It's been a long road with many highs and lows, but one thing is for certain, we've made progress! In this little clip, you can see the initial prototype compared to the present build.
Our discord server is alive! You can join the conversation and hang out with other fans on the discord server and talk directly to us regarding your thoughts and ideas about Rough Justice: '84.
STORY TRAILER
Seneca City, 1984 — a city crippled by rampant crime. Released, following his wrongful imprisonment, Seneca City’s former “White Knight”, Detective Jim Baylor agrees to consult in the operation of his old friend’s faltering security agency.
What seemed like a favor to his former partner unraveled, revealing a deeper conspiracy involving foreign intelligence agencies, corruption, and unspeakable evil that brings with it memories of trauma Jim believes are long since buried.
In a city this rife with corruption, time is running out and Jim must use all the resources at the agency’s disposal to stop an unknown enemy whose reach extends to countless institutions. With the help of his growing roster of highly-skilled agents, does Jim have what it takes to be victorious in what will prove to be the battle for Seneca’s soul?
Our discord server is alive! You can join the conversation and hang out with other fans on the discord server and talk directly to us regarding your thoughts and ideas about Rough Justice: '84.
DEVS PLAY
Join Coder Sunny, Art Lead Damien, Associate Producer/Game Designer Tom, A.K.A. "Wolfspeer" and Lead Jeremiah, A.K.A. "Jezza" as they fumble their way through the janky build, but have a blast all the same.
Quite often when developing, the theoretical design may seem legit, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it could be that said features need to be tweaked or simply cut. At the end of the day, it's an iterative and most importantly, a collaborative process. That's why we've started doing these devs play sessions!
That wasn't always the case with our team, however. Initially, we had a very structured hierarchy which we strictly adhered to. There's something to be said about hunkering down and just "gettin' it done", but this removes ownership of features and is not the ideal method of collaborating. We have so many brilliant and talented people on the team, and it was a major mishap that we didn't take all of their ideas into consideration initially.
Our biggest fear with the thought of having a flat hierarchy was that there'd be simply too many cooks in the kitchen, and the thought of being slogged down by lack of decision, or coming up with a "meh" solution that no one is happy with could be the death blow to a project.
Moving forward we are a lot less structured when it comes down to input. If one of us can't reasonably convince the rest of the team to add a feature or remove it, then hey, it is what it is. We are all trying our best to make something unique and fun for players. Are we there yet? Heck no! BUT, we are most assuredly on the right path. :)
[previewyoutube="sXWQ7lqnKfc;full"]
WRAP UP
It goes without saying that Rough Justice: '84 is currently in development and the info as well as the above-showcased videos, images, and GIFs are representations of the current state and are subject to change.
Our discord server is alive! You can join the conversation and hang out with other fans on the discord server and talk directly to us regarding your thoughts and ideas about Rough Justice.
Modular Character System
In this video, we’re going to show you the processes that we went through to create a modular NPC character system.
Having a modular system in place allows us to eventually create a seemingly endless amount of characters, which was important for us to more or less “future proof” the game, allowing us to create modular contracts with unique characters.
The variable "parts" are limited by design. It was tough to narrow it down and not go full-hog though! The proof-of-concept has been completed, and now we can simply add more parts time and budget depending.
[previewyoutube="P_0iw8TknPc;full"]
80’s FASHION
Before we started this endeavor, we did a lot of background research as to what styles we were aiming for. Now, this particular step didn’t necessarily have to be the first one, but we reckoned that if by the off chance there were some era-specific fashion aspects that we didn’t take into consideration from the get-go, it would impede our progress in the long run. And wouldn’t you know it- we were right! Turns out that as some of you may know- the 80s were renowned for “big hair” - bearing this in mind we were able to plan the further steps accordingly.
LAYERING
By defining the exact parts for each character, we needed to ensure that the layers would seamlessly coexist with the other layers. That is why the layering order is important.
In our system, you can see that we start first with the head, then the body is layered upon it. The “body” is actually the clothing set. A lot of the clothing sets have popped collars or specific collars that need to be layered on top of the head.
After placing the head and the body/clothing set, facial hair is added, followed by accessories. It is important to layer the facial hair behind the accessories, otherwise, you’ll have some strange results. Believe us, we’ve been there.
After the facial hair and accessories, the hair is added. This is then followed by the headgear/hat if one is allocated.
SYMMETRY
It was imperative that we used a base template for all of the body parts for proper alignment. This ensures that for example, any hairpiece can be interchanged with any other one, also having proper alignment makes sure that all facial hair and or accessories fit into place properly. Strictly adhering to these rules at first seemed a bit stifling from a creative perspective, but in the long run, it was essential.
TLDR: All heads must adhere to a strict distancing and spacing rule. This ensures that all hair, facial hair, and accessories are 100% modular in nature.
HAIRSTYLES
We did a lot of research on classic hairstyles from the 80s and used our Miro Board to put them all together nicely. This was a collaborative effort, and quite honestly a very fun task. It was important for us to maintain historical accuracy, not necessarily a modern take on what people “think” 80’s hair-do’s looked like back in the day.
Whether it was Lionel Richie’s iconic Jerry Curl Mullet or Mel Gibson’s feathered mullet, we wanted to be able to emulate that on a modular level.
Through trial and error, as well as time and financial pressure, we needed to make a decision in regards to how many hair types/hairstyles we would eventually have in total. We narrowed it down to roughly 15 per gender. It was important for us to make them era-specific.
HAIR COLOR
Once we established the base hairstyles, creating new variations for color was pretty straightforward. It was an extra step, but one that was well worth it. A simple way to create more variety. At the end of the day, each hairstyle has 5 or 6 color variations.
HEADWEAR
Some of the NPCs in Rough Justice: ‘84 have specific professionals that require particular attire. We knew we needed to make a number of hats, but we decided that these are for the most part outliers, so we decided to reduce the overall amount of them, focusing on some rather generic headpieces.
FACIAL HAIR
Just like with our general research and hairstyle research, we went to town researching facial hair of the 80s! Again though, we wanted to limit the overall amount of them, because we had to ofc make each color variation accordingly.
ACCESSORIES
For the most part, accessories have been considered eye-wear, but of course, earrings are also in this category. We did a lot of research for both male and female eyewear from the 80s and made a number of iterations of each. We decided to not add further variation through color variants, but that is something that we could of course do at a later date.
UNIFORMS
Much like the issue with the bespoke headwear, the uniforms were something that needed to be done. The thing is, once you start putting together a list of potential uniforms, where do you stop? I think at the end of the day, we settled on 11 distinct uniforms. These are quite often used in conjunction with the allocated headwear, but they don’t have to be.
DIVERSITY
It was very important for us to create a very diverse pool of NPCs- and we tried to the best of our ability to reflect the variety based on census reports from the early 80’s to give a well-rounded and accurate representation of all of the different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Here you can see our mind map of the gender and ethnic breakdown of the citizens of Seneca City.
MODULARITY TEST
Putting all of these ideas together, in theory, is one thing- but we had to see for ourselves if the theoretical design actually worked, here are the initial results.
THE PROCESS
Check out the speed process time-lapse video from the artist responsible for the modular NPC system, Janna Zimmer!
INTERNAL TOOL
Our internal tool has been a godsend for the creative team. It easily allows the authors of contracts to put together the visual representation of the NPCs that they want to have in the contract, be it a client or a fugitive. Giving the narrative team the tools that they need in order to make the characters that they envision for each contract definitely gives it that much more realism.
Our discord server is alive! You can join the conversation and hang out with other fans on the discord server and talk directly to us regarding your thoughts and ideas about Rough Justice.
POST X
A lot has changed over the course of the last few weeks, and we here at Gamma Minus would like to show a bit of our progress and the iterations Rough Justice: ‘84 has gone through. Check out the video below to get an overview.
[previewyoutube="oBQIAGwLr7w;full"]
CONTRACT CHANGES
For now, we have settled on having 3 Tier 1, 3 Tier 2, and 3 Tier 3 security contracts when the game starts. This will indubitably change for the demo, but for testing purposes, it’s a great benchmark to assess the overall difficulty of the various tiers. As we went over in our last video, contract tiers indicate the difficulty level of the tier. 1 being easy, 2 being moderate and 3 being hard.
TIER DIFFERENTIATION
One of the major changes in regards to contract tiers, especially with this new update, is that Tier 1 contracts auto-repopulate. This gives the player the opportunity to always have something to do, even though it may be low level. In order to take on Tier 2 & 3 contracts after the initial batch is completed (or have been removed, for lack of inaction on the player’s part) you’ll have to purchase more. This can presently be done in the Agency. You will have to pay, either using money or reputation to unlock batches of contracts. Once you have gained enough reputation you can unlock Night Shift contracts.
DAILY CONTRACTS
Don’t want to “pay to play”? No worries, we got you covered. As mentioned, only a certain number of contracts are available at the start of the game, once the Tier 2 and Tier 3 are gone, you’ll have to purchase new ones, and only have Tier 1 contracts available. Fresh contracts spawn at 6 am, 9 pm auto spawning stops.
MORAL DECISIONS
We’re very excited about this new change! We have started to add moral decision contracts. Initially, they may seem like any other normal contract, in which your agents are required to do either a stat roll or a puzzle, but the player is then presented with a binary choice of how to proceed. These unique contracts have a percentage chance of dropping coveted intel points.
24/7 CONTRACTS
This is a new type of contract that we’ve added since the last update. In total there are 20 24/7 contracts and on any given day 3 of them will be on the map. These contracts can be repeated ad nauseam throughout the day. They are very direct contracts and the goal or rather challenge, be it a puzzle or a stat roll is clearly indicated in the contract title. The purpose of these contracts is for players to at least be able to do something with their agents and hopefully earn a bit of money. These contracts are not lucrative, but they are a steady constant throughout the day.
CONTRACT TIER COLORS
Each contract tier has an associated color now. This may or may not change, however, we feel as if it is a quality of life mechanic that allows you to easily see the overview of the presently available contract tiers.
DECISION EQUIPMENT
This has been a feature that many people have requested which we have now since implemented. Previously when making a decision you were presented with two options, and you would see which stat would be involved in the decision, however, you were unable to click on the gear that the agent presently had. With this added mechanic, the choice is a lot more obvious.
REPUTATION LOSS
When you fail a contract not only do you lose money but you also lose reputation now, at least for Tier 2 and Tier 3 contracts. The logic behind losing money is the overhead costs ensued by your agent’s inability to successfully complete the contract, requiring the client to get someone else to do it. The loss of reputation is simply an added malus, as failing contracts do not put your agency in good standing.
Reputation loss implemented for failed contracts
Range of potential minimum/maximum for gain or loss implemented
SHOP
A few minor changes to the shop as well:
Implemented warning/confirmation screen
Tier indication of shop item
AGENTS(STATS)
Can now refresh the list of currently available agents for the cost of 1 reputation.
Can now unlock next tier agents
Agent Cards now show Agent Tiers.
Hirable agents pool increased from 3 -> 5.
Agent Roster Slots increased from 3-5
Refreshing returning hirable agents doesn't refresh gear, they keep their old gear.
CHEAT CODES
In order to speed up the testing and bug fixing at this present stage, as well as to work on the balancing, we have implemented cheat codes. Whether or not we accidentally forget to remove them for our initial public build remains to be seen, however having this extra feature has allowed us to make significant progress with testing and balancing so far.
INFORMANTS WIP
We are currently working on the implementation of informants. Informants provide the player with daily goals that the player can aim for. These are not required, however, if informant directives are met within the allocated time frame, then the player reaps the rewards provided by the informant.
This will also eventually be used for story progression. One key feature that we are aiming for is no forced story progression. Story elements - or as they are referred to in-game as “Operations” will be shown in a similar fashion as to standardized directives from informants. The player can choose when to do them.
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS + BUG FIXES
- Agent markers remain after contract, reusing the same agent markers for new contracts. - New Dice Effects: DiceSuccess & DiceReRoll Item Cards implemented. - Temp debug text on each dice ("G" represents this dice was added by a gear card, ">=[NUM]" is the minimum success value of this dice). - UI visual updates. - Agent Tiers Unlocking. - Decision Timers for lower left agent thumbnails. - Enabled/Disabled buttons for unlocking/buying contracts depending on the time of day (6 am - enabled, 9 pm disabled). - FFWD timescale increased (180 -> 240) - Default car speed decreased (15 -> 10) - Button sizes fixed. - Map marker scaling adjusted (0.7 -> 0.4). - General BP fixes and clean up (attempted fixing some possible memory issues). - Bug Squashed: #485 - Unlock & Hire more than 5 agents, no longer limited by office capacity - Agent Slot purchasing, first 2 free, then pay to unlock. - Contract Spawning, fresh contracts at 6 am, 9 pm auto spawning stops. - ContractsUnlocking screen implemented - buttons spawn appropriate contracts. - Currently disabled buttons for Repo/FugRec/Night contracts. - Missed/Completing contracts now only spawn new contracts (of T1) if they were a T1. - Office slider menu re-implemented. - Shop now has warning/confirmation screens.
CHECK OUT THE RECENT DEVS PLAY VIDEO
[previewyoutube="N_XoQ3FqNCU;full"]
WRAP UP
It goes without saying that Rough Justice: '84 is currently in development and the info as well as the above-showcased videos, images, and GIFs are representations of the current state and are subject to change.
Our discord server is alive! You can join the conversation and hang out with other fans on the discord server and talk directly to us regarding your thoughts and ideas about Rough Justice.
POST IX
A lot has changed over the course of the last few months, and we here at Gamma Minus would like to show a bit of our progress and the iterations Rough Justice: ‘84 has gone through. Check out the video below to get an overview.
[previewyoutube="c-IcYcBjdhw;full"]
AGENT SYSTEM
Each agent has five stats, being Strength, Intelligence, Perception, Reflexes & Empathy, and an associated value representing their proficiency with said stat. Additionally, each Agent has a pre-allocated amount of Actions Points. You can read further information on each agent as well by clicking on their bio.
AGENT HIRING SYSTEM
Agents are to be considered temporary employees. They are hired for a short duration of time. This is dependent upon their allocated Action Points.
In the agent hiring panel, you can see the currently available agents. The pool of available agents is refreshed (currently every 3 hours), so if you don’t see an agent that you like, you can wait it out, or alternatively you can spend reputation points in order to force an agent pool refresh.
AGENT TIERING SYSTEM
Currently, there are 10 tiers of agents. You can unlock further tiers of agents by spending reputation points. This is not a guarantee that the new tier agents will necessarily be in the roster, they are simply added to the potential pool of agents.
ACTION POINT SYSTEM
Each “action” required a specific amount of action points, which are then deducted from that individual agent’s action point pool. For example, if an agent has 3 action points then they can potentially do three Tier 1 contracts, as Tier 1 contracts cost 1 action point. Once the agent’s action points are depleted, they finish their shift and are removed from the agent roster (at the bottom of the screen). They are added back to the pool (with a potential cooldown) and can be hired again at a later date.
CARD USAGE
Each agent has three gear card slots. You can purchase gear for each agent at shops. (More on that in a later update!). Although gear cards cost money, they give agents a significant advantage when doing stat rolls during contracts.
CONTRACT TYPES
There are a number of different contract types in Rough Justice: ‘84, including Security, Repossession, Fugitive Recovery, and Night Shift. Each contract type has different rules and different rewards.
CONTRACT TIER TYPES
All contract types have three different tiers. The tier value of a contract dictates the difficulty level. A Tier 1 contract can be considered an easy contract, Tier 2 moderate, and Tier 3 difficult. Finding the right agent to do the job, that has enough Action Points is crucial.
CONTRACTS
It is imperative to carefully read through the intro text for each contract. There are indications as to which stats may be required, or perhaps a vague indication as to whether a puzzle challenge and maybe even as to which one could potentially be in the contract. The wording is sometimes pretty straightforward, whereas other times it may be a bit cryptic, so it’s definitely worth reading the contract description so you know what to expect. Blitzing through the text only to find out that your agent required high strength, but you send an agent with very little strength can end up being a costly mistake.
CHALLENGES
There are two challenge types, being stat roll & puzzles.
DICE ROLL MECHANIC (STATS)
As previously mentioned, each Agent has 5 stats and an associated value representing their proficiency with said stat. This value is the determining factor that dictates how many dice the agent is allocated for a stat roll.
In the case of a Tier 1 Security contract, the amount of “successes” is one. The legend below shows what is considered a success. Here for this contract, a 4, 5, or 6 is considered a success.
PUZZLES
There are 15 different types of “puzzles” or mini-games all of which are era and genre-specific. These puzzles are sprinkled throughout the contracts. Some of them are quite easy and are nice pallet cleansers, but bear in mind that puzzles scale according to the tier difficulty of the contract!
One of the great incentives of choosing a puzzle challenge is that your agent gains an action point.
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
- Re-added spawning contract after contract completion. - Initial Contract Count increased from 12 -> 15. - Player controller: Removed scroll wheel to zoom (only one mode - overview). - Player controller: zoom level 15k -> 14k. - Player controller: RotationBoundsDeg: Y max range changed from -20 -> -15. - Map Icons sizes decreased from 1.0 -> 0.7. - Economy updates: agent wages/gear costs etc. - AgentEquipment can be opened during the Contract Decision screen. - Contract Icon Tier colors implemented. - AgentEquipment can be opened during ContractDecision screen. - Agent notification icon for shop contracts. - Agency Hirable agents increased from 3 -> 5. - Unhooked tutorial for AgentCards. - Lose Conditions hooked up to GSheet. - Reputation loss on trigger. - HireAgent screen "Refresh" & "Unlock Tier" buttons updated to show valid costs. - HireAgent screen Refresh button: - Currently, Agent Refresh always costs 1 rep. - HireAgent screen Unlock Tier button: - Agency has "CurrentlyUnlockedAgentTier" - Unlocking Agent Tier costs are linear to "CurrentlyUnlockedAgentTier", e.g: unlocking tier 2 costs 2 rep, tier 3 costs 3 etc. NB: unlocking new tiers don't effect anything yet (check Known Issues). - AgentCards now show Agent Tiers.
CHECK OUT THE RECENT DEVS PLAY VIDEO
[previewyoutube="FpRR9xNo4hg;full"]
WRAP UP
It goes without saying that Rough Justice: '84 is currently in development and the info as well as the above-showcased videos, images, and GIFs are representations of the current state and are subject to change.
Our discord server is alive! You can join the conversation and hang out with other fans on the discord server and talk directly to us regarding your thoughts and ideas about Rough Justice.
GAMES MADE IN GERMANY 2022
EVENT INFORMATION
We're part of the Games Made in Germany 2022 Event from February 14- February 17. We'll run multiple events and announce them here. Apologies if you see several announcements.
ABOUT ROUGH JUSTICE: '84
Do what it takes to make your fledgling security agency thrive. Advise your team on the best course of action, through strategy, calculated decisions, and a bit of luck. Use dice and cards to turn the odds in your favor in this neon '80s management game.
We're part of the Games Made in Germany 2022 Event from February 14- February 17. We'll run multiple events and announce them here. Apologies if you see several announcements.
ABOUT ROUGH JUSTICE: '84
Do what it takes to make your fledgling security agency thrive. Advise your team on the best course of action, through strategy, calculated decisions, and a bit of luck. Use dice and cards to turn the odds in your favor in this neon '80s management game.
We're part of the Games Made in Germany 2022 Event from February 14- February 17. We'll run multiple events and announce them here. Apologies if you see several announcements.
ABOUT ROUGH JUSTICE: '84
Do what it takes to make your fledgling security agency thrive. Advise your team on the best course of action, through strategy, calculated decisions, and a bit of luck. Use dice and cards to turn the odds in your favor in this neon '80s management game.
We're part of the Games Made in Germany 2022 Event from February 14- February 17. We'll run multiple events and announce them here. Apologies if you see several announcements.
ABOUT ROUGH JUSTICE: '84
Do what it takes to make your fledgling security agency thrive. Advise your team on the best course of action, through strategy, calculated decisions, and a bit of luck. Use dice and cards to turn the odds in your favor in this neon '80s management game.
