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(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekToucharcade.jpg)

Tiny Trek

Hello Tigsourcers,

I finally feel like Tiny Trek is at a point where I can share it, So I am going to attempt to keep a Devlog here. Tiny Trek for me has been a labor of love for over a year but in all honesty started in the mid 80's when I finally saved up enough shillings to buy my first game, Starflight. Coolest thing I bought from Radioshack. It came on two floppies and had some crude code wheel for DRM. But it was AMAZING. travel to 100's of worlds, talk to alien races. trade, combat etc. It stuck with me all that time and I was always thought about one day trying my hand at it.

    A year ago I was in a holding pattern with three game titles I was working on waiting for art. So I decided to experiment with procedural generation. And during the experimentation something snapped in place and lead me down the road of what is now Tiny Trek.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen3.jpg)


About the Game

   The idea behind Tiny Trek is to provide players a never ending persistent universe for player to explore. During gameplay randomly generated episodes are created for players to go through. These bit sized 5-8 minute missions can be thought of the hour long weekly Sci-fi TV shows most of us have enjoyed in the past. Your actions during these missions and regular exploration effect the races you encounter and that will effect future encounters. 

   For instance, you may locate a plasma trail during interstellar travel. The bridge crew would then ask you if you would like to investigate. If you choose yes, then the game may take you to a ship in distress in an asteroid field, or one that is under attack or has crashed on a planet. From there, your choices affect the rest of the episode. Attacking the damaged vessel will mark you an enemy of that race whereas tractoring them out makes them a friend.

   The game is finally at a point where I want to share it with the Internets and I have started a Kickstarter for it as well. If you guys don't mind and are interested I would like to post updates during the remainder of the development period. I plan on the game being complete by end of May 2014. I look forward to any and all comments you guys can share with me, This project as mentioned is truly a labor of love and I want to make it the best I can, and I have valued the opinions here in the past. Thanks for reading.

IndieDB Link: http://www.indiedb.com/games/tiny-trek (http://www.indiedb.com/games/tiny-trek)
Kickstarter Page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen1.jpg)

Features

-Galaxy is big: And when I say big I mean really big like a never ending Galaxy with stars, planets, nebula and other space phenomenon.

-Do you have that ship in a different color? Yes we can do that with our procedural generation algorithms.  Everything from the planets and stars to ships and races is created on the fly. And then to take it step further we provide you tools to edit your Ship and your race.

- Lets fire blue particle cannons full... Engage in battles of one on up to three enemy vessels. Cool thing is with the Mission Matrix, a ship might jump out of battle and you may get the option to chase them, once you catch up you may finish them off or two of his friends might be waiting for you.

-You think they have apples on an alien planet? I don't know if apples will be there, but the idea is that you can explore endless alien worlds and conduct various away missions. Planets will contain unique items that your science officer can scan, and your engineer can collect to bring back to the ship for trade.

-Making Friends will be important: Talk, trade and assisting other spacefarers will benefit you as each race you encounter will store an enemy, neutral or friend status. That will effect how your next encounter with them will be.

-Episodes for everyone! In Tiny Trek we have worked on creating a generator that creates randomized missions or as we call it, episodes. Each episode last around 3-8 minutes on average and include everything from search and rescue, transport, battles and more. Imagine receiving a distress signal, then approaching a ship to discover it's a trap. After defeating them and searching the ship discover that the stranded crew is on a nearby planet. The unique Mission Matrix generates over a 100 different "episode" types and puts them together.

-Stuff is cool... Player will be able to collect and store unique plants, materials and relics you discover on your journey. And trade them for other resources or information.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen2.jpg)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen7.jpg)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen4.jpg)

Ohh! I really like the art style. :)

I appreciate the comment Happymonster, thanks!

Absolutely amazing, pulling on all nostalgia strings.

My Kickstarter quota is unfortunately full right now, but I will be watching the reviews when its out!

One question arises, though: Why does the bridge crew look so different from the away team, both in style and pixel density? It's the one thing which seems very out of place.

Oh, and I think there's a scale issue on the ships. They are supposed to be Enterprise sized, I'm guessing? Well, they currently look and feel more Defiant sized or even smaller. There's certainly a problem on representing scale that I think you have to deal with...

Oh man! This idea is soooooo cool!

How do things work with the crew? Do you pick them out and level them up RPG-style? Can they die?

@eobet, So in the bridge scene the guys at the consoles heads are being rendered based on the avatar you create in the beginning of the game. One thing that is missing in those screenies is that when in the away mission frames, the heads will have pixel color swapping to match the primary color of your race. As the game is primary built out of large squares I intentionally attempted to keep the heads with limited detail during away missions. I will look it over again and see if I can make a change.

@NoobsArePeople2, Your comment kind feeds into Eobet's. I have received a ton of comments on how detailed away mission members will get. Originally it was intended not to have specific crew member but select anonymous crew types. And the combination of what crew types you send will effect the success of a away mission, IE a mission to retrieve a fugitive won't work well with 2 science officers and engineer. However all these comments have me reevaluating that perspective.

Thanks to both of you for the input!

Oh man, this is awesome, Kiguri! I've been having the exact same idea for a game on my mind forever, too, just like you!

I'm so glad you beat me to it because I'm a lame ass and would never have gotten anywhere anyway. (Thinking about it, though, the latter part probably means that it wasn't really very hard to beat me to it...)

Anyway, I wish you good luck and O'm really curious how this is going to turn out!  :coffee:

A Backer convinced me of adding space stations to the mix, here are some procedurally generated Space Stations, Do you guys think they look all right?

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/SpaceStation1.PNG)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/SpaceStation2.PNG)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/SpaceStation3.PNG)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/SpaceStation4.PNG)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/SpaceStation5.PNG)

I like the space stations but maybe they could be more varied in their shape? They are all four 'wings' coming from a central point, even if they are shaped slightly different.

Also this game looks neat and the tier to design a race and stuff is pretty affordable! Totally sold on that.

Read about this yesterday on pockettactics.com. Looks and sounds interesting, good luck!

Looks and sounds really fun, and I dig the art style. But I think you should remove - or atleast make it possible to remove - the scanlines effect thingy. It's a little annoying and doesn't really add anything.

Glad to see another Multimedia Fusion game in the making, keep it up!

Just make sure you include Red Shirts ;)

Red shirts are a must!

Then beam me up!

The concept, and it's visual simplicity really capture my imagination. I love it!

It's nice seeing fellow MMF games in the works! (it's a great tool guys, really)

Looks like you're going to easily hit your kickstarter goal and then some.

The game looks great, but my concern (as with all procedurally generated games) is that the content generated from it will not be anywhere near the quality of hand made content. Like just saying a game has an infinite universe isn't really selling me, because it could just be an infinite universe of procedural gibberish that doesn't amount to solid content. So I'm REALLY hoping you can change my mind about that!

I think the selling point for me is the "episodes". Will there be an ending to this game, or at least some long term goals to hit? I'd want to feel like I'm making some sort of progress towards a goal instead of "just randomly explore random planets of randomness, and then collect random things to trade for other random things, which lets you buy some other random things... randomly".

If you catch my drift. :P

I'm smelling what your cooking.

I am hoping you will get the sense of accomplishment from finishing the episodes. But It would be difficult to advertise the game as a expansive never ending universe if in fact the game had a final win. My thinking was the end comes when your ship or crew is lost. either by death, destruction, our out of supplies. I approached the whole thing from a separate stand alone "episodes" that are playable pulling pieces of the universe into it to fill the props, places and characters. Perhaps I can find a way to extend that and have overall story arcs some how..

Thanks for the input, and positive MMF2 comments!

Yeah I don't necessarily require that the game has a definitive ending... but just some long term goals would be awesome. Since the episodes play out as little short term goals.

Keep up the good work!  :):handthumbsupR:

Long term goal? A five year mission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpRhgtsjUI), of course. And just like in Sid Meier's original Pirates!, with the option to retire or embark again (with modifiers) at the end. ;)

Regarding the procedural generated stuff, I hope you will vary the algorithms. Right now, everything is pretty "bug like", and that's cool for one race. Hopefully you will have an algorithm that produces perhaps more "cube like" things a la Borg, more tentacle things like in the new Star Trek movie, and so on...

And I reiterate that you have a problem with conveying a sense of scale, because the space stations just look like large ships, and the ships themselves still look very small.

The five year mission, That was suggested to me today as well by another. I am thinking of making it a play option, So you can choose to do the five year mission or endless

Endless: Play till you die, if I hit the server stretch goal you will be able to sumbit you "travel Log" including your race, ship and distance traveled

Five Year: must explore, points earned for accomplishing things, but you have to return home before five years is up.

Sound Cool

I thought tonight I will talk a little about away missions. Were you can send them, what they do once they arrive. Everyone has being bringing some good input on that in the last few days and I want to show you guys what I have incorporated from those ideas thus far. I think first it best to introduce you to your crew types!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Crew.PNG)

Marine: This guy hits the ground running, They are your first line of defense (or offense when needed) Armed with the latest in pixel hand weaponry, when selected, this guy can dole out some damage where need be. I would also like to point out he is in a "Red Shirt" and i think we all know what that can mean. So keep that in mind when you have him charge into well, whatever!

Science: The blue shirts like to research and examine stuff, of course he is the guy to tell you that their is a 12.453847592% chance of this or that. In Tiny Trek the science officer on a away mission is to use the trusty scanner to locate cool things that might be useful or interesting or perhaps even dangerous. With the scanner you can scan specific items that have a scan icon appear when near to them. He is also the one who collects the samples and brings them back to the ship be stored in the cargo bay.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen10.PNG)

Repair: The Repair officer uses his fancy repair tool to open doors, fix busted control panels, and interact with any kind of machinery you find. The Repair officer also is the one who can mark minerals for mining, which will be transferred back to your cargo hold when done.

Command: The Yellow shirts main function is to communicate or negotiate with other sentient species. They are highly adapted to handle exchanges and trade. When you need to conduct some business, sending one of these guys will certainly help.

Medical: If you remember we do have red shirts in the game, and they have a tendency to, well you know. With a Medical Officer on the team he can heal people hurt on the mission helping to ensure in dangerous situations that they can succeed. Their is also the possibility we can get the engine to allow the Medical officer to heal npc's adding more depth to the episode generation options.

Some things I have added or beginning to code since reading your comments are reflected in part in the next image. You will notice that now we have three HUD boxes at the top. These will store the names of the characters sent down to the planet. The hope is I can give you the option to name you officers and they will have health points and can earn experience that will improve overall efficiency on your ship.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen11.PNG)

 I think this can be a nice addition and deeper fleshing out of my original idea. Just a note I won't be providing a very deep micro managing mechanic to the crew. But I do see value in personalizing them and giving them some progress and growth. I am uncertain about perma death and recruiting replacements. I believe I am looking at incapacitation during a mission and if so they earn no experience. But if one party member at least remains and the away team makes it back, then the advanced technologies on your vessel will revive them and return them to duty.

I look forward to your thoughts!

If you haven't checked Tiny Trek out yet, please visit our Kickstarter at, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek (http://"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek")

We hit our initial funding goal in 4 days! Guys thanks for the tremendous support, I am humbled and motivated! Next stop first stretch goal!

"$6,000.00 Raised - Robust Editing Tools: If we can hit this mark we can afford to spend the extra time developing more editor tools for the player, providing more customization to you. More editing tools for your ships and races, more color options, and the ability to edit your home world. At this amount we would also provide procedurally generated weapon systems that you can edit. "

Woohoo! Congrats! Your latest update looks great, too.

Is the tablet/tricorder thing (device with "Plant Life" on it) supposed to be flat or curved? It looks like it should be flat but it shaded like it's curved.

As far as the permadeath/incapacitation stuff goes why not have both? In most of the Trek shows the main characters almost never die -- to use your term they merely become incapacitated and then magically (scientifically?) revived by the end of the episode. Conversely most away missions have the unnamed or just introduced five seconds ago "red shirt" who is almost certainly going to meet an unfortunate end and never be seen again.

You could have a core "bridge crew" of characters that cannot suffer permadeath, non-bridge crew members do suffer permadeath. The player could designate these characters but there would be a limited number of slots, say three, where an away mission might call for five characters. In this way there is always a chance to suffer some permanent setback from an away mission without completely wiping out your elite, core characters. I dunno, though. All of that gets rather complicated and micro-manage-y. Probably would be best to just go with one or the other.

The hand held scanner is going to be flat, It's all WIP graphics, I copied another element and placed it as my base. Promise it will evolve in to something that looks much better, maybe even a leather strap ;)

As far as the away team is concerned, I am going to chew on it for a while. :)

I like the concept, but I'm not sure I can handle that many super saturated colours on screen all at once.

Yes it seems I do like blasting the colors in this one!

So i am thinking about procedurally generated weapons, I am going to list the base weapons in the game now, and after you read them maybe you guys can give me some ideas of what kinda of ship to ship weapons we could maybe include in the procedural generation. Note in game, the energy weapons will do hull damage, but cannot destroy the target, however they are super effective on shielding. Torpedo aren't effective on shielding but are the only weapon type that can finally destroy the target. Hope that makes sense, writing this a bit late in the evening.

Energy Weapons - good on Shielding

1. Beam Weapons (Continuous beam for short time, med range) 2. Energy bolts (rapid fire of many small length beams, long range) 3. Scatter net (Creates expanding ring of energy,provides cover, short range) 4. Vulcan (Fires in direction of ship, Massive amount of fire, long range)

Torpedoes - only thing that can destroy ship core

1. Regular Torpedo (Dumb fires in direction of target, Quick recharge) 2. Homing Torpedo (Locks on and follows target, Can only turn so fast) 3. Drone (follows target, punctures hull multiple times before ending) 4. Barrage (Fires consecutive torpedoes at once)

The idea I am after is to look for weapons that work within the two systems. Look forward to your suggestions.

Recently it was suggested also a third category of defense, so you could have shields or point defense, etc.

In my mind there would be two main attributes shared by all weapons:

1. Power: how much damage they have the potential to cause.
2. Accuracy: how likely they are to hit the target.

Beacon Torpedo: This doesn't do any direct damage. When it hits the hull of an enemy ship it latches on and increases the accuracy and damage of subsequent shots until the beacon is destroyed. It lasts X seconds or Y shots whichever comes first.

Ion Beam: Doesn't do damage but reduces the effectiveness of shields and other energy-based systems.

Cutting Beam: Short range, short duration. Takes a long time to charge. Does massive hull damage. No effect on shields.

Frag Torpedo: Explodes on contact like a normal torpedo but also disperses several mini-bombs that also explode on contact.

Mines: Deployed into open space. Used to destroy drones and limit enemy manuverability.

Tractor Beam: Latch onto an enemy ship and prevent it from moving. Reduces the power of beam weapons but increases accuracy for all weapons. Cannot tractor a ship with shields up. If tractoring a ship and it raises shields the beam is broken.

Decoys: Dummy probes launched to confuse homing torpedoes.

In the defense category you could have different types of shields and point defense.

Standard Shield: Blocks both beam and projectile weapons. Not especially strong, regenerates moderately fast. Basically the middle-of-the-road, vanilla shielding system.

Deflector Shield: Reflects beams back at source. Deflects projectiles off at random angles. Lasts a long time but regenerates slowly.

Point Defense: Super effective against projectiles, does nothing against beams.

Scatter Defense: Very effective against projectiles (but not so much as Point Defense). Creates a cloud of shrapnel that scatters incoming beam weapons, reducing their accuracy and effectiveness.

Reinforced Hull Plating: Extra strong hull that is resistant to beam weapons. Goes well with Point Defense.

I really love some of these ideas! Thanks, will post a new list soon.

11/25/2013 - Weapons Systems Update

Ok so I took all of the ideas I got, and tried my best to strip out "variables" out of them, like scaling, amount of fire, duration, angle, etc. Wit this I was able to go about laying the ground work for procedurally generated weapons. The following images are not polished, But do show a bit of the direction I am taking. Backers will be able to play the little demo that generated this images as well.

What they will find when they open the EXE up is the bootup logo, a small intro and then it jumps in to the screen as shown below. The bottom 4 buttons switch between directed beam, Energy field, Wave beam and finally particle cannon. The roll button effects the current value of variables shown as meters. Each variation effects the weapons output. It's early on but the results so far are promising.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Weapons1.PNG)
Particle field example 1

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Weapons4.PNG)
Particle field example 2

My thinking on implementation is that you do a "roll", and it generates a random weapon system based on a total value pool that is partially determined by your races stats. Then I would provide the player the ability to manipulate it by moving some of the points around. Also note that not shown are some variables that will be generated based on the overall settings of the weapon, things like Weapon strength, shield and hull damage modifiers and recharge time.

So take a look at the screens and if any thoughts come to mind please share, the last bit of brainstorming really helped me here. And I look forward to see where this goes. If we hit our first stretch goal, then this prototyping can be polished and moved into the game.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Weapons2.PNG)
Laser cannon fire

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Weapons3.PNG)
Cutting type beams

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Weapons5.PNG)
Wave cannon example

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/Weapons6.PNG)
Particle cannon example

Went ahead and did the old Steam Greenlight business.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=198351562

if any of you fine folks backed Tiny Trek so far, Wanted to pass on that backers will get to blow stuff up tomorrow with first play test of the battle engine.

To my Kickstarter investors a new build has been posted in the latest update for you to take for a spin. Look forward to your comments. For those thinking of backing us, come join the fun!

So the recent backer build I posted over at Kickstarter (http://"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek") included the ship editor allowing for the first time users other then me the design a chance to play with the editor. I added the function to screen capture and save a image of the editor to the app. I have alot more to do on it, but today I received a image of our first user made ship!

If you a backer and have tried the tool feel free to send me a pic of your ship, Want to see how users are crafting their vessels. Might give me ideas for editor improvements!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/MClar1.jpg)

Stretch Goal 1 Complete

     Thank you my friends, We have reached the first stretch goal, Now I can assure you get better editors and deeper control over your ship design, weapon systems, race stats and looks. It's quite exciting. I will post more information on that this weekend as well as more detail on what we plan on doing with the internets and sharing your creations across players games should we reach the next stretch goal of $8,000. The campaign so far as been amazing and that is due to you guys and gals, I deeply appreciate it. Help me continue to push this out the world so we can assure the best possible quality game I could muster by the end of May. Any suggestions on how to reach more media is more then welcome. Now that's out of the way let's talk about legs.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/NewWalk.gif)

Crew Members v2 - Now with Walking!

      So I wanted to share this recent development concerning the Away Team graphics, specifically the team themselves. As you can see in the above image we have the old static blocky crew member representation I am came up with. But my good friend and game developer colleague D.Czanik (http://"http://dczanik.deviantart.com/") chipped in with hopes of solving my walking dilemma with the two animations you see next to mine. So I ask you the mighty 451 (Backers as of this update) what do you think. Do you like them? Do they fit in the game? These little guys are important cause you going to be doing a lot of adventuring together so we want them to look just right.

     Speaking of away teams I have been asked recently "What do you do on a Away Mission anyhoo?". It's a fair question, so to give a bit more detail, the away mission engine will be capable of delivering interesting fun and excitement a couple of ways. One is when you just decide to visit the surface of planet for no reason, on the surface you will be able to scan items, collect samples, conducting mining, And conduct trade and conversation with sentient species you might meet. During this you may trigger "Episodes" which provide more structured gameplay through the mission matrix. A trigger on the surface of planet or on board another ship could be requests from other sentient beings, discovery of a artifact or even running into so pirate smuggler types. The idea is I have gone through and attempted to figure out what kind of things one would do on a Mission and distill that into triggers, and mission components. What kind of triggers and planet surface mission components would you like to see?

Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek (http://"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek")

Steam Page: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=198351562  (http://"http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=198351562")

Not really liking the walking animation overall and it certainly doesn't fit with the game's look. I like the old blocky dude much more than the new guy.

You have a really lo-fi look and the animations should match up with that. VVVVVV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf06P-_1lkU) does a good job of giving simple sprites some character.

The lack of blackness has been a consistent response, we are going to run these guys through the digital conveyer a couple more times till we get it right, I appreciate  the input NoobsArePeople2!

Nice! it looks x100 times better than the previous style, but I think you need to stick with 1 pixel size to be consistent (eg. human looks detailed but some things are more blockier). Also this (http://community.clickteam.com/threads/65258-CRT-Retro-Emulation?p=486948&viewfull=1#post486948) is a much better looking TV effect.

Did a interview on DJ Grandpa. You can enjoy my sultry (insert sarcasm here) voice at http://bedrockcommunications.blogspot.com/2013/12/dj-grandpas-crib-maiden-voyage.html

Stretch Goal #2!


(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/server.jpg)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek (http://"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek")

So we are working towards the second stretch goal with seven days to go and I thought I would talk more about what we have planned for this. Basically all the generated content that you create during a game is stored in strings. We can send these strings across the net from PC's, tablets, phones and other devices to a central server. So what we would we do with that you ask. Well here we are have several ideas i'd like to share...

Historical Records: In game you can dock at Space Stations and the idea is one of the station function options would be to review historical records. View other players races, You would be able to see their ship, race avatar, planet, Captain name and a record of the exploits. Kinda of a cool way to see what other people are doing in the pixelverse.

Encounters: We could with the server make it so some of the races you encounter in your current game could be other players races. So I generate a race play my game and have a certain ship design and weapons layout, you might play your game and encounter my race as a NPC or enemy. We can extend this idea and track in your historical documents what races you have battled or made friends with from other players.

Melee Combat: Search online records and select other player created races to do combat with in a separate melee mode. And we can then store the success rate of downloaded races in the historical record how they fared against other players.

Web Viewer: We would also create a web based interface to review all the race historical records using HTML5, You could search out your own races and see their stats, or search other peoples submissions.

Editor

I also today I finally got the ship editor to behave bug free, and include not only symmetrical editing but also the most requested asymmetrical editing mode. So I decided to craft a few ships for fun.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen12.jpg)
Battlestar?

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen13.jpg)
 It might not look like much but it's got it where it counts...

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen14.jpg)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen15.jpg)
We are Pixlingons!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen18.jpg)
 I'm sorry Dave I am afraid I can't do that.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/USS%20Tiny.PNG)
Trekking along!

Though it has been said before, it definitely bears repeating; THIS IS THE SPACE GAME I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR! The possibilities you have outlines with missions and exploration seem almost surreal, and the episodic nature should lend itself well to a quick play session on the train. After reading over your stretch goal number two and not seeing the answer, are you going to have a way that players can track their progress throughout the universe? Perhaps some way to map the courses they have taken and perhaps create a map or something out of it? I think that would be a great addition, the ability to see that you've traveled through 200 different systems or something. Just a thought!

Tiny Trek on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek
 (http://"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek")
Today I was able to rig load and save to the editor. Now you can save your ship design and then load it again later. I will expand on this over the next day or two. In addition I began designing a space dock from where the ship is edited. So you can make multiple saves. Here some up to date images of the editor...

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen19.jpg)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen20.jpg)

In other news I have been work with Mr Czanik to figure out how to create lifeforms on planet surfaces. And I think we have come up with a idea. We are going to have several body part types, for instance movement may be achieved with wings, fins, two legs, eight legs, etc. So we will have these parts available, and the engine will stitch them together based on the planet. Here is a concept image below.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen21.jpg)

 Finally we are nearing the end of our second stretch goal and as promised today on the Kickstarter info page I revealed the 3rd and final stretch goal, More Melee options! Here is that information copied for your convenience!

"$10,000.00 Raised - Mega Melee modes: If we can reach the $10,000 dollar mark we will be able to expand the Melee combat mode we have planned out. We will be able to include the ability to create team battles where you construct teams out of your save files and download NPCs from the server. Then battle one ship at a time against another team. Another mode would be endless mode, where you ship of choice has to survive against a never ending onslaught of Saved NPCs and generated enemies. The third battle mode would allow you to combat against two enemy vessels and you have a friendly NPC to assist you, two on two. The fourth mode would involve a endless round of battles, where each battle is timed. Each victory adds more time to the clock, the faster you can defeat them the more time added to the clock. "

Tomorrow I hope to post a new build for Backers to edit their ships and do combat again, but this one will have the load and save functions in and I am attempting to code some method for e-mailing each other our ships for fun in-till we can get the server up.

Kickstarter link fixed for you. (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2064021040/tiny-trek)

Wow what a bonehead move on my part! Thanks!,

New article on Tiny Trek up at Super Game Droid.

http://www.supergamedroid.com/2013/12/20/kickstarter-spotlight-tiny-trek/

Question

What do you guys think of a Co-op party mode, Adding something like in artemis bridge simulator or quartet. The guys at work suggested it, allow up to three players play together running different stations, like engineering and science in addition to helm, etc. In other words if we could pull of this mode you could have a for instance where you are playing let's say on your TV with a Ouya or you apple tv via ipad, and your friends bring their own tablets. they could have panels on their screens for some of the stations while you control the helm, Might even work for away missions each person controlling a team member. Do you think this would add value or dilute the overall focus of the game?

New battle build posted to Kickstarter page for backers. Hoping this one is fairly bug free so I can go about integrating back into main game. Backers!, comments most welcome!

Tiny Trek is one of Pocket Tactics most anticipated titles of 2014!

http://www.pockettactics.com/features/recon-report-anticipated-ios-android-games-2014/

So that's a feel good warm fuzzy.

Making Surface worlds is complicated...

Talking with some of the guys on the design team we had a wish list item that we really felt needed working out to make the game better. Originally the episode generator when it came to surface missions were only one offs. That is you could only visit one surface spot once, This was due to how I initially wrote the randomly generated level creation, But after several long discussions we decided that I could do a whole lot more if we could load and save multiple spots on planet and return to them later in the game, either in generation of the episode or just cause you wanted to go back to where Red shirt #68 had died previously in your game. So I was finally at a point at the beginning of this month to work on that. So I started by writing a save state string that would be generated during a the creation of a new surface scene, And that is where our first headache occurred.

So here you have a single typical generated level's output string that I crafted...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e791w8mh7dop0r5/level.txt (https://www.dropbox.com/s/e791w8mh7dop0r5/level.txt)

If you chose to check it out you will see its quite a few characters long but it contains everything I need to place set pieces on the screen in the correct sizes. The problem is that the string is quite large, especially if I wanted to provide multiple spots on a planet, After running some numbers a typical estimation is I would have 1mb of text for every 8 worlds I generated. That means in a endless universe your surface missions data would grow to rapidly and take up precious storage space, especially if it was a mobile device. So I scratched my head, and the scratched the heads around me to see if any Ideas would fall out. Damon suggested Random Pools or a Pseudo-random number generator. What this meant is that if successful I could generate using my algorithm the same type worlds but each time a seed value was entered I would get the same sequence of random numbers. The result is below. Needless to say I am quite excited by the results, the same 1 mb that I could fit in 8 worlds or so I can now fit over 8,000.

Here is the seed that generated the following world scene in different colors: 999987

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen22.JPG)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen23.JPG)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen24.JPG)

 I also started working out how battles may be conducted on the surface. The current front runner is when you enter a battle situation your guys line up and the enemy line up for a turn based affair. You can select any one of your guys to move to the front of the line and execute one command. Each officer regardless of job can fire their side arm, at the first guy in the line of sight, Or use their special ability, For instance A security officer can throw grenades, and damage several people or a engineer can erect a shield barrier. Then the enemy takes one turn doing the same. Still ironing it out but as I said this seems to be the front runner and works well in game so far.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen25.JPG)

 Look forward to any comments!

New build is up for Backers!

The “Exploration Build A” gives backers a taste of how the game flow is so far presented. Backers can take their procedurally generated vessel and travel amongst the stars visit planets, send away teams to run around the surface and engage other vessels in space. I am really excited to see the input from the backer pool about their experiences to see what we can change and improve. Hopefully we can begin to safely activate “episode” components in the coming builds.

(http://tinytrekvoyages.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ExploreB.png)

The biggest challenge we experienced the last month was with making re-visitable surface environments instead of the original one offs we had initially planned. I would like to extend a thanks to Damon C for pushing me in that direction. I think it’s very neat that now a player could land on a planet with a away team walk 100 screens in one direction and then leave. Come back days later in game, and those 100 screens are the same. The implications for game play are huge moving forward.

Backers can visit the Test builds page and pick up a copy to play with now.

More Information at: http://tinytrekvoyages.com/ (http://tinytrekvoyages.com/)

Galaxy Screen

(http://tinytrekvoyages.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/NavscreenA3132014.jpg)

So I got alot of good feedback and one thing that was confirmed for me was the galaxy overmap interface was messy and confusing so I spent a considerable amount of time last couple of day reworking that portion. I think most folks will be pleased with the result. In addition to creating a sense of travel and better location association for the player I added some more function. Instead of just clicking a sector to travel to it, you have two button options, one is Scan which gives you some basic information from that sector and Engage which of course starts travel. The nice thing about this is you can make a more informed decision of where you want to go based on your long range sensor results. I also recorded some play footage you can watch below.


New gameplay WIP footage at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P6FE4MpPmI

Connecting the pieces!

So things are moving fast with development, I have begun to sew in the various episode components, This build you can happen upon 7+ event triggers with various mission objectives. Over the next week I hope to triple that. But I wanted to get a build out so you could see the progress. The cool thing is as I add them they begin to feed into each other. Once I have these done, I can then begin to layer them in sequence to make robust episodes. Before I do that I have to rewrite the text display engine, as the one I have is inefficient and in capable of delivering large blocks of text we will need to drive the narrative. However with this build you should see some improvement! Other notable items added is three screen resolution options and the long sought after assignable key function.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen43.JPG)

As I develop the episode components I have to add some of the missing base features along the way. Some of those additions for instance are the Medical and Engineer Scanners both of which provide functionality to those away team members. The medical scanner allows you to heal sick or wounded crew or NPC’s in battle you can heal your own guys if you team had a medical officer or render assistance to a injured NPC. The engineer panel repairs stuff, by shifting the “tumblers” to the off or on position, you can reactivate machinery, repair stuff, or lock/unlock doors.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen46.JPG)

In other news thanks to you my supporters and interested gamers we have finally earned a greenlit spot on Steam, I appreciate all those who voted and look forward to providing something unique on the Steam platform. Those who backed for a PC build can choose a Steam key if they desire. Gamesare Studios was also recently approved to be a Wii U developer so it is now possible you could see Tiny Trek on Wii U or 3ds. Though it may have to wait for a period after release so we can afford the developer kit.

I hope to get iOS testing started first of December.

In any case I look forward to your comments on this build, Backers can find the link to download in the Test Builds section at http://www.TinyTrekVoyages.com (http://"http://www.TinyTrekVoyages.com") Below is a list of complete changes.

Build 151 Change log

-Assignable Keys
-Changeable resolution (480×320, 960×640, Full screen)
-Auto entry to planets and stars from solar system screen
-Speed indicator on all manual control areas
-Cloned nebula code to Ship Encounter section for main game
-WIP intro music for episodes
-WIP Episode end music
-Completed First sections of episodes
Detect Damaged ship in asteroid field, Assist out with tractor
NPC ship under attack, defend from hostile
Derelict Craft Located, Scan vessels for life signs
Weak lifesigns, beam aboard and render assistance
No lifesigns, second ship returns and attacks
Good lifesigns, its a ruse defend your self
Intercepted by another vessel
Ship attacks you
Ship requests you go to star system
-Created Engineer Scanner, allows you to repair devices and open or lock doors
-Created Medical Scanner, Scan and diagnose correctly to heal a patient
-Added ground combat cover system, Crouch to have 50% chance of avoiding being hit, crates or other obstacles provide auto cover when you stand next to them providing 100% cover.
-Weapons use power, and need to recharge on away missions
-Interaction Icon flash when Engineer, Science or Medical officer is near point of interest
-Added refuel tick sound during refuel mission

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25138707/TinyTrekScreen44.JPG)

Here is a recent capture of in game footage. and a little update information!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti4xeBueyvw

http://www.TinyTrekVoyages.com (http://www.TinyTrekVoyages.com)

Check out the latest work in progress footage of Tiny Trek, A procedurally generated space exploration game by Gamesare Studios.

In this video I wanted to share some of the new features and consoles available to would be captains in game. First off is a revamped control scheme, which I am still tuning. Each "command" you can give in game is associated to a button icon letting you know which controller button or previously assigned key to use for it. All keyboard keys are completely assignable.

The Cargo console is in place and accessible from the bridge. Here is where you review your 20 slots of cargo in your ships hold. Some of the cargo like plants and minerals can be processed in to raw materials for use on ship, while others can be sold at star bases. During ship to ship combat, cargo from another ship can be dropped as well as weapons systems which you can swap out are collected in the hold as well.

The engineering panel has been flushed out more and currently allows you to view your ship, conduct ship repairs after battle and gives you access to the weapon modification console. Each weapon system type comes with a certain number of points which can be manipulated and tuned in the weapons console, Allowing you to modify your weapons systems output.

Also space stations are now dockable and you may board them. They contain three rooms, Trading, Warehouse and ship modification. More coming soon!