starmotedev

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Breakfast of champions

First pass on food and drink items

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Firefight in a rainy city

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Wind in the trees

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Midnight aurora

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Hey tumblr, it’s been... awhile. Going to start posting my progress videos here, as there is an uncertain future on a certain other site. I always did like the longer format here, so it might be a nice change as well.

Here’s a video exploring a procedurally generated tundra district in my upcoming survival fps roguelike. This past week I developed a proper terrain mesh generation system, so I’ve been adding in landscape biomes with reckless abandon.

The vegetation is also new, based on bear berries and some of the yellow shrubs found in the Canadian north. And, I’m working on some nicer and more varied backgrounds (mountains shown here.)

Next on the menu will be refining the heightmap generation, as it currently is wreaking havoc on some of the built areas, resulting in tons of stairs and terraces.

Anyways, if you’re interested, feel free to follow. I’m planning on posting quite a bit, as I’ve been really accelerating development and try to get this project on track. Cheers!

-Steven

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Turn-based tactics in... zero-G?

I've been putting off posting again until the game gets prettier, but that might take awhile. So, here goes. I should have quite a bit more time for development this year, but I'd like to begin by recapping where the project is at this point. Development has changed tack quite a bit since I started this blog, so this will be a major update.

So, what is the Extravehicular Tactics project? Essentially, turn-based tactics in space. In particular, infantry combat in 6DOF. I love hard sci-fi, and turn-based tactics games tickle my brain like none other, so for me it seemed a natural game for me to develop. It started out as some rough prototypes a few years ago, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. Hopefully, some like-minded folks can get something out of it as well.

Anyways, I'll focus this first post on the main concepts, as a bit of an introduction:

3rd person control over your soldier's movement, similar to Valkyria Chronicles (VC). I do enjoy how immersive the system is, but the main benefit here is that controlling characters in full 3D space is quite difficult without it. I've explored some voxel-based systems, but they feel quite unwieldy compared to direct 3rd-person control. There is no grid here, so you can carefully control your movement, and even crouch and lean.

6DOF movement in zero-gravity environments. As this is space combat, I really want to explore the tactical dynamics of such situations. There are also magnetic boots, and a limited amount of Newtonian physics (mostly recoil propulsion from certain weapons.)

Direct aiming, also similar to VC, with weapon spread replacing the % chance to hit of other turn-based tactics games. I may add some sort of quality-of-life interface to give a clearer understanding of whether your shots might hit, but so far the spread feels pretty intuitive.

Time unit (TU) system for movement and actions. This is similar to the original X-COM 1994 '94 system. It forces a trade-off between movement and actions like in the modern XCOM's 2 AP system, but the fine-grained control over your TU pool feels a bit better with the continuous movement controls.

Interiors and limited destruction. The theme of space combat surely means you can breach into spaceships, right? Also, there will be space stations, habitat drums and the like. The jury is still out on whether oxygen will be a major part of interior combat like in FTL, but I wouldn't mind trying it out. Ultimately, this game is a big stretch for me as designer as is though, so I might have to temper my ambitions here.

A full strategic layer. My favourite thing in strategy games is when the battle system feeds into the strategic arc of the game, and vice versa. I'm still experimenting here, but there will definitely be in-depth squad management and base-building, alongside some map control/exploration elements.

Ultimately, I'd love to get some version of this out within the next year, whether that's a closed beta or full-on early access. Game dev never goes as planned though, so we'll have to see. Perhaps I'll post a loose roadmap at some point.

At any rate, I hope that someone gets something out of these devlogs, and please feel free to comment here or connect with me on twitter or on my website with your thoughts. I may also start cross-posting these on tigsource, or at least post similar content. I have many thoughts on the project kicking around in my head lately, so you can expect quite a few posts soon. Perhaps some videos as well. Cheers!

[starmotedev]

Building out a new strategy layer: turned-based on a graph, with the main objective being recapturing territory for your faction. It feels quite good so far; I like the discrete choices and simplicity.

The enemy will attack occasionally, with the attack taking 2 turns. They telegraph the location they will assault the first turn, and capture it the next turn if it was undefended.

The interesting part is that the player can only perform one battle per turn, so if they defend they forego the chance to expand their territory or to perform time-sensitive missions, such as raiding passing freighters. It should hopefully provide a lot of interesting trade-offs throughout the campaign.

In other news, I’m planning on dropping some info to the new tactical system I’ve been working on for the last month or so. I was sort of in “stealth mode” because it wasn’t really working showing off, but it’s really starting to shape up.

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Playing around with helmets, a crucial part of spacesuit design! Been making some big gameplay changes, so I’ll make a longer post later this week.

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Got angled corners working yesterday. Unlike their square counterparts, they don’t provide cover! This should give me a ton of options to create tactically challenging levels and situations. 

With square corners, every edge and corner is a safe vantage spot to overwatch and take shots from indefinitely. Shooting from an angled hull section requires a lot more consideration however: to shoot over the corner, on has to stand directly on the angled tile. If the shot ends your turn, you are opening up yourself up to direct return fire from your target! 

Really looking forward to exploring the game design possibilities these new tiles will offer!

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Now for some screenshots of what I’ve named the Satellite Walker. Basically an old space barge, it’s the main ship I’ve been using for gameplay testing. Definitely deserved a fresh coat of paint for all her hard work! 

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Gearing up to explore potential aesthetics for the project. I’m really satisfied how it looks here with PBRs and lots of lights! Other options might be lowpoly, etc, but we’ll have to see. ^^

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Introducing...

Hey friends, my current project is coming along at a solid pace, so I figured now would be a great time to start a devlog. To be concise, I’m making a sci-fi turn-based tactics game, called Extravehicular Tactics.

Sci-fi turn-based tactics?

Essentially, EVT is an xcom-like set in space. By “xcom-like”, I mean that it’s a cover-based tactical game drawing inspiration from both the original X-COM and the newer Firaxis iteration, as well as from the many games inspired by them (such as the lovely Invisible Inc.) By “in space”, I mean that the combat takes place on and in (oft-moving) spacecraft. Soldiers walking about the hull in mag-boots, shooting and otherwise being nasty to one another. That kind of thing. The background for all this nastiness is boarding actions performed by your crew of what are essentially space pirates. 

Space pirates?

Yep, space pirates. The main player action in the strategy layer is going to be to engage and board space vessels, with the sole purpose of commandeering them and whatever cargo or data they might be carrying.

The broader mechanics of the strategy layer are yet unconfirmed, but I’ve been leaning more towards a free-form RPG style of interface rather than a hands-off strategy one. That is, the player will control and follow along with a single ship and crew rather than direct many troops about a map. The crew should skew more towards being interesting and likable individuals rather than towards being anonymous meat shields.

Hopefully, the world surrounding the player will simulate an active and alive planetary system, with freighters, transports, and military ships constantly roving about. Faction mechanics such as influence and faction quests should play a role. In this sense, the strategy layer may feel similar to something like Battle Brothers or even Sid Meier’s Pirates.

Road-map

I’m aiming to release EVT in late 2018 or some time in 2019. I’m a solo dev and have some other obligations on the go, so the latter may be a more realistic estimate. I have “tracer code” in place for many of the systems, so the actual gameplay will likely be complete by fall. The more time-consuming tasks may be to make the art and refine the design, however. Strategy games are notoriously difficult to balance and design, so I’ll want to take my sweet time with that process in particular.

As for this blog itself, I think I’ll aim to write up a game update at least once a week. I find tactical games and space both fascinating though, so I’ll likely post more often than that. Adios until then!

- Steven