Started work on the planet lander / rover. Just the drop sequence so far.

UI isn't in yet, but there will be an altitude indication on the side and you use thrusters to slow decent. Depending on planet gravity it will be easy/hard to have a soft landing. For those who are not sure where I'm going with this,

had my favorite planet roving. It will be similar... but a mix of it and some other ideas I'm kicking around.

Opinions?

(note: camera shake didn't gif well

)

Here's my gut reaction: it's a space game and it is probably complicated with nit-picky customization features. I don't tend to like those kind of games, and I would be a hard sell on your title.

Good feedback. I love space games, but not at all a fan of the type you mention either (the over complicated rts / 4x/ etc). StarDiver is not that at all and sounds like we need to sort out some clear description/trailer to point that out and try to minimize turning off gamers who could be fans but assume it is a 4x or complicated space game.

What I'm not seeing upfront: a two sentence or paragraph-long description of your game. What's great about this game? Does it have a Star Control-vibe or more of arcade/twin-stick shooter? What is the goal? What is the tone of the gameplay? I want to know what makes this thing unique! Where is the fun? Can you talk about those moments that you've found and you're working every week to make a little better?

I know a good trailer will help on this point. Our biggest goal is to modernize and revive the 1990s space-opera genre that has been long dead. That includes StarFlight and StarControl series of games. Those games had great story, rpg elements, and fun space combat. They were far away from what exists in space games today (complicated fleet rts games or 4x space games). For gamers that played the old classics, I think they will get it quickly with just the mention of the old games -- sadly, I doubt there are enough of us out there to make the title successful, so we need to sell the younger/current gamers. You are a prime example of who we would like to not turn away based on assumptions of what current space games are. What keywords would help you make a quick assessment away from the over-complicated space games?

The art is polished and it looks good, but the range of color in your game is somewhat lacking and for some reason, I feel like it points to a lack of tonal diversity throughout the game. Can you show me a range of different moods?

I think this will go away when we put up more of the different regions of space, planets, aliens etc. Maybe I can get your input when we get a trailer put together if you still think it could use a wider tonal range.

Thanks a ton for the feedback!

I'd avoid the font resizing. Other than that it looks great!

I do need to sort that out, I wasn't a fan either. It is something that the ui control we are using does for you. We may need to have a max length and just split into two dialogues when it's longer.

I love a good fly-n-chat; we don't get enough of those. 

Thanks so much for dropping in -- and especially for the in depth response w/ a lot of great points.

For the public, I think things might not pick up until you have a trailer, maybe even a demo if you feel confident, highlighting the game's strengths.  (For me, that's interesting-looking aliens that aren't rubber-forehead humans, and creative hyper-melee abilities.)

A good trailer is currently top on our list of priorities. Specifically, we have a list of items we want to get implemented prior to making a trailer. We will be making two trailers. One general game promotion and one for crowd-funding. I do agree that a trailer may be the missing component to slow interest during early dev.

I have more positive feelings than negative ones -- you have a lot of reason to be proud! -- but here are some uncertainties and/or negatives from my own gut that you might be able to make use of.  (I'm not actually asking you these questions, I'm saying that's what comes up in my mind as a potential customer.)

Perfect, this is exactly what I was hoping for -- a list of things to think about to help us get the project marketed in the best light we can.

1. The emphasis on procedural generation actually turns me off a bit.  I just don't expect good pacing or strong stories when a procedural universe is advertised.  (I mean, of course it's proc-gen; every game with hundreds of stars is.  It's just that as a buzzword it's losing its luster as I realize that more often than not I'm going to get a little bit of butter on a football field of toast.)  If you've got something beyond "a random number generator made this" -- like your aliens know about their neighborhoods and neighbors and feuds and local history, and you can ask them about it -- emphasize that part of it instead.

This is a very good point. Personally, I know the "procedural" buzzword is hot -- thought elicits a potential negative view from those that understand the tech side of it. Procedural often ends up leading to generic feel, bad seeding, etc. We will need to be careful how we use the term and be specific about what is and what is not procedural. Being a story driven rpg, procedural story and/or rpg elements would suck (unless there is some form of genius implimentation far beyond us). What we use procedural for is planet surfaces, solar system layouts, few other more minor things. The single player will likely use the same seed so players can compare exact experience with friends. The multi-player will be a lot more configurable of a universe. Some aspects of that are still a bit open as we have focused on the single player / coop elements first.

2. Also it's unclear to me what the relationship between "epic" and "procedural" is.  Is this a long game or a short game?  If it's a long game, I'm probably only finishing it once.  (And if it's a long game and there are balance issues after 15 hours because I rolled a bad universe, I'm not even finishing it once.)

Sounds like we need to do a much better job of our few sentence description of 'what is this game'. Thx.

3. It's clear what I'm going to do on a small scale (fight, talk, mine) and a large scale ("save humanity" or "save the galaxy" or somesuch), but I think it's the medium-term goals that tell me the "feel" of the game.  Am I solving mysteries?  Finding ancient and powerful relics?  Getting rich?  Walking a diplomatic tightrope between hostile factions?  Running contraband?  Learning alien languages?  Am I boldly-going, sneaking, carving a path of destruction, or getting out of Dodge?  The more I know about that stuff, the more I can know whether it's up my alley or not.

I'm thinking the trailer will fill in the medium-term goals. What is your opinion on how detailed to make the 'what is this game' description. I've seen everything from a few words to several paragraphs. Personally, I fine that more than 1-2 sentences and I jump down to screenshots/video. I'm not sure if I'm typical on that or not.

4. Make sure that you only put your best writing on display.  You have to show you know where commas go, that it's not going to be pedestrian, juvenile, amateurish, etc.  Hire an editor or proofreader just to be sure, and get some opinions from some SF readers (forums, your local book club, wherever).

Great suggestion. To this point we have definitively posted a lot of development build stuff, though it is getting cleaned up more now than earlier in the project. Was there anything you saw that stuck out in a negative way? We do have a writer involved making the story arc, dialogues, etc -- though a lot is still in draft prior to edits.

5. For showing off your dialogue system, choose the 2-4 most interesting dialogue choices your game will have to offer, the ones where your goal is clear but how you get it is unclear, and each option is a viable and interesting strategy.  In general, highlight Interesting Choices wherever you can, because showing people interesting choices makes them want to make those choices.

We will likely pick 2-3 of the most unique alien races to display in the trailer. I do like your advice to also pick the most interesting dialogue exchange. Thinking more about that, we will need to be careful as so much of the dialogue is story arc specific and may be very out of context for a trailer. Maybe pick some of the quirky stuff that doesn't need the context to stand alone.

Thanks again for taking the time to give in-depth feedback!

best advice I have: Join every gamejam you can, especially group gamejams. You get a day to week long (most are short) exposure to all aspects of game creation.


I wish they existed back in the early 1990s when I started game dev!

<rant>

Roguelike = pull hair out frustration of wanting Faster than Light to have a DAMN SAVE GAME SYSTEM!

</rant>

I got over it (a little) when I learned how to ghetto save by backing up their game after every move.

Hi Guys,

I'm doing a bit of a project gutcheck. I've been working on stardiver for about a year now and am pretty proud of the progress. The thing that has me a bit worried is the lack of discussion/traction I've seen sharing info, dev blogs, etc. On dev to dev forums, the project seems to get great feedback (maybe devs are overly nice to other devs?), but as far as general gamers following / commenting etc I'm starting to worry the project is extremely niche or something glaring is turning people off to it.

I'd love some honest feedback on what your first reactions are to the project, and what could be improved.

As you can see most recent page, all posts are mine:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=37040.160

project main page (hmmm I assume most people start w most recent posts and work back? My first post info is a bit old):
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=37040.0

sample of recent project update:

I sure procrastinate on UI stuff, but I finally started making the dialogue ui for stardiver. Note the animation is placeholder (stiff and repetitive test animation. idle/chat/irritated/ec are planned) and the ui still needs a little tweaking, but its coming along:

gfycat for this one (110mb gif)

http://gfycat.com/UnequaledRemarkableIbex

I was procrastinating on getting to the dialogue system UI (dreading UI work heh) so I added circular storms for procedural gas giants:

New this week on StarDiver --

Space stations:



Combat UI functional:


Circular Storms on Gas Giants:

I've spent the day messing w space stations and while the sprite lighting system worked well for ships, especially when tilting ships banking, stations were looking/feeling a bit flat.  Not quite peper-mario flat, but certainly not what I wanted. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do... options include ditching stations, making them in 3d (worry of style shift and costs), or..... stacking layers of the station in the z which I tried first. Between getting some parrallax scrolling effect, and the heightmap/lighting system, I think I like it. Example -- note not all stations will have designs that clone/stack and we will have design sections for overlay if we are going w this method. See what you think. note the end of the clip is toying w z axis tilting. I could see concentric circle rotation for some station parts (think penny wobble on table).

Working on space stations for StarDiver.

Krex Station:


Frik Asteroid Base:

So I'm finally hooking up the combat UI. I've had the art assets for a while just been avoiding doing the cutups and nGUI work to get it ingame -- yes I really do hate ui work.

So I have a question for the group about the ship status silhouette on the UI. Pic:



My question is about color. At the moment I have it set so full health is the offwhite color like the power/hull meters. It looks aesthetically pleasing enough and it darkens on damage and faded completely away when destroyed.

Question:

1. color wise does this work well enough for the purpose of the display? I know many games use bright green to yellow to red transitions for damage, but not a fan of how those colors look in the ui.

2. as a gamer would you prefer to know exact status of a part % wise w a callout # on top or beside it?

also to make a secondary objective on why to have the ship status graphics at all, for auto-target weapons you will be able to tab through/select a specific enemy part to target.

Interestingly in limited (internal folks) playtesting I'm the only fan of the slowmotion music. I have a feeling it will be a feature either left out entirely or reserved for rare over-the-top weapon. The zooming is only for very long-range weapons -- I think I will limit it to only activate if the enemy is beyond a certain distance so you don't get the crash-zoom effect when fairly close. Thanks for the feedback.

As a hard sci-fi fan, love that the aliens truly look alien 

Also, the game looks beautiful!

Thanks for the kind words.

That looks awesome in short bursts, but I'm wondering if it won't give motion sickness if it's like that all the time?

are you referring to the planet backgrounds or slow motion?

I absolutely love that drill attack, but I feel it'd have even more punch with a freeze frame effect/vibrating effect/sort other form of resistance before breaking the other ship, just to show friction and the strength of the attack. It works already, mind you :-D

Totally agree that would really add some great feedback to the feel of it.

This week's big things:

Orbital Battles:



TechDemo of Procedural Planets:
http://gfycat.com/UnrealisticThatBrocketdeer

SlowMotion and music pitch shift ofr Direct Hits:




MicroSun Gravity / Heat Damage:

Last few days I've been working on planetary battles. Pretty happy w the result. The camera system worked nicely for zoom/pan:

Here's an enemy I'm working on this week

neat...love the style a lot.

StarDiver had a huge week of progress! Ship damage systems, beam weapons, lightning, and engine propulsion fx.

Salrith Ship Splitter!


Forked Lighting Weapon splits a Krex, Krex uses single remaining weapon:


Damage without system failure / breakaway:

Ok.... bucketlist item checked off. I've REALLY wanted to make a ship that can punch through another ship for a loooong time

Sarlirth doing what it does: