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[RetroNeo Games]

Just a quick update to say that a new version of the demo ( v0.2.8 ) is now available from the link in the first post on page 1 of this thread.

This build does allow you to go and view the concept art from the carrier rooms (Wing Commander style). Previously I hid that from the public build but.... this time I didn't.... is the best way to describe that.

This is intended to be (though we'll see) the last update to the current demo. I have no planned work that should affect it. So the next demo (unless I do make a few changes for A/B testing or something like that) should be a version 0.3.0 with a vertical slice, including a functioning (not just concept art) carrier. We shall see, but that's the intent.

Adios!

[RetroNeo Games]

So today we went live on Square Enix Collective!

We could really use 'yes' votes from our supporters during the next 4 weeks. We'd be so grateful if you'd (probably create an account or have to remember your old password, and) go and leave a yes vote and maybe some feedback.

For more info:
Every week, Square Enix Collective spotlight one new game for a month, and the public can give yes/no votes and feedback. There's actually no prize or contract with Square or anything, but the better you do, the more likely you are to get press, streamers, and publisher interest.
Square do publish indies (with fairly decent standard deals, actually) so we're hoping to do well enough to impress upon them that we might be worth a look on the publishing end.
If not Square, doing well here could also interest any other publishers, and build our audience.

[RetroNeo Games]

So we're still up on Square Enix Collective and getting some nice supportive comments and about a 3:1 yes:no ratio.
We'd love your votes and comments if you haven't been there yet.

In other news, I've been doing good work on the game loop from mission back to strategy layer and it turns out to be a quite effective way to motivate myself as I see the bigger picture coming together. It also serves to quickly highlight what assets or features would be best completed asap in order to put meat on the bones of this "game skeleton" as I've begun to think of it.

Fred Mangan, artist, is currently building the carrier rooms into glorious 2.5D scenes, and I've been working for the last 2 days on destroying space stations in big bad epic ways. It's fun! I want to share a video but given that I've only placeholder art for the station, I don't quite want to put out official videos or GIFs on it just yet.

I will soon share one on the destruction system working on cargo transports, though.

[RetroNeo Games]

I promised I'd share some visuals of the station destruction, so here!

At 10:53 of today's development livestream you can see us blow the hell out of a space station. The art is from an asset pack and isn't going to be in the game at any stage. It's just for the Editor as a placeholder.

[freank]

Good work!

[Zireael]

I like the "memorial" you've shown in one of the gifs. Does that mean your crew have a life, or is that for a highscore type of thing?

Also, is there a demo? I must've missed the link...

[RetroNeo Games]

Good work!

Thanks freank!

I like the "memorial" you've shown in one of the gifs. Does that mean your crew have a life, or is that for a highscore type of thing?

Also, is there a demo? I must've missed the link...

Hi Zirael! The demo link is always in the top post on page 1 or currently (link might not work in future, dear readers) here.

The memorial works the same as in the newer 2 XCOM games. It's for dead wingmen. Wingmen can persist and grow their skills, or be killed or even captured and rescued again.

If you like the idea, would love your votes on Square Enix Collective. We're up there for the next 9 days only.

[RetroNeo Games]

These are the realities of a lengthy project. Hardware will fail you. Multiple times in multiple ways. And frequently all at once.

So my internet has twice gone out for a period of 3 days in the last couple of weeks. We eventually got a new router and fixed that problem but wound up with sporadic drops in wifi signal, which is terrible for streaming. So that's caused me not to be able to stream for a couple of weeks, but work could proceed.

But then we have my (I think GPU - not 100% sure yet, could be 2 things) dying. The desktop I use went from sometimes crashing on a game to crashing the moment I launch any game, and even sometimes crashing on desktop. Not good news.
I thought I was safe running Unity and OBS together so I got back to live streaming, but then crashed mid stream the other day.

Long and the short of it is I have an expensive problem to find and fix, and have had to suspend live streaming for the time being.

Not a terribly exciting update, but it was about time for one, so that's it. Although, check back tomorrow and I'll be able to show off Sh00ter, our new robot bar man for the pilots' bar.

[RetroNeo Games]

Check out the bar man (robot) Sh00ter! What do you think?

[RetroNeo Games]

Well, it's been a rough month in the personal lives of more than one team member, which results in it no longer being possible to keep the game in full-time production, sadly. The goal posts have shifted financially and the distance that the old budget would take us has gotten much shorter. Since we don't believe it's possible to finish the game in the shorter period (Dublin rent is expensive!!), the only other options are to either a) cancel the game, or b) money-up with contract work and put Sons of Sol down to part time hours for the time being.

I've opted for the latter option. I'll still keep the dev log updated, but progress will slow down. The livestreams likely won't resume, though video dev logs may be a good replacement for those, as and when they're ready.

Wishing you all the best. Peace out - Kevin

[RetroNeo Games]

Well, it's been a rough but interesting few months since that last post. Last weekend I posted a very open and honest appraisal of the development process so far and life since that last post. It's a look behind the scenes of full-time partner-funded indie development (though I'm sure most of you aren't strangers to that) and something of a personal diary at the same time.

My Bumpy Road Through Game Development

It's long, so the TLDR is that Sons of Sol's development hadn't continued in the last few months, but we do plan to finish it by simplifying the design and releasing a minimum viable product in however long it takes for us to finish it part-time.
We believe in the game mechanics and want to get them out to the world.

Posting here never really made for runaway publicity, so I'm not committing to regular updates, but now and again I'll post as things worth mentioning develop, or especially for new builds.

Thank you for your interest and support - Kevin

[KPas]

We believe in the game mechanics and want to get them out to the world.

Nice to hear that you are still working on this! 

[RetroNeo Games]

Nice to hear that you are still working on this!  

Cheers, KPas! Nice to hear you're into it

[RetroNeo Games]

I've just today updated a few pages to add the '®' symbol, our Registered Trademark. This was put into action for a US-registered trademark (even though the game is being developed in Ireland) shortly before the game stopped being worked on full-time, but the trademark did come through a few months ago, and the game isn't officially dead, so it felt right to update the logos (plus you have to actually use the registration, or you'll lose it, so there's that...