Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Steve from gamers Nexus dotnet and today we are looking at the upcoming Kickstarter project artisan's which aims to centralize character customization within the core gameplay mechanics this four player co-op action RPG grants players the unique ability to draw their own equipment and tweak each aspect of their character there are no classes no skill tree there are no setting restrictions so if you want to be a shot gun wielding pirate who particularly loves his steampunk styled jump boots you could certainly do that this is sort of the central point to artisans and I think it's a very intriguing approach to game design despite the fact that it seems somewhat obvious once you've heard it the reason creative driven games like Minecraft are successful is they're Show and Tell factored in minecraft you can show a non gaming friend your creation and he can appreciate it by a simple Lego comparison and it's it's a very visual customization driven game that appeals to the creative mind and doesn't particularly require a gaming skillset to enjoy deeply to the same tune although entirely different gameplay artisans fills the creative desire by offering players the option to use their favorite art tools for asset generation much the same way a game developer would add content to the game because there are no class or setting restrictions you can be any character you want made up or pre-existing so if you want to recreate the cast of Firefly with your friends you could do that from a visual standpoint and perhaps even somewhat mechanically each character has 12 total item or buff slots there are six active slots for weaponry and gadgetry and then another six passive slots for buffs and armor each item in the in the game is not only customisable visually but also statistically where players can utilize bits and pieces drops from enemies to mod their equipment for existence if a scorpion drops its tail you might be able to somehow work that into the stats of your sword like adding a poison attribute from what I understand and keep in mind the game isn't complete yet so from what I understand it seems that players should have a fairly limitless number of mods that can be applied to each item though these are balanced by tight pro/con modifiers so hopefully there won't be too much over balanced stuff although certainly it will be found the upgrades in the game are gained through progression in the wilderness regions and by completing missions artisan seems a bit more promising than the standard kill X of monster y quest though well at least I hope it is but they list a couple of different quests in their website and first of all levels are broken up into horizontally scrolling areas each level will have something like ten areas altogether so they're effectively ten sub screens of the level and monsters will intelligently move around within those ten areas so if a mob it feels outmatched it may retreat to another area of the level to collective spirits and prepare a new assault enemies are also reactive to player actions and movements in combat so they're not just Goomba like patrollers in the admitted style of megaman artisans enemies will have weak points and reinforced points so a Scorpion's tail once again to use that example might be the best target when trying to disable its ability to damage you and send it cowering to another area the same goes for limbs of giants and and stuff like that each of these mobs will drop upgrade items that can then be applied to your weapons and with any luck combat should be fun and the dynamic enough in co-op mode that it augments the core customization component if you look at AP be very customizable game holy disappointment that it was so bad in terms of gameplay was just way off balanced so these things can certainly go wrong but with a bit of luck and enough playtesting hopefully the game will work out very well combat as I see it now seems like it will be more of a means to achieve the reward rather than the direct reward itself which is also similar in games like APB aside from apparel and weaponry players can also customize pets so you could add your own cat or iron golem to the game or dragon or whatever turrets are also there mechanically speaking the customization tweaks made by imbuing weaponry with mods will sort of speak to the playstyle common in tabletop games due to their limitless nature and by mixing and matching any mods you'd like with any gadget or weapon you'd like it's entirely possible you could stumble across a completely never before tried combination of powers that happens to be very powerful or entirely powerless either way making for gameplay that potentially no one has experienced before MMOs have the ability accommodations that they can be quite fun when discovered alone but there's a technical limit to the depth available in games of such large scopes as a Momo's with artisans the idea is to centralize around this concept making it more mechanically deep and immersive than other games were used to the devs made a few comparisons to tabletop RPGs and Magic the Gathering which really speaks to the combo potential of the of the options that they're implementing there's a lot more to know about the game but unfortunately that's all the time I have for now so check out the description below for a full link to the article and the Kickstarter campaign they've still got twenty four or five days left so you have some time to make a decision and I will see you all next time peace