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Astronation

An endless space sandbox VR multiplayer RPG world · By Astronation

AMA - author of Astronation Sticky

A topic by Astronation created Dec 14, 2017 Views: 727 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 4
Developer (1 edit)

Hi :)

I've been working on this game for the past few years, it has evolved from a concept for a holistic  virtual world, through a 2D hex-based game, 3D desktop, to this form in VR. Along the way I've found supporters and people who shared a similar vision, which allowed us (IMHO) to achieve, quite an astounding result (correct me if I'm wrong ;P ).

We hope to identify a lot of bugs and find brilliant people who want to build the virtual world with us.

So... Ask Me Anything :)

Couple thing to consider based on my experience with the game:

  • Randomization of the background - this game takes place in space and it needs to be randomly populated or players will get sick after 30 minutes
  • When moving there is no sense of speed what so ever - implementing my previous point will help but also think about other aspects you can use to give the player feedback regarding the speed and direction of the movement
  • Navigation within the game is clunky - it takes a lot of time to adopt to this steering model in order to effectively do even a simple move, i would rather use some generic models already used by other games and enchance it slightly ( players are used to previous models so use the human tendency to act based on habit to your advantage), this will drastically cut down the adoption time for new players which is cruciall for success of any game
  • Randomize background music and sounds and enchance the library of those - this game assumes players will spend a lot of time in the world, make it a pleasyre exeprience - anyone that played Pacman in medieval ages can relate
  • Build couple models in the game that stand out, like some landmarks or buildings drastically different from each other, look for inspiration in some existing building designs
  • At least one good desgined weapon - it`s a semi-strategic/economy game by assumption but it needs weapons that makes sounds and blow shit up - that`s just reality, it will also add to your advantage if you would like to use it as a platform/engine for any other type of the world or game
  • I don`t see on what i`m flying, moving around at - it looks like a cosmic balcony, this is the model that directly attaches to the player and stays with him the entire game, it needs to be a  model that represent some kind of ship, platform etc that looks great and i can actually see it with all the parts that are moving it.
  • In a long term - open up the model building to communities and think about how you govern this, control the entry point to the game but allow users to freely expand the world as they please including new models.
  • You need merch for promotion, i`d suggest the cheapest and most efficient gadget - built in camera covers for laptops made from some kind of silico-based materials, more and more people use it, it stays with you all the time, you are looking at it even if you are not aware that you do and it`s dirt cheap to produce
Developer (2 edits) (-1)

You raised so many good points...

Thanks a lot for solid feedback! We're adding those to the action plan :)

Don't know if there's any activity here whatsoever, but on Windows Mixed Reality via SteamVR I have no motion controls available to me, so all I get is a launch screen with title, seizure warning, and Dive in.

Developer

Hi, thanks for the feedback. :) Sorry, you've run into issues tho :(

The way Unity handles VR interface controls changed over the last year, and we're on route to release the first build (that will use the fully configurable SteamVR Input config). I'd expect that will address the issue your facing.

So, I'm not sure how to feel about space-ship battles being standing up and shooting guns. Will there be a regular cockpit mode?

Is the game all spaceships? Open World? Can you go in a space station?

Developer

Hi :) Sorry for late response...

We're aiming to be both seating and standing experience.

At this time we're not considering cockpit mode as we want to emphasize the in-space experience... which brought us to our version of the 3rd person view. Eventually yes, but probably not for small / fast accelerating spaceships.

We're aiming for an open world, but ... at the first release (we're still in deep development) we want this to be only spaceships flying, trading, fighting, building.

In the later releases we want space stations and other buildings will be explorable, but we want the contents of the buildings to be defined by their owners...

And even further down the road, we see landing on asteroids / planets / moons...

Eventually we assume there will be several control styles bound to the vehicle a player is in.

I see. Personally, atm I'd like to support experiences that improve on traditional virtual cockpits/virtual hotas implementations. Good luck on your game.