Celestials: Nebulae

As I mentioned in the last post about Tech Trees, exploration will not only reveal the storyline and provide the player with new encounters, it will also provide a means of advancement via Research Points.

Research Points will come from the player doing and finding new things. Science and Science Fiction have both shown us that there's a lot of really cool things out in space. In Starcom: Nexus, celestial phenomena will not merely be cosmetic, but potentially offer research points as well as game play effects.

For example this week I added nebulae to the game, a staple of science fiction space. All nebulae will reduce player (and enemy) detection abilities, which may be used to a tactical advantage. Some nebulae may have additional effects, like energy discharges.

Player admires a pretty sunset created by a mix of nebulae.

The player fires lasers blindly in the direction of a recently spotted enemy.

Player jumps to a star at the edge of nebula.

Tech Trees

First Attempt Tech Tree Interface

Aside from preparing a demo for this year's FIG Boston, this week I started work on Tech Trees.

Tech Trees will work similarly to skill trees found in most RPGs: players will periodically get to unlock technologies that lie along various research branches. Technologies give bonuses to various ship functions and/or unlock new ship modules. For example, before players can build missile modules for their ship they'll need to research the appropriate technology. Once they have missiles, new technologies may give them longer range, more powerful warheads, better target seeking, etc.

Starcom: Nexus will use a slightly different system than the standard "leveling up" found in most RPGs. To research technologies, players spend Research Points. Research Points will be earned by observing and doing new things: seeing a star nova at close range, destroying an Omen missile frigate, or befriending an alien race. The players will only get the RP the first time they "observe" and event.

The idea is to have a system that rewards exploration over grinding. There may be some grindy aspects if a research event isn't 100% guaranteed to "drop," but generally players will be encouraged to seek out and explore strange new things, even if they aren't tied into the main story line.

Even though I've made progress, there's still some open questions on how Tech Trees will work, such as how much information players start with about the various tech paths:

• Does the entire tech tree start visible, with players being able to see every future research and its benefits? This is typically how skill trees work and lets players aim for specific technologies they want, but removes some of the mystery.
• Do players see all of certain tech lines, with other lines being hidden until the player has unlocked certain prerequisite techs. This lets players aim for specific weapon/defense builds, but with the possibility that other surprise options will open up.
• Do players only see the immediately accessible tech nodes, withe future nodes becoming visible when their prerequisites have been completed?

Obviously if the tech trees are predetermined, the mystery only exists the first time the player plays (or until she or he unlocks all techs), but an important design goal for the game is to give the player a strong sense of exploration and discovery.

Ideas? Opinions? Leave a comment.

Bigger Ships

There were a couple reasons why there weren't many big ships in the original game. One, it was a Flash game and it needed to be kept at a small file size (all the ships were simple images, so bigger ships = bigger file). Two, the images tended not to look good at larger sizes because of tearing artifacts.

These reasons won't apply in Starcom: Nexus, so expect more "boss" opponents and allies.

(The asset models in these screenshots are placeholders.)

Omen Battlecruiser attacks a station.

Station and player win

Quick video of a capital ship going boom:

Starcom Update

I've been hard at work on the new Starcom project (working title "Starcom: Nexus"). This game will not be a Flash game, but a full desktop game available on Windows, MacOS or Linux, with a web playable demo.

My plan is to spend 2-3 months preparing a Kickstarter for late Summer. The goal of the Kickstarter will be to increase the game's visibility and raise enough money to cover 50% of the game development costs (with the expectation that an awesome Starcom game will sell enough additional units to make the project profitable).

What is my vision for the new Starcom game?

I hope to take the best bits of the Flash game-- particularly fast, tactical 2D space combat, and infuse that an exploration-driven story line.

Here is what I want to give you in a finished game:

• Intense combat that mixes fast action with tactical decisions.
• Multiple ship hulls with you choosing how to outfit them (this was a heavily requested feature). In a space RPG, your ship effectively is your character. Want an energy hungry high tech ship with powerful shields and lasers? Build that. Want a heavy dreadnought loaded with missile launchers, armor and HAVOK defesne? Build that. Want a zippy hit-and-run stealth ship? Build that.
• Exploration of a much larger universe to advance both the storyline and your progression. Investigating new and dangerous areas can give you alien artifacts, technological advances from new scientific data, resources to improve your ship and reveal important information (and yes, you'll get a decent map this time).
• Interaction with Alien races. In the original game, your interactions were limited to shooting the faceless aliens. I'd like for you to be able to communicate with different alien races. Many of them will try to blow you up. Some will offer important information. Some may become allies.
• An immersive, epic storyline. From a game design perspective, I want a deep storyline that is gradually revealed through play and exploration, not an "on rails" experience where the story controls the game.

What can you do to help?

Besides contribute to the eventual Kickstarter, spread the word. The success of the game will largely depend on whether or not there is enough demand for this kind of game. What I'm aiming for is the kind of game I've always wanted to play, and if there's enough players out there who want the same kind of experience, it will happen.

Thanks for reading, and now here's a video showing what I've been working on. It demonstrates a lot of elements from the original, but completely re-written in a 3D engine that will support high-res, full screen action as a desktop application on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Starcom: Nexus from Kevin Lin on Vimeo.