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[RetroNeo Games]

Ships in the Sons of Sol universe travel Faster Than Light using more or less Alcubierre's theories, so a warp bubble. Here's a visual representation.



It's so basic but it's actually pretty passable even as a first go. This is just a circle, stretched, then coloured blue with alpha inside Unity. The camera effects bring it out a bit better, but I'd ideally like a visual warping effect around the bubble ultimately. I tried one intended as a Black Hole from an asset pack but it didn't really suit so for now, no visual warp.

PS This is not a shield. There are no shields in the game.

[RetroNeo Games]

This is a little first person display I'm working on. When your shuttles board enemy craft or space stations, this Aliens-inspired soldier-cam will be visible somewhere on screen, or as a larger display on the Tactical view. One view per soldier in the squad.

The heart rate monitor can change bpm or flat-line, and while the 'movement' is only a visual illusion, the soldier can already walk, run, stop, turn (at fixed intervals) and die (cam looks up to ceiling).

I'll add different weapon and shooting visuals, as well as human animations for killing (or subduing) opposition, and for seeing fellow squad members on other peoples' cams.

The VHS shader is by Reddit user 'staffantan'. It really adds to the vid-feed feel of it. The more detail I can into the 'scene', the better the VHS shader will come out as it has more to work with.

I'm sure I needn't point out the Doom influence either..

[RetroNeo Games]

I figure it's time to bump up the completion bar on this project a little. It only goes in 10% increments on TigSource so... hooray my game is (arbitrarily, approximately) 20% done!! 

[RetroNeo Games]

A lot of work has gone into the game this week, but I want to show just one thing at the minute (well, two).

1 is a simple UI pass. There's a new UI panel based on one of the more obscure Unity panels on the Asset Store and we've gone with a dark blue colour scheme for it. Elements have been moved around or removed completely (speed indicator as a text component is gone now).

2 is the bigger change. It's the first pass of a Wingman display panel. In this screen the pilots are looking pretty gormless (excuse my placeholder art) but the tool is solid. The panel can fully animate by moving different sprite elements around. The pilots already glance around their cockpit, animate their mouths when speaking, and the background even rolls when that ship is doing a dodge move.
The more sprites and behaviours we code, the more animations will appear here over the development of the game.

I look forward to getting it into peoples' hands with the next build in a few weeks.

[RetroNeo Games]

The more astute among you may have noticed that the first post in this thread now shows a new logo and trailer. I left immediately after completing them for GDC and am not home yet, so I haven't really promoted them, but would love to hear what people think.

In other news, my first GDC went really well. I've a few people to talk to now about voice acting, art direction, YouTube streaming and hopefully a new publishing contact. I've also gathered some great advice from indies, publishers and streamers that I can't wait to start working on as soon as I get home.

[RetroNeo Games]

So this is the first trailer for the game. Just sharing it wide officially today, though I mentioned it first on here a few days ago.

The game still needs a fixed art style and artist, however. If anyone you know wants to get in touch with suggestions or to join the team, I'd very much like to speak with them.

[RetroNeo Games]

My thanks to Reverend Speed for providing a model to test this out with.

Currently the game rolls ships (dodge move) by rotating a sprite, substituting in a slight side-profile one, then a bottom one, then going back through. It looks quirky.. a bit weird.. but people have said they liked it, and the game so far uses all sprites which I like. See here:



Now, it can be done with 3D models, but I'm not getting into modelling every ship in the game, so while this looks better in isolation (I think), will it cause a mixed aesthetic problem in the game? I sort of lament losing the "all 2D sprites" badge of honour..



Your thoughts on a postcard to... actually, just click Reply.

[RetroNeo Games]

Didn't get replies on here, but on Facebook and Twitter the advice was universally to use the model, or at least to use the model to capture sprites from different angles.
Just recording the result her for posterity.

[Pixel Noise]

Trailer and UI look good! I like the Wingman panel - definitely adds some feedback to the experience. Will be really nice once those are polished up.

Was the music in the trailer licensed or created for it? It fit pretty well, but didn't strike me as something that would work as well during actual gameplay.

[RetroNeo Games]

You can judge how well it works for yourself in the current demo. It's the music present at the moment.
It was created by a friend. A different composer has agreed to do the full game though, so this music won't be present.
Thanks for the input, as always!

[RetroNeo Games]

This week I've been working on a pilot ejection system. If you play the demo now and die you'll eject and automatically be retrieved by this shuttle.

In the main game you could be rescued or captured by the enemy when you're shot down. Working out exactly what happens next will be interesting, but some kind of rescue mission or mechanic for captured pilots will be happening!

I'm very excited because I've been dreaming of that since Xwing in 1993, when you eject and sometimes the Imperials capture you and you're tortured by Dart Vader.

[RetroNeo Games]

When you can't art, but need to keep prototyping: Stick figures! Did you know when I was in 6th class (about 11 yrs old) I started a stick-figure school comic with my friend Ian? But I digress..

This is the beginnings of a sort of Wing Commander style of meta-game navigation. Via the Quartermaster and intelligence reports, you'll do a lot of Xcom style "base" / fleet building, squad management, and tactical planning over the course of a game 'day'.

This is what happens when you get up

[RetroNeo Games]

Here you can see the Squadron HQ concept room. This is the only room I did in a 3D scene (because drawing all the chairs would just have been a waste of time compared to Duplicating them).
Wing Commander styles of spaceship interiors are what I'm going for in this game.
I've now the 5 main rooms progressing one to the other and the days advance after each cycle and you wake up in your quarters again.

I probably spent too much time drawing the room concepts. My art won't be used in the game anyway so I was wasting time on assets when I could probably have just written "imagine you're in a hangar" on the screen and it works as far as prototyping is concerned.
I learned that lesson late on Friday having finished 4 of 5 rooms. The last was the Quartermaster, for which I just stole the Xenonauts workshop and coloured it black and white to make myself feel better, rather than taking hours to draw useless boxes and shelves.

Lesson learned.

[RetroNeo Games]

We've had our first bit of YouTube coverage (that wasn't recorded by us) today! And it was good!

GolgenGoose GG is only new but he's actually got a very high production value and a good hosting personality. Here's hoping he goes far!

[UaSirideain]

Ah, I remember this from some Unity gathering in Dublin. Highlight of the event. Love the idea.

(As a matter of curiosity, what can you do in the bar?)

[RetroNeo Games]

I'd love to pretend I've a comprehensive answer for you at this stage, but I play to iterate on the ship rooms over time and see what feels right. The 5 listed there are a mix of room types you might find in Wing Commander and in Xcom.
The bar should be where you'll interact with pilots. I haven't as strong a mechanic in mind for the bar as say the Quartermaster (where you buy upgrades etc) but I at least see you spying pilot interactions here. I've ideas for morale and relationship mechanics with pilots. If that mechanic survives the dev process, the bar will be a large focal point for it. It could at least be somewhere for story exposition though. Little extra info and conversations you can ignore or explore.

I'm pleasantly pleased to hear you saw this in person before. Glad you liked it! Say hi if you're going on Wednesday.

[UaSirideain]

Ah, sounds like it'll contrast nicely with the real-time dog-fights (is that what spaceship fights are called?). If you get the right mix, it might be one of those games you play instead of sleeping for the night.

I'd love to, but fate has found me living in Cork lately, strangely enough.

[RetroNeo Games]

Oh. Enjoy Cork. I do hope this is a game people keep playing all night (just one more mission!) and yes dogfights is the name we're using anyway.

[RetroNeo Games]

Lots of things happening recently and I can't take the time to get decent screenshots of everything right now. In the coming days I'll go into more detail on some of the following:

• Trying out new weapons types inspires by gattling guns, shotguns, and sniper rifles. I'm happy to report that all are super fun to use!
• I'm in the process of shifting the actual 2D camera with faked parallax backgrounds to a literal 3D camera with background ships literally being in the background. This will make all sizes and relative movement speeds correct automatically and the game will look a lot more crisp. It's also the first logical step towards the solution to the problem I'd been having of shooting at ships which aren't on your layer. A lot of faking was going to be required. Now we can just be honest about everything
• I've been speaking with a lot of artists recently and I'm hoping to have the team's artist nailed down soon. That said, if you're interested, now's the time to get in touch.
• Work on the strategy layer continues. I've never seen a game work quite like this will. That'll be good if I can pull it off, but it means there's no real roadmap for how to do it. As in, what the player experience will be like. Because I'm prototyping that out with boxes and bad art for now, I won't share too many photos of it, but do see the Bar below.

[RetroNeo Games]

There's a new ship coming into the engine. This is the first decidedly civilian looking ship. It's a big cargo hauler. Expect to board and/or defend plenty of this beasts!