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NEW INTERSTELLARIA UI almost here! You can test it on Steam now!

February 1, 2016 by Coldrice

Coldrice here! I wanted to fill everyone in on the progress towards the next Interstellaria patch. Last update I mentioned it’d take a while. It’s actually taken longer than expected. Let me fill you in on why, and how to test it today!

Originally the next patch was planned as a UI reskin, and focus a bit more on other areas. As we began delving into the reskin we instead decided to TOTALLY renovate the UI and the way it functions. This renovation should allow for easier and more intuitive use AS WELL as making bug fixes and future additions a lot easier. I am very excited with how things have progressed on the coded end of things with the new UI. Due to the scope of doing this, it has taken a number of months… but we’re almost there!

So much more information in a much more simple format. Windows can be dragged, and multiple windows open at the same time. So many more neat additions that can’t be listed here, but will be listed when the patch finally goes live!

If you’re not wanting to wait, and are interested in trying it NOW NOW NOW it’s actually already been live on the beta branch! You can right click “Interstellaria” in your library and then hit “properties.” from there hit the betas tap, and swap to beta branch from there.

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Opting into the beta WILL delete your save files! You can drag your saves out of their folder, and then back in, if you’d like though.

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So what am I doing with my time?

May 25, 2015 by Coldrice

Well after our unfortunate delay, I’m sure a lot of people are curious what’s been going on with the game. A lot actually! With a new timeline in place, it was time to improve a few features that I wasn’t 100% happy with. I’m really excited to show these new features to you!

NEW STATION MECHANICS

One thing I was really unhappy about was the way stations and crew were being used. They stood around. A LOT. Other than gathering items on planets, what were they for? Play testers were coming up with elaborate death machines that didn’t even require crew. The game is supposed to be all about the crew!

In the gif above you’ll notice a couple of things. First, the engines no longer work unless there is a crew attached to navigation (and of course, power). This might be a bit annoying to veteran players, but it adds a new dynamic to combat and space travel. The bonus your crewmen offers your ship speed has also been greatly increased, AND crew now level up A LOT faster. in order to balance crewmen on navigation at all times, I’ve also reduced their hunger/sleep decay rate.

You’ll also notice the bobbing! The ship now moves around on screen. Nothing dramatic, but it adds a crazy amount of life to the game. You’ll have to see it to believe it.

Scanning now works the same way. Scanning was the one station that was the least useful or used in the game. Now it’s pretty impressive. It still dramatically boosts accuracybut, the combat map below is covered in a “fog of war.” It is revealed when scanners are active. The enemy ships details are also revealed when scanning is active. The coolest part: No more scan button! The scan button added nothing to the gameplay except to slow the player down.

You might also notice that the astroids now move. This is one of my favorite changes. I increased speed as well – if you can get the astroid moving really fast it’ll damage things it runs into! The best part is that bullets can’t penetrate it, so it’s pretty nifty to absorb enemy fire while doing some damage.

Weapons also have the same treatment (though not pictured.) In order for guns to fire, you must have a tactical station manned. The bonus to your weapon damage has been increased for each station as well to make it more beneficial.

Energy has always been a huge hassle to deal with as well. Manually turning stations on/off proved to be a really boring feature. During combat, you’d have to power down all your food/sleep/entertainment stations one by one, then power up your navigation or tactical. By making the stations required for ship operation, I knew I had to fix this problem. Stations now share an energy “pool.” The energy is automatically allocated depending on usage. Combat is now a snap – just simply send your crewmen to the combat stations. A lot less fuss.

Heres the big one. This took a while, but it’s well worth it. Installing stations and managing guns was probably one of the biggest issues for players. How do you do it? Why can’t you remove stations? Etc etc… I’ve split it off into it’s own menu separate from the inventory. It is now in the “Fleet Management” window. Move your crewmen from ship to ship, install stations, remove them, or just move them. Swapping guns from ship to ship used to take a LONG time. Now just removed, switch to the ship you want, install. Also I dig the little icons :3

We’ve also been making a lot of little changes here and there, far too much to itemize in gifs

Your little ship icon now shows up, and then goes to the point you land. Not really an essential feature but I think it polishes it well

You may have noticed that you can rename your ship. You can also rename your crew. I’m not a big “renamer” so I didn’t realize how much people would want it! Request granted!

Other little things: crewmen now climb down ladders instead of jumping down them. Minor, but appreciated!

Where, were do you find this? You’ll have to find out I guess.

Well that wraps it up for now. Patch notes between v0.99->v0.99n here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Interstellaria/comments/37avqz/interstellaria_v099n_live_be_prepared_mechanics/

I’ll be out of town this week on a non-dev related trip, so I wanted to get an update out before I left. Maybe I’ll make a little game with all those icons while I’m away? Once I get back my mission is nothing but bug fixes and polish. Thanks everyone for your patience!

Guess who’s back. Back From PAX. Guess who’s back, guess who’s back….

September 9, 2014 by Coldrice

Last weekends PAX has come and gone, but I was lucky enough to get some “ins” through a few contacts of mine. Had the opportunity to showcase my game to some press types each day – sadly no big leads BUT everyone involved seemed super interested in what I was working on. I also spent a ton of time taking notes on their reactions, as well as the various games around (and the reactions of people playing those games).

Long story short, I took a “break” this week and spent time trying to get through as many notes as I could. I didn’t tackle them all, but I got a big chunk out.

We have better scrolling stars

Bullets to/from ship are now displayed when in combat.

Events have shifted from random, to random but displayed on the star map

Crew to crew talking is back

They do a lot more now when not in combat

Multi select is now in

They move well together!

Their mass AI is really fun to watch. Like roaches!

Also coins bounce

I added off screen emotes so you can see what’s going on when they’re not visible

I’ve also been working on new locations

and new enemy types

oh yeah, tactical pause!

The big v0.4 Update – new planet exploration mechanics and controls. USE ALL CREWMEN

August 15, 2014 by Coldrice

Well here we are – the update I’ve been waiting to give all month. Its been difficult keeping everything under wraps – but I have to let the cat out of the bag at some point!

A few months ago I had the opportunity to get some good in person play time with a few people who didn’t know me, or my game. The amount of notes that arose from that event was staggering, and fantastic. That, combined with notes sent to me from the alpha testers, made me formulate a plan to make sure the game “felt” the way it was meant to. The first step in that was to improve space combat, so a few months ago I showed off a new system of combat that was more interactive, interesting, and unique:

This was really exciting to make, because it simply took the existing code, and modified it to work with multiple ship instances instead of just one. Fairly simple to switch over, and after a week or so of alpha bug testing it was working like a charm.

Then it was on to planet phase. The tricky part of this was the planet phase was not fully complete yet, so even without changes it would require a lot of coding. After playing with a few options to make it a bit more fun (including procedural content, which I placed on the back burner) I was able to mock up something that was piqued every ones interest. It would again reuse existing code, but this time from both the planet phase and the space phase.

NEW PLANET EXPLORATION MECHANICS/CONTROLS

Instead of just spouting a lot of words, lets just let the gifs do the talking first

Lets just land the whole ship

allow you to use all your crewmen

And I mean all (Auto harvest AI in action)

They’re pretty good and finding their way

Even if they’re not armed, they will MESS STUFF UP

all interaction still work as before, a new layer of code has been added for pathfinding and item harvesting, but otherwise its the same game.

Even simple levels are a lot more “alive” now

This allows for some fun new locations

purty.

The first question people asked – what happens if you take off without your crew? Well you’re given a prompt. Otherwise, they’re left behind.

a few menus were updated for this change up.

Its likely this new change will worry a lot of people – but in terms of scope there’s not much worry. Its done! Just like when space combat was renovated there will be a bit of time where its buggy. An example is the the new tutorial has a bug in it – which will cause the inventory to not open sometimes preventing you from moving on! Eek! Alpha testers: version B will be live this weekend to patch up the error.

In addition, I have and always will be super open to suggestions and feedback. Be aware due to dev cycle I can’t always get right to an idea right away, but I have a very hefty list of ideas, and many of them have been used. Hit me up via e-mail, or better yet on twitter!

I’m sure there’s more, but much of it was covered in the last big update. For now, I’ll leave you with this smug human captain.

Weekend update – UI Overhaul

April 19, 2014 by Coldrice

Feedback is a tricky beast. On one side you have the developers vision, and on the other is current reality of the game as it is. Obviously the developers know where the game is headed, so sometimes the design decisions wont make a lot of sense to the observer – and so feedback is logged but ignored. Often times though valid points are made, and the trickiest part is figuring out whether the feedback is the valid kind, or the uninformed kind.

That being said, a lot of feedback has changed a few things about Interstellaria, namely the UI

ALthough I will miss a lot of the UI Flourishes, the player will now have an easier time focusing on the important parts of the UI. It also leaves more room for some fanciers effects… and bigger ships!