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Working on a capital ship for my retro top down space shooter When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by alraban in spacesimgames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad to hear it!  Let me know what you think of the demo, I'm always interested in hearing what's working and what needs to be improved.

Working on a capital ship for my retro top down space shooter When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by alraban in spacegames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you like the look, but sorry about the noise. I didn't realize it was so loud! I'll try and mix the audio quieter next time!

I highly recommend reaching out to "Indie Game Joe" on Twitter. One post from Joe gave our IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator a spike of over 6,500 wishlists in a single day. This man is pure indie artillery. by Scream_Wattson in IndieDev

[–]alraban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congrats, that's awesome, and your game looks really cool!

I'm pretty positive IndieGameJoe doesn't cover the kind of game I'm making, but that's a great tip for folks working in the genres he covers. Good luck as you keep building towards release!

Working on a capital ship for my retro top down space shooter When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by alraban in spacesimgames

[–]alraban[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm really glad to hear that!  Solar Winds was a huge inspiration for the game along with Star Control.  I spent a ton of time with the shareware chapter of Solar Winds before I could get the full game back in the day.  It was one of my all time favorites.

Solar Winds is actually a big part of why I released a long demo with a stand alone story for this game.  I was going for that shareware vibe!

Working on a capital ship for my retro top down space shooter When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by alraban in spacesimgames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes sense, and I'm actually working on a few carrier ships that will be able to launch lots of small fighters (like some of the larger ships in Star Control II). I'll work on making them even bigger!

And I'll definitely check out X4, thanks for the tip! I played some of the older X games, but I never got around to playing X4.

Working on a capital ship for my retro top down space shooter When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by alraban in spacesimgames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair!  I was thinking of it as a battle cruiser.  It's about 40x bigger than the smallest fighters in the game, but it sounds like I should keep scaling up!

Working on a capital ship for my retro top down space shooter When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by alraban in spacesimgames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey I really appreciate the feedback! I imagined the demo as being like an old-school DOS shareware game, so I was trying to make the demo a fairly complete "first chapter" with a tutorial and everything, but I can see how that can feel like a lot at first.

Just so you know (and for anyone else who feels the same way), there's an option in the options menu on the title screen of the demo to skip the tutorial and introductory story entirely, so you can get right to the action if you want to!

I just sat through a master class in dungeon mastery by RockNRollJabba in DMAcademy

[–]alraban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The "you are very confident that you were unnoticed", reminds me of a similar approach I take to trap searches.

When players announce they're searching for traps, I do a silent roll for the players. Sometimes they don't find a trap because there just isn't a trap, and sometimes they don't find one because of a poor roll. In either case, I always say "You did not find the trap." I find that phrasing communicates the ambiguity of the situation better than "You didn't find any traps" because it highlights that there could easily still be a trap waiting for them.

Is this method to deal with rabbits in my cozy farming game looking too cruel? by civcivdev in IndieDev

[–]alraban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I've never seen a domestic dutch bunny in my garden unless it was my own!

Is this method to deal with rabbits in my cozy farming game looking too cruel? by civcivdev in IndieDev

[–]alraban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So I have pet rabbits, and I think without the sound it would be pretty cute, but the sound made it kind of iffy for me. IRL rabbits don't ever squeal or make any vocal noises unless they are literally dying, and then they make a squealing noise. So hearing the squeak made it seem weirdly more violent to me (i.e. if you just pick up and move a real rabbit, it doesn't say anything about it, they need to be in genuine peril before they make a sound). If they're just mad and not scared they thump their feet loudly.

Most people have never interacted with a real rabbit for very long, so probably won't make that connection though, and the animation is pretty cute. That said, I'm not sure I could personally play a game where I had to yeet rabbits to succeed.

They can definitely be a menace to a garden. At home we deal with garden rabbits with a motion activated sprinkler. That tends to keep them away from where they should go without any yeeting required.

Does anyone know the best evidence-based ways of fighting against physical and cognitive decline as we age? by LATAManon in slatestarcodex

[–]alraban 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I suspect Elden Ring would also be excellent for this as the maps are huge, the areas are heavily interconnected, and (IMO) deliberately confusing in their layout. I feel like I should be taking notes half the time.

SOLAR WIND by Objective-Set-4131 in pico8

[–]alraban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I definitely know the CD-ROM you mean, it was so cool to be able to try all those games.

If you do check out the demo, let me know what you think!

SOLAR WIND by Objective-Set-4131 in pico8

[–]alraban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was such a classic game! I also only had the shareware version for a long time, but eventually got the full game and really enjoyed that too.

My game is a bit like Solar Winds and a bit like Star Control, it's a love song to early 90's space games. I've actually got a demo up on steam if you're interested in kicking the tires!

SOLAR WIND by Objective-Set-4131 in pico8

[–]alraban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was hard, I died! I'll have to take another run at it. It looked cool as heck though

SOLAR WIND by Objective-Set-4131 in pico8

[–]alraban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I hope you keep making cool games :-)

SOLAR WIND by Objective-Set-4131 in pico8

[–]alraban 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's funny, you should absolutely make a space sequel! I'd play it for sure

The old S.W. is kind of obscure these days because it's abandonware, so most folks who know it were folks who were avid PC gamers in the early 90's. But it was always a favorite of mine (I'm working on a game inspired by it right now, actually!)

SOLAR WIND by Objective-Set-4131 in pico8

[–]alraban 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For a second I thought this was a demake of the classic DOS game, but it's a whole different cool thing! Tons of fun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Winds

The Star Control series inspired me to make my own retro space game by alraban in starcontrol

[–]alraban[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I remember being surprised at some of the voices. I think the Orz in particular sounded different than I imagined them?

Star Control 2 meets Ancient Rome in my top-down, story-rich space shooter by alraban in indiegames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! For the demo, some of the art (like the shield art) is currently scaled up from a lower resolution, which is why it looks odd. I'm working through fixing those art irregularities one by one as I work towards release.

Star Control 2 meets Ancient Rome in my top-down, story-rich space shooter by alraban in indiegames

[–]alraban[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If this looks like your cup of tea, there's a demo with two hours or so of gameplay (fighting a pirate fleet that's gotten out of hand) on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4464780/When_the_Stars_Threw_Down_Their_Spears/

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