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[evglabs]

Hi,

I just finished my game Starship Command, which is now feature and asset complete. I'm looking for beta testers to try the game out. I'd like to know your thoughts about it as a game and also how it performs and your specs.

Starship Command is a top-down tactical game. The game will generate a galaxy that persists through every captain you play as. Select from seven empires to start your career with and attack enemy empires, or allies and turn them against your empire.

Every component of your ship can be customized; Reactors, Thrusters, Slower-Than-Light Drives, Faster-Than-Light Drives, Primary and Secondary Weapons, and Shields.

You can buy and sell commodities, colonize sectors and receive taxes, and destroy non-empire ships for bounties.





Download:
Windows
Linux
OSX

I have some unlock codes (which enables saving) for those who are interested in further testing.

And please have a read through of the manual also, so I know if that explains the game and control well enough.

All Screenshots





P.S. Eventually SsC will also be released for Android (and possibly iOS).

[Quicksand-S]

I'll write as I go:

-I'm amazed that people still make games in 4:3, especially ones like this that would benefit from a larger viewing area.

-Any plans to add "normal" music? The current soundtrack just seems like random tones. I'm sure you could find some free or royalty-free music that'd work if you aren't able to make some yourself.

-It's possible to start a game without giving your captain or ship names.

-I like how the interface looks.

-I think it might be nice to know how many factions there are while I'm scrolling through them (a drop-down list would be another option). Having some info about each faction would probably be good too, unless they're all the same? Are they solely affected by the player's actions?

-Some mouseover highlighting would be good. When I put my cursor over something and it doesn't react, I feel like it's broken or just non-interactive.

-No idea why I would spend tens of thousands of credits to "Increase Economy" or "Decrease Economy". Some info about what exactly that affects in the game might be a good idea.

-I have the same issue with the items in the market. I don't know what they do, so how can I decide what to buy? Also, "0u / 1or"? Do I have to have played EVE to understand how many "u" fit into an "or"?

-It seems weird that mass is mentioned, but there are no units and no indication of how mass relates to how much space a thing takes.

-Why is the "Back to Menu" button so transparent?

-Suns feel slightly too big on the screen, especially since they completely obscure the "Back to Menu" button.

-I didn't expect opening the menu to cancel my game entirely. What if I wanted to continue playing that character?

-I got a "Warning" message but had no idea what it was about, so I just continued on my way.

-Tooltips would be good. I have no idea what the little icons at the top left are, for example, except that they seem related to the galaxies in some way.

-I came here to write about tooltips while my ship was in transit. When I returned to the game, I was on a victory screen. No idea what happened. AI was turned off, so how did I win anything?

-Later, I got killed in combat while trying to figure out how to actually maneuver my ship. I wasn't sure what any of the bars on the side represented. It might be a good idea to show which direction the enemy is coming from. I know I can zoom out, but that doesn't seem ideal because it just makes everything so tiny. I ended up getting destroyed in three or four hits by an enemy I never saw.


I didn't play very long. I had no idea what I was doing and just ended up wandering between galaxies aimlessly. My biggest issue is that there's just so little information about everything. It seems like it might be a pretty interesting game, and I can certainly understand letting players figure out some things on their own, but I still think it's really in need of some text windows and tooltips. Maybe it's just that I've never played EVE, so I'm missing some required knowledge. I don't know, but if you do end up adding more info to the game, I'll probably give it another try.

I didn't encounter any technical issues while I played.

[evglabs]

Thanks for the feedback.

On the aspect ratio the UI will re-position itself to what ever aspect ratio you resize the window to.

And yeah, I'm currently working on actual (non-random) music.

I'll fix the blank captain and ship names.

That's a good idea about adding a description for the empires, because they do act differently from each other. So I'll add a description for them.

You're right about the highlighting, that should be done.

On increasing and decreasing the economy, that's in the manual. But just to explain here it affects how strong the sector can attack enemy sector or defend itself also the level of components if it has a shipyards.

The market commodities don't do anything just something to trade between other sectors to earn money. And the "0u / 10r" if you still had the starting ship, it mean 0 used cargo spaces and 10 spaces remaining.

The mass of the commodities was a feature that never got added. I'll fix that. Thanks.

The "Back to Menu" I didn't want it to get in the way, but if it should be brighter I'll fix that.

I know the planets and suns aren't to scale but I still wanted the suns to appear massive, that's why you'd have to zoom out to see them fully.

And having going back to the menu canceling your captain, that's for demo purposes, if you'd be willing to test more I could send you an unlock code which will enable the game to save the captains.

The "warning" means an enemy ship is in your proximity. Clicking it will start an engagement. This should be stated in the manual.

The victory screen was a result of the ship that the "warning" was related to attacking you. It probably was destroyed by allied ships.

And the combat screen is all detailed in the manual, maneuvering the ship is done by holding down the mouse on it, dragging out and then "drawing" a circle until the turn indicator is orientated correctly.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll fix the points you brought up and if you wouldn't mind playing it some more I could send you an unlock code.

P.S. What are the specs of your computer?

Thanks again!

[Quicksand-S]

The market commodities don't do anything just something to trade between other sectors to earn money.

Really? All the market commodities had names that made them sound like useful equipment. It's a bit disappointing that they're useless, but I guess all commodity-trading games have that sort of thing. I'm just used to them being obviously unusable like "Scrap Metal" or "Hydrogen".

And the "0u / 10r" if you still had the starting ship, it mean 0 used cargo spaces and 10 spaces remaining.

Ah, so it was at least partially an issue with the font. I really thought it said "1or". Anyway, it's probably clearer if you leave out the "u" and "r" and just leave it at something like "Cargo: 0/10".

The "warning" means an enemy ship is in your proximity. Clicking it will start an engagement.

I tried clicking it to no effect. The only two encounters I had occurred on their own.

And the combat screen is all detailed in the manual, maneuvering the ship is done by holding down the mouse on it, dragging out and then "drawing" a circle until the turn indicator is orientated correctly.

It seems a bit strange that it's so different from the normal movement. I expected it to just move toward wherever I clicked.


You mention the manual a lot. I guess I'm used to games being fairly intuitive. I used to read game manuals because they were interesting, but I haven't played many games where it was actually necessary. When it comes to modern games, it might be hard to sell people on something that doesn't teach things within the game itself. Then again, I'm sure there are people looking for that sort of experience.


As for the unlock code, I don't know if I have the time or motivation to really get into a game like this. Hopefully someone around here is more of a fan of this sort of game and will be able to give you good feedback.


My specs: Quad-core i7 (early model), NVIDIA GTX 285 (1GB VRAM), 6GB RAM, Windows 7 64-bit

[evglabs]

I tried clicking it to no effect. The only two encounters I had occurred on their own.

Okay, that's one of the bugs I was afraid of, that one will not stay squashed.

It seems a bit strange that it's so different from the normal movement. I expected it to just move toward wherever I clicked.

That's actually a good point. The idea behind how the the combat works is more of "turn to this angle while applying thrust" instead of "move to this point". Maybe if I made it so you'd just need to click and that would tell the ship where to turn to, instead of the whole "drag out and rotate" method.

You mention the manual a lot. I guess I'm used to games being fairly intuitive.

I'll see what I can do to make it more intuitive. Thanks, This is the kind of stuff I wanted to know so I can polish it up.

And, thanks for the specs. You have a better CPU and more RAM than me. The game is developed on a Core2Duo 2.6ghz 4gb RAM and a GTX 760.