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[fetchQuest]

Update 8: 31-10-2015

Happy Halloween!

This week we’re here to show you a small fragment of one of our many thematic biomes and environments (I’m sure you’ve long grown tired of our forests by now!) The biome in question coincidentally (yes, completely ‘coincidentally’) fits nicely with the theme of this heavily commercialised holiday!

You’re curious about the cute creature in the screencap you say? How about we consult Karin’s Log for some insight?

Bestiary Entry 22: Pumpkitten

The elusive Pumpkitten (naming origins unknown but questionable) has long been shrouded in much mystery. Despite reported sightings across the universe at any time of year, these creatures are generally only observed around the ancient Therian holiday often referred to colloquially as ‘Halloween.’ None are certain whether the pumpkins are a part of the critters’ bodies or if they merely choose to sit in them. Much debate has ensued, and to date, no single theory has been proven correct. All that can be confirmed is that no sightings have ever been reported in which a pumpkin was not present.

It should be noted that their adorable appearances do not provide a reason to drop one’s guard; Pumpkittens have been known to exhibit ferocious tendencies when confronted by any creature deemed a threat. Approach with caution. And possibly candy corn (citations needed.)

--

Though the Pumpkittens might be rare outside the holiday times, fear not – they will certainly appear in various maps at any time of year! All that’s required is a little luck and the right atmosphere!

[Eldraev]

Just a little update on our updating schedule. We decided to make less frequent updates in order to prepare more content for bigger posts. This way we will be able to talk about more interesting things on our blog updates. We will still be posting pictures from screenshot saturday though so keep an eye out for that.

Also, check out this little video of the evoker healing people.


http://www.starshardgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/heals.mp4

[TheWanderingBen]

The art here looks crisp and vivid. It reminds me a lot of Transistor. Beautiful game, guys.

I'm excited about the procedural generation. As a dev on an similarly small team (solo here ) I can appreciate the advantages of procedurally generated content. As a gamer, I love when it's done well, because it means as many replays as I can possibly want.

Good luck! Looking forward to more updates.

[BlackseaOdyssey]

Looks fun! Can you share a gameplay GIF or video??

[Eldraev]

The art here looks crisp and vivid. It reminds me a lot of Transistor. Beautiful game, guys.

I'm excited about the procedural generation. As a dev on an similarly small team (solo here ) I can appreciate the advantages of procedurally generated content. As a gamer, I love when it's done well, because it means as many replays as I can possibly want.

Good luck! Looking forward to more updates.

Thanks a lot for the high praise!

Glad you like the idea of procedural generation. Hopefully we manage to do it well and get a lot of replay value out of it since it is one of our main features.

Looks fun! Can you share a gameplay GIF or video??

We are currently working on getting a playable demo done. Once we are at that point we will make a gameplay video. That's still far off in the future though.
Until then we will keep making gifs and videos of the different gameplay elements we are implementing to fill the waiting time 

[Eldraev]

Also, here are links to all the videos and gifs we made so far in case you missed any

http://www.starshardgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/26-09-2015-SSS.gif
http://www.starshardgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Spider.gif
http://www.starshardgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/heals.mp4

[CoreGG]

Reminds me of Dofus if you know this old game. Good work.

[Eldraev]

Thanks a lot

Dofus was actually one of my main inspirations for the tiles and objects. So I'm really
happy to hear the art reminds you of it.

[Eldraev]

Here is another video of some basic walking from last week. It also shows off some different landscapes if you're interested in that.

http://www.starshardgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/scrsat2.mp4

[Eldraev]

Got some more weather and climate stuff done this week.

First snow in Starshard, perfect timing to build a snowman!



Since the quality isn't the best I'll also add a static version

[Eldraev]

Still Alive

Hey everyone,
We are back from our longer break over the holidays. Although it has been some time since the
last time we have posted something we are still working on the game.

Most development done during the last month was focused on lore. However we started working on
the game itself again since we returned. Currently the last few assets we need to start developing the map editor are being done. Once we have those assets done I will shift the art focus on making all the units fully functional with animation so we can get more interesting videos out so look forward to that.

That's all for now but we will go back to more frequent updates so stay tuned.

[voltaicore]

If you need an audio engineer or audio producer be sure to message me so we can work something out for Starshard

[Eldraev]

We already have someone for all our sound needs.
Thanks for offering though

[fetchQuest]

A look at some of our new waterfall and cliff assets!

[Eldraev]

Update 9: 1-2-2016


This time around we have a pretty packed update with lots of different news. We have worked a bit on everything so this will just be a short compilation of those changes. Hope you like it!

Redesigning Classes

We have some big news about changes in the class system of Starshard. Instead of using generic units to form armies we are changing the entire system to be character based. This means that now most units will be unique. We decided to do this to be able to give them more interesting skill sets and designs. To still classify all characters we will keep the six classes described in the beginning. Instead of unlocking the next rank of a unit type class reputation will be earned by using a character of a certain class. Characters can then be unlocked once you earn enough reputation to fulfil their requirements. Be warned though as not all characters might be as easy to persuade. Here you see a mockup for unlocking a class by increasing your reputation with the enforcer factions. This is just some temporary UI though and will likely change later in development.

Eldran History: A brief guide

One of the 6 main races in Starshard are the Eldra. So far you have been introduced to one member of their race in form of the Eldran evoker unit. However the entire race is far more diverse than that. So here is a very brief guide to the Eldran race.

To understand the Eldra you have to know their society is built upon bloodlines. Although there are many minor and less respected bloodlines there are only three major ones. Out of those only the first one is shown in the game so far. All Eldran bloodlines are similar in appearance with exception of the Eldr’ath (the second bloodline), which is the most visually different. To show the differences here are some very rough sketches:

A female Eldra of the first bloodline on the left; A female Eldra of the Eldr'ath bloodline on the right

These just show off some basic differences though. More details will be shown in a later post. We’ll also get to hear some more about the other bloodlines at a later time. So if you’re an Eldra fan look forward to that.

Market Assets

There are a few new objects and tiles available that go along the theme of civilization to make more towny scenes possible. Among those we have some market stalls, signs and some crates. Here are some pictures:

In addition we added a first non-violent NPC. He might be encounter-able in peaceful procedural fields. The exact function of NPCs has yet to be determined but we were thinking of adding procedural cities that need protection from bandit attacks or similar things. More on that later when we actually put it in the game. Anyways here is his sprite:

Battle Emotes

To make the characters come alive more we added emotes for certain characters. In addition to letting your favourite characters show some emotion in battle you might also see special stuff happen when you activate emotes under just the right conditions. Here are two examples, an annoyed and a excited sprite for the footpad and the evoker:

Looking for a party?

By the way, if you’re an artist, animator, or illustrator interested in contributing to Starshard, we would love to have you on our team! Feel free to give us a shout if this seems like fun! Cookies for everyone!

[Eldraev]

Update 10: 6-2-2016

Hey to this weeks update. This week we just worked on filling up the world to make the scenes more cluttered and less boring. We added some more tiles and variations for existing tiles. Here are the details on some of those.

Bridges

We added different types of bridges to add more possibilities to cross rivers in style (other than just with stepping stones). Although they are still very much a work in progress there are some variations already.



In the future we will improve them to have more variety and also look a little more pleasing. In future updates they will also be added to procedural generation when we start adding more of the civilization parts to it.

Other than that we are also working on small animated objects to make the world come more alive (which I can sadly not show since I accidentally lost the files). You’ll get to see more of that next week when I had some time to redraw them.

[Eldraev]

Update 11: 14-2-2016

This week we have a new mechanic that has actually been implemented for quite some time but did not have any animations. Since my tablet broke I have been working on the pixel art instead. Therefore we now have animations for one of the more interesting skills in the game, the Palmstrike.

The interesting part of this skill is that it is the first that has the ability to push back enemies. When characters are pushed they can be hit in obstacles or fall off cliffs and take additional damage. Furthermore as with all skills allies can also be pushed. Keep in mind that allies will still take damage though. Here is a gif showing off the skill.



This opens up a great number of strategical possibilities. You can push your enemies into uncomfortable situations or move your allies in and out of battle.