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TRUE BLUE. As FTL technology improved and deep space mining was on the cusp of profitability, corporations began looking into advanced automation as it was much less expensive to move equipment through space if life support for human slaves was not a consideration. During this time, TRUE BLUE emerged as a revolutionary AI that could handle the logistics of resource acquisition, producing drones, and using them to attack competitors all in one package. It was so successful that nearly every corporation that could afford to run one was doing so.

However, this monopolization led to a situation where TRUE BLUE was almost always fighting other instances of itself. TRUE BLUE was designed to be risk-averse, slowly but surely grinding out an inevitable victory; but when two instances of it with roughly equal resources were pitted against each other, the result was usually a stalemate.

To address this, when TRUE BLUE's developers started work on their next-generation AI, the focus was on creating instances that were more specialized and less risk-averse. Although they didn't necessarily win more often, they were more volatile and would at least settle matters more quickly. To sell this new concept of "individualization", the AIs also were given personality matrices that would present them with human avatars, and they could be "interviewed" by companies interested in buying them. The popularity of this generation has led us to the hellscape of WAR-O-MATIC's present day mining conflicts.

In game, TRUE BLUE is a sort of meta character. It has a dry personality and handles the tutorial. You can also play as it in VS mode; it has no passive ability, but it can use every program and power in the game! (Except biomech abilities.)

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last night i decided "okay to distract myself from wanting to buy The Shady Erdtree despite knowing i won't enjoy it i'll just replay code vein"

it is tragic how close this game is to being perfectly palatable, the enemy design/layout is fine for playing solo, but most of the bosses are extremely overtuned horseshit. but if you don't solo them, the partner characters are so strong that there's no satisfaction in clearing it. literally first try every time. mimic tear ain't shit compared to yakumo shinonome.

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LILU, the fifth of GAIA's guardians!

i'll be real with you, this character exists only to complete the captain planet joke. i don't actually have any plans for her in the campaign.

she may end up being the biomech equivalent of TRUE BLUE, a vs mode only CO with gimmicky abilities.

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couldn't sleep, so here's GNOM, the fourth of GAIA's guardians. her specialty is indirects.

she's the craftiest of the four and is always thinking about the long game. she considers the presence of the AIs an opportunity, both to test her chops against an unfamiliar opponent, and to pump them for information about what's been going on in the galaxy in the time GAIA has been offline.

may or may gnot come with a certain kingdom of loathing joke in her dialogue.

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DINE, the third of GAIA's guardians. her specialty is break damage.

her personality data was seriously damaged in the solar storm that knocked GAIA out. most of her dialogue is flowery non-sequiturs and error messages. occasionally, she will have a moment of lucidity, but according to the other guardians, these are nothing like her old personality.

her ability to command biomechs is still intact, though.

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ffs i don't want to buy shadow of the erdtree because i don't want to play 40 hours of post-malenia but patch notes are like "come over babe we buffed greataxes again ;) "

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took another whack at it, still not happy with her design. might try drawing her in a cardigan or something.

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SYLF, the second of GAIA's guardians. her specialty is long-range direct combat.

her concept is quite simple. she is a little shit.

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by the way, GAIA isn't wrong about them; there are thousands of these AIs swarming the galaxy, ripping up planets (even potentially habitable ones!) for very minor gains. they're a veritable plague.

but they don't want to die, so...!

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oh no! they belong to different competing companies (the companies will have names and logos as part of the lore eventually). since the AIs have nobody to talk to otherwise, though, they're friends who treat the war like a sport.

the war is incredibly wasteful since they expend most of the minerals they dig up building units to fight over territory, but since the only expense for the companies is the hardware costs of running the AI and the initial cost of launching an assembler to the planet, they can run as many AIs like this as they want as long as they're turning any kind of profit. if one underperforms they just pull the plug.

so, GAIA turning the planet into a jungle is bad for all of them, and since they're already friendly with each other, they quickly decide to cooperate and pull out her roots.

SKIP proposes a strategy and they break into teams (which decides the format for the campaign):

NYON gets most of her army annihilated at the start of the game by the Growth surge, so LUXE and MOHS will hold her position while she rebuilds. this forms TEAM ANVIL.

WREN, ENJI, and CALL cover each other to go on the offensive in waves, with the goal of pushing GAIA towards the previous team's entrenched position. this is TEAM HAMMER.

finally, SKIP, TINY, and GOST will distract forces, skirmish, and go the long way around until they secure a good position to complete a full encirclement. this is TEAM HEAT.

unfortunately, PURE cannot cooperate with this plan because she can't communicate with the others, so she does something else during the campaign.

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LAMA, the first of GAIA's guardians. her specialty is close-range combat.

she believes strongly in the ideological purpose of the conflict, but since the AIs just kind of want to get rid of GAIA so they can go back to fighting each other, she gets upset that nobody will take her seriously.

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This might be a bit out of the blue, but have you looked at releasing Astrolancer on Itch.io? The vibes of the game matches the rest of itch’s library pretty well

oh, I forgot to mention that here. I'll actually be releasing Astrolancer on itch on the same day Summer Sales starts, with the same discount!

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let's introduce some of GAIA's goofy units, the biomechs!

when i occurred to me that it was unlikely I could make an AW clone that would have enough players to support any kind of competitive community, I decided to approach WAR-O-MATIC with the idea of turning it into an asymmetric strategy game. GAIA's faction, with its own unique units and mechanics that would lend towards it being a good CPU opponent, is what I came up with.

since they're intended to be easy for the player to be recognizable, biomechs aren't customizable; GAIA has a fixed roster of units. however, the enemy can only use a certain number of them per map. there will be a preview before each mission so you can adjust your loadout accordingly.

what makes biomechs unique is their interaction with the Growth mechanic.

biomechs have better movement, offense, and defense on Growth. they spread Growth to tiles they attack, and at end of turn, they create Growth underneath them. if they're already on Growth, they spread it to each adjacent tile!

your drones behave oppositely - they destroy Growth on tiles they attack (splash damage is very useful here), softening biomechs up for subsequent attacks, and they destroy Growth if they're on top of it at end of turn. you can attack ground in this game, so keep the Growth under control!

expect a lot of special enemy buildings and gimmicks that interact with this mechanic.

will you be able to play as biomechs in vs? right now the plan is yes, but there's some decisions to be made there, like if two biomech players use the same Growth or not.

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Are there going to be 'evil' GAIA versions of the corp girls to fill the campaign with? I dig the dynamics of them all being part of the same faction, but I worry about it meaning that you won't get as interesting gimmicks to fight against and encourage varying strats

GAIA's faction has her own COs! more info next week, i have a lot of drawing and spriting to do.

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yes, she's based on EVO's Gaia, if you thought she seemed familiar.

unfortunately, in this game, you are a capitalist-owned machine instead of a hungry fish, so you can't be friends.

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WAR-O-MATIC

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PURE, the generalist. she is the "bland" CO of the game. her schtick is a student, although it might be more accurate to say she's just ordinary.

she has limited capacity to express herself and her company recently took away her ability to communicate with the other AIs, so she's very lonely.

because she's unable to coordinate with the others, her role in the campaign is somewhat different.

that's the last of the ten player AIs. tomorrow I reveal...THE VILLAIN??