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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsStarDiver - Scifi Space Romp[PC,Mac,Linux, Consoles]
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Author Topic: StarDiver - Scifi Space Romp[PC,Mac,Linux, Consoles]  (Read 30904 times)
friken
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« on: November 06, 2013, 04:58:32 PM »

View StarDiver on Indie DB



StarDiver is moving right along. Join us for a ride through the galaxy.... or at least its current, early development state!




We are a small family team (myself, wife, and son) and are very excited to share our progress on StarDiver with the community.

StarDiver is a story-driven action/rpg that spans numerous star systems and is teeming with alien life, conflict, and dying stars in desperate need of saving. Our goal for the art, music, story, combat, and exploration is to put the player in a universe filled with alien life and intrigue.



We want the game universe to be anything but generic. So when it came to discussions about procedural generation of things, we had to take a hard look at what we should hand craft and what we shouldn't. We will be using procedural generation of planetary surfaces, clouds, and atmospheres so that no two planets look the same. We will also use procedural generation for solar system layouts, number of planets, and number of moons so no two solar systems are the same.




Our primary target is an excellent single player game with a deep story arc, numerous unique aliens, dialogue trees, rpg progression, and more.

Solar system backdrops will vary greatly depending on the location within the galaxy, the type of star at their center and the alien race which controls them. We implemented volumetric nebula clouds so they shift and flow as you move through and add depth to the movement and in some areas even have electrical storms.

Solar gravity offers some fun slingshot effects -- whip around the sun to help get a great speed boost, but get too close and you will burn up skimming the sun's surface. Gravity will play a key role in combat as well, helping slow ships outmaneuver faster rivals.



Combat for StarDiver is retro, action oriented, and unique. Instead of upgrading generic hulls with generic weapons, StarDiver will feature numerous alien races who each have their own very unique ships. One example is the SunDagger, a ship from a race of beings who call stars their home. They are immune to the effects of gravity and dive through stars to pull a streaming ball of plasma to toss at foes brave enough to tangle with them. The Krex Cruiser is another example of a unique ship design. Its six long-range broadside cannons have exploding warheads with lots of splash damage, while its nose pulse can smash into foes trying to close the distance and fling them back to long range where the cruiser is most effective.




My son has taken on the task of music and sounds for the game. I think his tunes are matching perfectly with the feel we are trying to convey. Here are a couple of music samples:

Warp Funk
Combat Music

My wife created all the alien concepts, and are painted by an excellent freelance artist who recently joined our team. Our goal is to have 15-30 unique alien races, each with their own back story, region of space, and custom ships. Here are just a few of the planned alien races:







Being a small and under-funded indie team, we are considering crowd funding when our project is further along. Also being techie geeks, we couldn't think of anything more fun for both us as developers and potential backers than 3D printed StarDiver ships. Santa brought us a 3D printer and we've taken a go at printing a couple of our early ships:

Thanks for taking a look at our work in progress. PLEASE, PLEASE (couple more pleases) give us some feedback. Gamer feedback is pure rocket-fuel. It gives us buckets of motivation and helps us refine the project into a much better end result!
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 10:05:44 PM by friken » Logged

billyboob
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« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2013, 08:12:01 PM »

Is there still no Untiy web player plugin for linux?
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friken
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« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2013, 07:31:20 AM »

Is there still no Untiy web player plugin for linux?

Unfortunately, not yet (if ever). With Chrome announcing a timeline of killing browser plugins like flash/unityplayer, I doubt there is much motivation there to ever have a linux-unity webplayer.

Here is a link to a linux build of the early melee combat. I included the .x86 and a universal .x86_64:

https://app.box.com/s/5r5mcd6s1b3uy3n2pl7z

My ubuntu install is hosed atm due to failed video driver install and I'm too lazy to go fix it, so I have not tested it yet. Let me know if that works for you. I did read some people have to install something to run unity-linux builds. Info here:

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/404131/how-to-run-the-exported-game-on-ubuntu.html
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friken
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« Reply #3 on: November 09, 2013, 03:23:37 PM »

My son has finished the first couple songs for the game. I'm too close to the project and biased so feedback please  Beg

Hyperspace
Combat
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friken
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« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2013, 02:31:52 PM »

Tweaked numerous things in combat. Video uploaded here:





Does this forum support youtube links to show image/video inline? If so what is the tag?
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« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2013, 03:57:05 PM »

Hey friken, More-Badass from GAF. Not a dev, but a passionate indie gamer and I'm very active in the Indie Threads there. Love what you have so far, especially the art. Rare to see alien designs that actually look alien.

Any possibility at a downloadable version of the combat demo? It runs pretty poorly in-browser for me, not sure if I'm the only one. Looking forward to how this progresses
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friken
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« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2013, 04:06:02 PM »

Love what you have so far, especially the art. Rare to see alien designs that actually look alien.

Any possibility at a downloadable version of the combat demo? It runs pretty poorly in-browser for me, not sure if I'm the only one. Looking forward to how this progresses

Thanks so much for the kind words. You would be surprised how much they help our motivation!

As far as the webplayer running slow, I think the build I put up last defaults to the highest quality settings, 4xAA, full screen fx, 4k textures, and relatively high aniso. Try this build. You can select different resolutions and quality settings:

Windows StarDiver Combat Nov-11-2013

It is still VERY VERY early in development, so be kind to the obviously incomplete aspects.. ie no UI and on death you or the AI just vanishes Smiley
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Thomas Finch
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« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2013, 04:15:08 PM »

This looks awesome! I would definitely buy this.
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friken
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« Reply #8 on: November 11, 2013, 05:23:08 PM »

This looks awesome! I would definitely buy this.

Love kind feedback! Thanks.

Worked today on new sun and surface fx.
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Christian
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« Reply #9 on: November 11, 2013, 05:30:59 PM »

That downloadable demo worked like a charm. Movement feels a bit weird though, but hey, it's super early.

Man, love the backstory that this is a family effort. Hope this isn't too intrusive, but how old is your son? If he's learning to code...
Anyway, if only my Dad had decided to be an indie developer... Always wanted to get into game development. I'm thinking of trying my hand at Stencyl
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« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2013, 06:04:47 AM »

That downloadable demo worked like a charm. Movement feels a bit weird though, but hey, it's super early.

Thanks for the feedback. I'd love to hear more detail about the controls and what you found 'wierd'. I've tried a few different control schemes from all keyboard, to mouse/kb and various tweaks on each and haven't found that 'perfect' control yet. What would you like to see changed in the controls?
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« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2013, 03:09:42 PM »

Be careful , there is an anime called star driver
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friken
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« Reply #12 on: December 20, 2013, 09:39:32 AM »

Thanks for the heads up... I suspect we will change the name. The project is in very early concept/dev so nothing including the name is set in stone yet.
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friken
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« Reply #13 on: December 24, 2013, 08:14:00 PM »

Lots of work happening on the StarDiver project. Our new Krex ship is now in-game w/ broadside flak cannons working (video/imges shortly). Santa showed up with a 3D printer so all 'work' has come to a halt while we print space ships Smiley





Video of the print about 50% done.... does the fact the printer sounds like R2D2 while printing make it 10x more awesome or is it just me?

http://www.indiedb.com/games/stardiver/videos/3d-printing-krex-cruiser1
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friken
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« Reply #14 on: December 24, 2013, 09:23:05 PM »

Here is how it turned out:



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« Reply #15 on: December 25, 2013, 10:13:51 PM »

I know you mentioned Star Control in the first post with a few other games as inspiration, but this looks a lot like Star Control. The music you linked to is also in the style of Star Control, and I'd say you're using the same chord progression for your Hyperspace track as the actual Hyperspace track in Star Control!

I think you're following a little too close -- maybe too derivative?

I say in regards to Star Control 2, the thing that drew in a lot of people was the story and exploration elements. The music was absolute classic as well, and you've done the hard part there - capturing the sounds and instruments.

I've done a few games where I found myself following a bit to close to the reference (in my opinion, of course.) It's easy to fall into a trap of someone else's proven formula and not even know you're doing it.

Then again, sometimes that's all people want to play anyway. Smiley
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Gregg Williams
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« Reply #16 on: December 25, 2013, 11:21:02 PM »

Combat is certainly looking like classic star control, which I think personally is fantastic, though you need joystick support.
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« Reply #17 on: December 25, 2013, 11:43:18 PM »

I say in regards to Star Control 2, the thing that drew in a lot of people was the story and exploration elements. The music was absolute classic as well, and you've done the hard part there - capturing the sounds and instruments.

A lot of people loved the combat. In fact, I've never heard anyone praising the story of SC2 before.

So, I guess, YMMV.
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Gregg Williams
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« Reply #18 on: December 25, 2013, 11:46:13 PM »

I say in regards to Star Control 2, the thing that drew in a lot of people was the story and exploration elements. The music was absolute classic as well, and you've done the hard part there - capturing the sounds and instruments.

A lot of people loved the combat. In fact, I've never heard anyone praising the story of SC2 before.

So, I guess, YMMV.

I only played SC1 which really had no story.. :D the combat was the game, and it was great vs another living person, not so great vs the AI.
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friken
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« Reply #19 on: December 26, 2013, 09:33:29 PM »

The music you linked to is also in the style of Star Control, and I'd say you're using the same chord progression for your Hyperspace track as the actual Hyperspace track in Star Control!

Thanks for the feedback, we always appreciate it! Maybe I am deaf but I don't hear it.

Here is a link to star control tune:




And one of our songs, I think the one you refer to:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/stardiver/videos/hyperspace-music

Similar style of tunes for sure -- as we love electronic stuff for the game theme. I ran it by my son, the author, and he doesn't hear the same chords/notes. Maybe you are referring to a different song I can youtube?

I think you're following a little too close -- maybe too derivative?

We are definitely fans of Star Control 1/2 (and even 3 Smiley, as well as Starflight series, Sundog, Universe, Tradewars, and other similar games. It is hard to answer your question 'maybe too derivative?' without considering we are talking about a game that is 21-23 years old in the case of Star Control and even older for the others. I'm not sure we could clone it if we tried. That said there are a lot of aspects of Starflight/Starcontrol games we love. Love alien dialog, exploration, planet mining, and ship combat. Specific to star control, they improved on a ton of little things from StarFlight as we really hope to do -- be it with 20+ year newer technology. I would guess the StarFlight team wasn't all that thrilled about StarControl building on their awesome game ideas, but too derivative? Not for me, but others I'm sure would disagree. Then again if you follow the genre, StarFlight wasn't the first of the kind either.

We are so early in development at this point, I really couldn't say how similar we will end up. I'd love to say we have a stellar design doc all mapped out but far from it Smiley I do hope by the end we can compare favorably to classics like star control (or others) -- I'd be very flattered! In the end if our game is half as fun as I found any of those old classics, I'll be thrilled!


I say in regards to Star Control 2, the thing that drew in a lot of people was the story and exploration elements.

I loved the story telling in Sundog/StarFlight, and of course Star Control2-3 (1 I think was just battle mode?). We are big scifi fans and story for us is a big goal. Now if only we had it all written. We have 100 ideas floating about and nothing written yet. Good thing my wife is a much better writer than I!

I've done a few games where I found myself following a bit to close to the reference (in my opinion, of course.) It's easy to fall into a trap of someone else's proven formula and not even know you're doing it.

Then again, sometimes that's all people want to play anyway. Smiley

We'll keep the discussion going as we get further along. We definitely don't want to end up as a cheap knock-off of anything.
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