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[NovaSilisko]

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have chosen, or been chosen, to participate in the GRAND SURVEY. If you're reading this, that means you have arrived in your assigned galaxy, and will soon be ready to get to work!

Your allocated spacecraft is [SURVEY VESSEL #6649 "WATCH AND LISTEN"]. It has been fully refurbished before your mission, and has an estimated service life of [FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND] years with adequate care. It will have placed itself into a safe and stable planetary orbit, and will be ready for you to take control as soon as the hypersleep wake-up procedure is complete.

Your assignment is [CG-70455], a [SPIRAL GALAXY] approximately [30,700] light years in diameter. Based on its size and stellar density, your survey quota to qualify for a gold ranking has been automatically set at [NINETY MILLION] systems. You are free to complete this quota at your leisure.

Thank you for your participation.

-The Grand Galactic Survey Council

Hi! I'm making a game!

In the past I've worked on Kerbal Space Program and some smaller projects here and there since then, but this is my first time really getting a big project rolling along.

It's called Personal Space, and it's about space, tranquility, the wonder of discovery, occasional panic, and interior decoration. In it, you take on the role of a galactic surveyor under the auspices of the Grand Galactic Survey Council, assigned to a small spiral galaxy in a completely ordinary corner of the universe. But for you, the player, the real goal is just to see what's out there, and unwind amongst the stars. There is no punishment for dawdling, no enemies to fight, and no conflict that needs resolving.

There is more to do than just wander, however. Your spacecraft is equipped with a once-state-of-the-art replication matrix, allowing you to manufacture any items that will fit in its bay, to be set up and arranged in your reconfigurable interior as you see fit. You can hang photographs you take on your walls, switch the Smart Paint to whatever color and texture you wish, open the window shutters, water your plants, have a seat, and sip some space coffee as you admire the cosmos.

The game is presented at the fullest of scales; every star and planet in the galaxy is seamlessly visitable, and celestial bodies' sizes and the distances between them are accurately represented. Your spacecraft is treated as a physical body governed by Newtonian physics and traverses space by way of both maneuvering thrusters for velocity changes and landings, and a hyperdrive to quickly traverse interplanetary and interstellar distances.

While the spacecraft's functionality is mostly technobabble, the universe itself will abide by the laws of physics and current theories of planetary formation. But that's not to say there won't be some more fanciful science fiction locations and elements out there to be discovered. You might not be the first one to explore this galaxy.

Not every moment will be relaxing, however... your piloting skill (or perhaps lack thereof) can get you into some tight spots, and systems on your spacecraft can and will break if they're not adequately maintained. But you can maintain them - replacement parts can be replicated and installed, fault trees worked through when something goes wrong, and your ship can be kept in proper working order with a bit of time and attention. Such features are optional to the end user, though. Should you not desire that, it will be easy to turn off.

For all this, I know some people probably would find it boring. But that's okay - I know I can't please everyone, and am more than happy with occupying a niche. As long as it brings some happiness.

Thanks for reading.

    -Nova

Recent and recent-ish pictures:

(Right click->open/view for full size!)

Older pictures:

Highlighted posts:

- Scatterbrained II (atmospheric hooey)

- Ring Things (planetary rings and the shadowing thereof)
(Episode II)
(Episode III)

- Throwing Shade (shadows mk2)

- Our Hero

- Replicator messings-around (this post and few following)

- Talking a little about optimization for texture generation

- Floating fluffy white things (again, several following posts)


P.S. If you're new here, this is my second thread about the game! The first one was under the old name, and I decided it would be better to start fresh with where things stand today than retrofit the old one. I encourage you to check it out here: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=66163.0

P.P.S. I'm still putting this thread together. It's probably going to change a fair bit here and there.

[Prinsessa]

Happy to see that work on the game continues, whatever the name of it!

[NovaSilisko]

Happy to see that work on the game continues, whatever the name of it!

I mean, it's funny you say that... progress is probably going to tank soon cause I'm going to be away and busy quite a bit. Although, we'll see what I can squeeze in.

Edit: Also I'm considering bumping the title a little bit more to "Of No Fixed Abode". not sure...

[NovaSilisko]

The indecision over the name is hitting back hard. I have an alternative candidate that I'm quite fond of, that doesn't want to let go...

I'm trying not to rush into this but that's exactly what I've done, I guess. I forced myself to pick a name to end the stress of indecision, only for the stress of decision to blow up in my face.

Maybe it's just because I've been opening a project called "ZSpace" for well over a year now. I don't know.

[Schrompf]

Maybe put your ideas up here and let us have a look, too? I mean: I thought myself to be well-versed in English, but I had to look up "abode". And I think the fascination of space exploration should be part of the title somehow. Maybe "Admidst The Stars", combined with Abode, Dwelling or Habitat. The latter evokes associations with something more stationary, while "abode" has this "small cabin in vast space" ring to it.

Gotta try to revive my "Name suggestions" thread, because I'm, too, in eager need of a proper name for my game.

[NovaSilisko]

To say the same thing I said on twitter:

I'll be up front about it - "No Fixed Abode" is a bit of a latecomer of a name. But I keep coming back to the first alternate name I thought of: "Personal Space", which has just as much punny weight behind it.

But I don't know. I keep oscillating on which one I like more.

And the runner up there was "Space to Think" which has a similar vibe/pun.

Just going to try and take it slow this time. Jumping the gun and forcing a name is what got me into this mess.

[diegzumillo]

How about personal deep space?

I loved the whole thing about Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. I never heard of that thing. Visually, your space is one of the best looking/realistic I've seen so far. Either they're crude pictures with giant pixels on the sky, or beautiful but unrealistic purple abstract paintings.

I don't quite understand the reason for creating a new topic though. You can rename the topic if you like! (mine was unnamed happy apple game for a while). Or is it a psychological trick to feel refreshed?

[NovaSilisko]

Or is it a psychological trick to feel refreshed?

Definitely that one. It just feels better that way to have that separation. If I do change the name again though I'll just rename this thread instead...

I'm probably going to be quiet for a bit, if I'm honest. Still not doing much development stuff and all this focus on names has been stressing me out a lot...

[diegzumillo]

Take a break from it! it's good. My only tip is to not step away during a complicated phase, otherwise coming back to it will be much harder. Do something that feels like a win, then when you resume development you'll be more excited.

Also, you made me self aware of my game's temporary name too. I forgot it needs to be defined, it's horrible. It's like calling yours "Pilot in a ship: flying through space while adjusting furniture".

[NovaSilisko]

I dang ol done and did it. The old name wasn't doing it for me. I feel a lot better about this one. Hopefully I'm done renaming it for a while. I'm still going to be mostly absent though so my patreon plan is probably getting shelved for another month.

I mean. I totally didn't rename it again. It's always had this name. You shush.

[NovaSilisko]

Anyway the last big contribution for a while (probably) is the beginnings of the texture gun/texturizer/nanosurface control device. It lets you select different textures for surfaces inside the ship and apply them where you like. They're broken up into themes - a theme can have a wall texture, floor texture, and/or a pillar texture, and can only be applied to a surface matching what slots it has. The actual visuals for the device are very much up in the air. I don't know what will look best, but at present I thought the whole flashbulb idea looked neat. I will have to tone down the brightness of the flash some if I go with that though, it's a bit too bright and distracting right now.





And an example of a look that can be achieved. I still haven't made all surfaces configurable (and I need to make things like the window frames darker... I mean, I need to remodel the entire ship interior too but...). I call this look "Grandma's House"

[Prinsessa]

Personal Space is a great name! Very punny. And that gun is neat.

[Terminus]

Personal Space is a great name! Very punny. And that gun is neat.

I second this

Is the interior space of your spaceship expandable or a fixed size throughout the game ?

If i understand well, you can replicate anything but cannot make anything out of thin air ?
So that you need to explore to find the items you need for your "personal space" ?

[diegzumillo]

That lighting looks pretty great.

[NovaSilisko]

That lighting looks pretty great.

Unity's voxel based(I think) global illumination system is really nice. Unfortunately the company who made it recently went out of business, so technically it's been deprecated... so they need to find a replacement for it and I hope it will be easy to switch over when that time comes.

Also, I made the switch to linear color space from the default gamma. It means a bit more work but the visual result is just naturally a lot better overall when it comes to light blending and everything.

[Schrompf]

The second image/gif/whatever is not showing up for me. I like the new name, although I imagine it to be difficult to google.

And I second the suggestion that you put a "collect" mechanic around most of the decorating elements. It might give a nice pacing to the player's action - fly to some worlds, explore a bit, find shiny stuff, then come back and use the newly found elements to redecorate.

[NovaSilisko]

Oh yes, I forgot to answer some things.

1. No, the interior space will not be expandable as I currently see it. Maybe that will change.

2. I definitely would like some sort of mechanic where the player can 3D-scan items they find in some of the ancient structures they come across and then replicate them. Maybe even tools and items too.

[Terminus]

Thank you, i really dig the concept, i can't wait to play your first demo

[NovaSilisko]

Hi. I'm still kicking. Haven't been able to work on it in a while, still will be over a week until I can really start poking at it again. But I'm still around.

Well, I guess I've been doing thinking on it at least. Solar system generation was one thing. I'd been wanting for the longest time to do some abstract simulation to come up with interesting solar system layouts; approximations of a protoplanetary disk, accretion, etc. But the more I think about it (and after having prototyped some things), the more it feels like that's not a good idea if I ever want to get something to actually... exist. A more advanced version of the old method I was using is probably the best bet - a big, fat logic tree.

And besides, I'm realizing now that the actual appearance of the planets and their surface features is a lot more important than various nuances in their orbital arrangements. That's what people are going to see more than anything.

Relatedly, I think I'm going to make a standard data format for planets and moons that a second module interprets. A set of mass/orbit/composition data, processed into an actual constructed planet. I can re-use the planet constructor with multiple generators and keep a nice separation between the two areas.

[NovaSilisko]

A teaser! Kind of. I don't normally do teasers but I really want to wait until this one is good and ready to show the full deal. Also, this is the only part that exists at the moment, so there's that.

I've started properly on remodeling the interior and eventually exterior. I decided to start with the most painful part first - the window frames. There's some complicated joinery going on here, and I'd rather kick its ass ASAP, then coast through the rest.

Anyway... before:




After:




Textures aren't really final, but this should give you an idea of the level of detail I want to go for for the spacecraft interior... there's only one instance of it, so I might as well go nuts, right?