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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi Space Sim Fans!

I just want to inform you that a new space sim game has been born called Cosmic Explorer. Actually, Cosmic Explorer is a freeware 2D non-combat space exploration game for a single player. Story: You are a captain of SERO (Space Exploration & Research Organisation) and got the order to search for a certain artefact which is located under a myriad of stars. For master that mission, you can use a spaceship for exploration, finding other interesting artefacts and making a bit profit by the way. You can use this profit to pay the fuel for your spaceship, upgrade your equipment or trade information to faster complete your mission. The more information you get, the smaller becomes the search area, and the mission will be completed when you find the requested artefact.

The game is similar to "Galactic Artifact" from Trevor Bradley, but with some features on top: You will encounter lots of aliens and cities, get random events and can get help in case of an emergency. The game has its focus on strategy and exploration and as it is combat-free, it can be well played for relaxiation or just for some time and later be continued as saving and loading is supported.

Some screenshots:

Main window:

mainwindow.jpg

Planet view:

planets.jpg

Surface view:

surface.jpg

City view:

city_options.jpg

Download is here:

http://www.waseo.de/index.php?cid=4&act ... =99&pg=337

Have fun!


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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Supreme Dark Emperor Admin
Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 7856
 

Hi SpaceRider

Thanks for letting everyone know about this game. Are you the developer? I will eventually give this game a spin and looks great from the screenshots. Does Cosmic Explorer have a blog/website I can reference in my game listing and can I host a download of Cosmic Explorer here on SSC?

Welcome to SSC btw 🙂


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
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Hi DarkOne!

Yes I am the developer, how did you know that :)? Great that you like to test the game. I know it stll needs improvement and I am grateful for any feedback. The reason why it was created is simple: I downloaded Trevor Bradley's wonderful game "Galactic Artifact" but could not get it to run, and I also had some ideas to give it a more intensive "Sci-Fi-Spirit" so I decided to create it on my own.

Currently, the game has no forum or blog, just a download page (see first posting), but a better one is already planned. I will inform you when it is ready. And sure you can host a download here on SSC, that's a gread advantage to make sure it can be downloaded not only from one resource.

It's nice to see the current discussion in this forum about future trends of space sim games. I think the right mixture of action, strategy and random fortune is still the best way for success. I am glad that there are people like you keeping the community together and give space sim fans the chance to go on "game exploration". And I do hope it will be a never ending mission ;).


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi folks,

just an infomation that version 1.1a is released with the following changes:

* The city view now provides information about the city itself (characteristics, main products and police situation) and the inhabitants living there. Just click the button with info icon beside.

* There are two new status indicators showing the status of economy and police using the traffic light colors.

* Artefact and energy prices now depend on the economical situation: If it is good, artefact prices are high, but energy prices also and vice versa.

* A new sound DLL has been added which fixed problems with delayed sound under Windows Visa / 7.

* Some minor bugfixes.

Have fun!

SpaceRider


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi folks,

I just implemented another nice feature:

* Depending on the police status, a message can pop up when the city is left. If the status is good, one can expect a reward, if bad, a penality and if middle, one of both.

Current version is 1.15a now. It can be downloaded from the download section directly.

Have fun!

Space Rider


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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Supreme Dark Emperor Admin
Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 7856
 

Hi SpaceRider

Have a quick question on Cosmic Explorer. I am trying to tun this game on my Win7 x64 machine at 1920x1080 and I am having a problem seeing the whole game screen. The 'Commands' area I cannot even see. Is there a way to adjust resolution for the game?

And I received an error on the 'Game Options' screen when you are choosing your avatar picture. If you cycle through all of the pics (right arrow) and then go back using the left arrow. I received an error basically telling me it can't find captian0.jpg.


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi Dark One,

Darkone wrote:

Have a quick question on Cosmic Explorer. I am trying to tun this game on my Win7 x64 machine at 1920x1080 and I am having a problem seeing the whole game screen. The 'Commands' area I cannot even see. Is there a way to adjust resolution for the game?

You mean you cannot see the command panel? Sorry Sir, we planned to implement a voice command control, but Tom Barrow spends too much money on hunting artefacts, gambling in bars and being nice to the Butterfly Princess, so we could not afford it yet 😀

Now seriously: That is strange because the program is designed to run in 800 x 600 mode. If your resolution is higher, it will be switched to 800 x 600 temporarely and then restored automatically after you quit the game. I guess somehow your video driver does not like this :). Therefor, I just implemented an option to select the resolution of 1024 x 768 which will show the main window of 800 x 600 centered with a randomly chosen gradient frame around, so you should have no problem to reach the command panel.

Darkone wrote:
And I received an error on the 'Game Options' screen when you are choosing your avatar picture. If you cycle through all of the pics (right arrow) and then go back using the left arrow. I received an error basically telling me it can't find captian0.jpg.

That was truely a small glitch. I just forgot to set the minimum value which is 1, not 0. This is corrected now. The current version is 1.16a (already uploaded).

Thank you for checking the game and reporting the problems, Dark One! Hope you will not be stopped from enjoying the game now. Your further comments are welcome!

Greetings

Space Rider


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi people!

Thanks to feedback, version 1.20a is available now. Changes:

* The police function was changed because it had strange results: You got money for penalities and had to pay for rewards. Now this is correct.

* The interface has been refreshed, looks more futurstic and less cluttery.

* Some minor bugfixes.

Have fun!

SpaceRider


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi Space Simiacs,

again there was a little update for Cosmic Explorer:

- You now have full control over the probability of random events by using a scrollbar value from "often" to "rare".

- Some minor bugfixes and enhancements.

Have fun!

Space Rider


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Geraldine
(@geraldine)
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Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 3446
 

Hi SpaceRider, firstly a belated welcome to the forum 🙂 I have just downloaded your game and as you have given permission, I will upload it again to the SSC archive. I have to agree with farcodev, it does look "Amigaish", which for me is a good thing! For now though, I must give it a try out..................

EDIT: I seem to have a problem with the download. Although I have a file "cesetup", it is showing zero bytes. I tried downloading again with the same result.


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi Geraldine,

I just checked it. I am very sorry, you are right because the file link was wrong due to an update of my CMS engine. However it will work now and you should receive a setup file of 16.5 MB exactly.

BTW thanks for the compliments. I have to admit I did not have the AMIGA in mind when I designed the game, but being compared with one of the best 16bit multimedia and game machines is truely an honor to me!

Hope you will enjoy Cosmic Explorer and let me know when you found bugs. But better find artefacts :D.

Regards

SpaceRider


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi people!

For all who had trouble at downloading the setup file, this is finally fixed now! I thought I had it corrected and it worked on my test computer, but strangely not on my provider's webspace (always trouble with the providers, DarkOne knows what it means 😀 ). Anyways, hope this problem will be gone forever and that you will enjoy Cosmic Explorer!

Regards

SpaceRider


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi people,

another little update for Cosmic Explorer is ready!

* 10 new city descriptions

* 10 new alien descriptions

* Some minor bugfixes and enhancements

Have fun!

Regards

SpaceRider


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Grimm
(@grimm)
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Joined: 14 years ago
Posts: 71
 

A really nice game you made. I enjoy some peacefull space exploration but after some time i always want to kick some ass. Do you plan to include a fighting system into Cosmic Explorer?


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi Grimm,

I am glad to hear you enjoyed Cosmic Explorer.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I do not plan to include a fighting system. The focus of this game is exploration and relaxed gaming, which means you can play it at the end of a work day or during a break or just occasionally whenever you like to, without the need for combat skills or thrilling fights. There are myriads of other space games provinding combat elements, so these will be probably what you like to play.

However, what I think is possible to implement are "natural challenges" like fighting asteroids, moving around gravitation fields or entering wormholes. This would give the game a bit more different action elements. I will see what I can do for next versions.

Regards

SpaceRider


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slare
(@slare)
Crewman Registered
Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 2
 

Seems to be a good game. But I have trouble with screen/display resolution.

Whatever the resolution is (from the game or my computer), half of the menu is missing.

mini_925969Untitled.png


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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Supreme Dark Emperor Admin
Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 7856
 

I am seeing the same thing SpaceRider.

I have tried running the game at 1024x768 and 1920x1080 and the same result in both resolutions. Could this be a graphics card issue? I have an ATI 4890 1GB. I was running your latest version from the download area.


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi Slare, Darkone,

thanks for your resolution problem reports. It is really a very mysterious problem because I have ATI graphics cards only and never had such an issue. It really seems to be a graphics driver effect. But Slare's screenshot helped me a lot so I changed the 1024 x 768 pixels modus in a way that the frame around the main panel is smaller, so there is more space for the display elements which means the command panel should be visible completely now. I also changed the background music so the setup file shrunk from 16 to just 12 MB.

Please download the game from hompage and test it again with the 1024 x 768 pixels resolution option. Then let me know if you could see all elements. Current version is 1.23a now. Look forward to hear from you!

Best regards

SpaceRider


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slare
(@slare)
Crewman Registered
Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 2
 

Thanks a lot SpaceRider, it's far better.

mini_718216000.jpg

Not perfect, but seems fully playable (not played much yet).

Sorry i forgot to tell I have a Geforce GTX 480M.

I tell you more once I spent more time on it.


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ollobrain
(@ollobrain)
Lieutenant Registered
Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 564
 

let us know when the next version is ready


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi guys,

I think I got it! Some panels went out of view because the system text size was set to "Medium" (120 dpi) instead of "Small" (96 dpi). So I redesigned the main window with 120 dpi in a way that it looks fine even with 96 dpi. Consequently, the resolution selection is obsolete now and the screen resolution will not be changed any more. Additionally, I changed the frame background around the main window to improve the futuristic style of the game.

Please test it again (after downloading from homepage), I am quite sure you will see everything and finally be able to enjoy the game completely.

Have fun!

SpaceRider


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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Supreme Dark Emperor Admin
Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 7856
 

Just loaded the latest version and the view is no usable for me I will start playing it now and give you some feedback in a few days. Thanks SpaceRider!


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Digitalus
(@digitalus)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
 

This looks really interesting, I'll have to give it a try!


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi folks,

a new version of the game is ready and this time there are some important changes:

+ You have to find 4 artefacts, each in one of the 4 sectors, not only just one.

+ You can accept transport orders.

+ You can use a navigator module to find a star system on the star map.

- You cannot call the headquarter for help any more.

- Events will happen once the first time when you leave a city, not every time.

+ Minor bugfixes and corrections.

Tested with small and medium system text size.

Have fun!

SpaceRider


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SpaceRider
(@spacerider)
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Joined: 13 years ago
Posts: 51
Topic starter  

Hi people,

now there is a quick update for Cosmic Explorer:

- You will now really get your payment when you completed a transport order

- Some settings of a saved game were not displayed after loading

- Added option for game run in a window (not full screen)

- Some minor bugfixes

Have fun!

SpaceRider


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