Universe Project

[Deozaan]

Mouser got me started a gaming project earlier this summer which I'm just calling "Universe" for now. It's a two-dimensional space game heavily inspired by (mouser's personal favorite) Escape Velocity Nova (EV Nova), the Star Control Trilogy (specifically StarCon 2 & StarCon 3), and other space games I've played over the years.

It's still very early in its development--just an alpha demo right now--but at least it's interactive. And that's a lot farther than I ever got with Docoto Defense.

What happened to Docoto Defense, anyway?

In short: It was too overwhelming and I was too unfamiliar with the tools I had.

Most of the time spent while "working on" Docoto Defense I was actually going through broken tutorials and poor documentation. The project was much too ambitious for my skills and I quickly became overwhelmed with all the things I had to do without knowing how to do them.

Not to mention that a couple months into the project trying to learn the coding process for TGB I decided to change to TGE, basically starting the process all over again, only to finally revert back to TGB when I found out that TGE was going to be so much harder.

So anyway, it's just an alpha demo right now but I'd love to get feedback on controls and things when I release new builds. I'd really like to get some comments on the blog as direct feedback for each new build, but if you just comment back here that would be fine too.

Other info: Universe is set up to work with DCUpdater to download newest versions. I also have a tiny banner in my signature that links to the site and has the date of the latest update. But if you are the kind of person who would never remember to check back at the site or never run DCUpdater, you can also subscribe to the RSS Feed of all the updates.

In case you missed the link above, the website is http://universe.deozaan.com/.

[Paul Keith]

Something about these types of games, do you guys often enjoy the real time combat feel of these games because I was always drawn more towards the turn based battle scenes found in games like Smugglers 3.

[Deozaan]

Something about these types of games, do you guys often enjoy the real time combat feel of these games because I was always drawn more towards the turn based battle scenes found in games like Smugglers 3.

Actually, one of my favorite space games ever was a turn-based game called Stars!. It had bare minimum graphics, and battles were all done automatically for you based on ship statistics etc., but it was an incredibly fun game if you had the patience for the turn-based nature of it.

I still have the game, so if anyone wants to play with me (e-mail based or some other form) let's get a game going!

[mouser]

I'm reallllly excited about this project.

I played EV Nova a few years ago and it left a lasting impression on me for a few reasons.

I'm not a heavy duty gamer so i tend to gravitate towards simpler games with simpler controls.  The complicated real-time-strategy games are all just too overwhelming for me.

What really impressed me about EV Nova was that it seemed like a perfect example of a fairly low-budget game which struck all the right balances in terms of the game engine graphics/technology, the control scheme, and the storyline.  To me it was a textbook example of a game that drew you into it's world, was engrossing and hard to stop playing, and wasn't overwhelming.  For me everything just "felt" right in terms of the control scheme, etc., and the graphics were nice but from a developer's point of view not out of the reach of a single or small group of developers.

So i've long wanted to work on a game similar to EV Nova but it's hard for me to find the time to do it.  I was ecstatic when Deozaan started working on a game with an interface similar to EV Nova.  He has worked really hard on the basic control feel and we have talked a lot about the importance of simplicity of control and getting the flow just right.

I think it's really off to a fantastic start and I can't wait to see how it progresses.

[Deozaan]

I just released a new alpha build for anyone interested. Here's a link to the site: Universe Changelog

    * Fixed the instant slowdown that occurred when changing to Battle Mode.
    * Fixed a bug introduced by the above instant slowdown fix.
    * Found and fixed a bug that enabled you to fly 3 times faster than intended when returning to Travel Mode from Battle Mode.
    * The code for the HUD pointers have been overhauled (internally). Spaghetti code across multiple files has been merged into one concise file, eliminating a lot of extra garbage that got in there while I was trying to figure out how to get them to work properly.
    * Pointers can also now easily have their settings adjusted. This makes it easier to customize things such as size, visible distance, and whether to show an arrow (like earlier releases) or an icon representing the target object.
    * Finally, HUD Pointers distance display text (the numbers) are a little more compact.

[attach=#]

Feedback is wanted!

[f0dder]

Pretty visuals on those screenies, might have to check it out

[wreckedcarzz]

I played some of the older versions of Universe, and it was very interesting to be able to go out wherever I wanted. I'm into the whole "explore everything" kind of gameplay (after I find everything, then let battles commence! ), so I went around and found about 1/2 of the planets (after about 45 minutes).

Good idea, good setup, good fun

EDIT: Gotta love the "Donationcoder Games Division" splash screen

[Shades]

Sins of a Solar Empire is what I play lately...excellent strategy game with epic battles in space!

@f0dder:
Those battles turn into nice light shows (if you zoom in into the action ), but the game is otherwise also very nice graphically. Besides that it scales very well to the capabilities from the hardware it runs on.