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[peous]

I'm so following that project . Love 4X space games.
Will you take some gameplay/design inspiration from the X series (X3:Terran Conflict etc), or games like Distant Worlds ? Well, for everything other than the combat gameplay I mean.

I'm taking a deeper look at these games atm. I think planet terraforming, handling populations and so on (sim-city like) won't be developed in the game. It will look a bit more like X3 (aiming, firing, upgrading your ship, travelling, missions).

I don't know Distant Worlds, but it seems more a strategy game ? Revk , what are the key points for you that make the game good ?  I'll dig these specific aspects...

Also, Salut, confrère développeur français !! 

Hmmm are you a true French or a Canadian ?

[eigenbom]

I'll think about a "moonman" edition for $1000 pledge with purple background... Hmmm yess

 

[Revk]

I don't know Distant Worlds, but it seems more a strategy game ? Revk , what are the key points for you that make the game good ?  I'll dig these specific aspects...

Well, Distant Worlds is kind of a 4X game, but as you said, more strategy-like in the combat gameplay(select ships and give em orders, make squadrons, etc...). You begin as one of the races on one random planet (on a universe that have max 1400 planets/stars IIRC); and you have to expand to other stars/planets, trade with other encountered races, or fight against them if your relations are not very good. Your race do passive research on new stuff, and you can supervise the complete design of all your ships classes (frigate, battleships, escort ships, etc), and all your stations classes(research center, mine, base, etc..). This feature is very cool and let you customize your race/game even more.

The fact that the game begin with you being a one-planet / small population race; and let you fight your way to being the master of the galaxy is partly what makes this game really fun. Real sense of progression here (as in X3).

The stuff I love about 4X games is that you can take an in-game break when you feel like it. These games don't force you to play missions after missions, battle after battle. In X3, if you're sick of waging war around you, you can just cool off, go to another sector, and mind other businesses (your trade empire for example).

A mix between X3 and DW would be godsent (combat and trade of X3, customizability and empire-managment of DW). Maybe in some years ...

Hmmm are you a true French or a Canadian ?

Si par 'true French' tu veux dire français de France, alors oui . Mais j'habite actuellement au Canada pour mes études !

[peous]

Thanks Revk for all these infos, I'll try to take it in account when I'll start gameplay.
Meanwhile, well few time to work on game.

I made some new graphics for some parts.
And I spent lot of time recoding the parts generation engine, to match my part assembling design that begins to take shape.

I also worked on animated sprites to handle explosions.

Here new block gfx

(not worked on grey thrusters nor wings)

[eigenbom]

holy swears, those blocks are awesome, reminds me of xenon 2 mega blast of the amiga..

[peous]

Thanks; here is partial result of what I've done: non-square, non 1x1 blocks

[peous]

Handle 3x3 blocks in random ship generation

[medieval]

Those ships look slick man. Keep it up

[peous]

thanks, I think i'll stop here for ships
time for gameplay !

[cragwind]

Looks fantastic.

I like the idea of procedural ship generation. I wonder how far you could go with a generic AI that can work with any given ship as opposed to AI that is tailored to specific configurations.

The art style looks scalable in that you produce plenty of different kinds of parts. As far as pixel art goes, I like the variety in pixel scales that I saw in CubeWorld and Realm of the Mad God (which had a crisp border effect around pixels too).

Looking at one video, I didn't quite follow how a ship was broken apart and I wonder if more visualization could be added to show players where physical stress/strain is being applied so they have a better understanding of the physical model.

I'm working on a game with similar concepts but a fairly different execution. Here are a few design issues I'm running into that you might also be looking at:
- Include many different parts, allow upgrades of the same part, or focus on a few parts?
- Minimap or zoom in/out - I like the idea of zooming (not sure about the usability yet), but there's the performance challenge and the challenge of scaling the visuals.
- Asynchronous gameplay - I've vaguely considered the idea of players building their own maps, populated with ships. Other players could run through the maps to see how they fare, keeping track of scores.
- Looking at a ship, how do we know which direction is forward? Is this customizable by the player? Can/should it be included in metadata associated with the ship?

Any particular reason for Box2D instead of Unity3D's physics? I've considered alternatives to Unity because of concerns about deterministic behavior, especially in the context of multiplayer, server logic, or creating replays.

Keep working on the gameplay! Can't wait to see where it goes!

[peous]

thanks for the comment;

About ship structure, there is one, but maybe I'll have a mode that displays it someday. See previous pic posted:

About the questions, my choices would be:
- many parts, nearly no upgrade (as-is)
- there will be zoom in/out, but controlled by the game
- async gameplay is definitely something nice, hard to get something nice, but harder to have some realtime multiplayer. I don't plan to have some... yet !
- the "forward" direction is actually given by the life module (in blue). the only thing it changes, in fact, is the binding of the keyboard keys. so maybe it could be configurable (like an option to rotate the life module)

I use Box2d to have a better understanding of the physic engine and full control over sourcecode. This allows me to merge shapes, build by own bodies, and I know exactly what's happening. I'm always worried about a component that I don't understand and that is the center of the game.
In fact I use Unity ONLY for rendering, right now

I'm following your progress closely on your blog gears, and also interesting article about UTests & unity ! You seem to be a experienced programmer to worry about UTests !

[peous]

I can now begin some level design to place some fixed elements in space. Combat is much more fun !

[cragwind]

I use Box2d to have a better understanding of the physic engine and full control over sourcecode. This allows me to merge shapes, build by own bodies, and I know exactly what's happening. I'm always worried about a component that I don't understand and that is the center of the game.
In fact I use Unity ONLY for rendering, right now

I'm following your progress closely on your blog gears, and also interesting article about UTests & unity ! You seem to be a experienced programmer to worry about UTests !

That's a nice jumble of stuff floating around.

Avoiding too many blackbox components is probably a good instinct here, especially with the desire to scale. I haven't switched from Unity physics yet, but most of the collision detection work is custom.

As far as unit testing, I can't say I practice pure TDD, but I do try to write as much code as I can with unit test output as feedback. Having good textual visualization helps a lot for grid data. Unity editor complements my tests nicely with the visual feedback from gizmos, plus interaction and debug messages. This stuff is hard, so I need all the automated help I can get

[Ocid]

This is looking pretty neat peous.

Been wanting to do something similar in Steampunk setting for a while but not sure when I'll have the time for it so I'll be keeping an eye on how this and gears' games progress.

Curious though as to why you're just using Unity for the rendering as I saw that the Arcen guys do the same. Is it just for the ease of cross-platform or you just prefer working in a different style to what Unity offers?

What Box2D port are you using? I messed about with the Farseer port a little while ago but haven't really put enough time into using it just now and probably won't for a while yet as I do like the Farseer engine.

[peous]

Posted a video on YouTube showing latest progress

Feel free to comment

[eigenbom]

awesome!

One comment -- I want to feel to the impact my ship makes when it collides with space-debris, rather than being a bouncy rubber ship. :D

[peous]

Hmm this is a good remark, I have a response
The level is made of 2 types of obstacles.
The crates with light blue borders can move (they are heavy but they move), you can see an enemy ship bouncing one at the beginning of the video.

I want to limit zone where you can go, force to find your way, and so on. I want to level design a maze, and player should'nt be able to push the walls. So I have the big gray obstacles and they don't move at all. Physically, it's like they have an infinite mass.

The "fixed level design" imposes to have a fixed elements...

Bouncing on your remark, maybe they could move a bit to feel the impact, but go back to their initial position (like a spring) ? Do you have another idea ?

[eigenbom]

Shake screen, add a metal on metal smash sound, add sparks or debris particles flying off collision point?

[peous]

yep! seems a good ideas; particles could be a start and audio shouldn't be a problem.

Oh and about audio, I'm currently working with Rob, from Fractures.
He does some sound for SpaceBeam, I hope we'll have some to integrate to the next video !

[peous]

I'm currently thinking of moving the project to my C++ engine (oEngine).
Unity has too much limitations, I can't exactly master the way things are rendered...

May be quite a bunch of work, but could worth it...