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[laxwolf]

what I like most about the random ships is that you can actually imagine what kind of task they'd be responsible for. Some are obviously fighters while some look like they tow, push, and carry. Good stuff.

[pnch]

@YM: Thank you! Also, last one from the first column forgot to turn on his lights. It´s only a quick test, but since it they turned out nice enough I came to share them.
These ships are the results of the first batch, it´s not a selection.

Symmetry was in fact harder to get than predicted. Got some issues with pixel sampling occasionally missing a pixel, and that in turn gave some interesting slightly assymetrical results, now that you mention it I´ll add a slight chance of bypassing the fix to get them back next time.

@laxwolf:
Thanks! And yes, it gets very clear outlines for the ships already, some are better than my own handmade ships ... pushing it a but there´s no doubt we´d mostly agree on which ones are meant for racing, which ones are from the same races, etc... I think them being only 16x16 helps our minds to fill the gaps, I don´t know if this approach would work as well in 32x32 or 64x64, we´ll see!

[YM]

Oh I see you're using the generation then hand picking them. That's cool then

[pnch]

Just to clarify, those shown weren´t handpicked, but for any of them to be included in the game they would have to be atm!

[AlphaPlus]

please release this game now mkay?

On a more serious note, this game, I would buy in a heartbeat. Also, cheers on the generator. The results are amazing. 

[byan]

Negspace looks so great. I love the generated ships! They all look very unique and fun. This and the Rain World thread are my favorite devlogs to read. 

Any further info on how your ship generator works? Do you intend to maybe generate some of the larger ships too?

[pnch]

@AlphaPlus: Thank you! Not sure yet if this is going to be a commercial game. I want to reach everyone interested in the game. On the other hand, getting some kind of support from it would allow me to skip a bit of real-life work, which in turn would result in a better game for everyone... I figure I´ll decide it when things get a bit rougher depending on the feedback I´m getting, so I guess right now the best way to help is by building word of mouth!

@Byan: Rain World being one of my favourites, and the inspiration over which I started this devlog in the first place, that´s a serious compliment!

The ship generator throws around random combinations of pixelated circles, triangles, and boxes, within some carefully tuned preset limits and distributions(say, a box of a size between x and y, in a position between x and y would be the cockpit, thrusters come alone or in pairs, and so on). Then it makes sure everything´s symmetrical by discarding one half and mirroring the other one, just in case, and that would be it! Adding bigger ships would be possible, but I´d have to add a couple more layers of complexity to make them as interesting as this batch (the bigger the resolution, the more detail you ought to imply).

Also, it seems the word is starting to spread around, here´s the first article about Negspace that I´m aware of, thanks Christian 

About the single player plans mentioned in the article, as with any other feature that isn´t here yet, take it with a grain of salt. Check the reply to AlphaPlus above to understand why!

[Canopus]

Just watched some random YouTube videos "Principles of Lighting and Rendering with John Carmack at Quakecon 13.


Around 1h he's talking a bit about shadowing. Somehow it reminded me to your project. Maybe that's useful for you to improve your hard shadows. (If you like so)

Greetings

[pnch]

Thanks Canopus! I´m going 100% hard shadows on purpose to get more depth and a more restrained style, but they are being made with a poly mesh atm. Doing it via gpu would give me way more flexibility (and performance). It seems in Unity Indie it´s tricky (maybe even not possible) to implement, but haven´t really started looking into the way it handles shaders yet.

Update #11: Pod ejection and the base for secondary actions

I did a secondary actions class. It launches different actions depending on how long your button has been pressed, while giving feedback on time windows over your ship.
Releasing the button after holding it for 1.5/2 seconds will now get you into an escape pod!
A quick tap of the same button on the base ship deploys a decoy.
The time-window for ejection is signaled by flickering of your ship´s lights.
Also, you can do a bluff by keeping your button down for more than 2 seconds(and therefore not emitting a pod).

The eject sequence features a couple of fx that are maybe too flashy overall, but now I have new fx classes .

PS: switched gif hosting, let me know if something´s off!
PS2: also, you may notice a bug in the radars 

[pnch]

Couldn´t get the possibility for 8 player splitscreen out of my mind

(game display only, without inputs working)

Now I´ll have to see whether it´s possible to get all those inputs reliably and in a comfy way, and then I ought to throw a party   

due to the low res nature of the graphics, it seems it would be playable and everything would be readable even in a 22 inches 16:9, although if you go all the way out to get 8 people playing, of course a projector and a nice wall wouldn´t hurt

[YM]

Why stop at 8?
Bring on 64 player split screen!

[BomberTREE]

why stop at 64 when you can have..
one million player splitscreen


Keep it up pnch! 

[pnch]

@YM, kitheif: Thanks for the heads-up! And yes, I´m getting prety megalomaniac for a minimalist lone-dev game... the following post won´t help

We seem to have bumped over 5k devlog readers, so thanks everyone as well! As a lone dev, keeping track of those things sure helps with motivation! In return, I expanded a little bit the procedural generation experiment, and generated one ship for every reader, so here´s

5,280 ship sprites

Batch Nº1:

Batches Nº2 to Nº10:
2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

Also, the Facebook link in the signature was broken! It´s fixed now, be welcome.


Back to gamedev!

[Slader16]

That's so cool 

[BomberTREE]

 

[YM]

generated one ship for every reader

I hereby claim one of these two:
I can't decide which. They're batch 7, 19 down, 8 and 9 across.

[Slader16]

generated one ship for every reader

I hereby claim one of these two:
I can't decide which. They're batch 7, 19 down, 8 and 9 across.

The one on the right looks like a samurai helmet, embrace your destiny 

[Noffle]

The game's looking fantastic! I'm really digging the minimalist art style, and all of the depth of detail you're putting into details like camera tracking. I'd be really interested in hearing more details about your ship generation algorithm.

[jamesprimate]

ohhhhhhhhhhh this looks so damn cool!

[Netsu]

Ever see a devlog and think to yourself "oooh, I wish I was making this"?

Looks super cool!