Presenting @ Game Dev Meet

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all doing well and had a fantastic weekend!

Today we are sharing with you this concept art of outdoor props!

Wouldn't you like to have some of these in your garden and around your village? We thought you like them! Maybe they will be available in 3D soon? Who knows? (laughs)

Podcast
Oh and if you haven't heard the Podcast we did last week with Indie Gaming Podcast check it out! Click here!

Have a nice week and see you Wednesday!

The FAXIME Team

"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #14 - Next steps

Hello! I hope you are all having a nice week!

Update

I know we took a while to release the first update but in a blink of an eye we launched the second one! Ahah Have you updated your “Project SpaceVille”? Now, seriously I hope the inventory is running more more smoothly now. No bug reports yet, so we’ll believe everything is alright. We also updated the new player character so it’s actually a girl now! Sorry boys! :P

Next feature - Customization

We don’t want you to have the same character as everyone.. Where is the fun in that? We will start working on the character creation feature now. We have the models for the clothes the player will use, such as t shirts, long sleeve shirt, shorts, etc.

How does it actually work? We have separate models for each piece of clothes like in the image above, so what we need to do is assemble the pieces automatically and create an unique mesh with the player’s character. After assembling the character we will just “swipe” the textures from the models. But besides the clothes we also want you to be able to change the player’s face and hair. We also did some concepts! Let us know what you think!

If all goes well maybe it should be done in a week or two? We’ll see! We’ve actually never done anything like this so there might be some obstacles but we’ll overcome them! (grins )

Podcast

Tomorrow we will do a podcast with Aden! Here is his website check it out http://www.indiegamingpodcast.com/

We’ll be talking about us and the game, it should be a lot of fun.

And stay tuned because we will publish the podcast on our social media once it’s released! :)

Cya next week!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #6 - Home sweet home

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a nice weekend!
Today we are sharing the first original Project SpaceVille house, the player's house!
There will be many different types of houses for the neighbors as well.

Would you like living in this house?

Cya Wednesday!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Though week but worth it!

Hi everyone!

Game Developments

We apologize for not releasing the update we talked about last wee. Unfortunately it was a lot harder to implement the new inventory in the game and we’re also a bit sick (laughs), these weather changes are killing our noses.

We promise to update this week and it should already have the new inventory and the new furniture. (smiles) The players will be in a future update. (winks)

So remember how placing the new player model went? Now check out how it looked like when we tried to make her walk!

PlayStation Awards Portugal

I think we talked about this a long time ago.. We decided to apply for the PlayStation Awards Portugal. Basically this is a competition where small game developers apply with games and have the chance of it being published for PlayStation 4. They also help with marketing and give financing to the winning team. So… what do we have to lose..?

For this application we had to write a Concept Design Document, and film a trailer. Since we thought sharing the document would be boring we are going to share the video with you instead! Click here to check it out! :)

Event

Yesterday we also had the opportunity to be a part of the Lift Off - Entrepreneurs Launch Workshop. This consists in talking to business experts, marketing, lawyers, etc.Whatever you need to open a business they were there! We found it was nutritious.

See you all next week,

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #5 - Dressing for the occasion

Oh wow! It’s been a week already?! Time flies when you’re busy with work (laughs)

Here’s this week’s screenshot!

This is the first clothed player we made. It’s a female character but you will be able to create male characters too. We will create a character customization system next month maybe! So stay tuned !

See you soon! (this time, probably next week) (laughs)

The FAXIME Team

"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #12 - Our Journey

Heya! :D Today we are going to tell you what we have been up to!

Presenting at SringIT Con

Friday we took a 4 hour and half train trip to Lisbon! It was a really long journey… (laughs) On Saturday we went to one of the biggest universities here in Portugal (Instituto Superior Técnico). We went there for an event called SpringIT Con, it’s like a mini Comic Con, but mainly anime stuff. We had the honor of meeting one of the Portuguese veteran game developers! He was really nice and gave us some advice. We were sad we didn’t have more time to talk to him, but we had to present Project SpaceVille. After that we had to do another 4 hours back home.

Bug fixes and new bugs

We also have been improving our inventory system! After a lot of hard work, we no longer have bugs such as the tooltip being everywhere and all sorts of errors. But there is one bug we haven’t figured out yet, the one when you take more than one item out of the inventory, the items change to the last one you’ve taken out. But for now we should launch a new update later today (won’t promise anything!).

Yesterday we tried to assemble our player? This sounds weird. (laughs) What I mean is, We tried to put her clothes on and hair. Everything went well. And in blender (the software we use to model and animate) the animations we had worked perfectly! I was so happy it worked at the first try! (celebrates) But when we tried to put the model in Unity.. it was a whole different world.. This how the player looks like now but with a really weird walk. The animation doesn’t play and the player moves likes this:

We will try to fix this and launch another update with the new main character!

We have also been working on the interior of the house and maybe next week you can have your house looking something like this:

Let us know what you think of this furniture set in the comment section. :)

We will be back for more news next week!

See ya,

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #5 - Museum

FAXIME Game Studio7 years ago (1 edit)

Hi everyone!

Today we are sharing a screenshot where you can see the Museum. This is the place where you will take all your collectibles for examination and learn more about them.

Project SpaceVille - Museum

The textures aren't final yet, they will need some more detail.
What do you think of it so far?

Cya next week, guys!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #5 - Museum

Hi everyone!

Today we are sharing a screenshot where you can see the Museum. This is the place where you will take all your collectibles for examination and learn more about them.

Project SpaceVille - Museum

The textures aren't final yet, they will need some more detail.
What do you think of it so far?

Cya next week, guys!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #11 - You won't believe what happened!

Presenting @ Game Dev Meet

Last week, on Friday, we were at Game Dev Meet @Porto. We presented “Project SpaceVille” and it was awesome!

Do you know those times when you’re doing a presentation and you ask “Does anyone have questions?” and then there’s an awkward silence because no one cared about what you are talking about? Well, surprisingly that didn’t happen! (laughs) Our audience had a lot of questions for us and showed a lot of interest in talking to us. We were actually amazed and very pleased by the reaction! (laughs)

Furthermore, there was another nice surprise yet to come! There was this artist in the meet, and he drew a caricature of both us while we were presenting “SpaceVille”! Here’s a pic of it:

Game Dev Meet @Porto - FAXIME Cariactures

That was awesome. Thank you very much, José Raimundo! :)

The Alpha Launch

This past Friday was also the launch of the “SpaceVille”’s alpha programme! A lot of people of people have joined it already, having early access to play and test the game! But there’s always room for more of you to join in.

They’re being a bit shy about posting in our forum for now, but we’ve been receiving some private messages on Facebook with feedback from the game! It’s been great talking to different people and hearing their opinions. And of course, getting bug reports. (laughs)

Going to Lisbon

A few days ago, out of the blue, we got a call from the Spring IT Con in Lisbon, asking us to be a part of the talks this weekend! And we said YES, of course! (laughs)

So, next friday we will be traveling to Lisbon to show off “Project SpaceVille” and its development process! We’re very excited since we don’t know many people from that region of Portugal. It’ll be a great opportunity to expand our network and show our game to new people.

It's What's Inside That Counts

Now that we have a new member on the team, we’ll try to post new content and update the alpha more regularly! We decided that we’d start with the interior of the player’s house. We’ll start by developing some wallpapers and carpets, and eventually reach to some furniture.

We’re also thinking of creating a new villager NPC, but we haven’t decided in which animal to go for next! Maybe you’ll have the power to decide in our social networks… (wink) And if you have any ideas feel free to share with us!

Cya next week, guys!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #4 - Hardware shop

Hi everyone :)

Here's today screenshot, the Hardware Shop:
Project SpaceVille - Hardware shop concept art

Want some tools to do your day-to-day activities. This is the place to go! And this is the building you should be looking for when the comercial zone is built.

Right now, the insider build has a Shovel, an Insect Net and an Axe available to play with. However, there'll be more tools will be available in this shop! And these tools will be consumable, so be sure to stock some (laughs).

Fun Fact: Someone we know messes a lot with us for naming this Screenshot Monday, he insists it should have been Mockup Monday! (laughs)

Cya next week, guys!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #10 - Giving Life to Villagers

Hello everyone! :)

How have you guys been? We’ve been quite busy this past week (laughs).

Villagers

Today, we’re going to talk about your villagers, and fellow neighbours! As we’ve finalized the design of at least the Cat species, we’ve started developing 4 kittens from the two cat prototypes we’ve shared with you previously.

We also gave the 4 of them unique personalities. These personalities were developed based on the western astrological signs. That means that each villager will have an actual birth date, and that will determine their sign. In return, their sign will determine their respective personality. This not only helps us develop unique personalities for the characters, with easily differentiable traits from one another, but also makes it easier for us to develop unique and interesting dialogues that won’t feel quite as repetitive as otherwise.

Here are the 4 cat characters we've developed. We hope you like them:

And yes, you will have your own astrological sign too! So, no need to feel jealous (laughs).

Insider Programme

Don’t miss out our friend’s Twitch channel, Miercolez (you can check it out here https://www.twitch.tv/miercolez), tomorrow live at 9:30pm (UTC+00). As we’ve said in the last post, he’ll be the first playing the first build of the “Project SpaceVille” Insider Programme. If you like what you see, and haven’t signed up for the Insider Programme yet, there is still time to subscribe!

The Insider Programme will officially start for the public this next Friday, September 1st. Those of you who already signed up for the Programme will receive an email with instructions to download the first build of the game.

We’ll be celebrating the launch at this month’s Game Dev Meet @Porto with our fellow colleagues. It’s going to be great!

Marketing

If you’ve already seen our past work, you may have noticed that we’ve developed an Android app for a Portuguese radio station, Radio Nove3Cinco. You can check it here : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.faxime.nove3cinco

As such, when thinking of how to expand the Insider community, we thought “Why not do a publicity spot in the radio? Just to see where it gets us.”. So, we’re still brainstorming on how the ad itself will play out. But what we do know we want for sure is that we want it to be fun, and be able to catch listeners’ attention.

Cya next week, guys! Be sure to subscribe to the Insider Programme! ;)

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #3 - Characters

Hi everyone!

Today's concept is our lovely main character and a concept of an alien. These were one of the first concepts we've had! You've probably seen the main character before but I bet you haven't seen this alien! (winks)

What are your thoughts on them?

You'll be able to fully customize the main character! Changing its clothes, accessories, hair and a lot more!

Cya Wednesday for your weekly devlog!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #9 - Some big news!

FAXIME Game Studio7 years ago (1 edit)

Hi everyone!

Today we have a couple of big news to share with you :)

Welcome to the team!

As you may already know, for the past few weeks, we’ve been searching and searching for an artist to join our team. As we’ve finished the functional prototype for “Project SpaceVille”, now “Midday-Mayhem” (our artist) has been needing some help with developing the semi-final art assets. Although we don’t really need much right away, we need to test and eventually finalize the look and feel of the game. And we’d like to do it as soon as possible.

After many weeks of searching and contacting people, we’ve finally found someone perfect to join the FAXIME team. Her name is Meera, and she specializes in developing 3D models. She’s also working with us remotely, but that’s not really a big issue since we’re already used to that. Everything is going great. We love her work and she is a really nice person. (smiles) We will post some of her work for you to see in the following days! (wink)

Launching the Insider Programme

Secondly, the moment you’ve been waiting for (we hope) is arriving! We are proud to announce that the “Project SpaceVille” Insider Programme will be officially launched this September 1st, with the release of the first insider build of the game!

On that same day, we’ll be at the Game Dev Meet @Porto for the second time, this time showing off “Project SpaceVille”. We’ll give a small talk about the game and our journey as an independent game studio startup. We’ll also publicize the Insider Programme, of course. (laughs)

Also, in some other great news! On August 31st, tune in on our friend’s Twitch channel, Miercolez (https://www.twitch.tv/miercolez) live at 9:30pm (UTC+00). He’ll be the first person playing the “Project SpaceVille” Insider Programme build. If you want to join there is space for everyone! (laughs) We’re really excited for this opportunity, and we can’t thank him enough. We hope it goes well, and that he doesn’t struggle to much playing the game (and finding those pesky bugs). (laughs)

Some real developments

Finally, on to some real game development! We recently went back to the inventory system, and realized that we needed to rethink the way it was implemented. Originally, we’d only planned for one inventory to exist, the player’s inventory that is. So we designed that system to be coupled with the user interface (UI). So, if we wanted to have another inventory for something else other than the player, the UI would need to be duplicated in order for it to work. You can see now why this might be a problem...

We realised that, in order for the game to be more realistic, it would be cool if your villagers had inventories as well, with items inside them, and with all the restrictions that would apply to a real player. So, we had to rebuild the inventory system from the ground up in order to separate the UI from the inventory data itself. This will also make saving and loading inventory data a lot easier than before.

This is a pattern that we’ll be sure to follow from now on. Data is one thing, and what you see in the screen is another. If you’re developing games (or any other software for the matter), make sure you remember this. Don’t be like FAXIME! (laughs)

Cya next time, everyone!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #2 - Cherry Tree

Hi everyone!

Today’s screenshot is, as you can see, a cherry tree! You will be able to plant lots of trees in your village. This is one of them! :)

Do you like cherries? (I hope you do) (laughs)

Cya next week, everyone!

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #8 - Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!!

Hi everyone! :)

I hope you’re all doing great!

Today, we’re going to talk to you about what we’ve been doing on “Project SpaceVille” in the last couple of weeks. This last one in particular, we focused on fixing the most critical bugs in the prototype. As you may already know, that was the last week before submitting the final demo for Lisboa Games Week. So, that was quite stressing! (laughs)

By the way, here’s a screenshot of that said demo. Enjoy!

Bugs. Bugs everywhere!

Something we didn’t tell you before (ups!) was that you were actually able to dig holes inside houses... But, we fixed that and you are no longer able to plant trees in your living room. There goes the environment, I guess. (laughs) Speaking of that, another bug that also occurred inside the house happened when you tried to place an item from the inventory in the room. Suddenly, it would start to be multiplied insanely (laughs), but that’s fixed as well.

While fixing these “small” issues, we were breaking other things related to the player's actions. For example, the player couldn’t catch butterflies anymore, trees wouldn’t fall no matter how hard you struck it with the axe! And after fixing these action related bugs, the achievements stopped working as well! What a mess, I know... (laughs)

Bugs aside, we’ve finally changed the player’s 3D model and animations to the “final” ones. But even there we found some issues. The new model’s rotation and player input sync was all wrong. So the player would be walking right with his body facing left (laughs).

We’ve also changed the NPC models to the cat models. But unfortunately, we haven’t had the time to implement their animations yet.

Art Styles

Finally, we’ve been testing a couple of different art styles in the game. We want “Project SpaceVille” to have its own look and feel. So, we’re giving a lot of time and thought into this. We haven’t set anything in stone yet, other that we want it to feel cartoonish, somewhat stylized and, above all, unique.

So, if you could help us, we’d love your opinion! Gil has been playing around with shaders and he has came up with these.

What do you think?

Cya next week, everyone!

The FAXIME Team

"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #7 - New Villagers have arrived. Miauuu!

FAXIME Game Studio7 years ago (1 edit)

http://gph.is/2vII8kVHeya we're back for more news!

Today we are going to talk about the art of "Project SpaceVille"! We are no longer using placeholders for everything!

A few months ago, we met an artist on DeviantArt who was interested in our project and decided to help us with the art department.

She has developed a loooot of concepts for us!

Main character concepts, villagers, clothes, buildings etc.

She has also already made a 3D version of the main character tho it's just a base mesh with a simple texture.

And look at this cute couple she made! Don't you just love them?

Meanwhile, we got an intern at FAXIME who was a rigger and animator.

Thanks to him our main character can now walk, run, jump, and do a lot of other actions! He did an incredible job, really! We are proud of him :)

Here's a little peek on what he did.

http://gph.is/2vII8kV

Stay tuned for more!

Bye everyone! :).

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Screenshot Monday #1 - Fox Character

Hi everyone! :D

Just as we promised last week, here is your surprise! We're proud to announce that we'll start doing our Screenshot Day from now on, every Monday. :)

Yes! This mean you'll finally start seeing something new from "Project SpaceVille" every monday! Screenshots will range from concept art (like today), but also 3D models, promotional art and screenshots directly from the game it self.

So, without further ado, here's today’s screenshot!

SMXLL

This is one of the NPC concepts our artist has drawn. This is our fox villager! What do you think of it? Isn't it cute?

See you soon,

The FAXIME Team

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Website: https://faxime.wixsite.com/site

"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #6 - Ramping up the Art

Hello, everyone! :)

As you may know, last week we went to Game Dev Meet @Porto. It was our first presence at a Game Dev Meet as FAXIME, and it was just awesome! We had the chance know a lot of new developers and their projects from around our area (North of Portugal). We even got to test some!

We also had the chance to talk to a director of an acclaimed video game developer from Portugal, and he gave us some great advice on how to start a startup and launch our first game. Thank you for that! :)

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to show off “Project SpaceVille” (sad!!). We were fixing some last minute bugs before we left, but everything else was fine. And then… we decided to change some assets 2 hours before the meet started and it was chaos! Bugs everywhere! Problems with the animations! Crashes here and there! ... So, I guess we’ll have to go again next month! (laughs)

In other matter, we have a nice announcement to make. We’re basically done with the functional (programming) prototype phase! So, these past few weeks, we’ve been starting to ramp up the art department. This is basically to start switching placeholders and make the game beautiful! Our team member, “Midday-Mayhem”, is of course on the lead. We haven’t quite settled in a concrete art-style yet, but we’re confident in “Midday”’s abilities! Stay tuned for that!

Meanwhile, for the past 3 days we’ve be sending a couple of emails to some really talented folks on DeviantArt. Since we’re ramping up art production, we’re currently in the process trying to find an artist to join our team! I won’t lie to you, we’ve been trying to have someone join the team for quite some time now… but I think we are finally getting somewhere! (fingers crossed) But boy, let me tell you, DeviantArt can be a weird place sometimes! (laughs)

Game Developments

Want to see what your character’s base mesh will look like? Here is a screenshot! (haven’t done those in a long time now) (laughs)

We’ve also been messing around with the player input. We want to make sure that it feels as natural as possible. So, for example, when you click on a tree close by, with an axe equipped, the player starts chopping it down.

We’re also working on the “Drop Item” feature, in case something that you don’t want is taking up too much space on your inventory or you just don’t want an item. Now you’ll be able to drop it, either by dragging it out of the inventory or by just clicking a button.

Unfortunately, to do something as simple as that, we needed to change a lot of the code we had. There were a lot of mistakes we made in the past when it comes to how we coded the “Project SpaceVille” prototype. The previous code was basically juggled to work on the university presentations we had. (laughs) But now, we’re in the process of refactoring most of the game’s systems to allow them to grow sustainably in the future.

In The Near Future...

About Indie Dome we talked about on the previous post: the deadline to apply was extended to the 15th of August. Thank god! (laughs) We’ll have time to improve the small experience that we have fix all bugs (we hope) until then!

And that’s it for today.

In the coming weeks, I have a feeling you’ll be seeing some awesome art-related stuff from “Project SpaceVille”.

Please stay tuned for more news!

See you soon,

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #5 - Coming back to code

Hey y’all! :)

Here’s yet another update on “Project SpaceVille”!

As you may already noticed, in these past few months, we’ve been absent from programming. This has mainly been because we were all busy finishing our university degrees and we’ve also been very busy with business and team management and consolidation side of things. (boring, I know) So, we haven’t touched the code for so long, and we didn’t quite remember how messy it was. (laughs) We know we’ll have a dozen of sleepless nights trying to figure this out, for sure.

Right now, we are focused on fixing all bugs related to the input of the game! We feel that this is one of the most important parts of a successful prototype.

Next, we’ll be replacing most of the current art assets with proprietary ones we’ve already developed. We’re really in a rush here; we applied for Indie Dome at Lisboa Games Week 2017, so we need these two things ready by next friday. (gasps)

Let me talk to you a little bit about Indie Dome: it supports producers of independent videogames, placing artistic, innovative and culturally relevant projects in one space. As organization, it promotes and publicizes emerging projects and the most praiseworthy through showcases with the help of our partners and for the general public in order to foster greater awareness and visibility of the Portuguese and the international independent movement. You can check out more info here: http://indiedome.org/

The submissions close on July 30th! (gasps) So, you understand why there is so little time! Besides that we are also fixing the game so we can release it to our official Insider Programme alpha testers. Please remember that if you want to be part of this community you can still join us! Just send us a message on Facebook or an email us at faximegames@gmail.com with the passcode SPACEVILLE-IP.

Finally, we’ll be going to Game Dev Meet @Porto this next friday (July 28th). We’ll be there to exchange knowhow and experiences with other game developers. And guess what... “Project SpaceVille” is also coming with us! (wink, wink) So, if you guys want you can come try it out and give us your precious feedback.

If are from around show up and say hi to us! :)

Click here to check out the Game Dev Meet @Porto event on Facebook.

Until then,

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #4 - Web Summit, here we come!

Hi everyone! :)

Today, we'd like to share some wonderful news with you!

We've recently applied to the Web Summit Alpha Programme, for startups like us to be present at the event. We can happily announce that we're officially going to be Web Summit 2017, in Lisbon, Portugal (our home country)! The event will take place from the 6th to the 9th of November, so we hope that if you'll be at the event too we can meet up!

As you may already know, Web Summit is one of the biggest technology events worldwide. They're expecting more than 60.000 attendees this year! So it'll be a great opportunity for both FAXIME and our dear "Project SpaceVille".

We'll have the opportunity to talk to investors and to show “Project SpaceVille” to the world in our booth. And that's just awesome! (laughs)

Other Events

We've already been to some small local game events, and we've always brought a prototype of "Project SpaceVille" with us. It's so gratifying to see people's faces enjoying our game. We've honestly been incredibly surprised by people's positive reaction to the game, especially considering that we've only showed a rough prototype so far (that's also why we haven't showed you much of the game here the blog).

Just a side note: You can try this prototype (and others) out by applying the "Project SpaceVille" Insider Programme. Just send us an email to faximegames@gmail.com with the SPACEVILLE-IP access code. Thanks! :)

Since we're on the matter of events, we've also applied for Indie Dome at Lisboa Games Week in September. And two days ago the PlayStation Awards Portugal programme was also released, so we will be also applying for that too! :)

We're looking forward to seeing you in Web Summit!

Until then,

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #3 - Insider Progamme

Hello, everyone! :)

Just as we promised last week, we're here and back for more!

We have big news for you today! Today we can announce that we'll be launching the Project SpaceVille Insider Programme soon. This will be be a community effort, so we'd like everyone to join us in making "Project SpaceVille" the best game possible!

Bellow are some common questions you may have about the programme, and our answers to them.

Why are we doing this?

Well, we need to see if you enjoy playing our game. We want to hear your opinions and ideas!

How do I apply?

All you have to do is send a message to our Facebook or send us an email at faximegames@gmail.com, with the access key “SPACEVILLE-AP” and we'll do the rest!

When to apply?

Now! (laughs) Whenever you feel like as long as the Insider Programme is still running. But we advise that you do it as soon as possible, as there is a limit number of testers.

When does it start?

Our alpha will be release soon during this summer.

What will I have access to?

We will give you a platform in our website where you can post feedback, ideas, share opinions with other testers! And, of course, you will have access to the alpha build of the game! We also have something special for the alpha testers after the game is released as well!

Until next time,

The FAXIME Team

Website: https:// www.faxime.fun

"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #2 - An Update

Hi, everyone! :)

We are so so sorry for not posting for so long! There are a lot of exciting things we would like to update you on regarding “Project SpaceVille” and FAXIME. Well, there’s been a lot of changes to this project. That includes both adjustments to already planned details, and lots of new stuff too! We’ll be posting regularly from now on. We promise! (wink)

So, onto the good news!

The two programmers on the project have been really busy finishing their B.ASc. on Game Development Engineering. But it's finally over and we are now back track again!

Since our last devlog, FAXIME was basically just the two of us, so you might think that our absence meant that development had stopped. Thankfully, our team size has expanded since then, and we added two new young and cool artists and a public relations guy. (Maybe we can do a post about them in the future, who knows?) (laughs). So, basically, what we want to say is that, while we were mute we were very busy!

Now that that’s said, let’s tell you some of the new features we have implemented on “Project SpaceVille”! In this post, we’ll focus on some social features.

Am I still alone?

We are glad to tell you that you are not alone in this crazy world anymore! We have implemented a new AI system for the characters’ dialogue to allow them to be aware of their surroundings when speaking with you. In other to achieve this, we have also developed a tool that helps create new dialogues. It’s only in prototype phase right now, but it’s already making our life a lot easier for us as developers and game designers.

Our goal is to have villagers that feel “real”, and not not some mindless robotic terminators! (laughs) We hope that you’ll be surprised of how aware your fellow villagers are when talking with them.

Cool... Cool... And what about real people?

Well… Since “Project SpaceVille” is targeted to mobile platforms, it has been a priority since day one to implement social features into the game. So, with that in mind, we’ve been experimenting some features and some technologies.

We ended up creating a prototype multiplayer mode, which allows you to visit your friends’ villages and interact with each other! Right now, everything that you can do in single-player mode, you can also do in multiplayer mode. But, of course, it’s still very rough in the edges so there are still a lot of things to fix. Sadly, do to the nature of this feature (server requirements, security, etc.) it might not make it to the initial release. But we’re still exploring our option.

Meanwhile, we have had a million other ideas of gameplay experiences we wanted to create and we will be telling you about them and other work we’ve done in these past month in a very soon future!

See you soon! (this time, probably next week) (laughs)

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #1 - Gameplay Basics

Hey! :)

Today we're going to talk to you about what is already done and what we intend to do in the future for SpaceVille (tent. title)! Please note that all assets you'll see in screenshots are currently prototypes, and definitely not part of the final game. Now that that's done, let's talk about the interesting things...

Project SpaceVille - Player Model Screenshot

You're In The Spotlight

Our current intention is to have a character creation screen at the start of the game, right after a quick introduction. We already have some form of a prototype, but that still needs some work. So far, we have a character that is able to move around the village. The character model is a prototype, and although it is animated, it currently has no face due to some import problems. We're still fixing some details on his movement, to make it as smooth as possible. We have been giving much attention to this, since perfect character movement is imperative for this game to be enjoyable. As the character walks and runs, it lifts up dust particles from the ground. It's both cute, and adds a little bit of detail to the game. Like in Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon we plan for the character to be able to use various tools to interact with the world and other characters, such as a shovel, bug net, etc. You'll be able to do things like plant trees to maintain oxygen and food levels of the village. But more on that later.

As Is Your Village

In this game, your world is the village. This is where most of the gameplay will take place, and it is your job to develop your village to your and your villagers' taste. It is divided by blocks where we randomly generate the geography, vegetation and buildings. The main buildings and the rivers are fix for now. But we intend to generate the village procedurally, so that every village fells unique to every player. We are using a curved screen shader to simulate the horizon bending. It allows us to show more of the world, while maintaining a good amount of zoom to you character. This is crucial for small screen mobile devices, which is what we are targeting.

Home Sweet Home

You can take items and furniture in and out of your inventory and place it on the house. Since you'll have limited space in your inventory, this is very important. You're able to move the furniture around your house. Unlike in the village where you have a fixed camera, you're able to rotate and zoom the camera around the room, to get a really nice view of your decor. There's also planed to be a screenshot system, so that you can share your house with friends via messaging and social networks. In the future we want to make house upgrades so the player would have more room place objects.

This is your room. It's a little empty right now, but you'll be able to customize it the way you want.

It's All About The Weather

One of the very cool features we're planning on adding is a dynamic weather system based on your current location. We are using the player's GPS coordinates and download weather information based on it's location. This way, the weather in game will be same as where you are in real life, and believe us when we say that it's really cool once you get your hands on it! There's also a day/night cycle based on you're time zone (which may or may not be locked; we're still deciding on that, let us know what you think :) ).

Yes, there are also 4 seasons in your village.

That's Cool, But Am I Alone?

Short answer, no! Long answer, right now yes... The villagers' movement is currently worse than a mindless robot. We had a dialogue and quest system but unfortunately it needs to be redone, due to bad programming design. But this is all part of the process, and soon enough we'll be living and sharing our lives with real villagers and not some mindless robotic "terminators". :)

So, What's Next?

In the future, we would like to:

Make our player able to fish in the river;
Add collectable objects such as fossils, bugs, etc.;
Make our player to be able to draw and then gift its drawings to its neighbours and friends;
Make the player to able to create its own patterns to use on its house, for example.

Let us know what you think. We know that this isn't much to go by for an entire game, but we're planning on making other Dev Blog entries detailing some more important gameplay aspects.

So, what do you think? ;)

The FAXIME Team

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"Project SpaceVille" community · Created a new topic Devlog #0 - Welcome to Project SpaceVille

First, A Little Bit About The Team...

Hello! :)

We're two students from Portugal, and we're part of a team called FAXIME. This is the first time we're posting on GameDev, so cheers to everyone. :)

Both of us are currently learning programming and game developing. Last semester, we were asked to develop a game, and so this is how we started this project we're going to talk to you about. But first, let's talk a little bit about us.

Hi! My name is Gil, I'm 20 years old, and I'm currently a programmer and game designer in this project. I'm on my senior year in college, studying video game engenieering. My high school specialization is in social economics. I'm a big fan of Nintendo since a young child and love the action adventure and puzzle genres, in the likes of The Legend of Zelda series. I'm really excited for working on this project, since I've been playing games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing since their first entries on their respective series.

Hello! I am Teresa, I'm 20 years old and I'm from Madeira Island. I'm working only as a programmer on this project. I'm on the same class as Gil, so we've been working together since freshmen year. During high school I specialized in physics and chemistry. I gained a lot of curiosity on how things work since I've been a gamer since a little girl therefore I pursued my studies in the game development area.

Now, About Our Project...

The project we're developing is game in the life-simulator genre for mobile platforms (iOS/Android). We took heavy inspiration from games like Animal Crossing, but we're also inspired by the likes of Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. Like in these games, the player needs to manage his community and his relationships with each villager and achieve his own life goals. The game's main audience is people of all ages and genders. But, we'll talk about the game in more detail, and what we have achieved so far in the next DevBlog.

The development of the game has been challenging so far, since we haven't developed games for Android with Unity before, so some restrictions apply. But so far it's been a fun ride, and we've learned a lot.

See you soon! ;)

The FAXIME Team