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A simple 2D space trader with pseudo orbital physics.

So this is my current project, I've been working on it since August 2015 and I'm hoping to release it by the end of 2017. Technically it's already released on itch.io and gamejolt.com but I'll be pushing out regular updates and adding features until the end of the year.

Download it from itch.io here
or
Download it from GameJolt here

Here's the trailer:


Here's the current work-in-progress


I'm maintaining a blog on itch.io here and my aim is to update this thread with random updates, probably every other release.

The game is set in a solar system ~600 years after interplanetary space travel was achieved. Humans have established colonies throughout the system, but there is political unrest within the colonies towards the controlling homeworld. The actions you take, the jobs you complete and the alliances you forge throughout the game will mould the political landscape of the solar system.

You start by designing your spacecraft. Since artificial gravity does not exist, all spacecraft are ring-like space-stations (like in Interstellar) and you create your own by selecting specialist parts (power, shield, residential, farming, science, industry, etc.). As you progress through the game you upgrade your space-station by either researching upgrades or salvaging them from inactive stations and probes.

Each play-through is randomised, although you can enter a seed at the start of the game to re-create the same world-space more than once.

All feedback is appreciated.

So a month has passed, what happened. Well quite a bit. I could waffle of, but I do that in the blog so i'll just summarise the main points:

Re-organised the U.I. to be less cluttered.
Changed the player's trail and orbit path from dots to lines
Implmented the A.I. mechanics for bot friendly an enemy probes and rings.
Changed the star field to an image my friend took of the Andromeda galaxy.
Added direction pointers around the scanner range that lead to encounters so that you can hunt out things to shoot down, rather than wait for random encounters.
Added a bunch of modifiers that are randomly unlocked at each research level- I've also changed the look to make them more smiple and easy to understand.
Addedparticle effects whn firing the thrusters and when hit by weapons.

This looks super cool! Tonnes of atmosphere already. Really looking forward to seeing this develop.

Cheers David!

Looking very nice
The only thing I can't picture is somebody stood in a fuel station, filling up their spacecraft. Maybe the fuel icon would be better as a "fuel pod" icon?

Cheers for the feedback BV, I see what you mean, it's not very Sci Fi, but it is really just meant as an icon you can understand quickly. A bit like save icons, no one uses floppies anymore, but the icon still works.

I'll have a think about changing it, but it'll be difficult to draw up something as clear as a fuel pump.

I only mentioned it because it distracted me. I couldn't find an example of what I was looking for, so I drew one quickly. I have seen idea this used before, I just don't remember where...

So a month has passed, what happened. Well quite a bit. I could waffle of, but I do that in the blog so i'll just summarise the main points:

Added a missions mechanic so the player can take on jobs to earn extra cash - jobs are affiliated to groups so the more jobs you do for one group the better the rewards will get.
Coded up the 5 weapon types (Lasers, Particles, Plasmas, Mass and Missiles)
Added pool of 30 faces taken cheekily asking for people at work to pose for the game wearing daft hats and sun-glasses.
Added 3 design slots to save Ring designs so that they can be used for multiple play-throughs.
Added the "news" system - every 48 hrs a news story will start they player has 24 hrs to influence how the story is concluded resulting a permanent positive and negative outcome for the game world.

Here's a video of the current build in action:

Really sorry about the voice level at the start of this.

Excellent work Chris . I don't get a lot of time to check out games, but loving the look of this one.

Cheers Dave!

Unlocked at authors request

Most screenshots have turned into photobucket spam.

Here's update #6.

This update is a little bigger than the last one as I managed to spend more time on it than last week. This update brings the following:
added group creation, loading and saving.
This bit is anothet little preparation work for the groups that will offer work and control planets.
added new crew personality.
This is an expansion from the feature added in the previous version, this time I delived into hilarious world of gangster.
added check button to switch off tutorial text
Not the biggest feature in the world but needed to clear away the pink text if you get sick of it.
added planetary dilemas.
This is the probably one of the last major features to be added. This is the feature that will drive the story element of the game. The idea is that these big decision points will push you through a set of selected planets. You don't have to take on the quests, but if you don't you won't be able to influence how the story pans out. Right now, these not much in the way of plot, I just wanted to get the base feature in so that the next version can expand it.
changed scanner image.
This was to give the scanner a bit more life as the moving circle didn't quite cut it.
removed new transmision messages from start of game.
This was just a little tidy up as the messages annoyed me.
animated the unknown symbol
Like the scanner image, this just gave the sprite a bit more life.

I also fixed a few bugs:
fixed bug with mouse pointer being offset from the tip.
fixed bug with the parts' hit box being offset by 50% in the height.
corrected crew speech when referencing probe or ring names.

​Here's Update#7 here bringing the usual fixes and expansions. Importantly this is my GDWC2017 entry version so from this point on i'm scaling back the updates to monthly updates, rather than weekly. This will make the updates more significant and hopefully more beneficial.

In this update we have:

added another crew personality, Added a bit of campness to this one.
- This is starting to make the crew chatter more interesting now as it's not just the same old phrases spouted by everyone. I also expanded the existing crew speech to include a few more random banter.
made planet and crew quest triggers mutually exclusive.
- This is meant to stop the crew from talking over the main plot quest points.
added generic ring quest.
- Essentially ring quests are the same as probe quests, but involve more difficult enemies.
changed colour of thrust marker.
- Nothing special, just make the thrust marker nicer to look at.
fixed planetary plots not working
- As it says, the main plot functions were riddled with bugs preventing the plot quest from being added to your docket. This is now fixed.
adjusted time acceleration to move in multiples of 2.0 and 2.5.
- As i've been testing the previous versions I got annoyed at the jump from x2 to x10 so I've added x5 into the sequence.
added base of planetary specials.
- So when main plot quests are completed they apply a special ability to the planet concerned. The first of these specials as been added to this version.
added a linux 64 version
- What it says, a linux 64 version of the game as been added. In the future i also plan to support Android, but not until later in the year.
added crew summaries for quests
- After quests are taken, if you hover over the quest direction marker or quest counter, the crew will provide a summary of the current quests so you know where you're going.

It felt odd moving away from the weekly updates, but looking at this version moving to monthly updates was 100% the best decision as the weekly updates put a lot of pressure on completing any new features within a much shorter time period whereas this time I could take my time to implement something, test it and adjust it to make it the best it can be.

I'm slightly gutted that I couldn't get this version out for the GDWC2017 as this version is significantly better than the one I submitted. Nevermind. Anyway here's a vid of the thing in action:



Anyway here's what's been added this time:

Added bloom effect
I'm a big fan of shaders and I'd been wanting to add some shader effects for a few versions, but I couldn't justify implementing them when there was so much left to do with the mechanics of the game. Anyway, I've now added a full screen bloom effect which makes everything look a bit nicer. there are some other shader effects in the planning, but I'm saving them for later versions.



Chaged thrust line into a sprite.
As a result of implementing the full screen shader, the line drawing function I was using to show the direction of thrust no longer worked. So I've changed from using a line to using a sprite.



Fixed orbital movement of all elements.
So I haven't been happy with the orbital mechanics for a few versions, but I wasn't quite sure how to fix it. So for this version I spent a long time re-checking the equations and adjusting some of the constants. The mechanics are now a lot more robust and generally feel like proper orbits.

Added escape pods to collect
Having watched a few Elite Dangerous videos I really liked the idea of being able to find escape pods drifting around the system. Plus having played through the game I felt only getting crew when you visited a planet was a little clunky. So I've added escape pods to the random encounters which you can collect which have a random chance of gaining new crew.

Two new parts
- deconstructor.
The deconstructor gives you the ability to scrap unwanted parts for additional resources.
- escape pods
So since there are escape podsyou can collect in-game I figured you should have the option of having your own escape pod. The escape pod gives you the ability to abandon ship before it is destroyed and it adds your current cash and science to your next play-through.

Animated three parts.
So to give the parts a bit of life I've animated three more of the existing parts.

Changed how part animation's are handled
Previously the part animation were simply looped, but i felt this make some of the parts look like they're glitching. So I've changed the animation to not loop and instead the part animations are randomly triggered to run once. I'm still not 100% happy with this either as some parts actually work better with looped animations so I've be tweaking this again in the next version.

Added a welcome/thank you message when a crew member joins you.
Since we have the ability to rescue crew now I felt they should react to being rescued and thank you for doing so.

Added way to fire crew from the roster.
Since the game now enables you to collect crew at a faster rate now there needed to be a mechanism to release crew if you no longer want them. This is nothing ground breaking, I've just added an "X" button to the crew list which you can press to release them.

Increased oygen depletion rate
One thing I noticed after a few play-throughs was that I was never running out of oxygen. One of the core experiences I wanted the game to provide was that sense of being worried that your oxygen might run out. With it never running out it was basically a pointless resource. So to make this resource more valueable and to try and restore my original core experience I've increased the rate at which your ship depletes oxygen.

Added keyboard navigation for main menu.
Because I'm quite lazy I added the ability to switch through the menu using keys rather than the mouse.

Changed how part upgrades work.
Originally upgrates were implemented by adding scripts to parts and running these scripts when the parts are used. While this worked, it was a little slow and made it difficult to immediately see what the effect on the part was. So the script method has been removed and replaced by simply duplicating the part and modifying the parameters directly. This way is faster and also immediately gives you feedback on what has been updated.

Added part import/export for continuous play-throughs
As a result of changing how the upgrades work I needed to add an export/import function to retain the parts created by the new system.

So not my usual update today as I won't be releasing update #9 until the end of this month.

This post is just to say thanks to TGC for supporting the GDWC2017 and I was chuffed that this little game made it to 3rd in the list!

I also wanted to show how I'm changing the primary orbit mechanic by changing from the clunky thrusting to adjust the orbit. now you just drag the apofocus or perifocus to get the orbit you want. This is what it looks like:

Sweet!


Those are really cool features.

Recycling the resources just makes sense, and get the right mind set for futuristic players.

Escaping to save your cash etc for the next play through is great too, especially if earning or building that escape pod is costly and strategic, not just something given to them.



Congratulations on that!

CE, your game sounds great! I'm a sucker for elaborate space games and yours sounds right up my street. I've you ever need a tester drop me a mail as I'd love to help out.

I totally know what you mean about being overwhelmed with ideas for content. If I think about everything I'd like to put into this game I'd go crazy. I find the way that works for me is to build a new feature into an update, then adjust it over the next update or two to get it right. Sometimes I even take features out if they don't add to the experience.

At one point this game had a surface lander mechanic where you could drop down to the surface and setup a base. But it just distracted from the core experience too much. I'll probably build it up to be a stand alone game in the future, but it just didn't work as part of this.

In terms of content I try and add little bits all the time so that at the end of the update cycle I have accumulated quite a bit of stuff. If I just tried to push out content in one focused attempt I think the quality would suffer.