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[Scut Fabulous]

Thanks for the tips yo.  I monkeyed around with Graphics Gale a few years ago and while it seemed really cool the control scheme made my head hurt as I recall.  Still, 20 bucks really isn't much of anything as a business expense.  I should take another crack at it.

[Inane]

Thanks for the tips yo.  I monkeyed around with Graphics Gale a few years ago and while it seemed really cool the control scheme made my head hurt as I recall.

The entirely customizable control scheme? You can change any hot key except for the view dragging (which is ctrl+lmb)

[McMutton]

I recommend Beneton Movie GIF. It allows for your individual frame timing and such, as well as being free.

[Scut Fabulous]

Thanks for the tips yo.  I monkeyed around with Graphics Gale a few years ago and while it seemed really cool the control scheme made my head hurt as I recall.

The entirely customizable control scheme? You can change any hot key except for the view dragging (which is ctrl+lmb)

I recommend Beneton Movie GIF. It allows for your individual frame timing and such, as well as being free.

Downloaded, thanks for the tip!

[Fats_]

This looks awesome! Great job! Excellent art and ideas.
Looking forward for more!

[Scut Fabulous]

Last week I was working on some animations and I finally got around to processing them in a way that looked decent enough for posting.
There are a few little bits I left out, but that gives you some idea of flight and idle animations.

[mokesmoe]

The side-to-side look looks really good! The arm bobbing looks a bit odd though. Everything else looks good.

[Chris Z]

Wow, really digging your concept art and all the progress you've posted.  Keeping an eye on this one, keep up the awesome work.

[Scut Fabulous]

http://scutanddestroy.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/salvage-artifacts-001.jpg

If you're going to risk life and limb digging into a treacherous alien planet there had better be some valuable loot under all that rock.
These are some sketch ideations for artifact forms.  I think I'm going to take a bit of time with them and let them evolve as organically as possible.  I really want them to be vague in function but still fun to look at.

[RCIX]

They look too much like rocks to me -- perhaps add some sort of alien writing on parts of them or maybe add wire-like patterns on them?

[McMutton]

 Or perhaps try some more natural shapes with angular/really artificial marking, lines, and such?

[Loren Schmidt]

It's great to see how much love you're pouring into this. I also really like the feel you're going for.

Have you read A Roadside Picnic? If not, I'd definitely recommend it. It's very related to what you're creating. It does a good job of making the act of retrieving artifacts feel real, and it never reveals too much about the artifacts' origin or function.

While I'm really enjoying seeing your posts, to be honest I'm a bit concerned that you don't have anything playable yet. I would hate to see all your enthusiasm not lead to the creation of an amazing game. What's the status of the code side of things? If the friend you mentioned earlier isn't as able to put time into the game as you are, I'm sure you could find a stable, talented person around here who'd be happy to help with the code side of things. I (and, evidently, many other people) really want to see this project succeed, and I hope you've got all your ducks in a row so development can get off to a good start!

[Scut Fabulous]

Just as a point of clarification regarding artifacts, that sketch was just form development/ideation, and not an exploration of surface treatments.  There's plenty more for me to play with.

Roadside Picnic is one of my favourite sci fi novels actually, definitely a thematic inspiration.   

As for coding development, I understand your concerns, and obviously you can't see things from my exact perspective, but I can tell you I'm not worried.  Maybe the best analogy I could make is with most works of visual fantasy, be it films or cars, there's a lot of concept development that takes place long before production begins.  Most corporations keep that stuff very secretive, but I'm not a corporation, and in the long run I think I have much more to gain by simply laying out much of my process in the open.

[Tycho Brahe]

I Agree with sparky. You're game looks awesome, huge and monumental. Because of this however, I'd advise getting on with some coding as soon as possible. You can keep creating content once the core of the code is done, but until you've got at least SOME down, you wont know the limits of what you have.

[chegr]

Roadside Picnic is one of my favourite sci fi novels actually, definitely a thematic inspiration.

Erm, from brothers Strugatskie, that Roadside picnic? Red Shukhart and others? Translation from russian?

[Scut Fabulous]

Roadside Picnic is one of my favourite sci fi novels actually, definitely a thematic inspiration.

Erm, from brothers Strugatskie, that Roadside picnic? Red Shukhart and others? Translation from russian?

Yeah Strugatsky bros, the old film Stalker is based on it as well.  As much as I enjoyed the FPS s.t.a.l.k.e.r., I wish it had been more like the book and movie.  Would have been much creepier, though my inner cynic says it wouldn't have sold as well.

[chegr]

Yeah Strugatsky bros, the old film Stalker is based on it as well. As much as I enjoyed the FPS s.t.a.l.k.e.r., I wish it had been more like the book and movie. Would have been much creepier, though my inner cynic says it wouldn't have sold as well.

FPS Stalker is just rough reflection of the book, simplified fantasy, insolent usage of fine name, really. Yeah, it's good anyway (and for somebody), but it has no real connection with original. The book is awesome indeed. I didn't know it was translated, it's news to me (as i'm from Russia). And it would be really cool if you're going to keep that line (moody) in your game, as it's now. And a bit from Lucasarts Dig

[Scut Fabulous]

You might enjoy a novella by Gene Wolfe called Memorare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorare_(novella)

It's about exploring tombs contained within asteroids, and already has me dreaming of an expansion pack for The Salvage.   

[James Edward Smith]

I'm always really tickled by games that manage to have equipment or upgrades in them that feel really good and really powerful in the game and yet aren't related to something as direct as say combat.

Like you show your little powersuit guy having a lamp on his helmet. I'd like to see better suits having better lights that reveal more of the tunnel you are in to you(level2), or that are controllable say(level3), or that have a weak form of the sonar that one big device has(level4), etc.

I sort of like the idea of having an inside your ship area that you frequently have to go to, sort of like a subscreen or like pandora's box in Terranigma. When you on inside the ship you sort of dock your power suit against the hull in a designated spot with a cool animation and then you can just walk your jumpsuited little pilot around inside the ship, do some administrative things like examine your finds better in a little internal ship lab, etc, and then walk back to the suit airlock thing and walk back into the caves to find more stuff with an appropriate sound profile change. Like inside the ship you can hear the generator going, maybe there's a radio playing and then in your suit you just hear outside noises like rain and stuff for atmosphered planets and just your breathing and silence on asteroids and moons.

Anyway, just the musings your art stirred in me. Mostly just atmosphere stuff, not much gameplay ideas really.

[Hangedman]

I sort of like the idea of having an inside your ship area that you frequently have to go to, sort of like a subscreen or like pandora's box in Terranigma...

This is an excellent idea on the whole, for a project such as this. It would lend a sense of continuity to the game that suits having such a detailed world: even the menu/inventory could exist without interrupting the flow of the world, which is dynamic as it is.

Possibly you'd have a little dropship/walker that hovers permanently above the surface, and as long as you have sightline to the sky you can be extracted along with your little suit, pulled into a little docking bay and let out to breathe for a moment while techs upgrade or fix up your suit.

This would also increase the seriousness of cave-ins and being deep below, as you know that straying too far from your lifeline can lead to greater risks and rewards.