My company, Crystalline Green, is working on developing games for android. Specifically, we're developing what will hopefully evolve into a series of games set in space. The whole thing is called "Project Iridian" and the first game is Iridian: Star Syndicate.
About Project Iridian:
Prosaic Dreams
Ever dream of life among the stars?
We do. But between the photon lasers and intergalactic wars there is a world rarely visited and barely touched by science-fiction authors and film makers
How do all those spaceships get made? Who finances their construction? How are their constituent components bought and sold, traded and transported to the shipyards? Who makes the food for the ships’ crews’? Who designed their packaging and managed the plant where the vacuum packed silver-foil pouches were made? Who negotiated the contract with the military to supply six million units of “Marine’s Mate Breakfast Coffee�
Every other game set in space either has some violent combat element or entirely revolves around shooting, killing, and generally blowing stuff up. That's cool and actually i really enjoy those sorts of games 😀 , but considering the space setting / environment has such massive scope, it seems like there are a lot of undernourished ideas for non-violent / non-combat games set in space
My hope is that Project Iridian will grow into a collection of different games that let people explore what life in space might be like beyond the battlefield, whilst still being fun, entertaining and challenging. We're often sold a cool, slick, vision of the future but it is rarely fleshed out and the dreams remain a vapid, shallow and ultimately meaningless. My other hope is that I can do my bit to change perceptions about space, from a place only dreamed about, to something possible, something achievable
About Iridian: Star Syndicate
Star Syndicate is a business sim set in space. You the player, take the role of CEO of a newly founded trade and logistics corporation. You buy spaceships and transport goods between spacestations for profit.
Build a Business Empire
Build a fleet of ships plying the spacelanes for vast profit and riches. Nurture business relations and fuel economic growth or mercilessly asset strip and plunder your way to glory
Sophisticated Economic Simulator
Supply and demand based fluctuating price system creates opportunities for savvy traders. Advanced consumer behaviour gives you the choice to surf the wave of the latest fashions or quietly grow rich on staples of galactic civilisation
Stunning 3D Graphics
Explore the vastness of space in incredibly rich 3D graphics
The part I'm most proud of is the 3D interface and physics engine, which is all there aside from lighting and ship-ship collision detection. The ships arriving out of hyperspace at the edge of the station docking radius fly round the station and land neatly in their allocated docking bays. Then when done, they reverse out of the bays before zipping off to their next destination
The game is still under development, but I've been working on it since May 2011 full time (so almost a year!). Although it is mostly there as described above, I am always on the lookout for feedback, and if people are happy to help, I can post up some videos showing the UI and game mechanics
Please feel free to post gameplay videos so you can receive some feedback on your progress. When I read your description the first game that came to my head was that old game 'Ports of Call' which was a shipping logistics style game to make money and try to retire. Will Iridian have goal to reach or will you allow someone to grow as large as they want? And what type of obstacles will there be to challenge the player on their way to being successful?
Actually, I made the game to be like transport tycoon, but set in space.
Everyone I've pitched the idea to so far seems to think you actually drive the spaceships. But how often does the CEO of Maersk or Cosco drive a ship? I guess it is because every time someone sees the words space and trade together, they instantly think of elite or freelancer or similar games, which this is not. Also it is quite hard to get a screenshot that really gives a good sense of just what the game is all about. It doesn't help that I made the game engine, and all the mechanics, but I'm only about half way through making the UI
The reason at the moment I mention trading and logistics is because the other features of a business sim, such as owning and managing factories, mines and spacestations, will take some time to implement. About 6 months ago, I decided the game was getting ludicrously big in scope and cut back on a lot of things, with the intention to add them later. However, if the game is not compelling enough with just transporting and trading goods between stations, then I'll have to re-assess.
As for obstacles and goals, there aren't any per-se aside from getting rich. Transport tycoon had a time limit, and the challenges beyond simply making a profit were to create a whole logistics chain (with the consumer goods produced at the end being really valuable). Also towns and cities grew if supplied with food and passengers, which in turn meant more supply and demand of passengers (and so more profit) and more demand for consumer goods (and so more profit). My game has those features too, but I'm undecided on whether to set a time limit or not
In transport tycoon, there were competitors, who forced you to constantly expand to prevent them from taking all the best routes (they rarely directly compete with you). Again, I'd love to have competitors in my game, but it would require considerable development time to implement
Iridian: Star Syndicate is actually all set in one solar system (randomly generated for each new game). One idea I had was to have a mega-corporation or government that does all the long haul stuff between solar systems. They own all the stations to begin with, and your aim is to slowly buy up all the stations in the system and control it completely. Alternatively, it may be to save up enough money, resources and shipyards to build one of the mega-expensive interstellar spaceships. Again, it all sounds great on paper, but would take time to implement
Hey James
That UI test video is nice and smooth and it seems like it will be smooth on the tablet. I like the fact that it is semi-transparent so you can see things behind the text and images.
Some thoughts I had on the interface..
- Will you include a 'sell all' and 'buy all' option? (or least buy up to your funding limit)
- Will there be any descriptions for the items that you purchase/sell?
- Will there be any bulletins that let you know where the action is so if there is a conflict you can transport some weapons to a station/planet.
- Will you be able to setup automatic shipments and have them tracked via the UI?
I like this idea and it is always fun to take down da'man.
- Will you include a 'sell all' and 'buy all' option? (or least buy up to your funding limit)
- Will there be any descriptions for the items that you purchase/sell?
- Will there be any bulletins that let you know where the action is so if there is a conflict you can transport some weapons to a station/planet.
- Will you be able to setup automatic shipments and have them tracked via the UI?
- Yes and kinda.
There will be loads of different things to buy at stations and probably far too much to fill a cargohold with. More likely there will be a 'fill cargohold' button or option when setting the amount to buy. Unlike railroad tycoon, it won't just take a selection of whatever happens to be at the station and is needed by the next station on the route
- Yes. There are actually already description pages for each product. However, should clicking on something bring up info about it or the edit page? At the moment, it brings up edit. There isn't really a right click for android (there is long press but I really don't like using it and many people aren't aware it exists). So the other option is to have either an info icon somewhere next to or near the product, or have an edit button and make showing info the default when clicking on something
- Yes. I've been struggling to work out where to put them though. Current thinking is the bar along the top will be a news ticker, streaming player notifications, or commodities price changes if there are no notifications at that time
- Yes. In fact, what was shown in the video is not just a one-time trade. The ship will automatically go to that station, buy/sell, go to the next station, buy/sell whatever you set up there go to the next waypoint etc and then after the last waypoint/station, loop back round to the first again and repeat the process until you tell it to stop or delete the waypoints
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