing some polished cogmics with a completely new perspective. (These include fun little details that are worth a second look, too :D)

Remember that Mines encounter?



(for me it's especially funny JackNine would make this connection, since a separate event I've been planning to add to the caves at some point is a more direct reference to this classic scene)

ASCII vs. tiles, Halloween edition!



How to deal with "programmers" :)



Many thanks to everyone for your artistic contributions! Some of the artists have been uploading their creations to the Images section on Steam, though not all so I thought I'd share some of my favorites as part of a progress update :D



The Apostle of RIF is alive and well [enough]! We've survived another two parts with the RIF build, hacking and fighting up to -5/Upper Caves at this point after making the desired visit to Extension to rescue a certain someone (and then backstab them--sorry bud!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1HJ38I8xuw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3H9ieNSXVA

The written summary of the run (w/images) continues in the same forum thread.

Part 4 is coming next week at the usual time (Monday evenings EST, after the DST change in the US the time is around 7pm).

Also on Twitch, our own emote was approved ;)



I dunno though, I might end up switching it to :wheel:, which'd go along better with my streams since I've been doing a lot of wheel-based runs. (That said, some of the future runs I have planned are more likely to be back on legs.)



My "How to Make a Roguelike" talk at the Roguelike Celebration is now also available in text form on the blog. It's a comprehensive primer on how to get started with roguelike development, with guidance and tips in 5,500 words and 84 images!



I also cross-posted it to Gamasutra, where it was received quite well and even got featured on their front page as the top article :)

You can see the screenshot they chose was from POLYBOT-7, woohoo.



In other artlike news, Rex Quantum has scrapped together a printed Cogmind manual using leftover office supplies. How appropriate :P





Overall there won't be as many progress updates prior to Beta 8, if only because a good chunk of this dev time is going towards new content that'd be nice for everyone to explore on their own. Also a heads up: This is stuff that'll be accessible near the start of a run, so unlike a lot of other big content updates it won't require that you already be able to reach the mid- or late-game areas. Stay tuned for more!

A note about SITREPs: These are regular progress updates where I often share features coming to the next release, but aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 6 and Beta 7.

There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums or r/Cogmind.

Boo! Surprise update!

Originally the next planned release was Beta 8, but 1) I already had a bunch of confirmed RIF features-to-be, 2) did the whole Roguelike Celebration trip which is going to push back the Beta 8 release date, and 3) really wanted to start streaming a new dedicated bot-hacking run and would prefer that it be fairly different from the one last month.

So early this week I suddenly decided to put out a quick 7.1 and give you all the RIF features now. Better than keeping them on hold for a bunch of other unrelated content, eh?

Beta 7.1 has technically been available since Tuesday, though we're just getting the release notes now. Let's see what's up...

• NEW: RIF adds precise real-time alert level readout to HUD
• NEW: RIF automatically detects nearby Garrison Access points
• NEW: Garrison Access automatically open for Cogmind with RIF upon stepping adjacent to door location
  
• NEW: If RIF installed, alert level no longer increases passively while inside a garrison
• NEW: Garrison exits automatically open if Cogmind has RIF installed
• NEW: Manual indicates BRIGHTNESS renderFilter can be used to increase brightness as well
  
• NEW: Weapon cycling (' or [CYCLE] button) treats all guided, melee, and datajack weapons as separate options
• MOD: While RIF installed, Unlock Access hack at Garrison Access always has a 100% chance
  
• MOD: -8/Materials Garrison Access is always lowest security level
• MOD: Relay Coupler [Swarmer] base value increased 40%
• MOD: Operator purge_threat hack cost dropped from 20 to 10
• MOD: A certain 5-letter bot that starts with a G (spoiler) now has the Disruption immunity
  
• MOD: Non-hostile Researchers are not alerted by distress calls
• MOD: Researchers ignore Datajack attacks against both self and allies
• MOD: Thermal Generator effect description adjusted so it's harder to mistake for a type of heat sink
  
• MOD: Tactical HUD mode energy readout displays both values separately even when stationary and movement turnwise deltas are identical
  
• MOD: Non-zero ambient heat display is shown outside Tactical HUD mode as well, if applicable
  
• FIX: Enumerate(Coupling) terminal hack gave no results [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Dropped salvage would not remain in map knowledge if Cogmind stepped out of view prior to any FOV update [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Melee sneak attacks were impossible against Researchers [GJ]
  
• FIX: Loading a "Fragile Parts" run wouldn't apply the rules in subsequent sessions beyond the first [GJ]
  
• FIX: -exportRobots command line argument inaccessible in release build [Raine]
  
• FIX: Tactical HUD mode energy readout failed to show inventory-stored energy when stationary and movement values are identical [Trione]
  
• FIX: Easiest difficulty mode didn't reduce the number of Garrison Access machines by 1 as intended
• FIX: Drone Bay info in parts list sometimes didn't reflect correct number of remaining drones
  

The Relay Interface Framework was only just added in Beta 7, bringing with it dozens of new hacks to pave the way for new playstyles. But the initial design focus there was primarily to expand the robot hacking system, with only partial thematic integration with the rest of the world.

7.1 gives a RIF-installed Cogmind some new capabilities that really help highlight the fact that you sorta become part of Complex 0b10. Strategically speaking, the RIF buffs tie the framework even closer to alert management and Garrisons. RIFfing was already connected with these elements since hacking bots has no effect on alert at all and you can hack Operators to lower alert, plus you get Relay Couplers (and the initial RIF) from Garrisons themselves. But as you can see in the changelog there are now even more Garrison connections.

For one, you can now "sense" nearby Garrison Access points (essentially like Zion-integrated terminals when you're imprinted), and when you approach them the door automatically opens.



While inside a Garrison, you'll also no longer cause passive alert increases over time. As long as you can deal with the locals, Garrisons almost become a safe spot for you! This is doubly true once you have the RIF installed and can use couplers to take out bots relatively silently via hacking.

It's also easier to leave whenever you want to, since none of the Garrison exits will be remotely locked when you try to use them.

Outside Garrisons, one of the major new features is that with RIF you get the precise alert level updated in real-time! A new red entry appears on your HUD, as you can see at the top of this screenshot taken from my stream this week after raiding several Garrisons :P



"Influence" is the specific number usually converted to a more understandable (and mechanically meaningful) alert level. You've always been able to see this mentioned in your scoresheet ("peak influence"), but this is the first time it's shown in game alongside the alert level conversion. Every action you take which affects it is reflected here. (I can smell the cheese now...)

Halving the cost of the purge_threat hack on Operators is yet another alert-optimizing buff for RIF users :D

Taken together, all these new mechanics could make RIF even more desirable for a number of hybrid builds, not to mention simply make pure bot-hackers much more reliable. Whole new strategies will be born from this.

Oh yeah, and by request the lone Garrison Access usually found on -8 is now forced to security level 1 so that RIF is that much more accessible early on (like other interactive machines at that depth it used to have a 15% chance to be SL2, which could be hard to hack open).

If you want to see how a pure RIF build is put together and deals with challenges, this week I started that new stream and it's been great so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVEW7CkOYDA

There's a summary of the run here. Part 2 will be streamed next week.



Another hacking-relevant issue to tend to was Researcher behavior, as they didn't much like you datajacking them or their friends, which is unnecessarily harsh if you're going to go through the trouble of using RIF over other strategic options that doing so closes off. So they'll now completely ignore datajack use and are fair game for manipulative hacks.

On a related note, non-hostile Researchers won't be alerted by nearby distress calls, which could similarly have pretty disastrous consequences when a Researcher just sitting behind a wall suddenly pops out and scans you without warning.



Weapon cycling is the main related UI feature that got an overhaul (the partial implementation included with Beta 7 was apparently broken anyway). For Beta 7 Remote Datajacks became solo-fire weapons, so there was a greater need for the weapon cycling command/button to do something other than simply toggle everything off and on. Now it'll actually cycle through projectile, guided, datajack, and melee weapons, also treating each datajack and melee weapon as a separate option.

The system built for 7.1 is a lot more robust, as you can see here ;)



There were a number of other things in recent weeks I've told people are coming "next release," but note that means the major release that will be Beta 8, not this little surprise release xD. I did include a number of fixes with 7.1, stuff that I just happened to have already done, but there's still plenty more on the docket, as well as a backlog of other feature requests and basically tons of stuff to do overall!

Beta 7.1 saves are not compatible with previous versions, but even if you're on Steam and have autoupdates enabled, Beta 7 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.

I'm back! It was well worth taking the break to participate in this year's Roguelike Celebration, which was awesome as always. You can read (and see!) all about the event in the summary on my dev blog.



I gave the opening talk, "How to Make a Roguelike," which touches on most of my roguelike-related projects, but more importantly should help guide you down the path to creating one of your own, plus it talks about (and shows!) a bunch of other neat roguelikes as well:

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

I'm now super energized and ready to get cracking on Beta 8. This past week I've already started chipping away at the next release, but that was just debugging a few rare new issues. Next week it'll be time to add fresh new features :D

There's always more to be working on, that's for sure. PlasticHeart has illustrated what that's like :P



That said, we'll get to requests a little later--the next couple weeks of work is top secret stuff no one knows much about ;)



Now that I'm home again, it was also time to fire up the stream and smash some bots. Quite literally this time as we did a melee run! It was my first serious full melee run and *gasp* we won \o/

I wrote up a summary on the forums (w/images) and VODs are available on Twitch if you want to have the chat commentary, or you can also see them on YouTube.

The route for the part 1 was pretty circuitous as we headed into the caves to get some benefits to make surviving the late-game easier:



Anyway, that was a victory by randomly pieced together melee build, and it was already pretty deadly (we got the Melee Specialist achievement!). More focused players can build out their selection of utilities with a bit of fabrication and become practically unstoppable (melee is a reliable strong way to deal with the extended end game).



A couple days ago I realized that as of this week Cogmind has already been on Steam for one year! Time flies when you're doing releases :)

That brings us to a total of three and half years of major public releases, five of which have happened since the EA launch last October. Ever since I first wrote it, the Early Access notice on the store page has always indicated "at least six months" of EA, and that fact has yet to change so I've never updated it.

It's still true today :P

There's plenty more to come, though one general trend I've noticed which might still affect pre-1.0 development is that despite the early discussion we had here about whether or not to change the default difficulty setting, I'm starting to think it'd be a better idea to not completely scare off some potential new players with the way things are now.

By default Cogmind is meant to be a challenging game, one that can be learned and very reliably won by those who get good at it. It's done that job well, and for others there are always lower difficulty settings to get more out of the game with less experience, although there is also a separate group of players in the middle who would probably enjoy the game a lot more if they didn't play on the default difficulty, but refuse to change the settings because actively lowering a difficulty setting is not something as many people are willing to do in video games!

At this point it's probably worth experimenting with a lower default difficulty, forcing players to make a choice to raise the difficulty only if they consider it too easy. This change would be accompanied by renaming the difficulty levels as well. Merely changing the feeling of those settings and how players interact with them will probably be better for everyone.

There are alternative approaches that can work well, like having no default and making the choice part of an explicit menu before the first play (or before each run), but that's not compatible with Cogmind's hyper focus on immersion.

On a similar note, we could even add some sort of so-called exploration mode? (Even easier than the current easiest mode, not really meant as much of a challenge at all.) I mean we're almost certainly going to get a form of Wizard Mode eventually anyway, a feature found in many traditional roguelikes, and that's no different from having a dedicated mode where combat is even easier and the world is much easier to explore. This could somewhat lift the veil of mystery surrounding portions of the story by expanding the number of players who experience its intricacies, but technically at this point pretty much everything has been discovered by at least some players who've explored every nook and cranny...

Well that was a bit of a diversion...

Anyway, back to the main idea (the duration of Early Access in case you forgot xD), we should probably try to hit 1.0 sooner rather than later so that there's still some money left for post-1.0 updates. Although with Cogmind the distinction between Beta and "released" is almost arbitrary at this point, we'll probably get a new batch of of players for 1.0 and they'll naturally be hoping for more updates in the now-typical "games as a service" environment. Heck, I'm certainly happy to keep at this for years to come. Sadly I don't think we'll hit the review threshold I announced earlier as a way to indirectly fund the new faction and its maps and mechanics, but maybe we'll find another way. I've been considering alternative ideas for funding down the line, but that's definitely a topic for the future.

Thank you all for your continued support during this year on Steam, here comes another one :D

Beta 7 Notice: Following the release, Phragmented has updated the PDF manual in both standard and booklet form. The latest can be downloaded from the forum thread.

A note about SITREPs: These are regular progress updates where I share features coming to the next release, but aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 6 and Beta 7.

There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums or r/Cogmind.