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Hello all!

I want to introduce everyone to Valkyrie Skies, an immersive story-driven 2D retro space fighter game.

I began this project Fall 2014 and took a short hiatus for work and am looking at getting this going again. In the meantime, I wanted to create a WIP thread to help keep myself honest.

You've probably already said to yourself, "Ugh, not another retro space game..." So what makes this game different? The deep story and personal interaction among the characters. Rarely do you see such a basic game with a story that reads more like a novelette.

I've always enjoyed meeting and getting to know the characters of the game. Most of us can think back through numerous games and partially identify with particular characters. I want others to have that same experience with Valkyrie Skies. This game isn't true to any specific genre as it mixes pixel art with rich and deep visuals, retro sounds with a high-tech musical score, and simple gameplay with a developed story.

Without further adieu, please meet Valkyrie Skies!



Inspiration:

All of you! Seeing other indie devs out there inspired me to try. I'm dedicated to learning something new and sharing a fun gaming experience with fellow gamers and developers. As I've gotten older, I've found myself with less time for RPGs and end up playing more Angry Birds. This is my attempt at developing a game for us old farts who want an immersive story, but only have minutes to play at any given time.

Thanks for being such an awesome dev community! I welcome feedback and sage advice.

Story:

Year 2093, Earth is dominated by four superpowers. All smaller nations align and subjugate themselves along ideological and geographic lines to the differing superpower nations of Liberterra, a highly commercialized democratic republic controlling North and Central America, Solya, a theocratic dictatorship in Africa, intent on forcing all other nations to bend to the will of religious zealots, Eurasian Hegemony, a recluse and secretive nation of Eastern Europe and Asia, and Alanzia de Rencor, in the aftermath of the complete desolation of South America during the Second Mineral War, the remnants of South American socialist governments were forced to flew South America and align themselves with the failing governments of Western Europe.

For 13 years, the Third Mineral War has raged across the planet and the furthest reaches of solar system, leaving Earth and most of the solar system barren and uninhabitable to mankind.
Relegated to space stations and highly industrialized cities on Earth, these superpowers compete in searching for and controlling the next source of life’s most precious substance…

…water.

The race for water has extended beyond the borders of Earth’s solar system into neighboring solar systems and star clusters, often resulting in bloody intergalactic conflicts and violent corporate proxy wars.

Follow Lieutenant Cyllis Dearden as he arrives at his first operational combat unit, the 27th Composite Combat Squadron in the far reaches of the Kokaubeam Sector. Experience with Lt. Dearden as he receives his first taste of combat, engages with his philosophically and battle-hardened commander, and get wrapped up in his sometimes tumultuous interactions with his intelligence officer, Ensign Kiera Blake.

Gameplay:

This is a 2D/top-down vertical scrolling space fighter game. Gameplay should be intuitive to the most basic of gamer with virtual pick up and play appeal. Levels last no more than a few minutes each.



Progress through 30 levels of action, flying a total of six unique spaceships against waves of enemies while dodging space debris.

Progress So Far:

95% of all sprites complete/sprite sheets built (ships, buttons, backgrounds, explosions, some weapons effects)
100% sounds
100% musical score
100% (~60 pages) of story and dialogue
On-going - Marketing (dedicated Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ValkyrieSkiesGame, Twitter https://twitter.com/Valkyrie_Skies, Photobucket http://s1296.photobucket.com/user/DabritsEntertainment/library/?sort=3&page=1), as progress is made, I plan on ramping up the social media and marketing push. But the game is in such nascent phases it's not worth too much marketing right now.

Progress Needed:

Coding! My original plan was to use AppGameKit v1 since that's the only platform I have experience with. I have virtually no coding experience. I have AppGameKit v2, but I think enough has changed with v2 that I would prefer to stay with v1; however, I could be convinced otherwise.
Testing - will need testers at that phase
Publication

Revenue:

The current plan is to release an ads-supported version and a paid ads-free version on Apple App Store, Google Play, and potentially Amazon (there are a few other venues I'm looking at, but that is farther down the road).

I've considered an IAP setup allowing the gamer to purchase the ability to fly all of the enemy ships during normal gameplay.

Team:

The biggest hurdle to getting this app published lies within the coding/programming realm. While I am excited with what I've learned so far, I'm still very far away from publishing a viable and stable game.

If you're interested in helping me, please reach out. I am willing to negotiate for help in terms of contracted work for cash, publishing rights/royalties, or helping out of the goodness of your heart.

I really want to make this game a reality, more for the personal sense of pride in accomplishing the feat than the prospect of making money.


Thanks in advance for any and all help thrown my way! Now here are a few more visuals for you all to enjoy.

[img][/img]

[img][/img]

Dan
Dabrits Entertainment

*Updates* will go here.

Looks interesting man, good luck with it.

The characters look great, are they painted or 3d render?

Looks good so far. The artwork on the menu screens look fantastic. I attempted to build a 2D space flight game in the past; this brings back good memories of designing my spacecraft, and bad memories of trying to build the game with an online team.

I know this is the general WIP forum, but the AppGameKit forum has its own WIP section; might be worth getting it on there so that more AppGameKit users can offer advice and feedback; otherwise good luck with the project, and keep sticking to it; it is the only way it will get done.

Thanks! The characters are painted. I commissioned a few artists to build me original characters, logos/icons, background, and other misc sprites.



Thanks. I had great artists working on this project. All very talented with reasonable commissioned rates. Is your comment a subtle way of wanting to join the Valkyrie Skies team

But seriously, it's not too late for your game. I know the genre is quite bloated, but it is a fun genre that has yet to be exhausted after nearly 30 years of games. So bloat or not, it's still a viable option, especially for programming noobs like myself.



Pardon the noobiness, but I was actually a little unsure of where I should post my WIP. I'd love for it to get AGK-specific feedback, but didn't want to get crushed for not posting it in the right place (especially since all of my posts are still on probationary status and have to be mod approved).

Thanks again for the feedback!

Recently made some progress in coding, but nothing worth writing about; however, I figured I don't need much excuse to post screen shots.

This is one of 12 randomly selected loading screens. I figure just because the game is loading is no reason not to elucidate the user.

[img][/img]