Its Coming Together! This Is The System That I Hope To Use To Have Fully Destructible Space Ships, Space

It’s coming together! This is the system that I hope to use to have fully destructible space ships, space stations, and space mansions. This isn’t the final version by any means, but it’s always nice to have a proof of concept go smoothly.

It’s 4am, my pump up song is on loop, and I’m tearing increasingly intricate space stations apart with a debug gun and watching them collapse with increasing accuracy. Every hour makes things a bit more beautiful, and a bit more sophisticated.

And tomorrow, I don’t even need to get up early.

(And yes, I take time off and take care of myself, don’t worry. I’m just a night owl.)

MACHINE GUN

Our last group playtest brought the feedback that the drone jammer missions kinda felt like they were just dropping you in the desert with nothing but an "okay, good luck!" And you know, I think that's fair. Many of the gadgets are built around moving through a structure, so being totally exposed with a totally exposed device to protect isn't always a great feeling.

I first looked at the problem as something that I had to fix, but it became quickly apparent that dynamically and reliably placing useful and interesting cover and support systems was going to be extremely difficult without making other concessions, so I decided to focus on giving the player the tools that they need to secure the area themselves.

These pocket autoturrets are coming along nicely then, with just a little bit of polish left to do...and probably a dramatic reduction in the number you can carry. As you can see, it "only" takes about 20 or so to trivialize the mission, even at difficulty 3.

Oh yeah, and I may have thought that a certain sound effect was going to be the sound of a machine gun firing, instead of, well, you'll see. I haven't had the heart to "fix" that yet, we'll see if I muster the courage later.

TOMORROW FOREVER A.8: Hello, World is here!

This is the first publicly available version of TF, so give it a look! The biggest change is definitely the rebuilt hacking mechanics, but we've also got four new gadgets, five new enemies, and a whole ton of other improvements!

You can download the game for free right now at https://supreme-hubris.itch.io/tomorrow-forever Let me know what you think!

Hubris

Supreme Hubris Games is one rando trying to break free of corporate work. I'm sick of working for rich people, so I quit my job a few weeks ago after saving money for years. Game dev is often a team sport, but I think I can at least build a strong foundation on my own. There are things that can only be done by one person, and it's not like I can afford to hire anyone anyway, I barely have enough savings to pay my own way.

I've got about 18 to 30 months before my savings run out, depending on how cheaply I can live. No matter what happens, that time will be a blessing that I cannot take for granted...but I don't want this to end with that. I'm not taking a vacation. This is at least the third time I've made a blog like this. The game will be somewhere around my 12th finished game. Even with my accumulated advantages, the odds don't feel like they are in my favor, but now I will have no excuses and all the time I need, so I think that might be enough.

I hate that I need to pay for freedom like this, and I hate that it took so much to build up these savings. I hate that so many people are happy to take six figure salaries and just live on a 40 hour a week luxury treadmill instead of breaking free and doing something worthwhile.

Future posts will be more about game dev and robbing the aforementioned rich people blind, but I just wanted to make a note of where I am now, for posterities sake. I dunno what'll happen next, but I'm still happy to be taking these steps.

Next Week: I post bad art (that will slowly and unsteadily become good)

I just got another version out to playtesters and I'm feeling good about the progress I'm making. Skyjackers a.2 has a bunch of new stuff and some necessary refinements as well. It's just been really encouraging to see things coming together.

We're a long way from any kind of finish line, but by the end of the year the last of the big questions should be answered, and it just becomes about cranking out the game itself.

What's the last question?

Should Skyjackers be a fully co-op/singleplayer game? Or should it be elevated to the absurd height of becoming a sandboxy MMO?

Both have their costs, and both have their great benefits. Amazingly, both seem entirely possible, which is a great testament to the state of available technology. It's just a matter of figuring out which is best.

There's a lot of new hacking mechanics are coming into Tomorrow Forever, so I made a video showing some of them off!

This last update was a huge jump forward, with hacking finally achieving the effectiveness that it needs to be a primary pillar of the game. The future holds more ways to hack into things, and more to do with those things once you're in, so stay tuned! I'm really happy with how these things are coming together.