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[BlackLodgeGames]

Latest Pre-Alpha Screenshots

( See the rest of the screenshots here. )

Game Description
Explore the multiverse in this open ended fully voiced sci-fi epic role playing game. As a captain of a small crew, you explore the universe freely from outside and inside your ship, with in-depth starship vs starship combat mixed with fun melee combat when on away missions or when walking in ships or on planets. You are the genetically enhanced captain of humanity's last starship on an epic quest to save or destroy the entire multiverse. Use your tactical skills to disable enemy starships, send boarding parties, take over their ship and then use it to destroy their home world by igniting their star into a super nova as your ship jumps safely away.

All the artwork and music has been beautifully handcrafted in high definition with over 6 galaxies, 500+ solar systems (average 83 per galaxy), 4000+ planets & moons (average 8 per solar system), 40 original songs, 250+ quests, 12 main quest lines, 9 main quest endings (3 good, 3 neutral, and 3 evil) and much more. To keep each game play unique and interesting, there are also 250 quest recipes that create infinitely new and exciting voyages each time you captain your starship.

1st GAMEPLAY VIDEO TRAILER Released:

The first gameplay trailer of the game was recently unveiled to not only make people aware of the game itself, but also to make people aware that Daath Galaxy is on both Steam Greenlight.  You can view the video trailer by clicking on the link:
 

DEVELOPMENT UPDATES:

Development Overview

• GAME STATUS: Early Alpha
• START DATE: Full time since February 17, 2013, part time since May 2008.
• CURRENT COMPLETION GOAL: 2015
• GENRE: Action RPG (as character) Turned based RPG (In ship combat)

Development Progress

• PROGRAMMING: 33% completed (changed engines 2 months ago)
• WRITING: 85% (back story & main questlines completed, side quests in progress)
• DIALOG: 5% (dialog still needs to be put into manuscript form & recorded)
• MUSIC: 80% (30 out of the 40 songs needed are finished)
• SOUND FX: 33% (a lot of basic sound effects are completed, but most battle & misc sound effects are lacking)
• ART ASSETS: 60% (space scenes are 100%, but NPCs, planet surfaces, cities, & inside of ships all need a lot work)
• LEVEL COMPLETION: 50% (The game world is fully defined, but not yet fully actualized.)
• MINI-GAMES: 10% (Most of the mini-games are fully fleshed out, but lack assets or programming)

Are You Interested?
If this game looks cool, and you want to play it, then please bookmark http://daathgalaxy.com friend me here on Steam and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Indiedb.com. Also, join our Steam community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/daathgalaxy or just search for "Daath Galaxy" in Groups. Anyone who shows a real interest will definitely have a beta invitation for later this winter.

40 Song Original Soundtrack!
In other news, you can listen to 5 songs from Daath Galaxy right now (out of the 40+ songs that are in the game.) You can listen to all 5 songs here now:
https://soundcloud.com/madchenkraft/sets/daath-galaxy-ost

EDITOR'S NOTE:
This first post will always be modified to show off the latest news for Daath Galaxy.  As such, the most recent post I make in this post may also end up mirroring this first post for a time.  Reading this thread from the 2nd post onwards preserves the timeline of this devlog.  Thanks your understanding and for following along!

[BlackLodgeGames]

Game Description
Explore the multiverse in this open ended fully voiced sci-fi epic role playing game. As a captain of a small crew, you explore the universe freely from outside and inside your ship, with in-depth starship vs starship combat mixed with fun melee combat when on away missions or when walking in ships or on planets. You are the genetically enhanced captain of humanity's last starship on an epic quest to save or destroy the entire multiverse. Use your tactical skills to disable enemy starships, send boarding parties, take over their ship and then use it to destroy their home world by igniting their star into a super nova as your ship jumps safely away.

All the artwork and music has been beautifully handcrafted in high definition with over 6 galaxies, 500+ solar systems (average 83 per galaxy), 4000+ planets & moons (average 8 per solar system), 40 original songs, 250+ quests, 12 main quest lines, 9 main quest endings (3 good, 3 neutral, and 3 evil) and much more. To keep each game play unique and interesting, there are also 250 quest recipes that create infinitely new and exciting voyages each time you captain your starship.

Development Overview

• GAME STATUS: Early Alpha
• START DATE: February 17, 2013
• CURRENT COMPLETION GOAL: Winter 2014
• GENRE: Action RPG (as character) Turned based RPG (In ship combat)

About This Devlog
This devlog will be updated on a regular basis with all things related to the development and completion of the game.  Polite feedback is certainly appreciated, but keep in mind everything posted so far is from Alpha builds of the game, and does not reflect the final quality nor the full feature set of the game. 

Development Progress

• PROGRAMMING: 90% completed (only polishing, quest specific logic, & mini-games left)
• WRITING: 66% (back story & main questlines completed, side quests in progress)
• DIALOG: 1% (dialog still needs to be put into manuscript form & recorded, but waiting for writing to be at 100% before assembling the voice team)
• MUSIC: 75% (30 out of the 40 songs needed are finished)
• SOUND FX: 10% (a lot of basic sound effects are completed, but most battle & misc sound effects are lacking)
• ART ASSETS: 50% (space scenes are 100%, but NPCs, planet surfaces, cities, & inside of ships all need a lot work)
• LEVEL COMPLETION: 50% (The game world is fully defined, but not yet fully actualized.)
• MINI-GAMES: 33% (Most of the mini-games are fully fleshed out, but lack assets or programming)

Early alpha screenshot showing your character running around inside his or her ship


Early alpha screenshot of a player attempting to "land" on a gas giant planet


Early alpha screenshot of a solar system "world" map


Early alpha screenshot of space ship battling.

So here's a few details about how I've approached development.

First, I started with a notebook for concept art and inital planning.

Then, I moved onto writing actual specs for the game, which I wrote in the form of a Strategy Guide.  

Since this is a full featured RPG, a strategy guide is a must.  It's also a way for me to offer special bonus editions of the game that come with a box, soundtrack, and strategy guide.  Since indie games are on a race to the bottom price-wise, I decided to go the opposite direction and put together value propositions that justify a real price.  I refuse to do bundles or to price the game too low.

Big Yet Optional Mini-Games

• Deep computer systems with bootable BIOS, multiple operating systems, the ability to hack and overclock and even to play computer games on the in game computers!
• A card building game, with 4 different decks of increasingly higher power & value.  Play against NPC many characters, collect or lose cards in every match.  Can you collect a Master Deck, or all the Master Decks?  Do you have what it takes to win the Intergalactic Tournement?
• Chemistry crafting system consisting of 118 elements & 236 chemicals to craft virtually any in game item, weapon, or armor
• A sneaking & stealing system along with side quests and mini-games.
• An in-game RPG game playable on in-game computers...
• Even more optional mini-games!

So I took one of my older tech demos and spun it into a very deep mini-game that features over 100 hand crafted levels (all from the tech demo.)  I've also integrated other games I've written and not released, allowing me to recycle old code and projects, while offering new in-game distractions and entertainment.  The key with mini-games is to make them optional in my opinion.  Let the user decide if it's fun and worth spending time on.  If they feel it's fun, then they've got a game within a game to play.  If it's not fun to them, no loss, since the mini-games are totally optional.

I'll be detailing lots more stuff as I have the time.  Thanks for reading!

[BlackLodgeGames]

Daath Galaxy so far has only been confirmed on PC, but after some successful tests, it appears that a Linux native version will eventually reach the light of day.

When I say "eventually" what I mean is that there is no set release date for the Linux version of Daath Galaxy.  First, the Windows version needs to be competed and released.  Linux support will be after launch.  Luckily, a Linux version will mean a Mac OS X version will also surface.  At this point, it is likely that those are the only 3 supported platforms, but we'll re-examine that after the game launches.

My goal is Steamplay, as in you buy one version of the game and you get the Windows/Linux/Mac OS X versions in one purchase. 

In other news, you can listen to 4 songs from Daath Galaxy right now (out of the 40+ songs that are in the game.)  You can listen to all 4 songs here now:
https://soundcloud.com/madchenkraft/sets/daath-galaxy-ost

Finally, here's a new screenshot:

Full size: http://daathgalaxy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/combat02.jpg

In this screenshot we see the player targeting the enemy’s Life Support systems.  Future versions will provide better visual feedback.  Auto-fire requires no manual control, which is great for easy enemies.  For more difficult enemies, it is wise to target one or more specific systems.  Doing so requires some type of (usually) timed button combo or precise aim in order to successful hit the targeted location.

Thanks for reading.  We'll continue to keep you updated on our progress here at the tigsource forums.

[BlackLodgeGames]

It's been a little bit since my last update, so I wanted to let you all know that

Daath Galaxy is now on Steam Greenlight Concepts.  Please vote here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281734542

REAL (NON-CONCEPT) GREENLIGHT CAMPAIGN STARTS ON AUGUST 1st, 2014

I just updated my Greenlight page with these animated GIFs, and I wanted to share them here on my TIGSource devlog:

While animated GIFs look terrible, I figured I'd show you all a little sneak peak at the game play before the big content reveal on August 1st. Keep in mind, Steam has a 2MB file size limit, meaning I had to really lower the quality of the screen capture. Everything posted so far has been direct game play screenshots.

On the Greenlight Concepts page, I've posted 1920x1080 screenshots, and then directly after 640x360 GIF animations of the same or similar content. Keep in mind the GIFs look terrible, and are only here to show what that you're not looking at concept art, but actual gameplay screenshots.

I know, why not just upload a video? Because that's what August 1st is for. Stay tuned for the real Greenlight campaign on August 1st, including a trailer with mostly in game footage. Thanks for the support everyone!

[BlackLodgeGames]

Daath Galaxy is now on Steam Greenlight Concepts.  Please vote here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281734542

REAL (NON-CONCEPT) GREENLIGHT CAMPAIGN STARTS ON AUGUST 1st, 2014

Playing catch up on some screenshots.  These are in full 1080p, so click them to see them in full size:

The M216 Battleship is a distinct improvement of the M200 series of battleship, which itself was a vast improvement of the previous M100 series of ships.  With 8 different weapon banks, our hero is out gunned.  Look on the brightside though, this could have been a M300 series battleship…


When you encounter a ship like this early in the game, you had better run.  A ship of this massive scale is difficult to destroy without the proper weapons, and is impossible to defend against without the strongest of armor and shields.

So your best bet is to run: to jump away at the fastest speed possible… but be aware these ships can usually match your speed.  This means you’ll need to think on your feet.  Do a scan for close by inhabitable planets, or try to lose them in an asteroid field, or a nebula.  Or get them directly behind you and vent plasma.  There are multiple solutions and multiple ways to die in any given tactical scenario.  How will you survive Daath Galaxy?


Facing 2 “Dreadnaught Mark II” warships, our fearless (and probably stupid) hero decides to attack them instead of the more obvious move of running away as fast as possible…

[BlackLodgeGames]

ART STYLE AND SPECS FINALIZED!

To match the anime style of the characters and the in-ship art style, I've gone through and begun the process of implementing the new shaders on the outside view of the ships and space, so that they match the anime style of the rest of the game.  This means that most of the screenshots I've previously posted are now completely out of date (for other reasons aside from the art change as well!)  Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the new & final production art specs.

[BlackLodgeGames]

1st VIDEO TRAILER Released:

The first trailer of the game was recently unveiled to not only make people aware of the game itself, but also to make people aware that Daath Galaxy is now on both Steam Greenlight as well as IndieGoGo.com.  You can view the video trailer by clicking on either of these two links:
 

Latest screenshot: Action RPG When Playing Directly As Your Character

Here’s an early alpha screenshot from Daath Galaxy of your character fighting a monster. Inside of ships, on planets, in cities or starbases, the game plays kind of like Secret of Mana meets Double Dragon: Neon, of course with the art style as shown in this ALPHA screenshot.

Latest Screenshot: Turned Based RPG With a Twist, When Engaged in Ship VS Ship Combat

Here’s an early alpha screenshot from Daath Galaxy, so it does not reflect the final building quality of the game. In this screenshot, we see some of the ship turn based combat. It's like if you took Super Mario RPG mechanics and mixed it with FTL.

DEVELOPMENT UPDATES:

Development Overview

• GAME STATUS: Early Alpha
• START DATE: Full time since February 17, 2013, part time since May 2008.
• CURRENT COMPLETION GOAL: 2015
• GENRE: Action RPG (as character) Turned based RPG (In ship combat)

Development Progress

• PROGRAMMING: 90% completed (only polishing, quest specific logic, & mini-games left)
• WRITING: 75% (back story & main questlines completed, side quests in progress)
• DIALOG: 1% (dialog still needs to be put into manuscript form & recorded, but waiting for writing to be at 100% before assembling the voice team)
• MUSIC: 75% (30 out of the 40 songs needed are finished)
• SOUND FX: 25% (a lot of basic sound effects are completed, but most battle & misc sound effects are lacking)
• ART ASSETS: 60% (space scenes are 100%, but NPCs, planet surfaces, cities, & inside of ships all need a lot work)
• LEVEL COMPLETION: 55% (The game world is fully defined, but not yet fully actualized.)
• MINI-GAMES: 35% (Most of the mini-games are fully fleshed out, but lack assets or programming)

Are You Interested?
If this game looks cool, and you want to play it, then please considering funding us with even $1 at IndieGoGo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/daath-galaxy-fully-voiced-open-world-sci-fi-rpg/x/8262798 and bookmark http://daathgalaxy.com friend me here on Steam and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Indiedb.com. Also, join our Steam community: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/daathgalaxy or just search for "Daath Galaxy" in Groups. Anyone who shows a real interest will definitely have a beta invitation for later this winter.

40 Song Original Soundtrack!
In other news, you can listen to 5 songs from Daath Galaxy right now (out of the 40+ songs that are in the game.) You can listen to all 5 songs here now:
https://soundcloud.com/madchenkraft/sets/daath-galaxy-ost

[Savick]

Okay, a couple things.
I watched the trailer. It was bad. Like, I'm sorry and don't get too hurt by this but, but I laughed at it.
The animations and graphics used weren't good, the pacing was way too fast. The voice acting made me think it was a parody of some kind.
The plot seems cliche'd to me. Not sure how else to describe it.
I think the name Daath isn't a smart choice name wise because it sounds like you're trying to say Death but added an a where the e should be.
Do not use lense flairs.

I understand you've been working on this a while, but as it is right now, quality wise, I wouldn't support it or have the desire to play it.

This doesn't mean you should quit working on it, but consider some revision.

[BlackLodgeGames]

Thanks Savick, I appreciate your honest opinion and think you're opinion has merit as I've heard similar feedback from a few people.  While I have been working on this for awhile, it is definitely still alpha quality with temporary assets in places. I certainly intend to learn from this experience to refine the game closer to where it needs to be quality wise.  With that said, I'm still going to be sharing game play videos this month showing the state of the game where it is now.  Thanks again, and I hope you check back in and provide further feedback as the game progresses.

[BlackLodgeGames]

Upgraded the engine, here's the latest screenshots while running around as your character (plus a new title screenshot for good measure)

[BlackLodgeGames]

Latest Alpha Screenshots
Here’s some updated screenshots from the current alpha build of Daath Galaxy.  Here, we’re flying around on a planet.  You can hop out of your vehicle at any time (careful!)  The rest of the pictures show the player exploring the planet.  Still much work to be done, but thought I’d share the progress!

[BlackLodgeGames]

Almost 5 minutes of pre-alpha game play video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUDTJIa7H6o

Latest Pre-Alpha Screenshots

[BlackLodgeGames]

VOICE CASTING NEWS:
Working on my game today was awesome because it meant going to the bar and drinking beer with the legendary voice of Serious Sam, the multi-talented John Dick.  It was a fruitful & enjoyable experience, with the end result being that he is on board to lend his talented voice to my game.  The conversation itself helped me in a lot of ways, and I can say for certain that Daath Galaxy is already a better game based off of his observations and advice than it was the day before.  John is not the only voice actor I’ve been trying to connect with, but he is the first established veteran to get on board the team.  I personally couldn’t be happier!
( Read the rest of the blog post here. )

Latest screenshots

( See the rest of the screenshots here. )

[FK in the Coffee]

Wait, so what genre is this exactly?  It seems to be bouncing between 2D RPG, 3rd-person 3D action-RPG, vertical shoot-em-up, and now it's an FPS apparently?  I just have no idea what the game's going to be playing like for the majority of the experience.

[BlackLodgeGames]

Wait, so what genre is this exactly?  It seems to be bouncing between 2D RPG, 3rd-person 3D action-RPG, vertical shoot-em-up, and now it's an FPS apparently?  I just have no idea what the game's going to be playing like for the majority of the experience.

Ha ha.  Very understandable.  When the topic started it was on an older engine, and it was 2d using pre-rendered 3d content with a top down camera view.  The feedback I gathered at that time period forced me to reconsider my choice in engine, so I switched to Unity 3d at the cost of throwing away my near complete engine.  That was around the beginning of August.  The game currently has multiple camera options, primarily 1st or 3rd person as your player.  You can navigate through space manually through a 3rd person camera, or through commanding your starship on the bridge.  The game mixes elements of FPS & Action RPGs.  Thanks for the feedback!

[alvarop]

Wait, so what genre is this exactly?  It seems to be bouncing between 2D RPG, 3rd-person 3D action-RPG, vertical shoot-em-up, and now it's an FPS apparently?  I just have no idea what the game's going to be playing like for the majority of the experience.

My thoughts exactly. Good thing you asked.

Also, Daath Galaxy sounds like Death Galaxy but as a joke or even worse :


dat galaxy.

I get the feeling the game is trying to be so many things at the same time. It sincerely confused me.
Also, don't take my criticism the bad way, there is merit to your project and aspects of it seem very interesting. You have the skill, but maybe your mind is going to too many places.

[BlackLodgeGames]

Wait, so what genre is this exactly?  It seems to be bouncing between 2D RPG, 3rd-person 3D action-RPG, vertical shoot-em-up, and now it's an FPS apparently?  I just have no idea what the game's going to be playing like for the majority of the experience.

My thoughts exactly. Good thing you asked.

Also, Daath Galaxy sounds like Death Galaxy but as a joke or even worse :


dat galaxy.

Ha ha, true dat! Thanks for the feedback.

Da'ath (דעת) is the Hebrew word for knowledge.  You're not the first to make those observations, but I do intend to stick with the name regardless because I intend to make sequels, want a unique brand name, and the term takes on special importance inside the game's narrative making it of central importance to the game and series.

[FK in the Coffee]

Maybe consider adding the apostrophe to clarify the title?  Nothing against the word, but I think way too many people are going to think you're just going for a variation of "Death" if you leave it as is.  Also, with the 3rd/1st person options, does that work similar to games like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout?  You can toggle between views at any time?

[BlackLodgeGames]

Maybe consider adding the apostrophe to clarify the title?  Nothing against the word, but I think way too many people are going to think you're just going for a variation of "Death" if you leave it as is.  Also, with the 3rd/1st person options, does that work similar to games like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout?  You can toggle between views at any time?

Not a bad suggestion, and I agree that a large chunk of people are going to assume it's a play on the word death.

Yes, it works exactly like ES or Fallout in regards to toggling 1st/3rd person while playing as your character.  However, when you're doing things starship related there are different cameras at work.  Fundamentally the space combat is still as depicted above in the older screenshots, only now targeting is in 3d like everything else, so it feels kind of like VATS (Fallout 3/NV) in space combined with Super Mario RPG action RPG elements.

Here's a couple of game play videos, but they are both outdated since I'm putting 50-60 hour weeks into this game every week, 7 days a week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUDTJIa7H6o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkeCONS7GuU

I'll be making another gameplay video soon and I'll be sure to show off the 1st/3rd person toggling, as well as lockpicking, leveling up, and a quest play through from starship to solar system, to planet, to surface, to dungeon and back.

I get the feeling the game is trying to be so many things at the same time. It sincerely confused me.
Also, don't take my criticism the bad way, there is merit to your project and aspects of it seem very interesting. You have the skill, but maybe your mind is going to too many places.

I can definitely understand the confusion & sense of overreaching into too many areas for those following the game's devlog.  While this is undoubtedly not ideal, the game itself has a very well defined spec that hasn't actually changed in 2014 at all, the only thing that has changed is the implementation. I believe by switching engines the game has become more fun while still sticking to it's specific scope of features.  In addition, the 2d engine had all it's art and level assets rendered in Unity, so I've been able to utilize a lot of content, so it's been a case of 2 steps forward, one step back.

The game is shaping up at a rapid pace in the new engine.  Hoping to release a playable pre-alpha tech demo here in the next 3 to 6 weeks, but that's being optimistic since I have about 100 items left on my todo list to finish before the pre-alpha tech demo is ready for release, and I'm currently not checking off items at the pace required to be ready in 6 weeks.

I know I've bitten off more than most can chew, but I've been a full time self employed programmer for almost 10 years, I've been programming games for 19 years, and I've got all the time in the world to work on, polish, and release this game.  It's a labor of pure love. 

Apologies for the novel of a reply.  I appreciate your comments and advice!  Thanks for taking the time to check it out!

[C.A. Silbereisen]

i love these types of multi genre open world games and this is looking pretty neat. keep it up!