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Remnant is a real-time 4X space strategy game set in a single planetary system. Some of the features that make Remnant unique are:

• Full 3D Battles: Combat takes place in completely open space with full six degrees of freedom. No tiles. No grids. Simplified Newtonian physics allow movement in one direction while facing (and attacking) another.
• Espionage: A complex espionage system involving agents that gain experience and level up. Capture or assassinate other player's governors, admirals and spies or disrupt their fledgling empire through sabotage and subterfuge.
• Orbits: A dynamic map where all planets, moons and asteroids move in orbit as the game progresses. Colonizing a moon will keep the colony at arm's length but not yield as many resources as capturing the more vulnerable outer planets and asteroids.
• Logistics: Resources are local to each planet rather than empire wide. The transportation of resources from mining worlds to forge worlds create emergent supply lines that are vulnerable to disruption.

I'm a big fan of 4x games so looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Yay 4x! What other games are you using for inspiration? There are so many good ones out there - both board & video game alike.

Ohhhhh man. I drained a lot of time into Star Wars Rebellion back in the day. While it may not have held up as well as some other games, I still enjoy it for what it is. Kudos, if you can improve upon that game's formula, I'm in.

Been distracted wrapping up some Flash sitelocks the last two days.  I'll be able to focus more starting tomorrow.

Today I learned that I have a lot of reading to do on shaders.  I eventually managed to hack something together that looks OK but it has a long way to go.

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0002a.gif)



Me too, in both regards.


Rebellion and Civilization are the ones I've sunk the most time in over the years.  Sins of a Solar Empire is up there too, though more RTS than 4X.  I just picked up Endless Space, Galactic Civilizations 2, Star Ruler and StarDrive during the winter sales (bundle maybe?), so I have plenty of study material.  Anything you'd recommend?


I absolutely adore Rebellion's take on the micro/macro aspect.  It has just the right amount of both from beginning to late game.  I consider the combat system and (lack of) diplomacy system as the weakest points, and the aspects I'm going to try to focus on improving.  What do you think?

If you need more study material, try the game Distant Worlds: universe (its on steam).

The Borg have nothing on the dreaded Unit Cube:
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0003a.gif)

I've spent the last few days just working on special fx and rendering related things as that's my weakest point and I want to bank as much experience as possible before diving into gameplay coding.  I think having semi-attractive things will also keep me motivated.

Not too much to report when it comes to "learned a lot".



I've heard very good things but it's pretty pricey.  Been on my wishlist for a while.  Thanks for the heads up, though.

Man, the horizon atmosphere haze looks pretty sexy to me. Seems pretty realistic how you only see at essentially dawn or dusk from very far away.

if you want, I can add you to my steam sharing list, so you can play/study the game whenever I'm not playing a game. PM me if you feel like doing that (is this allowed? moderator message me and I'll remove this message if it's not).

The last piece of the "I don't have a clue how to accomplish this from the get go" pie (though I prefer pecan) came together today: swapping out models for UI elements at various levels of zoom.  It actually wasn't as difficult as I imagined, though it's not working perfectly just yet because not all of these cubes are linked as a single group, but that should be an easy fix.

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0004a.gif)

I'm going to spend my weekend playing around in Sins of a Solar Empire to really nail all the nuance of that amazing camera system.  Anyone have any suggestions for improvements or other games with such fluid cameras?



To be honest I want the giant, gawdy atmosphere for that extra bit of sex appeal... realistic or not.  I appreciate the feedback though.


That's an incredibly generous ofter mate but I'll have to respectfully decline as I simply do not know entirely what that entails and what the risk involved are.  Very much appreciate your generosity though!

That looks very promising already!

Ok, no problem. If you ever change your mind you can PM me and we can talk about it.

Grabbed a ship from the asset store and found the amazing Spacescape (http://alexcpeterson.com/spacescape/) by Alex Peterson for generating the skybox.  Going to be an amazing tool in the future.

Overall lighting sucks but progress is progress!  (Click for 1080p)
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0005a_t.jpg) (http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0005a.jpg)

Hoping to have some pretty space battles going on by the end of the week.



Thank you very much!

I've been working on the battle system and ship customization.  The objective is to allow players to customize the various hardpoints on a ship's hull to place specific turrets, counter-measures, subsystems (like shield amplifiers) to create a more dynamic battle environment.  I can place turrets myself in the Unity IDE and they'll behave accordingly, but there's no way for player's to do it just yet.  I'd say it's about halfway there.

I'm not entirely certain on how I want the battles to unfold.  I definitely want the movement to be automatic, so a more slowpaced player doesn't feel completely overwhelmed by frantic RTS action.  I've been toying with a system where the battle pauses every X seconds and allows the player to issue one command to a specific ship or a class of ships ("Launch countermeasures!", "Fire torpedos!", "Shields up!") and the rest of the battle rages autonomously.  To me, this captures the idea of being an admiral of a navy, not able to micromanage every single ship but direct the big picture.  What do you guys think?

The battles right now are fairly stiff looking -- I need to find a way to add nice camera movement and cuts. (Click for 1080p)
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0006a_t.jpg) (http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0006a.jpg)

Hoping to have something prettier to show off for this coming screenshot Saturday.

Looking good!
As for you battle system, have a look at flotilla. I handles movement in a similar way, teams get to give orders during pause and then carry out in realtime.

I like it, but I loathe micromanagement in general, not all players would agree :)
Althrough every X seconds maybe is too much? Maybe instead make per battle limit (like 5 orders per battle)? Or some mixed system (one order per 10 seconds but no more than 5 per battle)?

Beams are in.  Can you spot them?  8D

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0007a_t.jpg) (http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0007a.jpg)
(click for 1080p)

Next up is actually being able to play a battle.  I'm not really sure how I want the ships to stand off.  Here's the general setups I've noticed after watching hours of sci-fi footage on YouTube:

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0007b.jpg)

My gut says congested would be the most visually pleasing but might be a real nightmare for gameplay.  I'm also not entirely sure how the battle would start in that state -- though it could be pretty cool to have to find your bearings after your fleet warps in.  My second favourite would be pursuit.

What do you guys think?



You know, I got Flotilla in a bundle a long time ago and still haven't given it a whirl.  Thanks for the reminder!


I totally understand what you mean with micromanagement.  Nothing more tedious than having to go through the motions of a battle that feels over from the start.  I want it to feel like a hands off light show when you're crushing your opponent and very "any wrong move could tip it" when you're evenly matched.  It's definitely not going to be easy.

I think you should start with battle mechanic, not visuals. How the player gives orders and how the orders affect the battle. Then based on these you will know what kind of view fits the mechanic you have choosen.

I've spent the last few weeks writing behind the scenes, boilerplate code: message systems, event systems, component managers, camera controllers, object pools, etc. etc.  Absolutely nothing exciting visually and I definitely didn't want to bore you to death with the details.  I do have a solid foundation going forward, at least, and will be able to share more interesting things going forward.

Here's a mockup of the UI that I had in my head.  It looks absolutely dreadful.  I'll need to consult with a professional in the future:
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0008a_t.jpg) (http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0008a.jpg)

Here's a mockup for the planet UI.  Feedback very much appreciated here:
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0009a_t.jpg) (http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0009a.jpg)

Structure portraits courtesy of David Revoy (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Deevad) from the Wikimedia Commons.

The game looks really great so far! I'll be watching closely-- looking forward to hearing more about the gameplay!

Here's my Screenshot Saturday entry:
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0010a_t.jpg) (http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0010a.jpg)



Thanks mate, appreciate the kind words.  I've got most of the design "locked in" at this point and will be updating the first post very soon.  I've come up with, what I think are, some pretty fun twists on the genre.

After an absolutely exhausting few weeks, I'm pleased to announce that Remnant is now available on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grozzler/remnant-4x-space-strategy-game-for-pc-mac-and-linu) and Greenlight (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=446183014)!  It's a fantastic feeling finally being able to put it out there for public consumption and to get some much needed feedback.  Marketing is mentally draining, constantly playing with things and adjusting them until they're just right only to wake up the next day and hate it.  The trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Rm7vmflVM) was easily the most tiring.  I hope it turned out alright.

In more development related news, I've joined forces with a character artist to help flesh out the character and agent portraits:
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0011a.jpg)

Fingers crossed everything goes well!

Absolute rollercoaster of emotions in the last 24 hours.

After one day, Remnant is 31% of the way up the ladder to top 100 on Greenlight:
(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0012a.jpg)

I have absolutely no clue how good that is as there's little baseline to compare it to.  It feels good though, so who cares!  If any Greenlight experienced devs want to chime in, please do.

The Kickstarter is slowly trickling in backers.  I haven't had much luck with getting coverage on any sites, sent about 100+ e-mails last night and this morning, but fingers are still crossed.  If anyone knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, that would be very welcome right now.

This is looking brilliantly polished and very appealing.

Good luck with Greenlight and Kickstarter.

75% of the way there!  This is exciting.

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0013a.jpg)



Thanks for the kind words Faerdan.  I appreciate it.  Just checked out your game on IndieDB and it looks right up my alley - followed you.

Top 100!  Looking forward to waking up to some really good news sometime this week.  Thanks for all your support everyone!

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0014a.jpg)

Random tips:
- on the homepage link to your personal Twitter not the game twitter (it has 4 followers while yours has like 300)
- in posts make a link to GL that opens the Steam client (not sure how it's done but I have seen it) this way one don't need to login via website (most people don't)
- have you contacted explorminate and space sector?
- there is no YouTube channel link on your homepage


BTW, make sure to make a "postmortem" after you finish GL and KS :) In next in line to do these :)

Did it!  Going to have a big drink tonight to celebrate the stress of this part being over.  I'm not entirely sure if games are still approved in huge waves, but Remnant definitely seems on deck to be approved soon.

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0015a.jpg)

Kickstarter has picked up a little, up to 15% funded.  Still not having much luck being covered by the bigger sites.  Hopefully someone gets back to me soon.  Silence is way more haunting than "your game sucks go away".



Appreciate the tips Archibald:
- You think the Twitter makes that big of a difference?  I definitely want to start using the "official" Twitter account.
- I have no clue how to make a link that opens Steam but it doesn't seem to have been a problem.
- I'm featured on eXplorminate and Space Sector already, reached out to them very early.
- I was planning on replacing the Greenlight link to YouTube once it's greenlit.  No clue if that's a bad idea.

My advice on KS/GL so far: have a lot of alcohol on hand to cope with all the stress.

Not important in terms of getting new views but it's negative. When you see a Twitter with 4 followers you get a *strong* impression that some kid got assets from unity store, tossed together something in half an hour and now want to run with your money. You would better remove the Twitter link altogether (you can start working on your official twitter *after* kickstarter, now you need credibility and your personal account provides it while the official is terrible for this purpose).

Woke up to some wonderful news yesterday:

(http://www.grozzler.com/tig/devlog/4x/0016a.jpg)

Only took 6 days.  Feels pretty friggin' good.

Now I need to focus on building a small demo to get the game out to some folks to try to promote the Kickstarter.  Should have had that out from the start -- big mistake on my part.



That's a great point -- consider it changed!

Hmm, demo might be a doublke edged sword. But yeah, in your situation it's probably a good idea.

But first I would work on an additional video. One where you simply talk about the game and about you. Why you make the game, what's original in the game, what are the core design goals, about you as the developer. You know, usually I have laughed at the "people want to know about the person they crowdfund not just about the game" but after checking your kickstarter I changed my mind (I found it missing). One should say a few words about himself.