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[Half Hit Points]

:: It is the dawning of the Technocratic Union of Terra's Third Great Extraterran Expedition. Orbiting Terra, a fleet of the best and the bravest of humankind stand ready to venture forth to a fresh quadrant of the Ethersphere. Equipped with the latest generation Furnaces of Arcana they shall perform grand alchemies, squaring the circle and touching upon fragments of the Philosophers Stone. They shall bend the fabric of space and the very notion of location as they desire, flinging themselves far from home to discover the unknown and bring humanity ever closer to its final enlightenment ::

So, what is this?

Slingshot is a procedurally generated space shooter with realistic orbital mechanics, being developed for HTML5 using the Phaser engine. The bones of the game are built around real orbital physics, its fluff around the pseudoscience of alchemy. Cast adrift in an unknown sector of the universe it is up to you to explore the solar systems around you, collect materials with which you can upgrade and respec you vessel on the fly...and hope to fight off the hostile beings which occupy this strange space until you manage to find your way home.

:: The Fourth generational Citrinitas ships they pilot have marvelous morphic properties, allowing local elements to quickly be integrated into the structure of the vessels. This makes them highly adaptable to whatever environment these brave pioneers may eventually find themselves in – as well as allowing each craft to reflect its pilots course through their personal Great Works ::

The Team - CrossProduct

Sean Walton | Twitter: Original conceptualiser and prime code monkey

Barry Welton | Twitter: First pixel prettier and creator of this here dev log a.k.a. Half Hit Points

With our powers combined, we create games!

:: Previous to the First Great Extraterran Expedition a great period of experimentation and testing took place to craft what became the first generation of Citrinitas ships. Much of the initial test piloting was performed by Homunculus – Alchemically created humanoids built for purpose who are never the less more expendable than a given, irreplaceable, human soul. Many were lost in the Ethersphere as failures occurred with the initial space folding abilities of more primitive Furnace Arcana. Throughout all past Grand Expeditions and all lesser ventures, the fate of these lost ships remains unknown... ::

Some Samplings of Art Stuff

::...that is until the Third Great Extraterran Expedition launches. A malfunction in the alchemies of a lone corvette send its trajectory way off course. The functionality of the craft severely impaired by this unexpected passage it limps, unknowingly, through territories claimed by the Order of the Exalted – Clones and descendants of the lost Homunculi who had flourished in this strange, new quadrant of the Ethersphere, yet had never cast aside the ancestral grudge against the humanity that had created them only to so casually abandon them. The capture of this solitary human craft may bring them the coordinates they need to plot a course to Terra so that they might show humanity, by force, how strong their abandoned children have grown ::

Alpha is now live!

Take a trip to the online alpha and give it a try for yourselves. We are at the stage now where we are looking for all the outside feedback we can get so if you can find it in your heart to leave some feedback for a couple of fresh game dev's (Particularly regarding the controls and the workings of the upgrade system) it will be much appreciated

PLAY SLINGSHOT alpha TODAY!

[Half Hit Points]

Feedback we have gathered so far has largely been focused around the controls and how tricky they were to get a handle on. This was leading to frustration in players from the outset. With no way to intuitively interact with the game it was leading to an understandably quick turn-off. With that in mind today we rolled out an update which tweaks the controls and the way gravity works which should make the player ship...well...more controllable.

[Half Hit Points]

After more great feedback over in the Playtesting forum, Sean has implemented a whole bunch of changes to the game controls.  A fresh version of the alpha is ready, complete with changes to bullet speed, acceleration, turning friction, camera, screen shake and all manner of fun things. Check it out!

[Half Hit Points]

As we work on updating the play and tuning the moment to moment feel of Slingshot, I've been sketching out my thoughts on the future of the upgrade system. At current it largely consists of incremental improvements in number getting larger behind the scenes. There is an unsatisfying detachment from the progress your ship is making due to the lack of visible feedback or change in the mechanics of play. It just doesn't ~feel~ good. So, I've started plans on an overhaul of the system as documented in the incredibly detailed design document below...



...yeah, I just doodled it out in a notepad. Still, there is a lot going on in there. Each upgrade had to have a unique effect, bring an immediately obvious change in play, work in combination with the other abilities and each work within the themes of the four different stages of alchemy. It was a bit of a mind bender and took much longer than I had expected, but here it is!

With all these new abilities in the hands of the players, we were going to need to expand the fleet of enemy vessels. It was time to hit the notepad again...



...and these should do for starters. We can makes some more simple variants on these, like shielded fighters and larger/smaller scaled ships at different strengths. I'd like to do some more boss ships, each scaling to be more difficult to combat than the last, but it'll be plenty of work getting one working satisfactorily. Looks like me and Sculptis are going to be spending a lot of time together in the coming days.

[Half Hit Points]

Job hunting escapades have been filling most of my hours for about the last week, but today I managed to find time to get back into Sculptris and make up some new models from my doodled concepts. Today I learned the value of building models in separate pieces to be assembled later. Also reusing assets efficiently!

Here is the first variant weapons satellite:
 


Missile armed satellite:



And here is a significant upgrade to the presentation of our first boss!