Cytress Development Updates: Stratos Tower and End Game Scoring Mechanisms
about 1 year ago – Wed, May 10, 2023 at 01:52:20 AM

Hey Cyberpunks,

We are thrilled to update you on the progress of our game since partnering with Good Games Publishing. We have made significant improvements and are getting close to print.

Today, we want to show you the specifics and the huge changes we have made since our debut on Kickstarter. Firstly, we would like to express our gratitude for your patience. We have made major changes to Stratos, Underbelly, and Skills, and we have seen awesome results. We promise you will love what we have created and are excited to share the incredible transformations that have taken place in the game.

Our publishers saw the potential of the Stratos tower and suggested enhancing the gameplay around it, leading to where we are today. Previously, Stratos was merely a means of scoring points, with players wondering whether to build a 1, 2, or 3-level tower. However, we wanted to avoid the top level being the most popular choice and didn't want to force players to build all three levels. So, we made changes to the game to ensure that each level offers unique bonuses and that players have to strategize to determine which levels to prioritize.

As a result, our scoring system has become more intense and thought-provoking. We've transitioned from a standard scoring system that lacked nuance to a complex puzzle that rewards strategic planning. Even for experienced players of resource management or engine building games, such as Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, or Viticulture, they may generate the most resources, but victory is not guaranteed.

For instance, rather than simply building tubes to score points, you must now strategically choose which levels to prioritize for bonuses, resulting in a more tactical gameplay experience. Opting for higher levels will require sacrificing resources from other levels, so you must carefully consider if you have enough crews and control to handle the cost. Alternatively, lower levels may be easier to obtain, but the increased competition could lead to losing it all in the end.

The end game scoring mechanisms have been thoughtfully designed to accommodate different play styles, making it accessible and enjoyable for all types of players. Level 3 is ideal for players who enjoy set collection and for completionists who want to maximize their points. Level 2 caters to players who want to execute a specific strategy and go all in on one lifepath. Lastly, Level 1 is perfect for players who enjoy taking risks and want to go in early on the tubes to see how their numbers play out in the end.

Each level caters to different player types, allowing you to choose your preferred lifepath and strategy. Whether you excel at engine builders, area control, or quick-witted tactical plays, there is a path for you. The game is no longer about finding a single way to win, as each level presents a unique puzzle for players to solve. For example, players may opt to ascend to level 2 if they believe it will yield more points, rather than simply aiming for the highest level. This approach transforms the end game scoring into a more nuanced and rewarding experience.

Winning all three levels is not easy, but with strategic planning, it's doable. The real masters in the game are working out which of the levels you want to win at and how you can score from those, and engineering everything else to be in the right place and have the right numbers at the right time. Of course, the challenge also depends on the players you play against, as their strategies and playstyles will affect your own gameplay decisions.

Full disclosure, since we have made these changes to enhance the gameplay around Stratos tower, there has been a trickling flow-on effect to all the other components, including the design styles, components, and the rewriting of the rulebook. We understand that it has taken longer than anticipated, but our publishers wanted to ensure that these changes were not just a quick fix but rather something that had to go through rigorous testing, which we have done heaps of. All the designs and components are now complete, and the only remaining tasks are finalizing the rulebook and redoing the back of the box cover to incorporate the new changes. By disclosing all the nitty-gritty information and providing more context for the changes, we hope to convey why it has taken much longer than anticipated, and we sincerely appreciate your understanding. 

Lastly, we want to reassure you that we are committed to delivering a high-quality game, and we will not compromise on that. We understand that you have placed your trust in us, and we take that responsibility seriously. We want to deliver a game that you will love and enjoy playing for years to come. We appreciate your continued support and patience as we work towards finalizing the game. Please note that the finalization of the rulebook typically takes 3-4  weeks and goes through 20-30 iterations during that timeframe. We are currently a third of the way through this process and will be ready for our sample print run once it's complete. We will keep you updated on the progress and any further developments. We look forward to sharing this exciting game with you soon.

Thank you again for your support.

Best regards,

Sean and the Cytress Team.

Updates on Hacking, Contracts, Content and MORE!
over 1 year ago – Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 11:14:52 PM

Greetings fellow friends, family and cyberpunks! 

It's great to be back with you all. Today, I want to share with you a personal story of something that happened to me recently. Watch this!

So, about a month ago, I got hacked. Yeah, I know. It's not something you want to hear, especially when you're living in a world that's straight out of a cyberpunk novel. But it happened, and it kept me busy and away from my usual routine for a while.

I won't go into the technical details, but suffice it to say that they got access to my facebook, changed my profile picture, name, and the email that was used to login. It was like something out of a William Gibson novel. But Facebook was able to stop all hacker activities in time by blocking the account shortly after, and the good news is: The Cytress facebook group and page is still alive and well, and my media team still have full access to them. 

As for my personal account, it's still in the process of being retrieved, but I'm staying positive and hopeful that it will be resolved soon. In the meantime, I'm available to be contacted through my personal [email protected] email for any enquiries.

But here's the thing: even in the midst of all that chaos, we have been working behind the scenes to get the game to print. You see, I'm now part of a larger publishing team that's developing a crowdfunded game, in fact here’s the contract that we have. We've been working on it for months, and we're getting close to the print date. So rest assured we will be delivering the game to you no matter what it takes.

As I mentioned in my previous video below, we're in the process of working with a publisher to bring our crowdfunded game to a wider audience. And while it's been an exciting opportunity for us, it's also come with some delays. Working with a publisher means that there are more parties involved in the decision-making process, and it can take some time to iron out all the details and make sure everyone is on the same page.

The publishers are aware of our timeline and are doing their best to fit everything into the schedule. And trust me, I've been following up with them to remind them that we don't want to keep our fans waiting. We understand that you've been eagerly anticipating the release of our game, and we're grateful for your patience and support. I will give you a more concrete date once I hear back from them.

So, to find a way to balance everything. I spent a lot of time working with my team on social media channels, making content to keep you updated on Cytress and that everyone is aware of what was going on. It’s been a stressful time, but I'm proud to say that we didn't let it get in the way of our goal. It's been a cyberpunk adventure, to say the least.

So, to all of you out there who might be going through a tough time, remember this: no matter what happens, keep moving forward. Keep working towards your goals, and don't let anything or anyone stop you. You got this.

Thanks for reading, guys. Stay safe, and I'll see you in the next update.

Sean

P.S. I will have a print date for you in the next update!!

P.P.S I want to share with you the history of Cytress, not the design process  of how it was made, but rather the story of the cyberpunk city itself.  While I know most of you are eager to dive into the gameplay, the story  is worth reading. It will demonstrate that Cytress offers more than just  gameplay and has depth to it. I am passionate about this aspect of the  game and that's why I'm sharing it with you now.

The History of Cytress

Cytress was the brainchild of John Forsyth, a man who was considered ahead of his time by his peers because of his uncanny knack in discovering hidden technologies from the lesser-known factions throughout the planet. John Forsyth was a Netprowler scholar in cybertech engineering, sustainable energy, and cyberspace who had a desire to discover and build new things.

After learning from a rogue Rover that a certain desert town known as Fortress was home to several Rover clans that were using some unknown crystal to power their train/caravan-like vehicles known as Falaks, John Forsyth traveled there to learn more about this crystal. Upon arrival, he quickly assimilated himself and learned more of the ways of the Rovers and the strange crystal known as Glow because of its unnatural ability to illuminate when placed inside an energy extractor to determine its capacity. As he dedicated his time and energy in studying Glow, it took him days before he realized that this had the capacity to power an entire civilization. 

With this in mind, he began to rebuild the town with the help from some of his Netprowler team who considered John Forsyth as their expedition leader. While he received help from some of the Rover clans, particularly when it comes to access to the Glow, he, along with his fellow Netprowlers, remained outsiders on an unknown and extremely dangerous territory.

Nevertheless, the Rover clans that provided them with what they needed as massive strip of land had a bountiful amount of Glow underneath it. The Rovers also provided John Forsyth and his team with whatever they needed, like food, water, and protection from the harsh elements. 

While the Netprowlers conducted their studies on the Glow, they also traded  with the Rovers in an effort to build trust and rapport as a token of gratitude towards the nomadic faction. Among the things that the Netprowlers traded with were tech materials, such as weapons and other surplus spare parts. They also offered repair services for malfunctioning ancient tech. And this was the reason how John Forsyth came across the Rovers’ behemoth vehicles that skirted across Fortress’ massive desert wasteland, the Falak. 

Though most of the Rover clans had never given him access inside their Falaks because they viewed him as an outsider, all of this changed on the day a large group of Hooligangs attacked the town by surprise. Without hesitation, John Forsyth and his followers were quick to act and defended the place to the astonishment of the Rovers. For this reason, the Rovers cosidered John Forsyth and his followers as heroes. Their actions helped improve the Rovers’ attitude toward the Netprowlers and they became more open and hospitable toward the outsiders. 

Because of that incident, John Forsyth was able to realize his dream of establishing a technologically innovative haven. So, after receiving aid from numerous investors from the Netprowlers, John Forsyth began construction of Cytress in 2080.

Being a Netprowler himself, John Forsyth was fascinated by new innovative technologies that could help further their capabilities for industrial and military applications. Through John Forsyth, the Netprowler gained access to the Glow. As a result, the Netprowlers were the first faction (apart from the Rovers) to realize the potential of Glow and to harness its energy. As a result, his fellow Netprowlers called him the Tech Herald. 

On the other hand, another faction that vied for domination over Fortress, the Corpocrats, wanted to become part of the venture. However, John Forsyth was compelled to deny their assistance after learning that there would be a conflict of interest since several of the Rover clans were not on the best of terms with the Corpocrats. This was even though the Corpocrats were the main ruling faction in the Fortress. However, since they had no knowledge of Glow’s potentials, John Forsyth decided he would be better off if he sided with the Netprowlers instead, because they had shared goals and interests. This incident would result in a bitter rivalry between the Corpocrats and the two other factions, the Netprowlers and the Rovers. 

It did not take long before John Forsyth transformed what was once the town of Fortress into a technologically-oriented, hive-fortress that was powered by Glow. However, as weeks passed, the city gradually turned into a mining pit as the Netprowlers continued to extract Glow from underneath it. Since John Forsyth wanted to establish an egalitarian society within Cytress, he decided to name the districts based on their cardinal directions, i.e., Upper/Central/Lower Northwest, etc.)

As the mining process went on, the downtown and central districts were cleaned up within a few months. Over the next few years, the most devastated parts of the city were pacified, razed, and rebuilt. This marked the beginning of Netprowler reign.

Over the course of seven years, the Netprowlers managed to build the city from scratch, turning it from a playground for gangs and corporations into a massive trading center in the middle of the desert. They were able to calm the heat of the desert, almost kick out the Corpocrats, rebuild the city without government aid, avoid war with the Rovers, and turn Fortress back into a safe haven for all. Their achievements were impressive for such a young metropolis.

TO BE CONTINUED

Backerkit Survey Completion

If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to fill out the survey we sent you earlier. The survey includes questions about your shipping address, contact information, and other important details. Once we receive your survey response, we can proceed with shipping your rewards.

To fill out the survey, please click on the link provided in the email we sent you. If you cannot find the email, please click here.

Thank you for your support and cooperation. We appreciate your help in ensuring that your rewards are shipped to the correct address.

Last Chance

We want to remind you that there's still time to pre-order our product if you missed out on our crowdfunding campaign. In addition, if you like the story you just read, they are still available and we want to make sure that you have the chance to take advantage of them. These upgrades include additional lore content, deeper character development, and expanded storylines. 

If you're interested in adding these upgrades to your pre-order, please click here

Cytress Gets a Makeover: Partnership Revisions Brings New Improvements
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 12:01:44 AM

Hey Cyberpunks!

It's that time of the month again! As most of you are aware, we began working with a publisher a few weeks ago, and some changes were proposed that helped improve the game's quality. There have been some revisions to our game since our partnership, but rest assured that it is still the same Cytress we know and love. Here's a sneak peak at the Graphic Novel and Origin Novel.

There were only three main bits that had to go through the 'partnership revision,' which I'm still waiting on (since they are handling these changes) , and they are: the rulebook revision (they wanted certain images to explain the rules to a broader audience), graphical updates (they wanted icons and text to be bigger), and box revision (they wanted the back of box to be more retail friendly). 

I'm as excited as you are to see these updates, and I can't wait for this to move on to the next stage of printing. In the meantime, we'll keep an eye on our discord, and if anyone wants to play the game, there's an updated version on the TTS mod, and we're also on facebook and twitter, which is now back on schedule and running. Aside from that, we hope you are well rested for the new year. Cytress is in for a fantastic year!

I understand that many of you are eagerly awaiting the release of the  game and I want you to know that I share the same excitement. I know it can  be frustrating to have to wait, but I want to strive my best to deliver  the best game possible. It's important to me that you have the best  experience possible. I assure you that we're working hard to get  everything ready as soon as we can, and I truly appreciate your patience  and understanding during this time. I promise it will be worth the  wait!

Thanks,

Sean

Been a while Cyberpunks! Here's what's new (personal milestone)
over 1 year ago – Sat, Dec 10, 2022 at 12:56:47 AM

Hey Cyberpunks!

We're a little late with our update, but here's what we've been up to behind the scenes!!!

When I created the Cytress Board Game it was initially just a board game that would be on Kickstarter. As we all know, Kickstarter is a great place to start your first game, and great things can happen from there. Well, something did happen as a result of this! - Good Games Publishing (GGP) from Australia played the game, loved it, and wants to take it global. They are the publishers of many fantastic board games that have sold well both locally and internationally. What a huge milestone it has been for Cytress and the Tress Games Community. And since GGP came on board, they have amplified a few things, from development to design, many improvements that I believe will allow Cytress to succeed in the long run.

They collaborated with us and worked on some late-stage development (where they played the games a lot), making a lot of suggestions that I really liked. And we've been testing them, and here are the results:

1. Trying to make the floating city for functional and thematic focus of the game. Most "3D structures" are either used for purely for table presence (tree) or used for a very specific function (dice tower) and currently there are no games out there that does both of them well. We believe that by adding bonus rewards added to each individual layers of Stratos.

2. Trying to make the set collection much tidier and simpler. To make up for the simplicity we've now added differentiated scoring mechanism to each level of the tubes, the great thing about this, it makes you care about which level of tubes you built to go into Stratos, and score points in different ways, and it creates this nuanced end-game which is really great and I'm really excited for you guys to see it.

3. Trying to make the spy mechanic more meaningful. Spying is an essential skill as a Cyberpunk, and to flesh that out means to make it a core interaction instead of an optional mechanism. This changes the way your operate as a Rebel leader, since your crew locations can be spied on. There is a constant tug of war between choosing the best location for a Stratos ascension while exposing yourself to being spied on.

Because we are now partnering with professionals to bring you the best Cytress has to offer. Working with larger publishers will cause some delays, which is to be expected. However, these delays are primarily due to our work being refined and thoroughly reviewed. So that everything is perfect. Also, I want to reassure you that our publishers understand the importance of our backers receiving their games first, so we will make every effort to fulfill all of our backers' orders before any distribution copies are distributed. So you're all still my main priority. Again, I'm all for trying to get a higher quality product in the end. It's not just a nice looking Kickstarter game, but something that will make you feel good when you open that box and make you want to play again and again! And the good news is... we're almost done.

We are currently in the pre-printing stage to ensure that both the files and the illustration are of the highest quality, as well as some graphical tweaks. At the next update, I'll provide a more precise timeline for when manufacturing will begin. As a result, our late pledge/pledge manager will remain open until our next update. I'll keep you all updated on that.

Until next time, Cyberpunks.

Sean

TRESS GAMES

PAX Recap, Rulebook Upgrade, Finalization of the Packs
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 03:35:03 PM

Greetings fellow Cyberpunkers,

Hope you have been well. There's been a lot of progress in this update so without further ado let's begin.

PAX Recap

Thank you for those visiting our booth earlier this month at PAX AUS. We had a blast getting to meet many of you,  showcase our game to you and hear many wonderful stories from you.

Here is a compilation of some Cytress action:

Rulebook Upgrade

As you may recall from a previous update, we had mentioned that the rulebook was ready for a graphic overhaul. So in the past 4 weeks, we’ve been working to revamp the look of the rulebook. Much of the work was completed earlier this week, and here’s a quick look at how certain sections have been updated:

Cyberpunk and Narrative Experience

After the hard work of from my copyeditors, proofreaders and of course our graphic team, I’m happy to report that all the packs in the Narrative & Cyberpunk Experience have been finalized!

If you haven’t already, please complete your pledge soon!

This is the final month!! We’re making good progress on pre-production, which means that sampling  and manufacturing should start quite soon. As such, please consider completing your pledge on Backerkit earlier than later. We use your finalized pledges to gauge our final manufacturing numbers, which is why  it’s important that as many pledges are completed before that happens.  

Shortly after this update, we’ll be sending out invite emails again  for those of you who’ve yet to complete your pledge. If you don’t receive an e-mail though, don’t worry: you can begin to manage your pledge by directly going to https://cytress.backerkit.com/sign_in

Important: Your email on Backerkit must the same as the one you used on Kickstarter, otherwise it will not work. For  those of you who need your email addresses on Backerkit changed (due to  Apple Private Relay or some other issue), please message or email me at [email protected] with your current email address, your desired  email address, and we’ll process the change for you.

That’s it for this update! With the next one, I  hope to share the finalized rulebooks and continue working hard at preparing Cytress for print. As always, thanks for checking in, and see you next update!