Thanks, up to you then my friend (re: vid)

Update from kickstarter.

Hey guys!  

It is hard to believe it has been 47 days since Steam's launch. Hopefully very soon those of you who are waiting for the DRM free build will download it via Humble Bundle. I uploaded the build a few hours ago, but as it is Sunday... well not everyone works - whenever awake and not eating - like me. Which is probably a good thing 🙂  When they let me know that their side is ready I will post a comment to this update - ETA probably tomorrow-ish.

The new story content is in - in both the Steam and the DRM free build - which extends the game by about 1.5 hours. The new mission is pretty involved and most of the goals that I had for it were met - which I'm very happy about. The "boss" of the mission is a bit too weak in effectiveness and will need a bit of improvement and other elements in the mission need much polish, but now there is a frame work for play testing and feedback, looking forward to it.

On the Steam side - I posted a summary of the last 47 days. So I'll copy/paste it here.The Steam community (which many of you are a part off) has been great, and the launch reminded me a lot of Kickstarter days.

--- START STEAM POST --

Void Destroyer - Early Access - the past 47 days

On January 15th, 2014, Void Destroyer launched on Steam's Early Access.

In that time (47 days) here is what we accomplished:

• 5 new ships
• 3 new bases 
• 3 new stations 
• 2 new music tracks 
• Over 1.5 hours of game play - over 10% of story/mission game play time added 
• New character portraits 
• Much improved flight control/mechanics 
• New way of mining asteroids (via a new mining ship) 
• Assault platforms - long range offensive artillery 
• Much improved controller/joystick support (Xbox 360 controller fully supported for flight) 
• Over 25 crash bugs fixed - numerous other issues resolved 
• 20 Steam Keys given out in thanks to player assistance in finding crash bugs 
• 57 builds uploaded to Steam Looking back at the past month and a half

The Steam community has been incredible. You have shown great support for the project with your feedback, ideas and criticism. With you the project has been greatly improved. With your continued support this is just the beginning. Now that the initial spike of issues has subsided focus is being changed to new story content and game play improvements. Your feedback has made it clear that the areas to focus on are control/input, user interface and improving the look and feel of Tactical mode. Please continue your strong support - check back often - Early Access is an incredible opportunity to make this project exponentially better experience. 

Once again, thank you all for your trust and support. 

Paul 

PS: For more info on recent updates: 

• See the project's Steam build patch notes
• For what has been done since October 19th, 2013 see Iteration 19 Change Log  

--- END STEAM POST --

Forgot to mention:

I've made some strides in full filling some of the higher tier backer rewards. There are a few more in game characters named after some of you guys, and some of the new ships have names thanks to you. I will continue striving towards full filling all of those rewards, sorry that it has been slow going in this - and other - aspects.

What's next:

So it is time to call a cap on Iteration 19 and start Iteration 20. 

The near term plans are to create two new instant action scenarios to give the player a hands on back story of a certain something you get via the new mission. Improve the new dialog screen, then focus on more improvements to the UI, control, game play and add in new story/mission content.

Once again - thank you all for your support!

Paul

 

Chaosavy doing an awesome job of updating the game.

I'm heading over to the KS right now!

Oh.. I get there and it closed half a year ago.  Damn.  

Been meaning to edit the title for ages, finally done now as you mentioned it.

Can't believe it been a year since the Kickstarter finished.

1 Year Since Kickstarter

5 likes

Hey guys! 

I've been thinking of posting an update since it has been a while since the last one. Unfortunately there isn't much "wow" stuff to show. It has been mostly polish and working on the story. However I thought that marking the 1 year anniversary would be a good reason for an update.

So since we are talking about 1 year post Kickstarter - I should acknowledge that this project is delayed in terms of my original promises. Right now the delay is somewhere between 4 to 6 months with an additional number of months to go (my estimate is 3 - but I've always been wrong). I'm sorry for the delay - on the bright side I believe that the project is better (and is going to be even better) than I imagined 1 year ago in the original time line.

So what has been happening with the project? 

• A bunch of new ships have been added to fill out some early story/missions. Without these some early missions were very bland.
• A lot of polish to the early first half of the game (I believe it is about 90% finished in those terms). 
• A big boss ship to finish off the first half of the game.
• Still struggling with 2D GUI art - somehow this has been the biggest challenge, in terms of outsourcing. 
• Recently dipped just below the $10k mark in the remaining funding from you guys (so there is plenty of funds for use to finish off the game - when you consider that $10k is a bit over 1/3 of the original)

Roadblocks:

• Waiting on a special plugin to the game engine to finish off the first half of the game (making a fairly boring "thing" - fairly awesome) - when this happens I plan on releasing an updated DRM free build.

Once again guys - sorry for the delay and thank you for your support.

Paul

 

Hats off to Paul he has done one hell of Job here as the game has been constantly updated over the last year.

Big update to void destroyer.

Due to recent updates Void Destroyer is now approximately 50% complete in terms of the story content. New missions have been added (including a boss fight) and earlier missions revised and improved. The boss fight was particularly elaborate and I'm looking forward to your feedback as to how it plays from your perspectives. 

For a more exciting look at the update check out this video: 

 

 

For a "developer commentary" overview check out this video:

 

Some highlights of recent updates: 

• 21 new ships  
• Area of effect damage clouds  
• Heat seeking mines  
• Beams  
• Smooth camera transitions  
• Physical attachments to objects  
• Shields  
• New enemy factions  
• GUI and HUD enhancements (still heavily under construction)  
• New missions  
• New instant action scenarios  
• New boss fight  
• Improvements to the existing game missions

And loads of other improvements/additions/fixed - for a full log see here

What's next?

Work will continue towards new story content. The end 50% of the story should go a lot faster - once you climb a mountain - it tends to be easier to get down. More GUI and HUD work. More bug fixes and features. 

Big issues?

Outside of bugs, the two biggest issues are that the AI still tends to clump and the AI is too independent. Upcoming GUI improvements will give the player more control over their fleet's behavior, making them more obedient or independent depending on situation need - up to the player. 

Thank you for supporting Void Destroyer's Early Access - without your support this labor of love would be a greatly diminished. Thank you for your continuing support and for helping spread the word to other gamers. 

Paul

---- STEAM UPDATE ABOVE ----

I originally made the "talking video update" and then realized that the action at the end (with the beams + shields) was much more interesting and me talking over it ruined it somewhat - so I made the video instead, then later finished the "talking update." 

The new shields - they've been in the game engine for a while but the ships that have that haven't, so I'm very excited to finally add them in, as well as having beam weapons be a factor.  Like I said in the video - I think that these shields are unique to Void Destroyer - I don't remember seeing them anywhere else. They still need tweaks and visual enhancements. I hope that this is another "remember that game with those shields...." memorable moment. I'm also very excited about the "don't target dead center" - its funny how sometimes the smaller changes (this took a couple of hours - which is a blink of an eye in game dev time to implement, test and then enjoy heh heh) make a big impact - I remember a similar thing happening when I put in afterburners - made dog fighting a much more fun experience.

I'm going to work on prepping the DRM free version now, it should be ready in a day or so - I'll post a command to this update when its ready.

Again! Thanks for all of your support - I hope that the rest of the 50% of the game will go much quicker.

Paul

PS: don't forget that Void Destroyer is available to those who pledges 10+ on Steam's early access of via the Humble Bundle DRM free download (which will be updated very soon with the new changes)

 

New update

 

Hey guys - here's what's been happening since the last update.

• New story content - about 2 hours worth 
• New instant action scenario 
• Earlier story content revised/updated/improved 
• Story/dialog/mission writing updates/edits/tweaks thanks to an outsider writer 
• 5 new ships (3 new ships - 2 variants) 
• Added new build able defensive platforms for the "rock guys" faction 
• "Mines" can be "built" the way that stations are 
• New HUD elements (target related) 
• Resource request system - have more than one base? Transfer some resources via cargo ships 
• Multi controller support. For those with HOTAS and/or wanting to use a two joysticks at the same time 
• Redone station upkeep 
• Numerous enhancements, tweaks and bugs fixed - change log

What's next:

We are about 2 or 3 more updates until the story line is complete - I'm not entirely sure because I'm not exactly sure how it all ends. Once the story line is complete - focus will be given 100% to art related assets polish and misc issues. Also I'm hopeful that Steam Achievements should be nearing the horizon.

update for Void Destroyer

 

Added a few more intro screens

"Friendly" beams won't explode "friendly" missiles

Weapon "aim assist" degree is now moddable (so could be removed/etc)

Ship and turret "aim offset" can be turned off (moddable)

Fixed issue with beam weapons hit particles

Gravity drive indicator/gui updated and the recharge" timer changed to be a progress bar (like a fuel bar)

Fixed bug with saving/loading of ships exiting gate

Made beam weapons much cooler 🙂

Hats off to Chaosavy  as he has put a lot of work into the game as this always has an update or patch every time I turn Steam on.

I have been trying to hold off until I give Void Destroyer a try until its finally released and not in beta because I like what I see and I want to make sure I play and review the final product. Chaosavy is doing a fine job with Void Destroyer and I hope it is very successful for him, so we can see a sequel 😉

Looks like he is getting close to the end game with this update from Kickstarter although I think this covers the last couple of updates through Steam.

 

Hey guys - thought I'd toss in an update (versus waiting till its iteration 22 time).

I've recently added about 2 hours of mission/story game play to the game. Including 3 new ships (5 if you count variants) and 1 new station (2 if you count variants). Also there are several (3 I believe) new music tracks. So where the game stands is right up against the final mission - something I'm very excited about. 

Having reached that "near final mission" point I decided to do a quick pass through the early mission content and polish it up with things that I learned and new game engine additions/tools that have since been added.

As I go through the content whenever I see something that needs fixing I do so (versus seeing the issue before, but putting it on a to do list). For example - the dust cloud system wasn't properly positioned when switching from tactical mode to ship mode, and if a ship was damaged to the point of health hitting zero while reaching a active gate, it would still go through it which sometimes caused a crash. Relatively minor and rare things, but still important to a polished experience.

I'm also paying close attention to how music is handled in the story/mission mode and am be adding triggers to play it during combat and exciting moments. Music is a bit sparse in early content.

I'm doing tweaks to balance  - now that I see how it all fits together at the end game. For example - fighters and corvettes had much too long build times. This made fighters much too costly (in terms of - tactics and priority) to build versus larger ships. Tonight I was just finishing up game engine changes so that bases have a separate "build area" for fighters, meaning that a base can build a fighter and a non-fighter ship simultaneously - this will greatly speed up fighter production. External shipyards will still be limited to one ship at a time. Being able to build fighters much quicker also means that the "fighters die too fast" criticism that I often hear (and thus think about) should be smoothed out a bit. I always considered fighters to be the  "infantry" units of the game and making them faster to build will help with that goal.

So as usual my quick pass through (my crazy optimistic self says I'll be done end of Monday - but that is my crazy optimism talking) is turning out to be not so quick (seeing the above issues and needs) - however once I get through a particular mission I'm considering it done (perfect being the enemy of good) - once I hit the current final mission - I'll release iteration 22 for the non-DRM backers. And from there I'll finish up the story, then all that's left is... well still a bunch - but I do see an end in sight.

thanks for supporting the project!

Paul

PS: very excited about this KS project Flagship - (sci-fi RTS but from the first person perspective - very unique) the creator being one of you guys 🙂

Looks like Paul is getting close to finishing the game and don't think any one is too concerned about it being late after all every one of the crowdfunded games that I have back have all missed their original delivery dates.

 

Hey guys - here's what's been happening.

I'm nearly done with the "quick pass" of the story, once I'm done my intention is to update the DRM free build. I've taken a bunch of detours along the way, adding very important (but minor in terms of coding features), tweaking existing ones and adding loads of polish. 

Some of the features/polish is the ability of bases to have a dedicated fighter slot (making fighter production much faster). Adding to the "resource request" system so that it works via gates and finally enabling/giving the "ship posture" controls to the player. Letting the player control how their ship(s) respond to enemies. These items became an obvious need to add/tweak when I did the story pass through.

I've added 10 new instant action scenarios - these are simple dogfight type missions. Letting players have space combat without some of the real time strategy elements getting in the way of enjoying the ship to ship combat engine. Instant action scenarios are a great opportunity for me to give players a challenging battle or a unique perspective on the game world (via being able to pilot other faction ships).

There's been loads of tiny polish given to the game, many issues were looked at and I've tried to finalize them versus putting them off like I tended to do before. For example I'm pretty sure that the sound "pop" issues are a thing of the past, and tactical mode to ship mode toggling has had a few bugs fixed. Issues like - when a map first loads - a single frame would render without the visual "outline and toon" effects added have been fixed - while small are an important step towards reaching full release.

Anyway - I've put together a development video for those interested in a more visual demo:

 

You can also access it via this direct link: 

What's left: 

Finish up the story pass through (about an hour to two hours worth of story to go). Finish up the story. Add about 4 or more instant action scenarios. Finish the GUI elements (this unfortunately depends on outside artists). Finalize and finish up command ship upgrades. Most likely add in a "base versus base skirmish" type "addon" (letting you setup a quick base versus ai base battle) to the Instant Action mode of the game. And that's it - we would be at the "released" stage - and then go beyond that.

The above seems like a lot - but as usual... I'm pretty optimistic and the above are mostly finishing touches.

I mentioned this in the end of the video, but I'll mention it here as well - I'm nearly a year behind schedule. It is pretty obvious that I'm unable to estimate time very well and I constantly think about that - and to cheer myself up I think that the game is a much better game as a result of a longer development. 

Once again thank you for your support! Without Kickstarter funding I don't think the game would have made it anywhere near here, I can't imagine the project without your support.

Paul

PS: If you have any issues or feedback please let me know.

Thought it was a big download and here the reason why. http://steamcommunity.com/games/259660/announcements/detail/132057304757637583

 

Final Story Missions

23 November

Hey guys - exciting news. I just uploaded the final story missions. As usual they may be in a bit of a rough state and some final touches are needed (one thing I can think - adding achievements for completion).

Incredible work by Chaosnavy, I've been playing it and like it, like it alot!   I wonder if he has any plans for a (Steam free) direct download version once its finished?

I have been holding off playing Void Destroyer until it was in a 'done' state and I can't wait to play it and see what all the hard work Chaosavy has been doing for the past several years. Just been nice to see this game grow from a thought to something you can play.

Hey guys - I keep track of this thread via email alerts - been meaning to pop in.

Thanks again for Pinback for keeping it updated 🙂

Geraldine - thanks! The Humble Store version is a direct download DRM free version (technically the Steam version is DRM free as well). Also hoping for other distributions once the game is out of Early Access for direct download options for those who prefer/want them

DarkOne - The game is nearing the "initial" completion state 🙂 - have to finalize command ship upgrades, tutorials, bit more GUI/interface work as well as a in game "guide" type system (in game manual basically with screen shots and explanations). Hoping to really nail the initial experience as that is a big hurdle in a game like this.

Looking forward to release soon 🙂

And the command ship update is live. http://steamcommunity.com/games/259660/announcements/detail/132058492648240009

 

Hey guys - I just uploaded the first pass of the overhaul of the command ship upgrades and abilities. They are available as part of the story/mission game play and eventually will be available in custom maps created via the battle editor as well.

As some examples:

You can use the "Tractor Beam" ability on an enemy ship to pull it closer to you, then blast it away with an upgraded main gun.

You can use "Azu's Gambit" to trick enemy ships to focus their fire on the command ship and use "Return to Sender" to return incoming missiles back to their mommas.

You can lay down a "Radiation Field", and then quickly thrust backwards using "Withdraw" so as to take minimal damage from it. And why not lay down some missile mines while you are at it?

Once you are at a safe distance, use "Rapid Repair" which quickly repairs damage, but leaves the command ship extremely vulnerable to weapons fire.

---

The goal of command ship upgrades is that they fit the "theme" of the command ship - a lot of the abilities are based on controlling the enemy or the battle. Another goal of these abilities is to provide synergy with other abilities like the examples I listed above.

The main goal - as always - is to give you the player a cool and unique experience. Command ship upgrades/abilities strengthen the play style that likes to focus on piloting the command ship.

So the first pass might be imbalanced, lacking sound and visual fx, some upgrades/abilities might be too weak, some might be too strong. I'd prefer them to be too strong rather than too weak so that they aren't a waste of time. Keeping that in mind I'm looking for feedback from you guys. Adding in these abilities is actually very easy, the more challenging part is merging them with the game play/story and balance of the game.

What's next on the horizon? Next up is overhauling the way that the abilities are presented, instead of a list have a "sort of a" action bar like interface for them. After that I'm going to work on adding many alternate fire options for ships - to strengthen the - "piloting other ships" aspect of the game.

As always thanks for your support.

Paul

 

Hey guys.

Recently there's been quite a lot of changes and since some of them are very cool to show off I created a video update.

To summarize - many ship secondary weapons have been added/changed. With the goal of them being unique, tactical, hard to use, powerful, and most of all fun.

For example - as far as I know Void Destroyer is the only space sim with flame throwers (a new secondary weapon) - does that make it the greatest space sim of all time? Yes it does... of course opinions vary, but it has my vote 😉

Check out this (rather long) video update and as always let me know your feedback.

Flame thrower in space and why not  😎 check it out.

Void Destroyer is the only space sim with flame throwers

Wasn't X3 had a plasma weapon that more or less behave like a flamethrower?

New update from Paul about the release plans.

 

Hey guys - I'm planning on exiting out of Early Access on January the 20th, or 21st... hopefully. It is a bit funny because its all a matter of clicking the "release" button on Steam's side - any time.

Recently I've added a Skirmish mode - a "traditional" RTS skirmish type quick battle setup - which adds a lot of replay value. The awesome side benefit is an improved  Battle Editor with additional options. I also added an in game Guide (basically a manual) . I'm really excited about the Guide - because I hope that it makes the game much more friendly to new players, thus much more enjoyable overall. Those items were last on my - major items - list to do before releasing.

There's still loads to do, bunch of marketing (new trailer(s), screen shots, contacting YouTubers, media, etc) , tiny polishes and bunch of final testing. I'll update the DRM free build as well.

After dealing with the launch  - I'll look into localization and porting and weigh the pros and cons. Meanwhile adding a few features here and there (thinking about - wingmen commands in ship mode and improved/more AI for skirmish mode). Revisiting suggestions from players.

So - its been a long road and another step is approaching - hopefully a big step that precedes bigger and bigger ones.

I'll keep you guys updated on the plans and happenings.

thank you for all your support!

Paul

Congratulation to Paul on the official release on Steam.

Thanks! And thanks for all the support during early access.

So far so good, very little media coverage, but a good spike in sales - due to which - I've decided to quit my part time job and go full time game development 🙂

And the very best of luck to you Paul. I hope this will be the start of a great new career for you.

Yes, congrats indeed Chaosavy. I hope all that hard work pays off for you. I did notice on steam that Void Destroyer was up on their scrolling banner but it didn't stay there for long, I take it you have to pay to stay there? I will try to sit down with the game soon, for me its time. I work all day and then get home and eat and then its 8-9pm 🙂

I know I wish I could quit my job and do SSC all the time but that will probably never happen. So its great seeing that you might be able to do what ya love for a while. Hehe I think I was reading some comments on your game somewhere where people were complaining that its a tough game. So it's good that you are making it challenging.

But I hope you continue to pump out those space games I think you found your calling.

-D1-

Thanks guys.

No you don't have to pay to be on Steam's front page, they base it - mostly on sales. The store is a data mine - and they use it to maximize sales. Once a game shows a decline (this is natural with most games) another one takes its place.

Its not that the game is tough - but it is punishing if you don't "grog" it. You truly have to be the commander and often pilot to survive. That was my intention - however if I had to do it over again I would have had a more gradual learning/difficulty curve.

VD 2 confirmed!