Ostranauts - spaceship management sim set in NEO Scavenger universe - now available on Early Access

[Infinitron]

A walkthrough of some of the stuff we've been up to on Ostranauts since the announcement teaser.

New concept art by Sabina Lewis, new power grid features, Michael Richardson's work on pathfinding, context menus, and ship repairs. Plus, a walkthrough of the character generation process.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Who's making soundtrack for this?

 

[Infinitron]

Who's making soundtrack for this?

Josh Culler, Underrail soundtrack composer.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Who's making soundtrack for this?

Josh Culler, Underrail soundtrack composer.

Good.
His work on Underrail and NEO Scavenger was excellent.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[dcfedor]

Hey Folks!

Glad to hear you're jazzed about Josh's involvement. He really did elevate the NEO Scavenger experience with his music, and I'm excited to have him back!

Josh already has about 2 dozen tracks for this OST done. And he's interested in doing some bonus content for the stand-alone OST when the game comes out.

First order of business today was a conversation with a potential publisher.

let me guess...

Oooh! Do guess! I'm curious what the outside perception is on something like this.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Oooh! Do guess! I'm curious what the outside perception is on something like this

Epic store exclusive?

 

[dcfedor]

I had a feeling that might be it

They haven't, for the record. Not yet, anyway.

Would I, were they to offer the so-called "exclusive benjamins shower?" It'd depend on a lot.

If Epic offered a package that meant I could keep making my weird games and not have to worry about money? That's tempting. I'm mainly in this to make games I love, so removing financial worries is a huge win.

That said, a big part of my business philosophy is to let players play on their own terms, and not force them through hoops. And since a big chunk of my audience is not likely on the Epic store yet, I'd worry about alienating them.

But even the way things are now, I'm sort of forcing players to use Steam to get Ostranauts. I'm not thrilled at putting my eggs in a basket like that, and it was a tough call to eventually make. (And one made out of survival in today's landscape.)

The shitty thing about making game #2 (or any subsequent game), I think, is that I'll inevitably piss-off some folks from the game #1 days. Everyone has expectations, not all of them are compatible, and whatever I do will annoy some segment of the population.

But enough about potential futures. I have a stubborn reactor to coax back to life

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I had a feeling that might be it

They haven't, for the record. Not yet, anyway.

Would I, were they to offer the so-called "exclusive benjamins shower?" It'd depend on a lot.

If Epic offered a package that meant I could keep making my weird games and not have to worry about money? That's tempting. I'm mainly in this to make games I love, so removing financial worries is a huge win.

That said, a big part of my business philosophy is to let players play on their own terms, and not force them through hoops. And since a big chunk of my audience is not likely on the Epic store yet, I'd worry about alienating them.

But even the way things are now, I'm sort of forcing players to use Steam to get Ostranauts. I'm not thrilled at putting my eggs in a basket like that, and it was a tough call to eventually make. (And one made out of survival in today's landscape.)

The shitty thing about making game #2 (or any subsequent game), I think, is that I'll inevitably piss-off some folks from the game #1 days. Everyone has expectations, not all of them are compatible, and whatever I do will annoy some segment of the population.

But enough about potential futures. I have a stubborn reactor to coax back to life

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[dcfedor]

Well, I wouldn't call it a mistake, but for example there's a lot of narrative text in NEO Scavenger. About a novel's worth. And some folks really love it. To the point where it's the game's biggest highlight.

But that sort of narrative text is time-consuming to write, and lightning fast to consume. And it can usually only be consumed a few times before it's exhausted by the player.

This time around, I'm going for something a bit more procedural and less specific. Where the context of the phrase matters a bit more than the details within it. Sort of like NEO Scavenger's combat logs, except for everything (arguments, relationships, events).

Some folks will lament the loss of bespoke narrative text, and others will come to prefer the new approach. And when game #3 comes along, whichever I choose will alienate some.

Turn-based vs. real-time with ff and pause is another good example. Some folks are already a bit put-off by that choice.

I think it's cool to like something and want to recapture the magic of experiencing it again. I do that all the time. But I also get tired of too much of the same, so there's this sort of weird balance one has to strike between repeating and innovating, and not everybody moves at the same pace. Or even the same direction.

 

[Elim]

Question about the graphics. Have you experimented with "tokens" from pen and paper roleplaying games? I think that would go well with the visuals. You already got the portrait stuff going, why not use "portraits" with dfferent overlays instead of 3d models.
Knights of the Chalice 2 does it like that, too. I think it is an elegant, time-saving solution.

 

[dcfedor]

Do you mean as replacements for the characters walking around the ship? I.e. the circular portraits from KotC2 that move from tile-to-tile?

 

[Elim]

Yeah, exactly that!

 

[dcfedor]

I think something like that could work. And would definitely save me a lot of time

However, I'm kind of partial to the current sprites. Or at least, something like them. They offer some interesting opportunities for communicating current activities, clothing customization, and visual effects (headlamps, repair sparks, etc.). And they fit the "peering down into a real spaceship" style better than tokens might.

They're not perfect, I'll admit, but I also think I'm not yet fully utilizing their potential. And I reserve the right to eat my words later

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://bluebottlegames.com/content/concept-art-sneak-peek-and-procedural-drama

Concept Art Sneak Peek, and Procedural Drama

dcfedor
onApril 22, 2019

Hi Folks! Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. More exhausting painting here on Saturday, but yesterday was gorgeous, and our yard has reached peak flowers. Oh, and we had a yummy pizza as a reward for the hard work!

Back at the office, it was more of an email and documentation day today. So that seems like a good time to pull out a little something I've been sitting on for a rainy day: concept art!

Ashley recently finished two pieces of concept art, and this is a snippet of one I plan to include in the upcoming newsletter/video. It's a pretty stark contrast to the K-Leg piece we saw before, both in terms of palette and subject. There are some places in the System that are pretty crowded. Almost reminiscent of the DMC! There are some very significant differences, however...

In other news, I spent a good chunk of the day documenting the stuff Michael and I have been discussing about procedural drama.

Currently, the game has a bare minimum of interactions for the AI to choose from, and a whole 2 plots to test the plot system. Basically, just enough to prove the systems work. But as Michael pointed out in our chat last week, it doesn't feel very satisfying or entertaining to constantly be telling AI to do push-ups when they're feeling down.

So we chatted a bit about ways to expand that, but within existing systems, and with new systems. And I tried to summarize the bulk of it in a document we can share. Currently, 3.5 pages of solid bullet points. And this is just where the discussion is beginning!

We'll be chatting more about that over the next while. It's one of the more important systems of the game, particularly if we're going to be going sublight from one end of the System to the other. Even with 10x fast forward, that could be hours (or days) of real-time travel. It'll have to be interesting if the player is going to enjoy it. Otherwise, I need to rethink the time scale!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

holy shit balls, there's nothing worse than ugly, repetitive animations in an ugly environment, don't bite more than you can chew, go for the minimalist style. rimworld looks perfectly fine, this doesn't.
and please switch mouthbreather harry potter with someone who can breathe with his nose.

 

[dcfedor]

I dunno, I think I could do worse

Seriously, though, I think this art style/tech setup has considerably more headroom for improvement before we abandon it for another style completely. There's a fair amount of stuff in the game which is more proof of concept than final. Just enough to ensure the tech works, so it can be back-filled with polished art later.

In the case of avatars/animations, they're rigged 3D meshes, which gives me a pretty wide range of options. From pure quad sprite all the way to bonkers tessellation.

My current plan is to aim for a low-poly humanoid mesh with an industry standard skeleton. Low-poly both for performance, and easy modder reskins/texturing. And standard skeleton means I could buy any of a million canned animations from Unity's store, Mixamo, etc.

Of course, if your concern is that which is placeholder sometimes calcifies into permanent...fair enough. Happened with NEO Scavenger. Happened with Rimworld. It'll surely happen with Ostranauts!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Of course, if your concern is that which is placeholder sometimes calcifies into permanent...fair enough. Happened with NEO Scavenger. Happened with Rimworld. It'll surely happen with Ostranauts!

Reassuring.

 

[tripedal]

I love the look of that panel with all the knobs and shit, but how will it work in terms of gameplay? Will the player understand how everything there works?

 

[dcfedor]

Well, if I could learn how to build a fusion reactor UI, gamers can surely figure out how to use it

Seriously, though, there's a lot of on-boarding/tutorial stuff I'm going to have to figure out. I'm jamming a ton of detail in here, not all of which is going to be intuitive to newcomers.

A couple approaches which I'm liking more than others right now are to sprinkle the UI with sticky notes from the former owner, or like an off-screen cheat-sheet/checklist you can peek at easily. Another, more involved, approach would be to pay homage to the awesome sims of our past and include a rich game manual (or e-manual) for perusing and reference.

Specifically with the reactor UI, once you've done it a couple times, it's actually pretty simple. (Provided nothing goes wrong or breaks.) Here's a basic run-down:

Cold Starting a Fusion Reactor
- Switch PWR BUS to BATT
- Switch CORE PURGE to RGH
- Switch CRYO pump on.
- Switch LAS ALIGN on.
- Switch PELL FEED on.
- Wait for CORE PRESSURE to reach ROUGH
- Switch CORE PURGE to TRB
- Wait for CAPACITOR CHARGE to be READY
- Wait for CORE PRESSURE to be VAC
- Power-On FWD FIELD COIL
- Power-On REAR FIELD COIL
- Switch FUEL REG on.
- Switch MHD generator on.
- Switch CORE PURGE to OFF
- IGNITION Switch On
- Optional: Switch PWR BUS to CHRG to begin recharging batteries.

Rote memory will work most of the time here. Follow the steps and it "just works." Having a mental model of what's going on will be a benefit, and especially when trying to optimize or debug a problem, but isn't required to generate basic results. A lot of it is just turning everything on and waiting for meters to max/min before ignition. Doing it incorrectly is mostly a risk of draining the fuel cells faster or a failed ignition, requiring a restart.

Though, once the reaction is going, failing to have cryo or field coils on, or letting the temperature/pressure go above max is going to hurt...

 

[tripedal]

Following a rote series of steps and having it "just work" doesn't seem like very interesting gameplay though, does it? I feel it would need some sort of interactive element, some kind of problem-solving aspect...but of course to do that the player would need that mental model of how the system works...

 

[agris]

A couple approaches which I'm liking more than others right now are to sprinkle the UI with sticky notes from the former owner, or like an off-screen cheat-sheet/checklist you can peek at easily. Another, more involved, approach would be to pay homage to the awesome sims of our past and include a rich game manual (or e-manual) for perusing and reference.

I'm going to give the perfect project manager response and say: why not both? In-game stickies (which I think is a great idea) lets you be nimble with changes to systems (say UI panel functionality in this case) and update the "tutorial" text when pushing code, an option that won't exist for the printed Janes-style manual. Also, the number and verbosity of the stickies can respond to player settings (difficulty) - also the opportunity for players to put their *own* stickies on hot-spots. Hot-spots would be where, were the player to selection the option for all / most verbose stickies, they would exist. At higher difficulty levels, those spots may be blank but the player could put one there with the option of X number of characters of text being written to it.

Plus, in game help is a very common feature that will help with your sales.

Now, the ability to place your own stickies in conjunction with the large reference manual has the opportunity to give your game exposure with a different crow. A more niche, enthusiast crowd - the type that builds interest in games from the bottom-up.

I think both options together are the best choice.

Now, let me get back to you on how to work 48 hours into a day...