Cogmind News

Siege mode is here! Wait what? Siege mode?

Yeah, this concept kinda came out of nowhere because suggested by patrons who came up with a bunch of ideas and voted on the new mechanic they wanted to see in Cogmind. The full list and voting results are here:



I like the idea of having a "siege mode" for treads since we already have conditional "overloaded" functionality with some other propulsion, but before now treads didn't have this and it provides new tactical options depending on your situation and capabilities.

In short, you exchange your mobility for combat buffs, becoming immobile but gaining bonuses to accuracy and coverage, with even some damage resistance.

Here's a demo of some of the relevant interface bits, showing how it takes time to enter/exit the mode (and during that transition you're more vulnerable):



And yes there's cool transformation sfx when you fully enter siege mode ;)

There'll be a blog post that goes into more detail about the design process behind siege mode, all of the mechanical aspects, and even a discussion of the tactical implications, but I'm still working on that so I'll link to that in the next announcement.

This week I did already start streaming a new run using a nearly-complete version of Beta 9 to show off some of the latest features, including siege mechanics! So naturally it's a heavy combat run, that in combination with a so-called "crit-stacking" offense, which I've wanted to try for a while, and now is a good opportunity because enemy crit immunity has temporarily (?) been toned down for Beta 9 as an experiment.

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

Part 2 will be coming next week.



Also as voted for by patrons (albeit from a list of potential features I provided) manual hack autocompletion got an overhaul to bring its behavior more in line with regular editor consoles, including even a selection menu to see the available options.



And my favorite part: it even works with schematics, listing all those valid at the current machine given the current depth, with partial name matching of course, and tab autocompletion.



On the part management QoL side of things, in order to facilitate swapping back and forth between two parts (which some people like to do before/after combat with certain builds), after a part swap between the inventory/attached lists, those two parts are remembered ("paired") so if you want to swap back that's always possible via the 'Y' menu option:



Here's a demo of the autopair swap feature in action:



And I don't imagine it'll get a lot of use but it was one of those "do it because I can" things: All remembered autopairs can be swapped simultaneously if you really want to!





I've already fixed all the known bugs from Beta 8--it's been a while so a lot of little things had piled up, but as always part of getting the next major release out the door means cleaning up any reports from the previous one!

The Terrain Scanner activation animation was unintentionally revealing the positions of traps via little blips. In fact, it was technically also revealing some internal script trigger points as well, which was how one player first discovered this! And then another player on Twitter mentioned that they thought the trap revealing was a feature xD. No this is totally not a feature, please use the other available means to detect traps rather than this rather tedious and non-Cogmind-like method! You see the blips in there?



Oops, the scanning list was revealing non-scannable prototypes by color even when unidentified. Fixed:





Lots of other little improvements here and there as well as I cleared out my TODO list for this release.

Inventory type-wise and mass-wise sorting also subsort by integrity



Parts ejected by machines now push away other parts, rather than rolling the ejected part over others.



Prop explosion data now shown in the scan window, making this more apparent without having to open the info window.



And we can always use new explosions.





You know how Cogmind's extensive scoresheets have always contained hundreds upon hundreds of data points to paint a fairly detailed account of that run's highlights? Well let's multiple that by... a lot.

The scoresheet format has been revamped in a big way, reorganizing all those many stats into more (and better) categories, adding a range of entire new categories, and significantly enhancing each scoresheet's ability to paint a clear picture of the run with history logging, automated build class identification, an ASCII map of the final surroundings, and even separating all those data values out into their per-map stats!

I've given this topic new "meta feature" in-depth coverage on the dev blog, writing a massive dedicated 4-part series on it, and as you'd expect, each article is packed with samples, diagrams, and detailed explanations.

Building the Ultimate Roguelike Morgue File, Part 1: Stats and Organization - Examining the process of developing Cogmind's scoresheet and its content as it evolves into its final form.



Building the Ultimate Roguelike Morgue File, Part 2: ASCII Maps - Designing the ASCII map style for Cogmind's new scoresheets.



Building the Ultimate Roguelike Morgue File, Part 3: Mid-run Stat Dumps - Why and how I'm including accessible character dumps in Cogmind, including automated build classification and a situation analysis system.



The Ultimate Roguelike Morgue File, Part 4: History Logging - Exploring the structure and content of full-run history logs as a way to record notable events in a roguelike.



While on the subject of blogging, I wrote another article about Special Game Modes in a Roguelike Context, talking about stuff like their value and types.





Another big change coming to Cogmind is the rebranding of difficulty modes, which I hope will help a lot of people. No more automatically defaulting to the hardest mode and calling the other two options "easier" and "easiest"--from now we have Explorer, Adventurer, and Rogue!

A lot of people don't even realize Cogmind has difficulty modes, and has for a couple years now, so that option will be front-loaded into a new menu seen the first time the game is run, before even the title screen:



Explorer/Adventurer modes even come with a convenient quicksave/load system, which I hope will help a lot of people better enjoy the game (Rogue mode will continue to enforce permadeath).

There is of course a blog post on this change, Rebranding Difficulty Modes, talking about design, reasoning, and player expectations. Another one specifically about the save/load feature will be coming as well!



Last time I reported that I'd begun streaming a flight run, which was eventually finished and made it into super spoiler extended-game areas. There were five parts in total, with the second starting here (you can find the rest from there):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2JSDWtz--o

I also did another streaming series of a run using the new upgradable RIF abilities. That starts here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciCC37FuFac

Zyalin drew our late-game build there

And at one point earlier in the run I was also crazy enough to continue along with rather high corruption and ended up causing a misfire to destroy the exact thing I was after--Zyalin sketched that scene, too xD





Zyalin drew Tone's massive-storage late-game bothacking borg build, with allies in tow.



He also drew this...



...which makes more sense when you learn where it came from, the time in chat where I was fooling around with making Cogmind a 2x2 bot by changing a single value in the game, and... it actually sorta worked and was playable though the sprite became a conglomeration of several other non-combat bots as well!



Zyalin's imagining of a "combat version" of that particular NPC everyone loves to murder for their amazing hackware.



And I really love this piece, a huge thief-inspired bot that rips parts off:



Zyalin has finally set up a website for his fan art of various games, including Cogmind, so if you want to see some of his other great work, and a lot of his past Cogmind pieces, check that out here. (Today's opening art is also a work by Zyalin, giving his impression of siege treads)

PlasticHeart, originator of the idea of "cogmics" (the 4-panel Cogmind comics now created by a number of players) has also collected a bunch of their past work on a new DeviantArt page here.

For his own "work of art," in July JakeThyCamel announced he'd been doing some wonderful work on an online HTML-based version of Cogmind's manual, filled with links and supporting screenshots. The conversion isn't quite complete (I'll bring it up again when it's done), but it's definitely getting there and worth checking out.



Oh look, there's some of my art, too. Stuff coming to a Beta 9 near you :)





If you hadn't hear, this week Steam launched the new Library beta, and for that purpose all us devs had to make new assets to fit the new format. So if you opt into the beta you'll notice a couple things, one being the fact that quite a few devs have not updated their assets so the games don't show up very well, but assuming you own Cogmind you get to see this new box art in action :D



I made this and other new stuff a few months back when Steam first announced the upcoming changes, then totally forgot about it. It wasn't until players started showing me the game standing out in their libraries that I realized it was live :P



More recently I certainly remember the headache of suddenly having to go back through and migrate old announcements to the new system because I couldn't live with Steam automatically classifying all of Cogmind's previous updates as "small patches" :P. Cue hours of figuring out the system and creating new images in the right format! In the end it's at least a little more modern and less clunky than it was before (if we ignore the fact that comments are now harder to reach and see...).

Here's a couple excerpts from the editing view when I was working on that:



I'm quite happy that Steam integrated Proton and for a while now it's become even easier for Linux players to enjoy Cogmind via Steam Play. Cogmind is now rated Platinum in ProtonDB, so keeping the software super minimal and fixing those Wine-specific issues was definitely worth it :)

In less good news, the newest macOS is dropping support for 32-bit apps, which will mean those on the new system might have a harder time running Cogmind. I believe it'll technically still be possible, but you'll have to approve it or something like that? Or maybe because Mac users are already running it under some form of emulator anyway it might work? Not really sure about these things I guess we'll see.



Beta 9 is coming.

No date for you yet, but the only feature remaining before it can be released is the database and leaderboards side of things,
and while not every one of its features needs to be ready immediately, 1) it's important to lay a good foundation and 2) the basic version definitely needs to be functional for the Beta 9 release because I want to see the initial usage of the rebranded difficulty modes given the new menu and related features.

I can't be too sure about the timeline because I have someone else helping build it--I normally work alone but this is outside my area of expertise so that wasn't really an option here if I wanted it done well :P

In any case, regardless of when Beta 9 is done, a longer dev cycle just means more time to throw in extra little features and content before it's out!

A note about SITREPs: These are occasional progress updates where I share features coming to the next release, but that aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 7 and Beta 8.

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

Beware, the bothackers cometh!



Hacking robots has gotten a lot more interesting since Beta 7, and although there were some buffs after that, the strategy was still somewhat lacking in the late game, at most serving as a supplementary capability rather than holding its own. So now we've got... permanent upgradable RIF abilities!

I've written a full explanation on the new system over on the blog: "Robot Hacking: Upgrades"



You can read all the details there, but in short, you'll be able to seek out new abilities at RIF Installers, eventually becoming a bothacking powerhouse if you can brave that many Garrisons. Abilities include stuff like upgrading your Relay Couplers, using Phasewalls, and making allies immune to Programmer hacking.

Using the Robot Detection ability to see nearby enemies:



Walking through Phasewalls:



The new RIF abilities UI for listing learned abilities and their effects:



In this week's stream I also demonstrated RIF abilities (along with some other upcoming features) in a Beta 9 preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJx43CtfdXM

Zyalin drew our bothacker build :D





I took a month off streaming Cogmind to review a bunch of 7DRLs, but have since gotten back to Cogmind streams and did a complete flight/thief run. Part 1 is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BFzE5wXp0c

The original goal was just to steal from the Exiles and evade all the inevitable thieves, but the epicness continued for much longer than that. I wrote up a full summary of the run with links and images, though note it does eventually get into extreme spoilers.

I won't go into details here, but one of the epic events was getting two major bots to fight each other. I can't not show it because Zyalin drew this awesome depiction of us flying around with our friend, who is having his nuke intercepted by that much bigger non-friend.





Before that I also streamed a couple weeks of Pay2Buy mode, the new version released for April 1st.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VVNZBiqAuc

A list of parts purchased throughout that run :)



After some time had passed, I put together a special leaderboard to record those who'd participated in the 4/1 event (and opted into uploading)



That and a bunch of related stats can be found on the forums here.



Following my article on level design, I added a pair of related pieces:

"Roguelike Level Design Addendum: Procedural Layouts"



"Roguelike Level Design Addendum: Static or Procedural?"



More recently I posted an in-depth look at the evolution of Cogmind's turn time system:



In little features I worked on, we're getting specific death messages for the scoresheet. Check out some samples from that system at work here:



I took a few-hour detour to add all the commands to the manual. Commands have always been available in game, but some people prefer to reference them externally in the manual. The list there was always incomplete since I'd approached it differently--only showing an alphabetized list of keys with their effect, rather than organizing it categorically as you find it in game. Now it's organized and complete.



This of course also means that the in-game manual includes the list as well, even though they're already available via a separate explicit help menu :P



Also have a red mapgen visualizer:





A new gallery of works for your perusal...




Storage Jammin', by Zyalin




A multitreaded combat bot, by Zyalin




EM Cogmind, by Zyalin




Mni. ARCs?! by PlasticHeart




Unsafe branch spawns, by PlasticHeart




A randomly trapped Fabricator, by PlasticHeart




Storage shopping, by PlasticHeart




ECM Sweet, by JackNine




March leaderboards, by 8FPS



At the end of May the servers were, um, "updated" by the host and this broke a bunch of stuff. The blog and wiki were both down for five days, and for two weeks the in-game news/version checking feature as well as score uploading and error reporting were all broken. Sadness.

Fixing this took quite a lot of work, no thanks to the host service who had no idea what was going on. Fortunately we have lots of web devs in the player base and I got some tips and ideas that eventually helped get everything up and running again.

As of last week our leaderboards are once again accepting new data \o/



As part of the fix I was forced to update Cogmind itself, so I put out a quick and relatively unannounced Beta 8.2 earlier, which has all of one line in its changelog :P

Saves are compatible with the previous version (so there's no legacy branch on Steam), it was just a modification to how COGMIND.EXE connects to the website for the optional online functionality.

Going forward Beta 9 will be running on a different db-based leaderboard system, so would no longer be affected by availability or reachability of the website itself, and will also feature multiple attempts, in case a score cannot be uploaded for some reason at the time a run ends (for example no active internet connection). Too bad that wasn't in place yet when this even occurred, but we'll get to it soon enough!



Speaking of Beta 9, when and where is that, anyway?

Well, it's going to still be a while yet. As we approach Cogmind 1.0, there have been a few major meta systems remaining to work on, and all of these happen to be features that need to be released simultaneously, making this by far the longest release cycle to date as I get everything in place.

The first is the revamped scoresheet, which is now complete, and also awesome--I'll be writing about that for the blog next. It's been a massive project that alone took more than a month.

The second is a new leaderboard system. The current one is pretty nice, but it's not fully automated and also has no internal database, limiting the kinds of things that can be done with it.

And the third is rebranded difficulty modes, which won't be changed in too many fundamental ways, but will get a new selection UI and hopefully be more useful to new players while also better at setting expectations.

Plus on top of all that we of course need other fixes and features that make releases interesting, like the RIF abilities :D

So Beta 9 is a big one, even if a lot of it is internal work. But it must be done, so I'm doin' it.

I was hoping to have it done by mid-June, when I'll be out of town for a few weeks, but there's been too much extra work involved so unfortunately I won't be able to finish it until after that, which means some time in August.

I'll still be chipping away at it while on the road, and updating the blog and Patreon, but four weeks from now when I leave I'm pretty sure there'll still be a little more work left to do on Beta 9, and I don't want to rush it out.

That said, even though it's incomplete, patrons can fool around with a prerelease version of Beta 9 (the one I streamed earlier this week), which already has the fully functional new scoresheet features and RIF abilities.

With Steam revenue falling lately, patrons are now clearly responsible for keeping development going without having to worry about wasting dev time advertising or wrapping up Cogmind to switch to another project, so many thanks to them


I mean it's true I've been working on Cogmind for six years now and continue expanding it without charging for the extra content, so this trend is inevitable xD

Patrons have also put in their votes for their choice of feature to focus on going into Beta 9:



(So yeah, yet another thing to work on!)

While we're talking money, here's your notice that Cogmind is having a weeklong 10% discount from June 17th through 24th, both on Steam and the website (where you can also get a Steam key and it's a lot more helpful for the bottom line).

I'll leave you with our favorite cheer (courtesy of Zyalin).



A note about SITREPs: These are occasional progress updates where I share features coming to the next release, but that aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 7 and Beta 8.

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

!!! ALERT: SPECIAL MODE DETECTED !!!



It's that time of year again, when all sorts of fake things appear on the internet... But I've become a fan of using this opportunity to make crazy unprecedented things that are true, so Cogmind is going P̶a̶y̶2̶W̶i̶n̶ Pay2Buy! Well, for a day, anyway ;)

Get the latest Cogmind update and fire it up on April 1st, and anyone who's past the tutorial starts and has been playing the regular game will automatically have new runs start in Pay2Buy mode!

I'll talk about that more below, but unlike last year's event, I've combined this one with an actual release, which includes a number of fixes for Beta 8, as well as some balance-related tweaks. There's also a bit of new content as well:

• NEW: Unique AFD mode for 2019, automatically activates on 4/1 for anyone who has played at least three runs
• NEW: 1 new unique superweapon
  
• NEW: Special NPC encounter under certain circumstances
  
• NEW: Additional improvements to reduce turn delay when holding wait key or moving at extremely high speeds
  
• NEW: Command line argument "-forceAFD2019" to enable the AFD mode from 2019, regardless of system date
• NEW: Command line argument "-forceAFD2018" to enable the AFD mode from 2018, regardless of system date
  
• NEW: [AFD 2019] Includes a special interface for "purchasing" items with CogCoins, an event-specific mechanic
• NEW: [AFD 2019] Earn CogCoins by raising the alert level
• NEW: [AFD 2019] Other event-specific mechanics
  
• NEW: [AFD 2019] Score sheets include list of all purchased items at the end
  
• NEW: Any AFD mode scores can now be uploaded as well for aggregate stats and potential special leaderboads, but are still excluded from main leaderboards
  
• NEW: Added Phase Armor and Phase Redirector mechanics to manual's Attack Resolution section
  
• NEW: List of patrons added via Credits menu
• MOD: Tweaked various Exiles scenario reactions
• MOD: Master Thief behavior changed to make them more dangerous
• MOD: New internal turn system, harder to game for free peeking around corners
• MOD: Dropped items/salvage allowed to fall to other side of map exits (on same map)
  
• MOD: Overloaded Fabricator effects no longer count as Cogmind kills, or for alert purposes
• MOD: Signal Generator only works in 0b10-controlled areas
  
• MOD: Firepult damage reduced
• MOD: Keyboard's Pause key no longer has an effect
  
• MOD: Alpha Supporters shortcut command changed from '0' to '9'
  
• MOD: Lore no longer has '9' as an optional shortcut (access via Records page)
  
• MOD: AFD runs no longer added to scorehistory.txt
  
• FIX: An active Stasis Generator brought into a new map has no effect unless toggled off and on again [Joshua]
  
• FIX: Ejecting couplers from certain unlocked Garrison Access instead destroys them [Joshua]
  
• FIX: "Batter Up" achievement description did not specify melee impact damage only, despite kinetic cannons now being capable of knockback as well [Joshua]
  
• FIX: Gallery CSV/HTML exports were missing a header for the new propulsion Drag stat [Mx. Eldritch]
• FIX: Rare crash on an allied Mechanic seeking a repair target after robot it was following is destroyed [Horse]
  
• FIX: In rare layouts a special hidden area of a certain map might be slightly disconnected from the rest of the map [8fpsbossfight]
  
• FIX: Possible to crash the UI by switching into the game menu extremely quickly while also switching pages [geedmat, Horse, 8fpsbossfight]
  
• FIX: Crash on hitting a controllable ally with a Field Lobotomy Kit [ApolliniaD, alice_fexa]
  
• FIX: Manual seeds could be applied incorrectly in some cases, resulting in different seeds producing the same world [Suslik]
• FIX: Combining any Thermal Generator and Cryofiber Web could show a net negative energy readout in HUD, even though still positive [lsend]
  
• FIX: Advanced flashProjectileVictims option could in some locations cause flashes outside of combat as well [Puzzlebark]
  
• FIX: Integrity Redistributor could result in the wrong effect if core integrity near 50% of a total value greater than 1000 [mtf]
  
• FIX: Crash on accessing the Z-Roster if earlier on same map summoned a hero and in the turn immediately afterward a new hero was added to roster [Rumbl3]
  
• FIX: Fixing a separate issue in previous release broke schematic list highlighting while hacking a Fabricator [Malthusis]
• FIX: Typo [mindcog]
  
• FIX: Scrollable lists containing multiple keyboard ASCII colors may not align properly with list items when more than 26 items, after scrolling
  
• FIX: Hacking Prototype ID Banks did not immediately update identified inventory items if any happen to be matching unknown prototypes
  
• FIX: Multiple Stasis Generators being used at once may not always remain active depending on relative toggle states
  

AFD 2018 was a last-minute joke implemented and deployed in just an hour on 2018.4.1. This year I put a good bit more time into it, spending several days over the past week building some new UI features, designing and balancing systems, and surprisingly increased Cogmind's core code base by 0.6% for Pay2Buy alone (excluding all the other work that went into bringing you Beta 8.1).

So what's this mode all about...

The Cogshop is open for business! No, this isn't the Merchants Guild expansion I've touted as one of my Patreon goals, it's a new AFD mode that significantly changes the Cogmind experience.

Skip this section if you want to go in blind, or read on for more details.

In Pay2Buy mode there are no parts lying around, and no salvage from kills, either. In a few very rare cases items may still be available via the usual special means, e.g. Relay Couplers, but for the most part you'll have one source of new parts: the Cogshop.

Access the shop by clicking on the Buy button in the bottom-left corner, or via the number '0' on your keyboard. There is no item info available for shop items--there wasn't enough time to add that, although I did add the short item stat summary after each one so you can reference that to help make purchasing decisions.



Earn CogCoins by doing almost anything that raises alert, i.e. get in fights -> earn coins -> buy parts -> get in more fights (or go around sabotaging machinery as your source of revenue ;)) and so on.

Eventually you might notice there's a bit of a market economy going, with you as its only customer :P. Prices will fluctuate a bit, more so depending on what you do and don't buy. Item types you don't buy will get lower in price, while those you do will get increasingly expensive.

There are also Loot Boxes! Because of course there are :). If you've got coins to spare or want to take a risk, test your luck and buy some. You might also see some special discounts or other shop-related announcements as you play.

Interestingly the Pay2Buy experience is kinda like typical character creation at the beginning of a run, as well as ongoing throughout the run, only with even more control than you normally have. It's a pretty unique Cogmind experience :D

As for other AFD-related tweaks, you do not have access to any Storage Units, but start with ten inventory slots for free, instead of the usual four. Your score sheet at the end of the run will include a full list of all of your purchases, and the prices you paid. And in a very first for one of our Cogmind special events, score sheets can actually be uploaded! (assuming you have the option enabled) Of course they won't be included in the regular leaderboards, but Pay2Buy runs could get their own dedicated event leaderboard, at least for those who play in the near term.



AFD 2019 normally autoactivates for new runs on 4/1, but if you want to play on another day, rather than having to change your system time like before, I've added a new option you might prefer, the "-forceAFD2019" command line parameter. (In Steam this is Cogmind > Properties > Set Launch Options...) If you don't want to play this special mode on 4/1, the "-noAFD" switch will block it.



Beta 8.1 brings with it a fair number of Exiles tweaks, if you remember them from their explosive Beta 8 debut ;)

Yes, as many in the community feared, I did nerf their Firepult just a bit, but it's still an amazing and terrifying weapon. More importantly, Master Thieves are a good bit scarier now. They're still a challenge that can be overcome, but... you really would do better to not attract them in the first place. (I also changed up the dialogue just bit so that it makes sense they can still come after you if you went all evil murderer in the lab.)

You know that scenario where the Exiles have prematurely departed? Well there's a new potential reward in that case, and a clue about where to get it...

There were various other EX tweaks as well, mostly small stuff.



One of the other big changes under the hood is probably not so big to most players, but the entire turn system has been replaced with a new type of queue. I'll be covering this more on the dev blog later, but the main impetus was to prevent free corner peeking, which a tiny handful of players were taking advantage of as an optimal tactic made possible by gaming the original turn time system. Now the system is more fair, and directly related to movement speed, rather than specifically when during a turn the move action is taken.

In the process of making the above change I also optimized the turn queue handling, which will speed up the game by up to 10% in some scenarios.



Beta 8.1 includes a bunch of fixes, as usual (mostly to new stuff), and as part of my debugging work I finally added an engine-level visualization so I could see which subconsole is currently receiving mouse hover messages:



This helped track down a particular new bug that wasn't highlighting the current schematic at a Fabricator, for example:



It turns out this bug was caused by a separate Beta 8 fix for a completely unrelated issue xD

On the blog I've shared an addendum to my level design article, this one discussing how I approach layout planning for procedural maps, with an eye towards level design goals.



Another addendum, looking at the usage of static, procedural, and hybrid maps, is currently available to patrons here.



In good hardware news, I successfully cleaned out my dev laptop, as well as recovered all parts taken by Recyclers that escaped from the Cogmind source in the process.



(I shared the process on Twitter.)



Zyalin has shared some cool new fan art, this piece titled "Storage Jammin'"



It depicts a beat up Cogmind build rampaging through Storage, indeed a dangerous map with very tight confines. Also of course there are friendly drones nearby :)

JackNine did another cogmic in his style:



Over on the forums muxecoid started a poll for the most hated combat enemy class, and Hunters won by a fair margin. Swarmers came in second place.

Although there's no "official" support for it beyond answers I hand out when interested people occasionally ask about superficial mod support, a number of people have actually modded Cogmind. Most recently Ape3000 has shared their mod that mixes ASCII with graphical walls from the tileset. Here's a sample of how that looks:



As for myself, on my Twitch channel I've been streaming a bunch of 7DRLs for reviewing lately, but will get back to Cogmind soon. In fact, it won't be this week because I have family visiting, but next week we're gong to play with Pay2Buy mode! As usual the videos will be up on YouTube afterwards.



Patreon is going okay, the one I announced last time as part of the Future of Cogmind update.

So far patrons have been submitting suggestions for my Cogmind TODO list prioritization, to decide which major QoL system they'd like to fund for Beta 9, and also more recently for the new item/mechanic they'd like to see in the next release. These things are collaborative so we'll be doing some voting in April.



Well my near-term plans have somewhat changed due to this whole Pay2Buy event. I was originally planning to release a Beta 8.1 with fixes and some new hacking content, but Pay2Buy got big enough that it pushed back the other stuff (and 4/1 is a hard and fast deadline, after all xD), so my earlier 8.1 plans are likely being folded into Beta 9 instead (along with all the other Beta 9 stuff).

So the next release will likely be Beta 9, though it's too early to say when that'll happen since there's a lot to do. That said, Beta 8.1 is pretty big for a "minor" release, and the new mode adds yet another layer of replayability, so I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of it.

Enjoy!

Beta 8.1 saves are not compatible with previous versions, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 8 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.

About a year ago I put out an announcement dubbed "The Future of Cogmind," and seeing as another year of updates has gone by, plus there's a new development transition afoot, it's about time for another status announcement on this! (There was also a recent question about the duration of Early Access in the Steam discussion boards, though note that I do keep the EA info on the store page up to date.)

The good news is that even though the main content has been complete since 2017, and lots of free expansions have been added since, there are still plenty more to come. The bad news is I've got a lot of health issues (over 100 doctor visits last year alone xD), including a hearing problem which is still preventing me from finishing up the last bit of audio required for 1.0.

But postponing 1.0 isn't really too big a deal since I'm happy to continue providing new features and content, anyway. What is a big deal is that even though they'd be able to easily pay for themselves, I have no plans to release any updates as DLC--free updates only, but since sales revenue naturally falls over time (plus Steam and taxes take half the revenue :/), at some point there needs to be a way to pay for the work.

Don't worry, there is no immediate danger of discontinuing updates, and yes, 1.0 will certainly happen one day. Not quite this year, mind you, but one day ;)

As is I'm still working on Cogmind full time, halfway through the sixth year now, and I've decided to try something new to see how it works out in terms of enabling more updates in the long term. Large-scope roguelikes can continue development for quite a while, especially with such an active player base behind them, so it's always good to be ready for that long term :D

More specifically, the recent Beta 8 has been a lot of fun, and I'd like to do more of that in the future.



I've got plans for the Merchants Guild, more factions, the Unchained, many new maps, new game modes, intrinsics... basically a ton of stuff that I could work on for years.

So on that note I've started a Patreon:



It's completely optional--everyone still eventually gets the new Betas which will be released to Steam and the DRM-free system as per normal. It's also technically not purely for Cogmind--I do a bunch of roguelike-related stuff and it's really just to support me in everything, although as you can see on the page it clearly involves Cogmind-specific interaction and benefits :P (I mean, this is by far what I spend most of my time on so this makes sense!)

After talking about it with frequent players and taking suggestions, this seems like a suitable route to explore in order to maintain a healthy future for the game. The good thing is it's flexible--more support equals more extra stuff, period :)

Along with this new facet of development, there will be some other changes as well, including:

• fewer progress announcements (the SITREPs that I've been doing) and instead having smaller progress announcements (with slightly different content) on Patreon, as well as a greater number of dev blog articles
  
• earlier prerelease test builds, giving more time for feedback and adjustments before the official release goes out
  

Thanks to all you players who've joined with me on this adventure so far! I'm looking forward to the years to come :D

(In near-term version news, I've planned out most of the details for Beta 9, but am not working on that just yet because before that we're going to get a Beta 8.1 with some adjustments and a bit of new stuff :D)

Beta 7 stats are in :D



You can read all about general stats, wins, run length, RIF use, and robot hacks over on the forums here.



My new stream series has found its title, and we're in the middle of an Exiles Golem run. Unlike many of my past runs, this one's kinda spoilery if you've never been to the Deep Caves :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVDs5ElcBc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y5bbEs92pw

On that note, Valguris posted a new guide for a 2-propulsion flight hacker golem (included the extended game). It's a pretty extreme build and I'm not doing that--mine's more of a traditional blow-everything-up golem, but we're certainly seeing a lot of really unique builds recently, especially after the Beta 8 content expansion.

MTF has been streaming a lot of Cogmind, too.

and Rylan over on Discord drew a great depiction of MTF's Beta 8 "swarmer build" (another crazy new build!) being chased down on stream in Cogmind's extended game. This new build based on some Exiles tech really chewed through the end game though. (The pink one is a powerful ally.)





This week on the blog I posted a huge article on level design in Cogmind, taking the Exiles map as an example to share a complete rundown of the process and explain how it integrates with gameplay.





I've been strongly considering starting a Patreon to accept subcription support, but I'm very undecided at the moment...

I think having something like that in the long term will be important for future Cogmind development seeing as I do a lot of extra releases without putting them into some kind of DLC, though the original plan was to maybe start that after 1.0. That said, it would take a while to build up a Patreon (or even see whether it's viable), so it might make more sense to start now.

In fact, it could even enable development of more features before 1.0, which might be better in the long run than leaving some of my ideas for later, when they're potentially less likely to happen. I have a lot of fun plans for Cogmind which I'm sure you'll enjoy one day, but I can see it also being advantageous to have all this extra stuff in the game before it reaches 1.0, if only because it'll be better received then, right? :)

In the end, I may be a commercial dev but I don't run my "business" in a commercial fashion, so that'll start to hurt in the long run. (The smart money-oriented approach would've been to release Cogmind as 1.0 by now, and collect content updates into one or more large DLCs, but I want to avoid DLC!)

So I'm thinking about possibly discontinuing the normal SITREPs and instead changing up the format in which I do things, with ideas including:

• splitting out some some special design and progress topics to put them on the blog instead of hiding them in SITREPs
  
• giving patrons advance access to blog posts
  
• including extra dev stuff I don't normally talk about, for example even more future plans rather than always talking about features after they're already implemented :P
  
• possibly some voting/polls
  
• possibly some little rewards
  
• free access to older Cogmind builds?
  

It'd also be less spammy than repeatedly posting public updates to Steam and elsewhere :P

I'm not really a fan of gating content, so maybe it could even just be a completely open/public thing with no gating at all, although I imagine this would mean less potential support. Starting simple could be nice, though.

I mean, it's almost cliche to think about it, but if only a portion of Cogmind owners pitch in just $1~2 each month, it really adds up and great things are possible :D

Anyway, still just thinking about it, wondering what others think...

PS: I wonder how many readers get the SITREP title :P

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 7 and Beta 8.

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