A Cyberpunk Horror
Roleplaying Campaign
By Whalenought Studios
Designed by Hannah and Joe Williams
Dungeon Master Narration by Caleb Merrick
Soundtrack by V-Axys
Release Date
To be announced
Platforms
PC, Mac and Linux
Genre
Cyberpunk RPG
Combat
Concurrent Turn-Based
Developer
Whalenought Studios
Based in Seattle, Washington
Website
Press Contact
News List
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Overview
Copper Dreams is a pen-and-paper inspired roleplaying game set in a dark and grim cyberpunk world. The gameplay is 3D isometric, featuring a four person party system in an open world adventure.
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Setting
Copper Dreams is set on an off-world island colony called Calitana. Owned by the US government, Calitana is one of many interstellar bases, although it is notoriously the least enjoyable to live in.
At the start of our story, the US government has been forcibly sending its citizens to these off-world colonies to free up overcrowding in cities. You play as one of these unlucky draftees, starting your adventure as your pod crashes into the shores of your new home.
Calitana lives up to its reputation, seeing little in supplies or surveillance from the US over the past few decades, giving free rein to the corporations and syndicates that amassed power in the absence of any official rule.
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Ruleset
Players have many tools to help them succeed in their missions. The player can engage in espionage gathering, modifying and upgrading weapons and disabling or killing enemies by targeting specific body parts. To do this justice we've designed a ruleset from the ground up we call the Burning Candle to work with all these mechanics.
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Stealth
Line of Sight
Your team will utilize a volumetric line of sight, which shows enemies around, above and below.
Noise
Both you and your enemies have a chance that your footsteps and item usage will make noise, which can both draw attention to your party, but also allows your party members to roll the dice to hear enemies nearby if they are out of sight.
Wall Hugging
You can use wall hugging to peek around corners, take quick pivot shots, and increase your volumetric light of sight.
Crouching
A low-to-the-ground, stealthy walk or idle will help to move through the shadows unseen, minimize your own footstep sounds, or to take cover against difficult assailants.
Hide
Lockers will become an unexpected haven if you scuffle and attract the attention of a nearby patrol.
Distractions
All items can be thrown to create a diversion.
Environment
With skills and training, you will be able to alter your environment by manipulating the electric grid, shooting out lights and cameras, and re-programing patrols and robots.
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Ailments
Copper Dreams uses a system that doesn't have HP. Instead, we’ll be using stackable ailments.
These ailments are the result of D8 die rolls that vary based on weapons used. The ailments fall into three categories, lesser, greater and mortal, each with its own cap that is increased or decreased by character creation stats.
These ailments don't just inch you closer to death’s doorway, but also decrease your stats until you heal, simulating the weakness that your player should feel if they are fighting with a few bullets in their legs, a broken kneecap and a minor concussion.
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Combat
Engage enemies in strategic, turn-based combat with time-based resolution. Execution time for a turn's actions adds an extra tactical element to the classic turn-based system, and gauging when to attack, hide, intercept or engage in a full-party assault can turn the tide of battle in your favor.
In and out of combat, enemies react to and use the same environmental mechanics as you do.
Hearing
Enemies are constantly listening while on patrol, some with better success (and cybernetic ears) than others. If they hear you walk, or fire, they'll come investiage.
Patrols
The syndicates may be blamed for many things, but lack of organization is not one of them. Well-armed thugs move in routine paths to make sure their interests are protected.
Search
If an enemy hears you, they'll search the area near the noise they heard for a variable amount of time. Manage to hide before they arrive and stay silent, and you can breathe a sigh of relief when they return to their patrol empty-handed.
Vision Cone
All enemies utilize a vision cone, and their sight can be avoided with careful movement and wall hugging.
Last Known Position
It's possible to end combat by hiding or sneaking silently from the sight of your enemies, but they will first try to find you by spending their turns rummaging around where they saw you last. An indicator will note where they think you are.
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Adventure
Copper Dreams emphasizes the adventures that happen between quests and narrative events, which can be just as fun, unexpected and dangerous. To enable this, the player will traverse a cyberpunk world while scaling buildings, taking part in turn-based combat between humans, robots and many other types of foes, all while managing their character’s health through a detailed system of physical ailments.
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Dialogue
Copper Dreams utilizes a keyword dialogue system to give you the freedom to choose dialogue choices without an authored tone of the conversation guiding you. Keywords turn dialogue into a puzzle. While sometimes your conversations are trivial, asking directions or reporting results of a mission, at other times you'll be trying to gather much needed information and can use items or saved keywords to open up new conversations paths.
If there is a rogue agent that needs intel and you would like to help him, dragging confidential data diskettes into the dialogue screen (literally handing them over) will turn the flow of your current conversation. NPCs retain their personality and character to drive the conversation.