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Brigador - Isometric mech/vehicle combat (50 weapons, 45 vehicles, 3 factions, etc.)

M

More_Badass

Member
In development, already Greenlit

http://stellarjockeys.com/
http://www.indiedb.com/games/brigador
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=37904.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qmmnHoBAlk
It's real-time, isometric combat where you directly control (WASD+mouse) a single unit over a series of levels set in various parts of a city about to explode in factional violence. Every vehicle has two weapons mounts of varying sizes (you can choose what weapon for each slot) and a defensive ability (smoke, emp, stealth etc), and all vehicles fall under one of three major classes: mech, tank, or anti-grav. Each vehicle class also has heavy, medium, and light variants, so any people should be able to find their sweet spot for handling, armor, and firepower. What vehicles you pick as well as the set of missions you select and how you attempt them also determine the difficulty of a given run.

The cityscape is completely destructible, and all elements in a mission-- enemy units, objective structures, and the environment itself-- have monetary values attached to them. Bounties. All of these combine for your total earnings for a run, which you can then spend to unlock new runs, vehicles, weapons, and defensive abilities.
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NBlzzrE.jpg

The Solo Nobre Concern (SNC) wants a very productive colony back under its control, but can't land troops from orbit, with all those orbital guns pointed at them. In order to do this, the SNC issues thousands of Contracts worth lucrative sums in order to destabilize the defenses and infrastructure of the city. You play one of the military personnel in the city that takes up a contract. You're betraying your city, and your planet, for a lot of money and a ticket offworld.
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The more levels/objectives you complete, the better the payout. Earn money by completing runs successfully, money can be used to unlock guns, vehicles, defensive abilities. And there are a lot of guns and vehicles. Three playable factions, fifteen playable vehicles per faction. Something for almost everyone, along the axes of firepower, speed, or stealth.A word on unlocking vehicles: we think it stinks that in most games you unlock the most powerful guns etc at the very end of the game, when you are the best at playing the game, which usually just makes the game even easier. We know our game is hard enough to get to play well that we wanted to invert this dynamic. The all-rounders, the more powerful units are available early in the game. As you progress, you unlock the progressively more skill-intensive vehicles. The treadbikes and powersuits, for example, are absolutely the hardest to play well, so we want players to encounter them when they are going to enjoy the challenge, rather than be annoyed at how frustrating they seem (when first starting out).
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There are 3 main vehicles classes, with three subclasses:

Mechs: generally power/damage focused. CTRL to crouch, SPACE stomps
Heavy Mechs - devastating stomp attack, good firepower, but quite tall
Light Mechs - decent stomp, faster/lower profile
Powersuits - low profile, crouch actually extends up to peek over buildings

Agravs:generally speed/maneuverability focused. CTRL to toggle high/low hover, SPACE to ground pound
Gravtanks - fixed low hover height, holding CTRL instead locks forward orientation (tank mode)--best of tanks and agravs
Agravs - speed and maneuverability oriented. Front always orients to the reticle, so this is the class to play for circlestrafing/agility players. Pretty steep learning curve
Gravbikes - even smaller, faster. When in low hover, they are fairly low profile. Probably the most fragile of all classes, but also the fastest.

Tanks: generally armor/toughness focused, hold SPACE to bullrush (overdrive speed and trample damage)
Heavy Tanks- exactly what you think. Big guns, tough armor, decent profile. Can soak up a lot of damage.
Light Tanks - Picture Napoleon from Tank Police or of course the tank from Metal Slug. Faster, lower profile, but still a tank.
Treadbikes - Small, fast, lightly armored. With the bullrush speed boost, one of the most fun (and challenging) classes to play as--get in, get out. For the speedfreaks
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spacersfull_sm.jpg
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Every playable vehicle in the game has two mount points and a defensive ability (LMB= gun 1 RMB= gun 2 MMB=defensive) and there are 5 mount types in descending size: heavy, main, auxiliary, turret, small arms. We wanted to make sure each faction had at least one of every single combination of the mount types (eg heavy/heavy, heavy/main, etc), which is how we ended up with 15 playable per faction.

I know some people are thinking "boo, another two-gun game" but it's a very different thing when you can fire both of them at the same time in 3-space (you can overshoot or undershoot targets), as well as operate a defensive ability, and manage your mech's torso facing while moving in an opposite direction. There are also battlefield pick-up guns, which you can either re-assign to a mount, or cannibalize for ammo, or just stock back up from an ammo depot. But be careful, those explode.
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Weapons include:
- MIRV artillery
- Flamethrower
- Flechette MG
- Siege Mortar
- Energy Beam
- Rockets
- Flare Gun
- Maser/Microwave Gun
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slDtFqH.jpg
 
M

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Great thread, More_Badass! I've been following Brigador since it was mentioned on Crate&Crowbar last year. It looks like a spruced-up Amiga game, which makes me very excited!
 
A

Alex Connolly

Member
The preorder has been sitting in my steam library, making me salivate. I've got an interview with Jack 'gausswerks' Monahan on the art design processes for the game that still needs to be wrangled into an article, but has been on the backburner for a long while.

I'll get to it ASAP.
 
T

TokyoDan

Neo Member
Pylon_Trooper said:
The preorder has been sitting in my steam library, making me salivate. I've got an interview with Jack 'gausswerks' Monahan on the art design processes for the game that still needs to be wrangled into an article, but has been on the backburner for a long while.

I'll get to it ASAP.
Click to expand...

How'd you preorder it on Steam? I don't see a way, except to preorder on their website.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Game will be mod-friendly
We'll be releasing our tools for building maps either with the EA release or soon after, and the game supports live editing of almost all the game data, so it should be very easy for curious players to begin fiddling with the very fabric of the game.

We built the game ourselves in C++ & allow for live-editing values:
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YFTJsxJl.jpg


Map editor:
83F4gE5l.png
 
H

HughSJ

Neo Member
Draft said:
Looks incredible.
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Cheers!

Brigador designer here-- finally got an account so I can actual post to this. I'll be posting some new stuff later, but in the mean time I can answer any questions you guys have about the game or anything else.

I have to say, this thread is probably one of the best and most concise compilations of Brigador images and info on the internet :D

Btw, here's an imgur gallery I put together a few weeks back with more info and a bunch of huge webms: http://imgur.com/gallery/ViBV2?
 
M

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Hi HughSJ!

How long have you guys been working on the game? Also, and I know this is a little hard to judge, but how long do you think you'll be in early access?

Your game looks absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to play it!
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Mr. Tibbs said:
Hi HughSJ!

How long have you guys been working on the game? Also, and I know this is a little hard to judge, but how long do you think you'll be in early access?

Your game looks absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to play it!
Click to expand...
Going by their TIGSource devlog, which was started in January 2014, they had been working on it for over a year by then

So the game has been in development since 2012 at least.
 
N

Nordicus

Member
Also, are the units in the game 2D sprites made of 3D models, or is there some kind of special filter/effect that gives them that late 90s, early 2000s sort of look?
 
H

HughSJ

Neo Member
Ingueferroque said:
For a second there I imagined they should make this compatible with Sim City 3k maps, heh. It looks stunning. Instant buy from me.
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We make Sim City jokes almost continuously :D

Ingueferroque said:
For a second there I imagined they should make this compatible with Sim City 3k maps, heh. It looks stunning. Instant buy from me.
Click to expand...

Thanks! We're excited about it too.

Nordicus said:
Also, are the units in the game 2D sprites made of 3D models, or is there some kind of special filter/effect that gives them that late 90s, early 2000s sort of look?
Click to expand...

Nope, you got it right. 2D sprites baked down from 3D models, the secret sauce is that we have a secondary spritesheet for all game world assets that's the z-depth which we use to handle lighting, depth sorting, and a few other things.

More_Badass said:
Going by their TIGSource devlog, which was started in January 2014, they had been working on it for over a year by then

So the game has been in development since 2012 at least.
Click to expand...

I started Stellar Jockeys in 2011, though Harry, Dale, and I first started collaborating on stuff back in 2010. First few years though were almost entirely engine work and really bad game ideas, so it wasn't until late 2012 that the game that's now Brigador started to come together.

Mr. Tibbs said:
Hi HughSJ!

How long have you guys been working on the game? Also, and I know this is a little hard to judge, but how long do you think you'll be in early access?

Your game looks absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to play it!
Click to expand...

We've been full time on Brigador since the end of 2012. And currently the plan is for a 6 month EA window, releasing the final version sometime in March.
 
H

HughSJ

Neo Member
Btw, Willy Chyr (the guy making Relativity) is going to have me on his stream tonight to talk about Brigador and show some of the game if anyone's curious. I can't speak for how good or bad he's going to be at it, but I'll be there to provide color commentary either way. Should start at 8:30pm central tonight: http://t.co/QcOG5eLisy

And for the record, we're officially part of the Indie Megabooth and will be showing the game at PAX Prime next week. We're tucked in the Minibooth towards the back, but gauss and I will be wearing tank driver outfits, so we should be pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. If any of you are making it to the convention then come say hi, and if you can beat the whole demo in a single run we'll give you a free copy of the game :D
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
Hey all, I recently had the good fortune to have lunch with two of the developers of Brigador. I have a pre-early access version of the game that I'm playing around with and really enjoying. I plan to put out a few videos on my YT channel with some highlights. I'm wondering, does anyone here have a particular aspect of the game they'd like to see? Early Access on Steam is still about a month out, so I'm going to get a few previews up before then.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Soka said:
Hey all, I recently had the good fortune to have lunch with two of the developers of Brigador. I have a pre-early access version of the game that I'm playing around with and really enjoying. I plan to put out a few videos on my YT channel with some highlights. I'm wondering, does anyone here have a particular aspect of the game they'd like to see? Early Access on Steam is still about a month out, so I'm going to get a few previews up before then.
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I'd love to see how varied the customization and vehicle classes are
 
T

Tenebrous

Member
Kinda reminds me of Future Cop LAPD but with a locked camera... Which is all kinds of amazing.

Definitely keeping an eye on this one.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Steam page is back up, EA release date is October 20th
http://store.steampowered.com/app/274500/

Current content
The current Early Access build has 18 playable vehicles, 20 guns split between 3 different mount categories and 4 weapon types, several playable maps, and 1 of the planned 3 enemy factions to face. Currently the game begins with all content unlocked, but once we get the money and unlocking system fully integrated we'll switch over and add the pilots in.
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Future plans
The full version of Brigador will have 2 additional weapon mount sizes for a total of 50 usable guns, 3 enemy factions to face totaling 60+ different units to fight, many more maps and new some environments (including currently unseen tilesets like the Necropolis), and a full pilot roster and unlocking system. Overall a more robust set of playable content and proper integration into Steam”
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R

RumblingRosco

Member
Alright - so I've got about 3-4 videos showing off different aspects of the game. The first one is up right now (there was an embargo on previews until this morning) and I'll have a few more videos (one focusing on weapons, one on vehicles, and one on the in-game editor) up today and tomorrow before the official Early Access launch on the 16th. I'll stop bumping the thread for now though and just edit in more stuff into this post. If you have any questions about it let me know, it has been a lot of fun playing around with the game these past few weeks.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Soka said:
Alright - so I've got about 3-4 videos showing off different aspects of the game. The first one is up right now (there was an embargo on previews until this morning) and I'll have a few more videos (one focusing on weapons, one on vehicles, and one on the in-game editor) up today and tomorrow before the official Early Access launch on the 16th. I'll stop bumping the thread for now though and just edit in more stuff into this post. If you have any questions about it let me know, it has been a lot of fun playing around with the game these past few weeks.
Click to expand...
Can you share any impressions of the gameplay?
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Soka said:
Alright - so I've got about 3-4 videos showing off different aspects of the game. The first one is up right now (there was an embargo on previews until this morning) and I'll have a few more videos (one focusing on weapons, one on vehicles, and one on the in-game editor) up today and tomorrow before the official Early Access launch on the 16th. I'll stop bumping the thread for now though and just edit in more stuff into this post. If you have any questions about it let me know, it has been a lot of fun playing around with the game these past few weeks.
Click to expand...

Need impressions man. I've got money waiting on this
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
More_Badass said:
Can you share any impressions of the gameplay?
Click to expand...

Nzyme32 said:
Need impressions man. I've got money waiting on this
Click to expand...

The game is fun, first of all. The basic idea is you roll around and blow shit up, so the objective is very simple and easy-to-grasp. The games depths starts to show when you get a feel for the three-dimensional aiming mechanics; you're not just shooting on a 2D plane but rather have to account for trajectory/arc of your weapon. The considerations for trajectory combined with the selection of vehicles and weapons comes together for an enjoyable experience.

In particular, I think the vehicle/weapon choices more or less make the game what it is. I haven't tried all the combinations of weapons/vehicles yet, but the way you approach a level can change entirely based on your load-out. I'm more of a fan of taking a big hefty tank or mech over the smaller vehicles, which means I generally just blow shit up head-on. If you try the smaller vehicles, you're a lot more maneuverable and I've found the gameplay changes significantly; you have to hide around objects to avoid getting blown-up too quickly, you need to be a bit sneakier, and you have to really consider whether it's worth engaging enemies or not.

I'm really appreciative of the weapon/vehicle designs in-part because it creates variable difficulty. There is no difficulty selector in the game (Easy/Normal/Hard, etc), but instead, it feels like difficulty is based on your vehicle choice. What this means is that you can start playing the game as a mech and have a fairly easy time to start, or you can jump in with one of the faster vehicles (like the Joust) which makes the game feel much tougher straight away. That doesn't mean it's less-fun playing as a fast vehicle, but rather, it makes it feel like a very different game than when using a slower Mech or Tank.

It's really too early to give a review of the game since it's not even officially in Early Access state, but I can confidently say it's a damn fun game as-is. I'll quickly add, though it's not officially supported and I can't guarantee it'll stay in the game (though when speaking to the devs, it seemed like they'd leave it accessible), but the in-game on-the-fly editor is really fun; it gives you access to god mode, unlimited ammo, weapon/vehicle statistics customization, etc. My hope is that it stays with the game upon launch (and, again, I think it will but I'm not affiliated with Stellar Jockeys so I can't guarantee that), because I think that editor adds a ton of replayability.

Added a video showing off all the available weapons on the Touro (one of the mech-style vehicles). There are different weapons available to each vehicle though, too many to cover properly, so I just stuck with the weapons available on this single vehicle.
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
Karak said:
I reviewed the current content and easily EASILY rated it a buy. That is one of the finest gameplay loops I have seen. 1 or 2 issues but nothing that stop is from being a purchase.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tvzPUAN0wY
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Nice review. I get the feeling the level progression is a work in-progress to an extent. The build they uploaded to Steam on the 14th has an Inner and Outer level combined sequence (as opposed to just Inner or just Outer which is how it was ore-October 14th). This gives me the impression that they've still got a lot of tinkering to do with level arrangements.
 
Karak

Karak

Member
Soka said:
Nice review. I get the feeling the level progression is a work in-progress to an extent. The build they uploaded to Steam on the 14th has an Inner and Outer level combined sequence (as opposed to just Inner or just Outer which is how it was ore-October 14th). This gives me the impression that they've still got a lot of tinkering to do with level arrangements.
Click to expand...

It is indeed. I just talked to the devs and they have some more to add of course. But right now the gameplay loop is fantastic, its more than playable, and absolutely fun.
They just informed me it looks like they are uploading something in just a bit too.

One thing that is purely fantastic is the music and its interplay with the action. My lord the Blood Dragon vibes
 
X

Xater

Member
This looks very much up my alley, but to be honest you already had me at "mech". Don't know if I will jump in during Early Access, but probably for the full game.
 
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