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  • [Early Access available] Space shooter with realistic Zero-G physics

@m4nu3lf said: As always, the development is taking longer than initially planned, but in the last few months, I have changed and improved a lot of things in the game. I'm now working on a new procedural system to generate rooms and place objects/enemies.

The system is based on CSG, but rooms are also aligned so that I can use portal culling. Objects are placed in 2D grids defined on flat surfaces. The algorithm automatically detected these surfaces.

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This reminds me a lot of the old game Forsaken. :)

12 days later

I wasn't planning on starting a dev log, but Dev-logs can happen. I'm still figuring out how to properly edit and record the audio, so be patient (feedback is appreciated).

22 days later

My game has a more hard science tone, and I used rigid bodies and forces to simulate the ship realistically. So, true Newtonian physics in friction-less space?

I don't know if this is something you are looking for, but I'd be interested to playtest this when it's at that stage. It does remind me a little of Descent.

Good luck with your continued development!

10 days later

@Maaack said:

My game has a more hard science tone, and I used rigid bodies and forces to simulate the ship realistically. So, true Newtonian physics in friction-less space?

I don't know if this is something you are looking for, but I'd be interested to playtest this when it's at that stage. It does remind me a little of Descent.

Good luck with your continued development!

Yes. The ship has various flight modes, though. One is without any damping, so you accelerate, and the ship keeps moving in the same direction at the same velocity. With damping, the ship slows down, but it does so by using thrusters and consuming propellant.

Thanks!

7 days later

I'm considering switching to toon shading and more saturated colours. Wdyt?

a month later

Hello everyone. Just wanted to provide an update.
First, I'm almost done with the procedural system to generate rooms and place objects.
I decided to switch to toon shading but also added GI (that can be turned off).
Third, I optimized a lot by parallelizing more logic.
The game still isn't exactly lightweight due to the amount of physics, physics-related logic, the size of the maps, AI and more, but I'm making sure I get at least 30FPS on my laptop (which, coincidentally, has the closest commercial CPU to the one of the Steam Deck).
Now I'm focusing on refining graphics and adding content/tuning the gameplay.

Here are a few screenshots.




    m4nu3lf The game still isn't exactly lightweight due to the amount of physics, physics-related logic, the size of the maps, AI and more, but I'm making sure I get at least 30FPS on my laptop (which, coincidentally, has the closest commercial CPU to the one of the Steam Deck).

    Worth a note that the exported game should perform a bit better than the 'editor' launched test runtime(debug build if you will). Also, @cybereality has a steamdeck so if that is what you are targeting if you ask nicely perhaps they are willing to do some performance testing and profiling for you before you launch a final build. Given that they have the time of course. Never hurts to ask tho.

      Megalomaniak
      I usually test the game without exporting it every time by dropping Godot's export template in the project directory and running it. It automatically runs the project, and I believe that (except probably for the loading times) the performances should be very similar if not identical to the exported version.

      If I have to target the Steam Deck, I definitely will have to buy it (which I intend to anyway), or it would be impossible to iterate. Currently, I'm only trying to avoid making the Steam Deck support impossible without massive changes.

        m4nu3lf If I have to target the Steam Deck, I definitely will have to buy it (which I intend to anyway), or it would be impossible to iterate.

        Yes, that would be ideal. 🙂

        4 months later

        At one of the worst times of the year to release something, Outer Space: War Gears is now available in Early Access on Steam! (Make sure to read the Early Access info).

          m4nu3lf BTW you might want to update your opening post with the steam link and a image, either screenshot or some title image or such. whatever the first image in there is will become the topics thumbnail.

          m4nu3lf changed the title to [Early Access available] Space shooter with realistic Zero-G physics .
          9 days later

          Quick update. I'm redesigning some parts of my game (like the gunship model). I also started working on a multiplayer P2P mode!

          18 days later

          I made a lot of progress with the P2P multiplayer mode. I have a functioning death match map. I need to do more testing, though.

          a month later

          Here is some up-to-date footage of a playtest session of the deathmatch mode.

          13 days later

          I'm changing some of the visuals of the ship. Now you can see the cockpit!

          From just a cockpit to a VR mode was quick.

          I fixed a few issues with the VR mode and tried it with the Horde Mode.

          7 days later

          The VR mode is now included in the early access!

          3 months later

          It's been a while since my last update here. I did work a lot on the game. I'm now working on the single-player campaign. Graphics have improved considerably.


          5 days later

          m4nu3lf How are you not feeling extremely burned out yet? Have you taken any breaks during development? I am very impressed with your tenacity!

            Erich_L Yeah, I do take some breaks; although I did work hard (and a lot), I don't get burnout easily in general. However, I have often panicked about technical issues, mostly the game being too heavy or buggy. I spent a lot optimizing the game. I think that was the most stressful part. But I'm in a much better position now, I believe. I also pretty much abandoned the idea of procedurally generating most things. I spent too much time on algorithms that were not producing interesting results when I could have just created maps.

            BTW, I pushed a major update with the first couple of campaign missions, and here is a trailer:

            From the "pod" like design of the vessel, I kind of assumed you'd do some kind of captivating animation where the pod is launched out of a much larger ship which might be for traversing larger distances.
            I think you've shown a ton of decent looking game play in your social media pushes but never anything with enough short and sweet "wow" factor.

              Erich_L Yes, I plan to do that in future missions, the larger ship is there and the mechanic to launch the ship is implemented already.
              for the wow factor I was planning on adding boss fights, but I'd still have to work on that.

                GodotBeginnerRich I'm not a marketing expert, but from the research I have done it seems also that a price that's too low can be a little harmful. I wonder if m4nu3lf 's price isn't too low

                  Meh, I bought/downloaded this on Steam last night, I'm running Steam on Ubuntu 22.04, and the game doesn't work.

                  Wasted 2 quid on this? WTF?!

                    So the 2 quid refund's just been granted on Steam, if the full version of your game's out any time soon I might have another look, at the moment it doesn't work.

                      GodotBeginnerRich Sorry to hear that! That's pretty weird because I develop and run the game natively on Arch Linux. I'll see if I can find something about Ubuntu 22.04 that might cause this.

                      EDIT could you tell me about your HW? I think that might help too.

                      Erich_L I'm not sure either. The low price is meant to account for the fact that the game is still a WIP, but you might be right.

                      GodotBeginnerRich Fail on my part, haha. I assumed a library was compiled statically. It is on windows but it isn't on Linux for whatever reason. It works on my machines because I have that library coincidentally installed for other reasons. A workaround would be to install it with
                      sudo apt-get install libjemalloc2 or you can wait for a newer version 🙂

                        m4nu3lf I suppose that's how you learn stuff, by getting it wrong, and then figuring out how to eventually get it right.

                        I think the game looks better with a larger FOV.

                        4 days later

                        I spent the last few days optimizing performances by rewriting some code in C++, removing some hardly visible effects, and aggressively parallelizing. The changes are on Steam already.

                        7 days later

                        One of the things I recently implemented is that now you can see the weapons glowing when they heat up.