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[Sheepolution]

A game about exploring the universe




Meeting interesting creatures



Killing strange monsters



And discovering the undiscovered

• Start of development: 22 December, 2015
• Team: Currently only me
• Engine/Framework: LÖVE

After a 1.5 months of development I'm finally confident enough to show my game to the world and have a devlog here.
It all started back in 2011. I saw this sign hanging upside down, and I thought it looked like a face. I turned it into an alien and made a game called SpaceBit. I never finished that game, but always wanted to expand it. I even did an attempt last year but didn't get far because of lack of ideas. But I just couldn't let it go and did another try, with succes so far.

I'm kinda developing this game on the flow. I have an idea of what I want to do but in general I'm just adding what I feel like adding at that time (the reason why I already have that logo and intro). So basically everything I'm adding or saying could change at any time. So I can't really tell my plans here because I'm not sure about them myself. What I can tell you is that I want the universe to be pretty big, and that the planets will be way further apart then what you see in the gifs above.

I don't really know what else to say. Thanks for checking out my game and hopefully I have my first update soon. Cheers!

[FawfulBeans]

Looks cool as heck. Reminds me of a flash game I forget the name of.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

dat frog face.  dig the esthetics, follwin.

[lobstersteve]

Looks hella cool. I'd love to explore this world

Reminds me of a flash game I forget the name of.

aether?

[ashtonmorris]

Looks great, I like the rain and the camera pan out as the ship lifts off.

[Sheepolution]

Thanks guys

I started working on the inside of the ship. I want the players to travel long distances between planets, but not feel bored during that journey. So instead of staring at the screen till you find a planet I thought it'd be cool if you were able to walk around in your spaceship.

That said, I'm not sure what to add to the ship that could kill the boredom for the player.


So far I have the controlroom and a medbay, but not sure what else to add. I was thinking about a room for passengers, but it's hard to pixel a couch with only 2 colors .

With no ideas left for the moment, I made this neat animation for the computer.


Cheers!

[orange08]

this looks cool, is there anything preventing you from using color graphics?

I also had to comment to say I love the frog face & talking animation
those teeth

[Sheepolution]

this looks cool, is there anything preventing you from using color graphics?

It's just a style I chose and can't let go of. And for someone like me who is pretty bad at pixelart it makes drawing things a lot easier. Sometimes it gets in the way so it's not always as helpful. But I don't have to bother with colors and shadows.

I also had to comment to say I love the frog face & talking animation

THANKS DUDE I REALLY APPRECIATE THAT!

[FawfulBeans]

I also approve of frog.

Reminds me of a flash game I forget the name of.

aether?

Yes, actually. ty

[orange08]

this looks cool, is there anything preventing you from using color graphics?

It's just a style I chose and can't let go of. And for someone like me who is pretty bad at pixelart it makes drawing things a lot easier. Sometimes it gets in the way so it's not always as helpful. But I don't have to bother with colors and shadows.

I probably would have said the exact same thing about a certain black & white metroidvania I made a couple years ago... I think the black & white -ness really backfired on me though, people would see the rather dull aesthetic and (I suspect) wouldn't even bother to play the game.

You might be able to pull it off but I thought it was my duty to let you know I've been down this road myself before. people like colors

[Sheepolution]

this looks cool, is there anything preventing you from using color graphics?

It's just a style I chose and can't let go of. And for someone like me who is pretty bad at pixelart it makes drawing things a lot easier. Sometimes it gets in the way so it's not always as helpful. But I don't have to bother with colors and shadows.

I probably would have said the exact same thing about a certain black & white metroidvania I made a couple years ago... I think the black & white -ness really backfired on me though, people would see the rather dull aesthetic and (I suspect) wouldn't even bother to play the game.

You might be able to pull it off but I thought it was my duty to let you know I've been down this road myself before. people like colors

Ah okay, thanks for the advice. I'll have to do a playtest and form about the artstyle someday.

[Bakuda]

Hey....this game looks pretty cool!  I love the simplistic design.  Gonna keep an eye on this 

[matt_b]

This looks great, really like the various creatures & compact scale, & I hope you don't spread out the planets too much. Maybe solar systems can have short hops between worlds, & interstellar travel is long enough for you to kill time inside your ship.

You could do some fun things with different world types: ring worlds with centripetal spin gravity, high-g gas giants with huge blimp aliens, low-g moons, asteroid belts, comets...

About colour - your minimal style is really nice. Maybe you could keep everything black & white but have limited palette gradients for atmospheres, suns, effects & the like - it might help with local navigation & give you some extra info about a world.



*gives secret 1HGJ handshake*

[maruki]

Everything so far looks so great! The animation for the computer is pure gold. I like the idea that you can walk around an entire planet easily. Following!

[Sheepolution]

You could do some fun things with different world types: ring worlds with centripetal spin gravity, high-g gas giants with huge blimp aliens, low-g moons, asteroid belts, comets...

About colour - your minimal style is really nice. Maybe you could keep everything black & white but have limited palette gradients for atmospheres, suns, effects & the like - it might help with local navigation & give you some extra info about a world.
-Image-

Hey thanks for the suggestions. I'll definitely have different type of planets, but I'm not sure if I'll use multiple solar systems. I was thinking more of putting one giant sun in the center of the gameworld (and maybe have the lightning on planets based on that!).

I'm really stubborn about using color at the moment. Maybe I'll create a planet that is colorful?

[Mr Bazooka]

I like this. Definitely following.

Awesome job!

[s0]

Personally I like the black n white art stye.

Looks like an interesting game btw, following.

[ThilDuncan]

This looks really excellent! I've been hoping someone would bring out a nice lo-fi version of NMS or similar.... Will be keeping an eye on this definitely : )

[Oats]

I agree with orange and matt_b, I like the black and white, but I think in an exploration game it would make planets feel more repetitive, adding colour would instantly differentiate the planets. But of course if each planet has other identifying features I think the b&w approach is pretty  stylish. Following

[ashtonmorris]

B & W is best in my opinion. Stick to it