Hi,

I bought the game today on Steam. I've seen the WTF from TotalBiscuit, and since I was very intrigued by the concept, I've had high hopes and really wanted to make this game work for me.

So I played the tutorial mission (twice, since it kicked my behind on the first try), I've played half a dozen scenarios, and I've played through and "won" a campaign, so I've seen a bit of the game already, I've logged 4 hours according to Steam.

However, I am now left with the feeling that I've paid a non-trivial 17 Euro for a beta version at best, and that disappoints me greatly.

For once, the game is bugged as all hell, from what I've seen even from the few hours I've been playing. And I'm not even talking about minor detail stuff, I'm talking about game-breaking issues.

I started a campaign battle once, and right away, before I've even picked the initial drop location, I already see a splattered brain on the ground and I immediately get a "FAIL" message, so it was apparently mine somehow. The battle ends right then and there, but going back to the strategic map I still haven't lost the area. Whatever.

In the campaign I "won", I quickly took all available areas, leaving the AI without income. I fortified all my bases. I let the AI design them automatically, because 1) the designer is quite the PITA to use, and 2) the effort wouldn't matter anyway, because whenever the opponent attacked after the first couple of battles, the enemy brain would die within 5 seconds tops, without me doing ANYTHING. I don't even get the chance to look at my base, let alone experience ANY sort of challenge from the AI.

Eventually, the AI ran out of brains on the campaign map, but the game didn't even end. I just took turn after turn with nothing happening at all, no enemy attacks, nothing. Just idly auto-designing my bases which I never get to see. I eventually just quit to the main menu.

OK, maybe this mode just isn't implemented and balanced fully yet. I try another scenario, Brain vs. Brain. It looked promising and exactly how I imagined the game - You get to build a base with limited funds, the opponent does the same, and then the game starts for some nice strategic action - defend your bunker and assault theirs. I set myself as P1 and the AI as P2. So I build my bunker, hit "Done", and then what? WIN! Immediately! And then hitting space bar or Esc to exit doesn't even work, forcing me to Alt-F4 out of the game.

In addition to the bugs (which can be fixed), the main problem I see with the basic design of the game is that you are highly dependent on your automated actors. Taking over a body is fine and increases its performance obviously, but it's only 1 guy and you never get to see the big picture easily. While I am inching my way forward, the opponent could be stomping through my base and I would never know until my brain dies. And since you are always forced into a new body, you can't even act as a sort of great commander who just buys units and sends them on their way, because you just don't have the overview.

As of now, I am fully prepared to write off those 17 Euro and never come back, after a mere 4 hours of playing, and I feel thoroughly cheated to find such a mess on Steam after supposedly 11 years of development.

Brain vs. Brain is currently versus only, there's no AI support for that mode.
Something must be horribly wrong with your installation, since the metagame works just fine for me and I played 2 campaigns earlier today without any problems.
Sometimes the game doesn't register esc and space presses, however pressing another key fixes this.
If you press previous body and next body simultaneously and then let go, you have the body selection ring and you can look around the map with it.
And it's true that the current tutorial is a horrible mess, it doesn't really teach anything. You'll just have to learn by experimentation, that's how we all did.

I reccomend both trying a few mods, and dicking around in scenarios. Yes, there are bugs, and yes it can be... broken at times, but place the normal Brain bunker at the very top of the map on Grasslands, get a Money Cheat item, and just throw your troops against swarms of enemies. It is glorious.

It's a known bug. it will be fixed when data gets around to it.


just like you said, isn't implemented fully yet. campaign took priority I think. do the mode that's survive as long as you can against unlimited waves, that's what we used to do.



Select unit, Set to brainhunt ai, or sentry ai, or go-to-ai. Go to ai is great because you can drag a cursor through a maze and it will navigate the maze. you can also switch which actors you controll, the AI takes over instantly so if you're being shot at and switch, the AI continues to shoot. Try buying more than 1 guy. lastly keep in mind, it's been 1.0 and on steam for what, a few days at best? yeah, there's gonna be bugs. This is the first non-beta release and it's been in development buy ONE guy. Obviously you're looking to be convinced of some redeeming quality of the game. try playing it with someone else in person, and do a campaign that way.

4 campaigns without an issue, I think there may be a problem with your installation.

Could the spontaneous brain explosion be caused by an enemy craft that decided to deploy at the same spot?

It's not my place to tell you that you're playing the game wrong, but at the same time, what you've tested and reported on are the newest pieces of game-mode added to the game. The metagame has only just been completed, and what you said about Brain vs. Brain is something I've not heard about, but will look into. The bugs you're experiencing are (when it comes down to it) typical new release game bugs that you will find in many games that have new content in a release. Data is still (I would assume) working on the metagame, it's been his exclusive addition to the game in recent times thanks to the plethora of developers working on content outside of the engine.

It could well be the case that no matter what I try and tell you, you will always see those €17 as a waste of money, but what you need to try next to alleviate your concerns are as follows:

• Skirmish Defence, and its various guises - this has an extremely popular game-mode for a very long time. It gives you the chance to try out all the content, actually engage in battles, and if you build your base right you can keep track of what goes on as the enemies come at you from one side of the map or the other.
• Play some community made factions/items/missions - although mods referencing some of the older vanilla content may be incompatible with the new version, you can still add any mod you find on these forums to "C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cortex Command" (on a default 64 bit Windows install, the path may vary otherwise), and enjoy a huge amount more content than you thought was there before.
• Try modding this game yourself - it's incredibly easy to pick up. Sure, having it in a deep seated steam folder is awkward, but this game is so much more fun when you've drawn, built and coded your very own scene, game mode, mission or faction!

Actually, this is the greatest part of CC and one of the reasons why people played it for long even before it was complete.
In fact, a great mission modder created his own metagame before it was implemented into the game, which is very fun to play. Link to the mod, though it might not work with the current release.


Also I don't know why you get so many bugs, I played like 3 campaigns completely and didn't get any kind of error. You might want to check your installation or try to repeat the bugs and post detailed feedback on the corresponding sickied post.

Brains dieing for no reason.
Spaceships exploding for no reason.
AI not attacking incoming enemy.
AI stops mining.
Getting stuck on environment.
etc

Overall, I find it very hard to learn a game when I die within 10sec (or less) of starting a new map. Bugs, bugs, bugs. This game isn't worth the money I paid.

Today I gave it yet another go. My brain and his robot sidekick land only to explode.
I try again, an AI comes leaping in at full speed. My robot decides to watch instead of shoot. Dies. AI kills me, even though I filled him full of lead. I guess my Brain's gun was junk? At least I got to shoot this time.

Im going to look at these mods people are talking about. Hopefully there is something to fix this game. As it is right now, its frustrating, annoying and a waist of time.

This is starting to sound like a messed up install. It's tiny, Tell steam to delete local content, and re-download, then verify the files if you can. Also maybe post some hardware specs, just in case it's some kind of horrible hardware issue. if the re-downloaded version still screws up, and it's not a hardware problem, then either you've done something horribly wrong, or it's something we can fix by looking at certain files.

(I would have sworn there was a maximum MO's limit somewhere in base.rte/settings.ini but I appear to have been wrong, closest I can find to that is MaxUnheldItems = 25, but i'm gonna keep looking for a bit... I've still gotta see if there's extra stuff commented out of this build )


-edit
Right after posting I remembered something.

Who here remembers crab-bombs. That caused random exploding brains, remember?

Before leaping into the metagame, I'd suggest playing skirmish for a while, specifically skirmish defence, until you get the hang of everything. Enclose your brain deep underground, and as Torrent said, ♥♥♥♥ around on the surface with some guys.

The mo maximum was due to engine limitations it's still there and you can't change it.

All in all, I couldn't agree less about campaign mode, it's a lot of fun and I love it.

The veterans (pre-Steam owners) may understand this perfectly well, but I'm not a veteran. I am a new player and I bought a game that I cannot get refunded, so I expect a game that I don't want to get refunded. I see the main menu, and "Campaign" is the top item, which naturally makes me assume it is a core feature of the game. Try to understand my perspective. As a software dev myself I perfectly know what writing non-trivial software for paying customers is like, but in this case, having bought it over Steam, I'm a consumer first and while it may sound harsh, as a consumer I don't really care all that much WHY something isn't working. It is usually a bad sign if mods are required to enjoy the game, so being told to install or even develop mods to enjoy the game does not make a happy me.



You would assume? Yeah let's hope he does; I certainly do. According to the Steam blurb, this game has been in development for 11 years, and from what I see here, with a significant community that not only tests and gives feedback, but apparently also develops lots of content, both mods and official. I've bought quite a few indie games on Steam and played a lot more games over my lifetime, both PC and console. So far, in terms of out-of-the-box playability, CC ranks very near the low end.

Ongoing development to add new features or improve existing ones is perfectly fine, especially for a small indie team. However, from a Steam release I expect the core features to be in a working state, meaning I can actually complete campaigns and scenarios, there are no game-breaking bugs, and that at least rudimentary AI support is present and working where selectable (e.g. Brain vs. Brain). Even an in-game warning message/hint for non-finished features would have been better than finding them out the hard way.

As it is, the game is far from 1.0 and should not be on Steam, because Steam is for consumers, not for beta-testers. If I had wanted to test and help develop this game, I would have bought it from the site directly, and I would have known what to expect. With the facts being as they are (my money being gone, and a game I can't enjoy on my disk), I hope Data and whoever else gets part of that money uses this fresh infusion of cash/venture capital to actually fix all these issues. As much as I would like, I can't recommend the game in its current state to anyone.

See you in a year or so.

Most veterans here do not realize how the game looks to newcomers seeing it on Steam. You guys have seen it grow, have tried many mods, etc. But when the main selling point of a game are the mods because the main game is very buggy, it doesn't give a good impression.

People are complaining about the bugs in all the CC threads I see everywhere. Telling them to reinstall or "try some mods" is not gonna change anything to it.

Of those 11 years of development, only one of them has gone into that metagame. You can leave for a year and not even touch CC again, or you can come along here to find out what works well and what perhaps needs further development, and enjoy the amazing sandbox element of the game. Don't make your money a waste by not cashing it in.