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[Zireael]

The game looks very impressive!

[fearless_donut]

Zireael
Thaaaanks, man. I really appreciate any comments.

[fearless_donut]

Hey guys, i want to ask - isn't 3-4 hours long level too large for a strategy game?

I mean you don't have to play it all in a row since there is a save/load system, but still, should i make a level playtime shorter? I'm curious because in my youth i could easily play for 4 hours in games like Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander or some global space strategy games but now i frequently see the opinion that level duration should be 1-2 hours at max.

[fearless_donut]

Slightly refactored UI. Hope it looks better now.



And I feel some kind of emptiness because i became attached to this game development, but there are not much things left to do now. From now it's only testing and preparing for the release.

[fearless_donut]

Years pass, trees grow, water flows, people get married and divorced. 
Meanwhile, i made a Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1003760/Aether_Way/

And the steam trailer:

[fearless_donut]

What is the best thing to do when the game is nearly done? That's right - remake all movement mechanics.
Now it has inertia movement and separate speed and acceleration vectors. Needless to say, the battle process has greatly changed and i still need to adapt the game to some new bugs features, like moving in cycles around destination point.



And i also made some local objects drifting across the space(Why didn't i do this earlier?).Sometimes even a tiny thing can improve the gameplay greatly.( but that's not my case  )

[fearless_donut]

Hi. I've spent last few months fixing hundreds of tiny bugs.

Things i realised:
   - Fixing a bug sometimes creates two more bugs,
   - Sometimes you can fix 10 large bugs in a row and then get stuck in a tiny one for hours,
   - while coding the game for the whole day deals some damage to my health, playtesting it for the same time deals much  greater damage to my mind,
   - fixing game crashes much easier than fixing game balance,
   - My text file with the game's task list has reached 10000 lines.

A few more screenshots:


Gardener unit. He can plant flowers on planets and build space roads.


A bunch of procedurally generated elementals.


Deep blue space. Relaxes a bit.

[fearless_donut]

A few more screenshots which should mean i'm still making this thing.

Direct defence in action. Gives troubles to player since it doesn't care about enemies count.


The Gardener and the Guardian near their star.


Passing by the enemy planet while being in aether. Low gif quality makes original segmentation effect.


- Recently i found that path-finding algorithm was working incorrectly. The thing is that it was incorrect for all these years of development, sometimes giving me
some rare and original bugs i couldn't fix.

- I spent a lot of time changing game balance since i had difficulties playing the game before realizing i was really playing on hard level.

- The most screenshots i made for steam were with huge graphical bug. Won't remake them though.

[fearless_donut]

The most important thing is that i've finally made a new demo(0.96):
https://www.indiedb.com/games/aether-way/downloads/aetherway-0-96demo

Some of changes for last few months:

New guardian scheme - now with connections and bonuses:


New units levelling system - now with Hexes:


Improved graphics for some of races:


Slightly improved background generation algorithm:




And the feelings are like... "ugh, i wasted another summer for some doubtful things like gamedev".

[fearless_donut]

Hey, it's been a while. I planned to make a steam release at the end of october but it's already december and the game is still not released... Well, it's a common thing. I'll release it later, ha ha ha .
Here are some new updates:

Added supplies system. Now elements need a nectar to restore their energy. The nectar is produced by special flowers that can grow only near planets. Small elements transports nectar between planets automatically. That gives some additional strategies like cutting supplies routes or destroying enemy supplies economy.
   
Added new energy connection - defence line. It's a set of outposts that can be installed between two planets and protect a border from small groups of enemies.

Added exception handler. Since there were pretty much crashes recently, i decided to solve the problem in a general way.
Now the game saves itself on a crash and a player can safely continue to play it(probably).

Improved extended economy. Now it's more like a trade simulator. The player builds trading companies on different planets and makes trade bargains to get a profit. And when he makes enough resources, he can build his own resource processing economy to gain even more.
Here are few pics:

Trading menu. Wanna buy some stuff. Sadly, i don't have money.


More detailed graphics for the Ark race. Still can't see anything.


It's all moving but you can't see it from a pic .

[PetSkull]

Hey Fearless, how is it going with your game? It's been a while, since updates. Hope you're not feeling a burnout??

Just letting you know, I'm still following your adventure

[fearless_donut]

Heeey Skull. Glad you still visit this page.
I didn't know you're making another project now. I've read you have suspended stardust tycoon, but i've found another devlog just now. Hope you'll return to stardust tycoon someday.

As for me, i'm still alive and full of strength . The game has been in 'nearly done' state for a long time and it looks like some kind of black sorcery to me that i haven't released it yet. Every time i'm close to saying 'Ok, i've done the game', a bunch of new tasks appears out of nowhere. The progress is also complicated by the fact i need to do playtesting sessions every time which eats too much of my time and psychic strength. But overall, i'm still on board.
 
Anyway, right now i'm close to releasing more than ever. Ha ha ha ha.

Waiting for a demo of your new game.