Enemy Starfighter/House of the Dying Sun

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New vid up I think  Game going to be at some thing called Pax on the 1&2 of September [url]http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url]

[SolCommand]

This game has a perfect style !Also I suddenly feel the urge to replay all the Homeworld games ... again.

[Pinback]

It looking very good and you have to wonder when we will be hearing news of a release or a Kickstarter for the game.

[Straker]

I love it.Does it have any other gameplay other than combat?

[Pinback]

Probably only a combat game. New update to the blog [url]http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] more on the blog about Rift. PAX was amazing, and nothing helps you make your game better than a 100+ player focus test. Some players knew what to expect, others had no idea about the game beforehand, only seeing a chance to try the Oculus Rift. I promised I'd write up an article about some of the techniques I used and things I learned. Most of this is purely anecdotal, but hopefully some people find it useful. 

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Another blog update 10.25.13 UpdateThe "shop" and the upgrade system.PressA few outlets have been kind enough to give Enemy Starfighter a shout out! Have a look!Showing Some Love To Enemy Starfighter @ Rock Paper Shotgun14 Space Games You Should Be Excited About Right Now @ PC GamerSomebody Is Actually Combining X-Wing and Homeworld @ KotakuSpace Combat Fever @ Game RantEnemy Starfighter Conjures First-Person Homeworld Vibe @ The EscapistEnemy Starfighter shown on Oculus Rift and more gameplay footage @ IncGamersThanks, everyone! Twitch.TVBrendon at BlendoGames gave me the idea to start streaming some of my dev work, so I gave it a shot. It turned out pretty well. There is a Marauder Interactive channel over at Twitch, so follow it if you want to get notified when it goes live. Dev WorkI've been working on a lot of small stuff recently: Things like tweaking AI behaviors for almost every ship, or working on the map UI so that subsystem selection is much cleaner.I've also cleaned up one of my test scripts and turned it into sort of a last-stand mode which turned out pretty fun. I'm not sure how I'll integrate that into the game yet, but it made me polish a few underlying systems like my spawn points which is awesome!

[shadmar]

Very nice!

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Update from the tenth [url]http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] I've been spending a lot of time (probably too much) working on the game's input and controller support. Unity's input manager does a swell job for simple projects, but it doesn't let you do a few key things: Build and load controller presets. I want to let the player say, "I'm playing with the mouse and keyboard," or "I'm playing with a Logitech gamepad," and have the game set up the best possible control scheme with no further effort.Edit subtle control elements like dead zones on the fly. Normally this is not important, but it is in any sort of sim.There are cool 3rd party libraries that will help you with these problems, namely Rebind and cInput, but neither did what I needed without a lot of modification. So I wrote a system that integrates with the command console. Config files are read from a folder, and will set up your controls based on a simple syntax:controls.action.bind +weapon_fire space mouse0 joy1button0If you've ever written configs for an id engine, this should look familiar. You can even write aliases that enter console commands and bind them to buttons, but I imagine this is more useful for debugging.If this stuff makes you go cross-eyed, have no fear. Most players will never have to touch a config file. This is there for those with crazier control hardware or those that want to have the freedom to rebind whatever they want. Control debugger shows what actions are down, where my analog axes ACTUALLY are, and the final input values after the game has corrected them.What You See Is What You GetGames are interactive, and your input devices are the glue between them and your players. So draw your input on screen. I don't care how simple your game is, you will learn a lot about how it handles by being able to visualize what's going on. Don't be lazy. Your game will feel better because of it.Once I did this, I learned there were deadzone bugs in the pitch/yaw control. I learned that my digital inputs hooked up to axes were overriding input when you let off the stick, making re-centering feel sluggish. I had never drawn the mouse steering circle/deadzone, but when I did I noticed that long ago it had been written to be configured by absolute pixel size instead of relative screen size. For a space sim, Enemy Starfighter is on the super lean side of necessary controls and even then, seeing this data helped out with the feel immensely. "Draw debug info," should not need to be said, but it's hard to be diligent about writing this code. It takes a decent amount time to implement a good visualization for the data you're trying to present, time that could be spent elsewhere. But with critical systems, it's almost impossible to have too much good information. Wonder when we are going to see a release for this.

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About time, big update on the blog about Enemy Starfighter Greetings, StarfightersWhat's Shaking?It's been a busy few months and too long since I've updated the dev blog, so here's what is happening in the world of Enemy Starfighter. Solar systems are now "real" and not simply skyboxes as they were beforeLandmarks such as planets, moons, belts, and nebulae are generated outward from the star based on a simple set of rulesYou can warp the Harbinger Fleet to any known landmark in the solar system (ANIMATED)...but the same applies to enemy fleets, some of which respond to your last known location or destinationFactions have been implemented, and each faction has its own set of traits that are applied to the unitTraits modify unit stats or enable alternate weapons, making every weapon or ship I create stretch furtherSome factions are always present in a solar system, such as Lane Marshals that run overwatch on jump nodesOthers factions are determined during solar system generationLots of bug fixing and polish on other systemsAfter a lot of iteration and pain, the game's overall direction has been focused even furtherGrand Theft StarfighterWatching, waiting.Battle-planning has been replaced with hunting and hiding. Before, each battle was fed to you via a simple mission generator and menu. It wasn't dynamic, lacked tangible persistence, and it certainly didn't fulfill the fantasy of being a starfighter harassing the enemy deep in their territory. I can go into this in detail if people want, but I won't bore you with that here.Now, when you enter a system you are told what flagship to destroy and are given free rein to hunt and deal with it as you see fit. Do you build up your forces and take out the flagship head on? Do you misdirect their escorts to a bogus landmark and then jump the vulnerable capital with a small group of beam frigates, knowing full well that you will lose them?Once combat begins, gameplay is structured very much like a police chase with your fleet at the center of it. If you've ever played GTA or if you've ever done small-scale skirmishes in a game like EVE, you should have an idea of what to expect. In fact, a lot of what makes this game tick comes from countless hours I've spent running around in EVE's Syndicate region in an interceptor.While a few of these systems are super rough, they are at least functional. They mainly need passes on readability and polish, which will happen soon.Chatty PilotsIf you are watching a stream and go, "Damn these fighters are chatty!" you would be right! It's mostly because I use their VO to help me debug what they're doing. If they say a certain phrase at the right time, I know the AI is working correctly. This will be appropriately tuned and varied for the final game, I promise!Escape PodsOne thing missing from the game was a satisfying currency reward loop for killing fighters. The tumble alone felt good and you earned points for it, but a new layer has been added: the escape pod.A majority of your currency is acquired from killing the crew of downed vessels. If you have an autoturret, it happens automatically. As a capital goes down, the famous loot-piñata situation occurs as the crew abandons ship.It's one of the first things I've put in the game that makes people feel like a villain. Several people reported feeling conflicted about it. Good!The FutureHere's the roadmap for the next month:Iterate on the fleet AI and solar-system mechanicsPass on the cockpit art (it is woefully out of date, and I know more about what my requirements are)Create new models for units that share them (for example, the Federation torpedo frigate uses the pulse cannon model). It was done this way to get functionality working before worrying about the artStart capturing footage for a new trailer/gameplay videoIn the meantime, if you'd like to get a closer look at the goings-on with the game, keep an eye on the Twitch.tv channel. I also post tiny dev updates and images on Twitter.

[MV2000]

New video! And still no mention of release date or whatsoever

[Pinback]

It's looking good but are we ever going to get to play it?.

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RPS have had a hand on the game read here. [url]http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/04/25/enemy-starfighter-preview/[/url] Each game of Enemy Starfighter begins in Overwatch, a region of space from which you can see five or six or seven other possible destinations. Each is represented by a white pip; there’s perhaps an asteroid field, a planet, a star, and then one region which has another set of symbols above the white mark. These tell you what ships are inhabiting the space. Corvettes? Frigates? I can never remember what the symbols mean, only that each represents an opportunity for death or derring-do that the dynamic mission generator has created for me. Wonder if they are gearing up a crowd funding campaign with them sending out the Alpha of the game?.

[Pinback]

Big blog about where you are read it on. http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] As soon as you allow roll in 3D space, you start requiring more brain cycles with every task you ask of the player. In particular, you're adding mechanical interest to each of the following tasks:Tracking targetsAvoiding Obstacles in Local SpaceKnowing your orientation and position at a solar system levelI mainly want to talk about #3 in this post, since that is what I have been working on most recently. Some games (namely Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Halo: Reach) bypass this problem all together by disallowing roll, but that's not a method of player expression I was willing to give uYou Are HereIn Starfighter, you can warp your fleet around to different landmarks in a solar system. A landmark may be anything including a belt, a planet, a jump node, or even a nebula cloud. The goal is to let the player make both planned and emergency decisions to jump to any landmark without looking at a map. 

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The game will be at the PAX show http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url]  ENEMY STARFIGHTER will be at PAX[/url] Prime in Seattle, and we're proud to be part of the[/url] Indie MEGABOOTH!The game will be in the MEGABOOTH area all weekend. We hope to see you there! We will be demoing the game in virtual reality using an Oculus Rift DK2 and will have other stations set up for those who want to play without a head-mounted display.

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Pretty big update on the blog http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] just going to repost a couple of bits of it. First up whats being going on. It's been an incredibly productive couple months for Starfighter's campaign. Here's only a few of the things that have gone into the game:You can start and win a real campaign and it even has soft-locks that act as power (or skill) checksThe campaign map generator went through several iterations (about 9 major updates if my change notes are to be believed)AI fleets are now able to move from one side of the campaign map to anotherAI fleets have behavior types such as watchdog, transport, patrol, or escortALL Harbinger fleet movement can now be handled from the tactical modeRelated: Keyboard and mouse controls were brought up to par with the gamepad controlsLOADS of AI fixes, mainly in regards to weapon usageEX: Wingmen must be specifically ordered to use their heavy weapons (since they are limited)Harbinger Fleet warp state got a polish passFaction paint schemes have been implementedShader work, mainly making shadows work again on objects that pull ambient lighting from the skybox. This was broken in the last trailer (and PAX)!A lot of work went into making the tactical mode and star map feel awesome in VRTraits went through a rework, making them simpler to add to units (and save across star systems)A few more skyboxes have been created (with many more to come) along with per-skybox settings like dust color/densityLast Stand is dead, long live Last Stand! Everything that was interesting about this mode has been rolled into the campaign itself, so it will be re-imagined at a later time.Renaming your ships works again! And second and are we looking at a possible release. Early Access Release?Soon. Getting the campaign critical path in was a big deal. I'm now regularly doing campaign playtests of 20-35 minutes (even in VR) before I get fed up with something and fix it. That time is quickly and steadily growing as I knock these fixes out.Over the next few weeks I'm also running old colleagues through the campaign to get some feedback and items to focus on for the next pass. These meetings will help clarify how much work is left before the campaign is sent out into the wild.

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Awesome bit of new this. read more on the blog.http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] In[/url] space, no one can hear you work... Early Access?This summer. Soon. It doesn't make sense to launch so close to E3 when there will be a lot of buzz about a lot of amazing games, so I have a little more time. But first contact is coming!The game won't be a fully operational battle station, but it'll give everyone a taste of what's to come. I can't wait to read everyone's feedback and criticisms and then improve the hell out of the game. What's Been Done?A lot.Everything that's ever said about the last 10% of a milestone being the hardest is true. I've been a developer for a long time and even I can forget about that until I'm in the thick of it. Here's some unscripted footage I recorded this morning:  Bit a of a Battlestar galactica going on here with the music and another combat game which appear to have no leading target reticle. 

[sscadmin]

The game play is great in this trailer and I really liked the sound effects in this one.

[Pinback]

Interesting update on the blog about various parts of the game http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] although this bit may stand out for all the wrong reasons. I'm not super worried about teaching the player to fly. This is because Starfighter's been cold-tested at numerous trade shows AND combat controls have been designed around gamepad FPS paradigms that many players already know. I can hear the joystick taliban hurling their joysticks at their monitors.

[Guest]

[Pinback]

Some new screen shots up on the blog. http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] Olivier[/url] wrote some incredible trailer music and sent it my way!Cleaned up some of the audio low end using some tricks an old colleague taught me -- everything is still beefy but it all ducks based on priority nowWave Clear is about done and ready now that I've integrated the pilot tutorial into the beginning (optional)Wave Clear needs more waves, and sometime this fall I'll revisit it to add more depthMouse and keyboard controls are fixed up. Warrens now use the mouse properly if present. There's an odd case here or there but it feels much better. The pilot controls are not ideal, but I'll improve them with the right feedback. I feel like to do the best KBAM controls, it would be third person, but that would take a while and would have to come later if at all.The game is barking a lot more stuff at you in the form of a toast, which helps readability quite a bit. I would say that 80% of my work lately has been in regards to teaching the player the game or helping them to read what's happening.There's still a little more to go, but we're getting there! Thanks for tuning in!