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[Dzlan]

Yeahh, I know of x@com.
I'm a huge fan of OpenXCom which has a link to x@com.

Honestly, when I learned you had been developing x@com, I was sooo amazed, haha.
I can't wait to see though, what your experiences with Cogmind does to x@com. : )

[Kyzrati]

I can't wait to see, either--right now all I have time to do is occasionally daydream about it . One epic game at a time...

I know one of the guys working on OXC, and they were kind enough to put up a link back then, and kind enough to leave it there for these years while it's been on hiatus

[okr]

There certainly is a high ratio of Linux players/users around here . Not too surprising considering the tech-oriented audience,

It is actually surprising to me given your game is not open-source nor has it a native port available. My personal experience with the Linux crowd is mostly "Native port or bust!". I remember how disappointed some people were when it turned out that LIMBO uses WINE wrapper to work on Linux. On the other hand, your game has a very distinct cyberpunk, terminal-oriented aesthetic which many a Linux user probably finds more appealing (than, say, modern Windows users) given how important the command line interface still is in Unix-like systems. I may be talking out of my ass now, but that's how I see it.

though I'm sure at this point the ratio is higher than it will be in the future once the audience expands. Most indie games are like <5% Linux users, but my impression is that we have more than that in early alpha.

Probably, but from what I've seen in the Humble Indie Bundles, Linux users tend to pay more for games when given pay-what-you-want options which may mean there's deceptively big money in Linux gaming if one comes up with a good sales model and pricing. I guess Valve wouldn't have invested so much in Linux otherwise..

@okr: The next Roguelike Radio interview (unreleased) is with the devs of Invisible Inc., so that might interest you as well!

That's very good news indeed! I'm yet to add Roguelike Radio to my podcast player, but seeing how they're now covering two great games in a row, I think I may listen to them regularly.

(...) outside the community it hasn't really been advertised to any real degree, only having been picked up by a couple general-interest sites since I didn't contact any for now.

Word of mouth does wonders, I suppose When you make something really good, the news will spread. Also, you did a great job on the trailer!

[Kyzrati]

It is actually surprising to me given your game is not open-source nor has it a native port available. My personal experience with the Linux crowd is mostly "Native port or bust!".

Very true! I've had to somewhat change my own attitude because several years ago when I started releasing games for Windows only, that was the kind of reactions I was seeing more of, and I was actually afraid to even mention my games work fine in Wine.

The attitude more recently seems to have shifted--no negative responses at all and everyone's happy to know Wine is a viable solution. This could also be because for now I'm only engaging the dedicated fans at this price; things could change once the price drops and the audience expands, which is why I want to at least have a wrapper by then.

Certainly I agree with your second observation, that Linux users (and similarly IT workers and other devs) are attracted to the game for the terminal aesthetic.

The trailer helped a lot with general reception. I knew it would be really important to do well since I have a ton of information about the game out there, but nothing so condensed that both sets the tone and quickly shows a bunch of highlights. Plus before release I never once showed the game with sound, since I wanted to leave that as a surprise

[okr]

The attitude more recently seems to have shifted--no negative responses at all and everyone's happy to know Wine is a viable solution.

Well, the Linux user demographic is gradually changing: Windows XP loosing support, mainstream Linux distros becoming more user-friendly, Steam and Unity availability etc. More and more people don't care how their system works, as long as they can run everything they need on it.

WINE is getting better and better too, especially with self-contained software like Cogmind.

I still have a Windows partition on my laptop just in case something doesn't run on Linux, but I'm really glad I don't have to reboot for Cogmind. I would very much appreciate Linux port nonetheless, but in the end I guess I prefer a Windows game that runs well in a compatibility layer to a native game with all the inherent problems that stem from Linux diversity.

But yeah, I guess an idiot-proof launcher will help when Steam D-Day (S-Day?) comes. Not because most Linux users will actually need it, but because it will look much better marketing-wise.

[Kyzrati]

WINE is getting better and better too, especially with self-contained software like Cogmind.

Even as a non-Linux user, this is something I've noticed through others playing my games. Just 3-4 years ago there were more steps and roadblocks to running my stuff on that system. It's apparently become quite easy now.

But yeah, I guess an idiot-proof launcher will help when Steam D-Day (S-Day?) comes. Not because most Linux users will actually need it, but because it will look much better marketing-wise.

Agreed!

[Happy Hedonist]

Hello!

I just bought Cogmind yesterday.  I've been on a huge roguelike kick for a few months after mostly ignoring the genre for a few years.  I listened to the roguelike radio interview and was intrigued by what I heard, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I've spent about 4 hours playing today and I'm extremely pleased.  Everything from the graphics, interface, gameplay, and story excite me.  I'm really looking forward to watching the game develop now.

Other roguelikes I enjoy include Adom, DCSS, Brogue, and Caves of Qud.  I also play a lot of EU4 and Victory 2.

I'm a RN by trade but my real passion is programming.  I've been working on a hobby project that sort of combines my love of nursing, programming, and sci-fi for awhile now.  It's nothing I'm comfortable sharing, but it's fun to tinker with.  It's what I spend most of my free time on, even if progress is frustratingly slow at times.

When I'm not working, playing games, or programming, I'm usually running or rock climbing.  Being single means I get to spend a lot of time and energy doing things most people my age are unable to work into their busy schedules. 

Thanks for sharing Cogmind with us and being so active in the community.     

[Kyzrati]

Welcome! For many years I, too, was doing other jobs yet spending much of my time with my favorite hobby: programming games. I guess you already know from listening to the RR interview, but yeah Cogmind is me taking the leap to make that hobby a full-time thing. It's going pretty well so far, well enough to provide an absolute minimal income, only possible through the generous support of alpha players. Thanks!

I'm happy to be able to somewhat lengthen the development schedule and add even more/better content as long as the motivation from new players joining pretty much every day continues

And it's always nice to hear what others are doing for a living. I like how Cogmind's audience is so mature. I'm jealous of your free time

[Dzlan]

Just brought Cogmind and got the link.
I havn't played since Alpha 2 I think, so this is going to be incredibly fun.

Thanks for everything, Kyzrati.

[Kyzrati]

Thanks, and yep, Alpha 6 is the best so far, so enjoy! (Of course, I can't imagine having a new release that was actually worse , but this one is an especially big jump.)

[Harne]

How did you learn about Cogmind?
For many years, I have enjoyed playing and attempting to write my own roguelikes off and on.  Sadly, none of my creations get much beyond the early stages, but I am always on the lookout for sci-fi themed roguelikes to play, even though they seem to be few and far between.  I saw an article about Cogmind on Rock, Paper, Shotgun a long time ago and when I got on my latest "make my own" kick recently, I stumbled upon the game again via the dev blogs and the roguelikedev reddit.  I finally decided to take the plunge and give the game a try and I'm glad I did.

My first game was a quick death, in what apparently was The Mines, but my second game I made it all the way to -4 before being unable to find any unlocked stairs and getting massacred by a huge armada of deathbots.  It was definitely a fun time.  I mostly avoided spoilers before playing and it was easy enough to figure out how  to play, although probably not how to play well.

What other roguelikes do you enjoy?
Recently, besides Cogmind, I've enjoyed Cataclysm: DDA and Caves of Qud.  And while it's obviously more of a rogue-lite, I've put a LOT of hours in to Spelunky.  Besides Spelunky, I don't think I've ever managed to beat a roguelike though.

What are your other favorite games?
The original X-COM games are definitely near the top of my list, along with Master of Orion 2 and Kerbal Space Program.  And I've sunk a shameful number of hours into World of Warcraft, although these days I play more due to inertia and friends than anything else.

What do you do for fun when you're not playing games?
Besides classic nerd pastimes like boardgames and movies, I enjoy Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and playing poker (contemporary nerd pastimes?).

[Kyzrati]

Hi Harne, I notice you joined recently, thanks for the support! Yeah for anyone into roguelike development it's hard not to run into me/Cogmind since I'm all over that with dev blogs, roguelikedev, and other related forums

Getting to -4 as a beginner is surprisingly good, although I'll admit the game is getting easier over time as we move towards adding more difficult content later. (One of the deadliest common robots was accidentally overnerfed for Alpha 6, which is also making this one a little easier than intended, so look out for Hunters in the next version )

Good to hear you're figuring everything out--strategy is certainly a different story, even for players of other roguelikes, due to the uniqueness of Cogmind's mechanics and world. I imagine you'll manage to beat Cogmind one day. At least the "easy direct ending" is (eventually) meant to be achievable by reasonably determined players, while the alternative endings and bosses will be more in line with the "only a small percentage of players can manage this" situations we're more familiar with from traditional roguelikes

MOO2 was another of my favorites. There's a new MOO in the works right now, actually, though from the early screenshots I saw it looks like they're going to pretty much ruin it. Little surprise there...

Heh, lots of people into Jiu Jitsu these days

[Harne]

I saw that about the new MOO game and I am also not getting good vibes from it yet.  I'll cross my fingers though.  It can't be worse than MOO3, right?

After playing several more times, I think my early success at making it -4 was just a healthy dose of beginner's luck.  That game I always seemed to conveniently find just the right things at just the right time, such as nuclear reactors right after my old ones were destroyed or some heat sinks when I'm having heating problems.   Also, I think perhaps I got some especially good prototype weapons of some sort, because for awhile I was killing enemy robots quite easily.  I haven't played enough games to really get a feel for how things are 'supposed' to go, but I was able to one-shot a lot of enemies not long before my demise, even the gigantic 4-space robots, and I know that wasn't happening on the early floors.

My further attempts since have not been nearly as successful, the latest one ending thanks to what I imagine was a reenactment of the garbage smasher from Star Wars without R2-D2 around to save me.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah until you build up some knowledge and, more importantly, strategies and tactics, luck will play a larger factor in the outcome. You can get really lucky and survive up to around -4/-3, but that's when even luck won't help much. Once you can consistently reach that depth is when you know you're pretty good.

I saw that about the new MOO game and I am also not getting good vibes from it yet.  I'll cross my fingers though.  It can't be worse than MOO3, right?

Ha, what's MOO3?

My further attempts since have not been nearly as successful, the latest one ending thanks to what I imagine was a reenactment of the garbage smasher from Star Wars without R2-D2 around to save me.

Hahaha, I think I know what happened

It's funny how I never explicitly drew any inspiration from Star Wars here, but as a kid I watched those movies nonstop, and there are multiple parts of the game about which players have brought up clear SW parallels, so maybe it was subconscious

[16161d]

16161d here! (it's hex code for the colour "Eigengrau" which is the colour we see when our eyes are closed, or otherwise the name I use to upload music under.)

I'm interested in gaming a lot and have a lengthy library on steam, I also moderate the /r/GlobalOffensive subreddit. Outside of gaming I'm obsessed with sounds and playing with sounds, mostly field recordings and natural sounds, twisting them into new alien like soundscapes, I've done some live shows and collaborations with composers and I continue to experiment with sound, both natural and synthesized. (building a nice collection of synthesizers at the moment!)

-How did you learn about Cogmind?

Learnt of it through the subreddit /r/roguelikes, a brilliant sub that I frequently browse to find all sorts of awesome games, I was completely unaware of Cogmind and was amazed to discover it. I've also been reading the dev blog from the start and have been enjoying it a lot. I hope to create some cogmind inspired soundscapes.

-What other roguelikes do you enjoy?

I have quite a few roguelikes on steam and some on my wishlist, some of my favorites are Tome, Dungeons of dredmor, Vagante, Spelunky... I've got tons of more of these games and they all have little quirks and mechanics (specific to the roguelike genre) that make me love them, I like the challenge of them in general.

-What are your other favorite games?

Turn based strategies (Final Fantasy Tactics, XCOM, Invisible INC), FPS (Counter Strike, Killing Floor, L4D), Strategies (Alpha Centauri, CIV, AI War)

Recently became hooked on Dark Souls too.

-What do you do for fun when you're not playing games?

Redditing, thinking/researching what games to play next and composing/designing.


PS. Tier 1 flair plz!
PSS. Told you I'd be here! XCOM2 is already yesterdays news, Cogmind is where its at.

[Kyzrati]

Hi 16161d!

That's a cool origin for your alias--German has words for a zillion interesting concepts.

Will be interesting to hear what you come up with for a soundscape

Told you I'd be here! XCOM2 is already yesterdays news, Cogmind is where its at.

Haha, seems like they did at least finally do the series slightly more justice (the first reboot was totally not X-COM, and was way too fickle and buggy for my tastes).

[RenaudDMarshall]

My name is Renaud D Marshall (if you couldn't guess by my nickname here). I'm a 29 years young life-long gamer and fledgling game developer. I just looked at the highscore table, saw that I was on there, and figured that now was as good a time as any to join the community for the game. I got a little frustrated with the difficulty and then life just kind of made me forget about the game for a bit. Its time to come back and learn from you all and hopefully beat this game!
Edit: As a quick update, I did pick the game back up to try to get a better run. After an exciting and frustrating hour I greatly improved on my last run. It both sucks and is thrilling when I keep finding the locked stairs and end up having to go on a destructive rampage just to survive long enough while exploring for the real way up. It looks like more guns is the way to go for me early on, lol.


For the questions in the initial post:
-How did you learn about Cogmind?
I learned about Cogmind after seeing a good number of /r/roguelikedev posts about it from Kyzrati. The fact that he could consistently share his knowledge/experiences about developing the game without feeling the need to directly promote caught my attention. From there the only internal debate I had about getting the game was whether or not I would buy copies for my friends (I decided not to since they don't seem to be into roguelikes much right now).

-What other roguelikes do you enjoy?
I am actually someone that doesn't have much experience with the traditional PC roguelikes. My experience comes from the old console equivalent kinds of games: Azure Dreams, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, Disgaea's item world. As far as other PC roguelikes/lites/ishes, I play Binding of Issac, One Way Heroics, FTL, and Diablo 3. I will probably go back and pick up some of the more traditional roguelikes at some point, but for now Cogmind is alone on that playlist.

-What are your other favorite games?
Final Fantasy Tactics - still the best final fantasy game so far XP
Fire Emblem series - character death making your choices matter is a big thing to me
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth - its about time a new good digimon game came out (digimon > pokemon, nuff said)
Disgaea
MOBAs - currently Heroes of the Storm, but I've played and enjoyed pretty much all of them
Super Metroid
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

-What do you do for fun when you're not playing games?
Developing games/systems/game ideas
Spending time with my wife and son
Reading/watching/listening to educational/motivational materials (so much so that it bothers my wife at times because I've got my nose in a book or headphones on constantly XD)
Watching others play games

[Kyzrati]

Hey Renaud, I did recognize your (obvious ) name from the high scores.

It can be tough learning the tactics that will help you survive the many dangers out there, but right now the fastest (and most predictable) way to the end is through areas that aren't closed off, so there's that.

Nice to hear that you're coming to Cogmind as a first traditional roguelike. There's an increasing number of well-designed options out there, and yeah many are still in development--/r/roguelikedev is the place to be

I hope (and it appears true) that simply sharing my dev process and ideas, while also helping out as many other devs as possible, will stand in well enough for traditional promotion, since that's better for everyone, yeah?

Since you're into watching others play games, you can check out my occasional stream to learn tactics and ask questions if you like (I noticed you followed earlier today so you're aware of it . Shobalk's also pretty good and has started recording runs, too. in the weekly seeds, and most recently his "Deck Run."

I always thought streaming was a really weird thing and never imagined doing it myself, but one day last year I randomly dropped into the stream of another dev I know and suddenly got a curious urge to try it myself. I'm glad I did, since it turned out to be pretty fun to occasionally talk with some regulars and also force myself to playtest the latest version, since without that impetus I usually end up just pouring all my time into development, while it's good to take a step back and actually look at how all the pieces are coming together as a whole. Reading player feedback is certainly helpful to get different perspectives in that regard, but it's also important for me to experience it firsthand since I can put it in the larger perspective of the unreleased portions of the world. (Funny that it takes a public commitment to get me to treat that essential part of development more seriously.)

[Jean-Bhono]

Hello all, I'm Jean-Bhono  I'm a French guy 

-How did you learn about Cogmind?
Well, i know cogmind since the 2012 event "Seven Day Roguelike Challenge" that i know because i really really like Roguelikes ! Since this event, i'm following up the devloppement of this fabulous game. And there i am ! 

-What other roguelikes do you enjoy?
Hmm... there are a lot... But if i've to choose... then... it would be  :

• Crypt of the Necrodancer
• Hero Siege
• Magicite
• Risk of Rain

-What are your other favorite games?
Well, i love AwesomeNauts, the only MOBA i play, and Minecraft because of the liberty it gaves you 

-What do you do for fun when you're not playing games?
I code HTML, not for money, just like that... And i do a lot of Bike. Oh and, i'm vaping when i can !


Oh, by the way, sorry for my good poor English. I'm french, so sometimes it's a bit difficult 

[Kyzrati]

Hey Jean-Bhono, you've been following for a long time! Wish I'd had time to do another 7DRL this year, and maybe similarly plant a seed for some future awesome game . There are some really cool roguelikes coming out of this year's 7DRL event, which is just ending today.

[Jean-Bhono]

Hey Jean-Bhono, you've been following for a long time! Wish I'd had time to do another 7DRL this year, and maybe similarly plant a seed for some future awesome game . There are some really cool roguelikes coming out of this year's 7DRL event, which is just ending today.

Yeah ! I've already taked a look ! But, well, Cogmind is my favorite  I'm gonna practice, and then be a pro 

[ShadoShane]

Hi! I am Shado. A human being and not at all not-human. Flesh and blood. Did I mention blood? And human. With flesh. And blood.

How did you learn about Cogmind?
I saw gifs of the game. Then read how the world was living and growing... and I wanted to disrupt and destroy that.

What other roguelikes do you enjoy?
I like all roguelikes. Then I play them and die frustratingly and never get anywhere and never play it for months. Then come back to do the same thing all over again.

What are your other favorite games?
I love the Elder Scroll series and Mount and Blade. Truck Simulators too.

What do you do for fun when you're not playing games
I'll play the stuff that aren't games.

[Kyzrati]

Welcome, human!

I like all roguelikes. Then I play them and die frustratingly and never get anywhere and never play it for months. Then come back to do the same thing all over again.

Obviously a true fan of the genre. We always come back

I saw gifs of the game. Then read how the world was living and growing... and I wanted to disrupt and destroy that.

Hahaha, you will have ample opportunities to do that (more and more with each release, too!). Of course the consequences are something you'll have to deal with, but hey that's how a lot of people like to play, including myself

Thanks for your support!

Is Pluto a planet?

[coolp_jim]

Hi, I'm Justin. Cogmind looks awesome! I found out about it on /r/roguelikes, announcing alpha 7. I took a look at the trailer and was blown away. The art in this game is awesome, truly awesome.

I love and play Dwarf Fortress and Cataclysm:DDA, and the contrast between Cogmind and other roguelikes I've played in UI and art design is stark. I grabbed a copy to support more than play: I kind of want to wait til the game is 1.0 for a super polished play, which it looks this developer can accomplish. Thanks for the game!

[Kyzrati]

Thank you very much, and I can promise there is no chance of Cogmind not reaching completion* (*as long as I'm alive, that is, a status I don't see changing anytime soon )

There are lots of alpha supporters waiting for 1.0 right along with you, though we have a dedicated group that's helping see it through to completion if you ever feel like jumping in for a bit

Thanks for stopping by!