I Got Version Alpha.5 Out! Lots Of Good Stuff, Like Vehicle Customization And A Mission Where You Need

I got version alpha.5 out! Lots of good stuff, like vehicle customization and a mission where you need to shut down a flying truck and pull a package out of the back!

It's not ready for public alpha yet, but we're getting there, and it's very exciting.

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.)

Hey all, work is progressing on A.9, and I just wanted to let you know that you can expect it to include:

A server browser, to make joining multiplayer games with friends easier.

Rendering Enhancements, making a lot of things prettier

New Mission types

Mission Giver NPCs

All this new stuff is at least two weeks, maybe more like a month away from a playtest, but I'm looking forward to the next playtest and I'll keep you in the loop as we get closer!

In the meantime, you can try out the game for free now on itch!

If you're able to say without causing yourself problems, what's your game about? What's the pitch?

Hello! The basic idea is a sci-fi multiplayer heist, with an absolute pile of interesting abilities, and a focus on planning and improvisation over having big numbers. I’m focusing on building things to be as flexible, dynamic, and weird as possible, so players can bend the system to get interesting results.

Can’t disable an eye? Rewire it so it can’t lock the door!

Can’t avoid or destroy some turrets? Teleport between them and then back again to get them to shoot each other!

Can’t open a door? Activate the alarms, and skip past the defense drones as they pour through it!

Of course, very little of this is actually created so far, and nothing here should be read as a promise, but personally I’m feeling really good about things. I’m aiming to have a publicly playable version in a few months, and ideally I’ll keep developing and updating it for a couple of years.

Public Game Development is Hard, Public Political Storytelling is Harder

I’ve been silent here for a while, but I just wanted to say that I’m very much alive! I’ve been working out how I want to do the netcode and general multiplayer setup. Now that I’ve got that going, I’m getting back towards being more public in my progress.

As much as my instinct is to be totally open with my process, my process involves rapid iteration, which is to say throwing some cubes together and making them do a game mechanic in a sloppy way in order to see if it’s actually worth doing right. By working like this, I save a lot of time trying things, as I try to reject most of my own ideas and only keep that which really works well with the game as a whole. I’m happy with that process, but I feel like posting pictures of that both undersells the look of the game and overpromises the gameplay by showing lots of mechanics that wont ever be finished or published. It’s tricky that way.

Additionally, while the game isn’t propaganda by any means, there is a significant political dimension, and the politics at play are both very strange and very familiar. The game is set in the future of Earth, and while it does not directly represent the struggles of today, it does echo them. The ideologies at play are not those of today, they are the descendants of today’s ideologies, which means that if I portray them clumsily, they could very reasonably be read as caricatures of the beliefs of today. All this means that I’m hesitant to reveal them until I’ve had a chance to make sure that they won’t be reasonably misread. Some miscommunication is inevitable, and so is valid criticism of my own assumptions and understanding as a creator, I accept that. I just want to welcome people into the world when the time is right.

So I’m not going to get deep into the lore early on, but that’ll shift over time, and I am very excited to show more and more of what’s happening in this strange future.

YouTube

How to Steal a Box in TOMORROW FOREVER Alpha.6

Stealing a box off the back of a truck is about the simplest kind of theft, but it works into a wide variety of different systems. So here's

Ever wonder how to get your start in the wide world of spacecrime? Have a gander at our new instructional video, based on real gameplay!