Design Diary 06: Slogs are making their first appearance!

Slogs are distant cousins of Jabba the Hut.
They are very good mathematicians and make fine navigators and technicians, exceptional at getting infos too ...if you pay the price!
They are greedy, and tough business men, very dangerous traders on the black market. When a Sloug wants something, you'd better give him fast or you are in for long lasting trouble.They have the cash, good relationship and the means... not always nice peoples.

Design Diary 05: interface first pass

When it comes to User Interface ( UI ) or simply Interface, there is just one way to do it: iterations iterations iterations. Interface is what makes the game accessible and enjoyable. You don't want to swamp the players into a one hour tutorial to make him understand how it works. He needs to understand it right away and learn its deeper complexities on the go. One rule that I want to follow is: the simpler the better, and once you get a mechanic, repeat it all over the place to make sure that when the player is comfortable with one system, he is comfortable with the whole thing.
So here is the first pass, basically the excercice was to put in there all what I needed to put to see how it goes.

Second pass has more refining already. I tried to make sure that there was no right click needed to interact with the system and the game. Spaceship management is on the bottom left, Cargo management on top left, Contacts and target management on top right and navigation management  on bottom right.Those are the full expanded menus to see the worst case scenario.

Designing in photoshop those interfaces helps also to think the whole interaction loop altogether and from A to Z . Visual  and design are one and same thing.Still need to figure out that dialog interface tho ;)

Design Diary 04: spaceships controls

One can't hammer enough how much control is important in a spaceflight simulation.
Let's face it, most of the space games ( and not only the top bottom ones ) don't offer that much control on space flight. What I mean is.. most of the time , you get to chase one each other or simply go over and over again the same target without that much control. Worse, to avoid any trouble managing those control issues, lots of games avoid collusions with lets say asteroids, where I think that obstacles should be taken in consideration to  create a more tactical and immersive experience. Eve Online on the other end  has a nice orbit mechanic, but no real direct flight controls, witch is ok for big ship maybe but not for fighters...
I'm not saying we found the Holy grail there, but we are certainly chasing after it ;)
Our first final ( V1.0)  flight sim has lots of different controls available to you.

Heading control: click on empty space to setup a heading for your spaceship.
Depending on its engine abilities and speed, it will align and follow the new direction with more or less rapidity.
Direct control: you can now turn your spaceship directly by using arrows. the ship will of course rotate at the pace given by its speed and engine abilities
Orbit control: click on an object in the game to make the ship follow that direction and try to reach it.
when flying on lock mode, you can still use the arrow keys to make some left and right  strafing. can be handy to adjust  aiming, avoid collisions and manage perfect orbits.
All those controls can be used seamlessly, so it is up to you to pilot your ship the way you want or depending on the situation you are facing.
But there's more!
All ships come with 3 different Gears to have a better control over the speed and also to address some energy management ( that is a tactic layer we are still working on, we will discuss about later ;) )

Here are our three different engines, the Arrow, the Drifter and the Orbiter.
While we are at it, I added a sneak peek of the three main categories of weapons we are going to develop soon, so that makes a total of 9 different fighters ;)

Design Diary 03: player's progression

Progressing by gaining experience is the RPG basics
In TG there are 3 main ways to progress and gain Xps.
You can gain Xps through:
getting more kills
gaining more wealth by trading ,harvesting and finishing missions
gaining Reputation Points : missions grant scores that tells the game the kind of character you are: Rogue, Law keeper ,Happy trigger, Explorer, Mercenary, Scavenger, Pirate...

Those XPS will then be used to open new missions to you  and reflect your gaming style.

Lets say for instance that you chased a lot of  pirates recently, but didnt followed missions to much because you like to play it your way. just having fun in a nice spot you`ve just found. It will to a certain point attract the attention of certain companies that will need independent agents like Bounty Hunters to take down for good all piracy activity in this particular sector...that may suits your exact needs!
Following support missions could lead you to a military campaign, harassing harvesters could lead you to piracy life, all the same way.

In TG you can just play the way you like, there is a role for any king of gamer.
And that's just one of the aspects of gameplay TG will have to offer to you!

Reputation Points will  be used to unlock objectives accordingly to your way of playing.But in the same time, Reputation Points will be  used by the game to categorise your standings and npcs, depending of their standings will behave accordingly.

Basicaly, shooting down the same number of pirates in one solar system or another could turn you into a hero or a problem to be taken care of. 

You'll have to pay attention to the historic/races/allegiances/policy  of the sectors you'll visit if you want to survive.
Of course there will be some ways to wipe the slate clean, you don't want to end up like poor captain Solo, running away from all the bounty hunters from half a galaxy? Or maybe if you have a fast ship...

Dev_video: Spaceclouds!

A first attempt with different colors and moods for the nebulae backgrounds.
 Note that we added some slight bloom effects too, and that our pilot is getting better at switching from one orbit to another ;) Again this is early an prototype and we will post more videos as it goes! 
the spaceground is just one of the layers that will be added to the visuals to give a more stylistic and imersive look to the game. We are working on this with production in mind of course, and in the end we think to be able to achieve great visual variety without too much production crazyness. We have also an idea or two that will allow us to exploit this system, we will talk about it later!

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE >>>> SPACECLOUDS!

Devblog_Eluwans!

And here comes our first ( temporary/wip ) visual for one of the characters you'll meet in TG.
This guy is an Eluwan.
Eluwans are a peacefull very smart type of aliens. You will usually find them working in the scientist and exploration branch. They make good navigators too. Some say that they have a spiritual side and that their motivations to help find the Tannhauser Gates may not be driven by pure scientist curiosity only. 

dev_blog depth space video

Having a top bottom display doesn't mean the game will be flat.. 
We are using a 3D engine and will use a layered technique to enhance the immersion feel, 
and provide hints of story telling as well.

Here's a sneak peek of a first rough of our multi layered space.
Does sound promising for a first early test doesn't it?

DEPTH SPACE VIDEO