Whalenought Studios secured $43, 038 on Kickstarter to create their isometric, horror game, Copper Dreams. Since their campaign ended in June 2016 they’ve posted just three meaty updates. These included changes to the art style of the project. With their latest update, the developers have given backers a peek at the robust and detailed character trait system.
While most RPGs rely on character stats to determine a player’s chance of success, Whalenought wanted to go further. To that end, character traits in Copper Dreams will have a greater influence on the player’s experience with the mechanics and visuals of the game. A unique idea that really puts the roleplaying aspects of the project at the forefront of the experience.
Character creation isn’t just assigning stat number to various attributes. Instead, players are given “background points” which they use to unlock a characters advantages and disadvantages. Giving characters an edge through advantages uses up points, while disadvantages gain additional points. These traits can change the way the character perceives the world around them.
The update uses the example of a character with a low logic trait or the illiteracy disadvantage. Either of these disadvantages will render all text within the gameworld as an unintelligible mess for that character.
“We wanted to include more ways to have more interesting starting characters to mess around with. Anything from making your character deaf, unable to run, various phobias, 14 years old, and lots of other ways that are reflected in the mechanics and visuals.”
In addition to physical disadvantages (poor sight, flat footed) players can also elect to give their characters psychological impediments (bad temper, racist viewpoint). Even the characters age plays a vital role as it is directly tied to how much virtue they can have.
Kicking The Tires
The developers originally planed to have pre-generated characters available for use in the alpha build, but have elected to add the character generator in that version as well. This will allow backers a chance to experiment with the different possible character builds.
Currently, Whalenought has not set a final release date for Copper Dreams. They are however, hoping to begin releasing public builds (perhaps the nearly completed alpha) sometime this summer.
