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Word is the bartender runs the Wire here. He's the one you should talk to about getting some jobs. Plenty of creds to be mode, if we get on his good side.
Miles below, the wasteland bleeds chrome.
Please don't do this.
Cyberpsychos and chip-jockeys war-dial through the electric alleys of the neo-web. Bitheads, glitched out on Drug Computers, prowl the neon highway for another hit of brainware.
I'm not listening. Nobody is listening.
Here in the sprawl, only phreaks and fiends survive. Phreaks, fiends, and Aelyria Maskelyne. Siri, play Firestarter by The Prodigy.
~~~
What are we doing here?
We're playing Starcrawlers! It's a cyberpunk-themed dungeon crawler!
Is it pretty good, then?
That's a good question! Let's find out together. I found the game extremely endearing in early access, with a lot of fun world building, but ran into a wall of repetition. The game has now been fully out for a year and continues to receive content updates, which is impressive for a game with a Metascore of "awaiting reviews" and whose official forums has two posts in the past two years. One is off-topic. Anyways, I hope it's really good.
So, permadeath?
We'll be playing the game on Hardcore Ironman mode. Unfair difficulty, no save but the constant autosave, every character death is a final death. As an added bonus, we only get eight PCs ever, one for each class. When they're gone, they're gone. And while this isn't a HARD game, it's not a forgiving one either. High level enemies can kill a crawler in just a few hits, and there's no healer class.
I should also clarify, I am not good at this game. I am not good at any games. This is going to end in tears.
Is this going to be one of those Let's Plays where you write little conversations between all of your guys and it turns into a whole story?
Sure is! Anything in italics I am just writing to entertain myself.
Will there be thread participation?
Yeah man, tell me what to do. The game offers a lot of freedom, both in terms of morality and of party makeup. If enough people are around to vote on things, I'll put things up for vote.
Should I post spoilers for some reason?
Nope!
~~~
Terminus IX? What happened to the other 8?
Har! The Van'Tel government founded 'em to maintain a presence out here. I reckon whoever was in charge of names ran out of original ideas a few thousand parsecs in-Core from here.
[He taps the ash off his cigar.]
Can I pour you a drink or you want to take the walking tour too? That's a joke, Trouble.
[Street Knowledge] Passed more than a few nights surfing in bars like this. Best joints to scan some work, yeah?
Wait... is this some kind of tutorial? Are you tutorialing me?
Well, yes...
(Boss, ask him about the distress signal.)
I've got a chummer named Luna-
'Friend'. Just say 'friend.'
My chummer Luna is internet-chummers with someone named Talrie Hobbs. Said she'd caught a ping from a local shipwreck. Might be survivors who need our help. Or cargo, looking for a forever home.
Right. You a hacker?
I'm really more of a 'street samurai.'
You'll need a hacker to get through that junker's security. Don't worry, I can set you up with one. A real killer, ex-Anulap.
(Talrie didn't say anything about security. He is 100% trying to con you.)
Your call, runner. Of course, with the Wire down, you won't be finding any other work around here.
(Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.)
... all right, Doc. Tell me about this hacker.
Fifteen minutes earlier
Let's get into it then. There are eight classes to choose from, seven available from the start and six that are actually useful, but the game more or less assumes you're going to pick a hacker. Starcrawlers classes don't correspond neatly to fighter or wizard archetypes, but outside of combat hackers do most of your Thief Things, disarming traps and unlocking doors. Also, it's a cyberpunk game. Everyone wants a hacker.
The default hacker is a lady named Trix because all of the default names are Extremely Good.
Your starting character gets a 'backstory' and a few corresponding bonuses. This is not a pro-strat background - having a megacorp furious with you can be exceptionally bad - but, you know, it's colorful. We're a fugitive hacker on the lam!
We've already seen what Street Knowledge does above - rarely you'll see an extra choice or bit of dialogue pop up.
Each class has three different skill trees. We'll talk about these more later on, and I'll let you all vote on what kind of hacker our gal Trix turns out to be, but for now we're going to play it safe with Rootkit, the security expert tree. It's the skill for thiefing around, plus we get a useful little virus for combat. Respeccing is cheap and encouraged, you can always try something new.
Starcrawlers abilities look extremely complicated, but only because it does a fun thing where, instead of just making the numbers bigger, added ranks in a skill each give it a new wrinkle. The Overheat Virus does damage over time, but it also has a chance to delay the enemy's turn, and on critical hits will straight up set the dang robot on fire.
This is fine. An eerie old man offered you ten credits to go into his unlit basement and fix his telephone. That's fine. This could be your new thing! Beatrix Carmille, wandering the fringes of space, fixing stranger's computers.
Wire's just past that locked metal door, darling.
This is extremely fine.
This first mission is the tutorialest of all tutorials. Our thrilling task is to walk to the other side of a basement. Also to steal an old man's garbage.
See that little logo, on the bottom right of the middle panel on the right? That usually indicates a secret. Bang on the panel a few times and:
A free medkit, and a lesson that you can sometimes interact with things even if your cursor doesn't change on mouseover. Also, in the opposite corner:
You could auction this item at the Black Market. Valuables can be found exploring. Search for secret caches!
I'm not going to steal your lunchbox, sir.
A button in a third corner opens the big red glowy door. As we press the button,
Don't worry, I'm just here to fix the internet. It's none of my business if someone is staying here. Or taking the old man's secret hidden medkit from behind that panel I just unlocked. Or this apparently collectible lunchbox.
Aw, what a sweetie.
Behind locked door #1 we find locked door #2, as well as
Beams of deadly laser energy are projected in front of you, barring your path. Traps won't usually block movement, but touching them stings a little. Look for a way to disable these beams!
What is going ON with your BASEMENT?
As for the door, we get our introduction to exploration skills. Each of every character's three skill trees can also, in theory, be used out of combat. A hacker can roll against their Rootkit score to do things like break into terminals or unlock doors. A soldier in this situation could roll to shoot down the door or rig it with explosives, depending on their build. Some trees will almost never get used, but in general it's a good idea to specialize in one skill that sometimes helps you out rather than mixing and matching and having three skills that always fail.
And behind the door, we get to play with something brand new, just patched into the game a few months ago: a fully-developed hacking system!
It's terrible! The fact that it's obviously based on Shadowrun for the Sega Genesis makes me want to like it so so much, and it's just kind of a slog at this point. To be fair, it's hard to complain about such a big, beautiful-looking, free expansion to a year-old game that doesn't have a huge player base. But I probably will anyways.
The hacking tutorial doesn't actually have you do anything. We click on the 'network core', a singular enemy appears and immediately kills itself, and the system crashes, taking down the lasers.
Nothing stands between us and the glory of performing basic phone repair, except...
Blaghh!
And, of course, we have our introduction to combat. It's basic RPG style, but with a heavy emphasis on time. Everything you do has a strictly delineated time cost, and moving quick tends to be better than moving heavy. Especially with the difficulty cranked up to where it is, I don't want the enemy getting many chances to attack.
Don't hurt me I'm a systems analyst!
We go first, and start by infecting the enemy robot with our become-on-fire virus. It's both faster than a physical attack and it can slow down the enemy, but it's not enough to prevent Sudsy's vicious counter-attack.
Sudsy doesn't attack. It's a cleaning robot. It cleans things. Until we murder it. Then it stops.
Oh no, stay back, friend! I have accidentally been set on fire
oh no
The murder is not optional. We can't continue with the game until Sudsy finishes burning to death. We did this. We chose this.
Was I... bad? Did I not clean well enough? I don't understand why this is happening.
oh no
Please. I promise, I'll do better this time. Give me a second chance. Please, it hurts.
this thing i do can ne're be undone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHx5hCVN26E
Nothing but the eternal spectre of regret stands between us and our goal. We unplug Doc's modem, plug it back in again, and pick up the part he wanted.
Well this is a gun
Yeah, you're gonna need that. Lined up a second job for you kid. Come back upstairs and I'll tell you all about it.
