Starship Builder - Automated Crew

Before I talk about the latest new features of Starship Builder, I want to mention that I decided to dump the new art style that I tried in my previous post. While much cleaner and more "slick"-looking than my original uber-crappy programmer art, the new style just didn't *feel* right for a game based on a detailed starship simulation. Also, it reminded me too much of the art style of Captain Forever.

Anyway...

In recent versions, it was possible to directly control the crew of your ship, explicitly assigning them to various stations. This proved to be too hard to manage, especially as ships were constantly moving about and rotating -- it was too hard to select the desired crew and tell them where to go.

So in this latest version, you no longer have any control over the crew on your ship, who are now completely automated. The crew will now by themselves seek out jobs to perform -- you don't have to worry about that. Different jobs have different priorities so that, for example, the person manning the Cockpit will never leave his job to man a cannon. Eventually you may have a way to adjust the priority of what jobs the crew is performing -- say, manning weapons versus repairing systems -- but this feature is not implemented yet.

However, you do have control over which systems are activated and which are not. By default all systems are active, but if you select one or more systems and press the C key, then any crew manning those systems will automatically leave and find other jobs to perform. Press the C key again to re-active the selected systems.

Download for PC and Mac.

Here's a full list of changes:

• Player no longer has control over crew. Crew is now completely automated.
• Select systems and press C to toggle them on and off. Deactivated systems use no crew.
• To move the ship, press M and click the destination.
• Can double-click a system to select similar systems.

RGB

I spent my free time during the past week or so working on an experimental prototype for a new gameplay mechanic.

RGB is an experimental prototype of a 1st-person puzzle game. The core game mechanic is based on the idea that "if you can't see it, it doesn't exist", such that if your line of sight to an object is obscured, then the obscured object will no longer exist. There's also the added twist whereby many objects only exist in one or two color dimensions, and those objects will only obscure other objects of the same color. For example, a red object will only obscure other red objects, while a yellow object (a mix between red and green) will obscure red, green, and yellow objects.

Puzzles consist of finding proper vantage points, pressing buttons to change the colors of objects, and moving blocks around. The puzzles are physics-driven, but physics is only a supporting element to the real challenge of mixing colors.

You can download PC and Mac versions of the prototype.

Starship Builder - New Art?

Wow, it's been almost 3 months since I posted anything about Starship Builder! Mostly I've just been taking a break from the project.

I would like to share with you a new art style that I'm experimenting with. I'm not sure if I like it yet, but figured I'd share it to get feedback. (Click the thumbnail to view full size.)

Future Walt says: It sucks.

This build also has a few other changes:

• Removed the concept of ship control "modes".
• Double-left-click to move the ship to a location.
• Left-click and drag to select weapons.
• Hold C while left-clicking and dragging to select people.
• Removed Repair Bays and Small Cannons.

Download this build for PC and Mac.

48 Hour Film Project: SGmOVIEmAGIC's Quack

Last week we (us Schell Games folk) wrapped filming on our submission to the 48 Hour Film Project. The result is called Quäck. I play Zombie Hitler, brought back to life by a magical umbrella. So be warned, this film should not be viewed by anyone easily insulted by Nazi jokes. Here it is:




Oh, and we made this awesome poster too!

Starship Builder - UI Revamp & More

I've spent the past couple weeks making a lot of little improvements to Starship Builder. Most importantly, the game's user interface has been totally revamped to be a lot cleaner and more self-explanatory. Here's a full list of improvements:

• Added repair bays. Crew stationed at repair bays will automatically seek out systems needing repair.
• Lots of user interface improvements, including tooltips for just about everything.
• Movement is now back to using the left mouse button. Future Walt wonders why he kept changing this.
• Can right-click to target all weapons while in movement mode.
• New thruster particle effects.
• You can pick what team you want to play on in multiplayer.
• Can now play with up to 8 players. (But only 4 teams are supported.)
• Added an observer mode to multiplayer.
• New blue-ish background image.
• Lots of bug fixes, performance improvements, and tweaks.

A screenshot showing off the new Builder user interface:

And another showing the new background:

Download this build for PC and Mac.

Starship Builder - Ion Beams and Substructure

Another week, another round of improvements to Starship Builder! There are two significant new features in this week's build...

The most fun of the new features is a new type of weapon, the Ion Cannon! Ion Cannons are large, powerful energy weapons that deal great damage over time. Their disadvantage is that they consume very large amounts of ammunition and also can only fire directly forward. This means that it is much more difficult to target specific systems on an enemy ship, and they also may be less useful when built on larger, less maneuverable ships.

The other big new feature is less fun, but arguably more important: Substructure. I've done a number of playtests since adding multiplayer, and the biggest imbalance issue was that ships would break apart into multiple pieces too quickly. My solution to this was to add a layer of "substructure" underneath the existing systems. When a system is destroyed, it reveals the substructure underneath. The substructure itself can also be destroyed, but doing so takes longer, and the ship will not break apart until the substructure is destroyed. In this way, the substructure acts as a kind of glue, holding the ship together even under considerable damage. I'm still working out the exact balance between substructure and regular systems, but it seems to basically solve the problem.

Here's a screenshot showing both the new Ion Cannons and the exposed substructure. Click on the image to get a better view of the substructure.

Download this latest build for PC and Mac.

Starship Builder - Multiplayer!

I've spent the past few weeks doing a massive overhaul of Starship Builder's code to support networked multiplayer. It's been a very long process, requiring a lot of code to be rewritten. But thankfully, and finally, everything seems to be working pretty much okay. Here's a glorious screenshot of two ships in the heat of combat, each belonging to a different player:

Download this latest build for PC and Mac.

Here's a more complete changelist:

• Added basic network multiplayer.
• Can specifically target a part of the enemy by right-clicking on that part.
• Added armor pieces that do nothing but provide lots of protection.
• Press F to make the camera follow your ship.
• A black hole is now spawned after 3 minutes. It's not very powerful, but will suck in stray debris. Whatever you do, don't touch the black hole!
• A massive asteroid swarm now spawns after 5 minutes. Good look surviving it!
• Ships now maintain some amount of thruster stability even as many thrusters are destroyed.
• Added a basic minimap.
• Added small and big cannons.
• A single enemy ship can now be spawned in the simulator.
• Added a new mode that allows you to directly control your ship using the WASDQE keys.

If you want to play multiplayer yourself, here's some basic instructions for setting up a match:

1. On one computer, start the game and click the "Multiplayer" button once the game is loaded.
2. Select the ship you want to play.
3. Type a game name where it says "Host a game".
4. Click "Create".
5. On another computer, follow steps 1-2.
6. Click the button matching the game's name under "Connect to".
7. Repeat steps 5-6 for up to 2 additional computers. (Total of 4 max players.)
8. On the first computer, click "Start!".
9. Have fun!