I'm not ready to officially announce it yet, but it's time for a thread here on the Codex.
While working on the expansion content for Titan Outpost, I was also prototyping two potential followup games. One of them is now well on track.
The working title is The Jovian System, which it will probably keep, and it takes place in the same setting as Titan Outpost. You start out by escaping a disaster on one of the Galilean moons. You make it to an orbital space station designed for collecting resources and setting them on course for earth, but it's still under construction. All help from Earth is cut off because the resources have been diverted to the Titan Outpost mission. People in the Jovian System, which is closer to Earth and more populated than the Saturnian System, are forced to deal with their problems without outside help.
The player can take advantage of the power vacuum to take control of the resources in the system, take it upon him or herself to help people in need and build a sustainable habitat, or turn the space station into a transfer ship and set course for Earth.
Note: If you can't see the screenshots, your browser is blocking http embeds. Usually Chrome 81.
Gameplay
Interactions with NPCs and the environment will be roughly similar to Titan Outpost, except refined. Lapsing time will also be similar.
Temperature will no longer be the main Sword of Damocles, but say hello to decompression, vacuum and lack of inertia.
You're building a space ship instead of a base on a moon. This station/ship is mobile and you can move it into orbit around the four Gallilean moons and some of the smaller moons. You can also burn to a random altitude for exploration. Landing and taking off with a special lander/shuttle requires fuel depending on a moon’s gravity well and so does changing your velocity and orbit around Jupiter. Key difference is that your base and rover equivalents are now effectively the same thing.
Above is the spaceship construction interface. Obvious placeholder stuff in the menu and the stats aren't displayed in this part of the interface, but functionally this part of the game is almost done and so is a lot of the art. Quite similar to Titan Outpost base building. Notable differences are that rotation matters and you can't build at a 90 degree angle at every tile, there are specialized tiles for specialized modules and some modules can be upgraded. Upgrading usually adds something on the vertical axis. Solar panels are on the vertical axis, for example.
This is a closeup of the ship with the construction bot (you can pilot it too). Haven't finished texturing the machine yet and part of that mesh has been cobbled together, but you get the idea.
The Gailliean moons may get their own world map, or just have points of interest where you can land, I’m still unsure. Having worldmaps within world maps might be a bit too much. The main world map is the Jovian System itself. You can encounter other ships and stations along the way, and some satellites and orbital altitudes are claimed by certain factions. The world map gameplay is going to be ever so slightly like Sid Meier’s Pirates!, but with far less people and locations.
The world map zoomed in on Io and Metis. Interface is far from finished, but travelling already works. Because the locations planned for the game orbit Jupiter on the same plane, the map mostly works in two dimensions. The moons are shown in line for testing purposes, but of course they all have their own orbital period.
The key resources you have to manage will be polymers, which are much harder to acquire than on Titan, minerals, water and fuel. Fuel is ambiguous. Right now I’ve abstracted it to an aggregated resource unit. Power is mostly solar and can be increased by building more solar modules, acquiring special tech or experimenting with other methods of power generation. There is much more to the game than these two elements, but as I said above, the rest will be roughly similar in style to Titan Outpost. The negotiation system will be included as well, but it will be tweaked.
Combat
There is going to be low G/zero G isometric turn-based combat on a square grid. Low/zero gravity is the main hook of the combat system and there is a lot of potential for environmental hazards. The grid system is already in place. I was going for hexagons initially but ended up using squares because the math is simpler and I’m using JA2 as a reference.
Grid system playground and test area using the Chinese suits from Titan Outpost.
Grid system in an actual environment. Still WIP. I have some moon locations in various stages of completion, but I'll wait a bit before showing those. Yes, this looks like ass, it's far from finished.
The character system is going to be the same, with added skills relevant to combat. I’m experimenting with that right now and I’m leaning towards only having one or two combat skills. Interaction with the environment is going to do most of the heavy lifting. Think of the outdoor fight scenes in the 1981 Outland movie with Sean Connery, where decompression is more dangerous than anything else. I’m not sure how this will hold up in early playtesting, but stuff like tethering and newtonian physics open up really cool possibilities. You use AP to start moving, but you will keep moving if you don’t use AP to stop, etc.
I played a concept version on paper with a friend, but the third dimension was hard to convey in tabletop and we got carried away with number crunching. We did feel like it would be fun as CRPG combat. Fortunately I'm almost at the stage where I can implement some rules in the engine. I'll post the progress and let you know more about the system as it starts to take shape.
You can gather companions just like in Titan Outpost, and there will be more opportunities to bring them along with you, including fights.
Story
The stakes are lower than Titan Outpost. You're not deciding the fate of the solar system, just your neck of the woods. Become king shit of an independent Jupiter, bring everyone back into the fold, or bail and get back to civilization.
Right now it’s not a sequel to TO but takes place around the same time, just about 640 million kilometres closer to the sun. I might move it a few years further into the future and turn it into an actual sequel, but I’d have to pick a canonical ending for TO and I have other ideas for that.
The narrative is a bit more free form, although I'll still be telling a story. You will have factions, some which are also present in Titan Outpost, with some depth to them that you can align your interests with or vice versa, but you won’t have one predetermined goal and you are in charge of your own 'faction' as soon as you start playing.
If it evolves in such a way that I can’t fit it within the setting, I have no qualms about cutting it loose from Titan Outpost in terms of story altogether. I like the idea of them being tied together and I really enjoy expanding upon the world building, which is going fine so far, but I’m not married to the concept.
How to fund development?
I'm gonna call Microsoft.
Jokes aside, I funded Titan Outpost out of pocket with money I had saved up. I no longer have that luxury. By funding, I mean paying for my living expenses to be able to devote the time. The additional costs, like my Unity subscription, a few purchased assets, some commissions, etc. were minor compared to the insane amount of hours I put in.
Ideally, Titan Outpost sales would fund this next game, which may very well happen, but I’m not counting on that carrying development all the way through. Titan Outpost has sold 614 copies as of today. That’s not terrible for a niche title like this, but it’s also nowhere near enough to financially justify years of working pretty much full time on it, let alone set up a budget for a sequel.
There are still about 5000 people who’ve wishlisted TO on Steam, so there’s plenty of room for the sales to grow, although probably not at full price. I'm still busy getting the word out. Most publications don't appear interested but word of mouth seems to be spreading. Huge thanks to everyone who's doing that, and while I'm at it, thanks to everyone who helped refine Titan Outpost with feedback.
I really enjoyed working on Titan Outpost. Players who liked the game responded really well to it and reading some of those positive reviews made having no spare time for a couple of years worth it.
I knew I wanted to develop more games and I’ve always had plenty of ideas, but during development, every now and then a week would go by where I didn't sleep pretty much at all. That's something I can manage quite well for short bursts, but it’s not healthy or sustainable. I apply the same relentless monomanic fervor to everything I do, but something like recording an album only takes a couple of months. This was a different beast. I will get into that zone, it's just who I am, but I will need to step away every now and then.
My plan was to wrap up Titan Outpost and focus more on other activities for a while and get back to gamedev when the season was over. Of course, it’s 2020 and there is no live music season.
I was about to consider getting a freelance corporate IT gig or something for a while, when Titan Outpost sales spiked in March. Quarantaine caused a spike in sales all across the board on Steam. Devoting more time to development longer term was possible again. I spent the rest of spring and summer working on the expansion content and more fixes and improvements for TO, as well as prototyping this new game.
Sales are still trickling in, and as long as that’s enough to pay my bills, I’m working on this next game full time. I'm a First Worldian, but I’m pretty damn frugal and 35 copies a month is all I need to sell. Last month was a little under that, this month looks like it’s going to be right on the mark.
All in all, I’ve learned a lot from Titan Outpost, Unity 2020 is a lot easier to work with and so is Blender 2.8. I have a working engine framework to expand upon, so I think I can get this game to Early Access in two years in a much better state than TO was on release if I work full time. If not, it’s anybody’s guess. I have plenty of marketable skills, so don't worry, I won't starve, but development would definitely take longer
Alternatively, I could set up a Patreon or something, but I’ve always had reservations about such things. The same goes for Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. Then again, if I get enough moolah, maybe I can even get some help on board.
While working on the expansion content for Titan Outpost, I was also prototyping two potential followup games. One of them is now well on track.
The working title is The Jovian System, which it will probably keep, and it takes place in the same setting as Titan Outpost. You start out by escaping a disaster on one of the Galilean moons. You make it to an orbital space station designed for collecting resources and setting them on course for earth, but it's still under construction. All help from Earth is cut off because the resources have been diverted to the Titan Outpost mission. People in the Jovian System, which is closer to Earth and more populated than the Saturnian System, are forced to deal with their problems without outside help.
The player can take advantage of the power vacuum to take control of the resources in the system, take it upon him or herself to help people in need and build a sustainable habitat, or turn the space station into a transfer ship and set course for Earth.
Note: If you can't see the screenshots, your browser is blocking http embeds. Usually Chrome 81.
Gameplay
Interactions with NPCs and the environment will be roughly similar to Titan Outpost, except refined. Lapsing time will also be similar.
Temperature will no longer be the main Sword of Damocles, but say hello to decompression, vacuum and lack of inertia.
You're building a space ship instead of a base on a moon. This station/ship is mobile and you can move it into orbit around the four Gallilean moons and some of the smaller moons. You can also burn to a random altitude for exploration. Landing and taking off with a special lander/shuttle requires fuel depending on a moon’s gravity well and so does changing your velocity and orbit around Jupiter. Key difference is that your base and rover equivalents are now effectively the same thing.
Above is the spaceship construction interface. Obvious placeholder stuff in the menu and the stats aren't displayed in this part of the interface, but functionally this part of the game is almost done and so is a lot of the art. Quite similar to Titan Outpost base building. Notable differences are that rotation matters and you can't build at a 90 degree angle at every tile, there are specialized tiles for specialized modules and some modules can be upgraded. Upgrading usually adds something on the vertical axis. Solar panels are on the vertical axis, for example.
This is a closeup of the ship with the construction bot (you can pilot it too). Haven't finished texturing the machine yet and part of that mesh has been cobbled together, but you get the idea.
The Gailliean moons may get their own world map, or just have points of interest where you can land, I’m still unsure. Having worldmaps within world maps might be a bit too much. The main world map is the Jovian System itself. You can encounter other ships and stations along the way, and some satellites and orbital altitudes are claimed by certain factions. The world map gameplay is going to be ever so slightly like Sid Meier’s Pirates!, but with far less people and locations.
The world map zoomed in on Io and Metis. Interface is far from finished, but travelling already works. Because the locations planned for the game orbit Jupiter on the same plane, the map mostly works in two dimensions. The moons are shown in line for testing purposes, but of course they all have their own orbital period.
The key resources you have to manage will be polymers, which are much harder to acquire than on Titan, minerals, water and fuel. Fuel is ambiguous. Right now I’ve abstracted it to an aggregated resource unit. Power is mostly solar and can be increased by building more solar modules, acquiring special tech or experimenting with other methods of power generation. There is much more to the game than these two elements, but as I said above, the rest will be roughly similar in style to Titan Outpost. The negotiation system will be included as well, but it will be tweaked.
Combat
There is going to be low G/zero G isometric turn-based combat on a square grid. Low/zero gravity is the main hook of the combat system and there is a lot of potential for environmental hazards. The grid system is already in place. I was going for hexagons initially but ended up using squares because the math is simpler and I’m using JA2 as a reference.
Grid system playground and test area using the Chinese suits from Titan Outpost.
Grid system in an actual environment. Still WIP. I have some moon locations in various stages of completion, but I'll wait a bit before showing those. Yes, this looks like ass, it's far from finished.
The character system is going to be the same, with added skills relevant to combat. I’m experimenting with that right now and I’m leaning towards only having one or two combat skills. Interaction with the environment is going to do most of the heavy lifting. Think of the outdoor fight scenes in the 1981 Outland movie with Sean Connery, where decompression is more dangerous than anything else. I’m not sure how this will hold up in early playtesting, but stuff like tethering and newtonian physics open up really cool possibilities. You use AP to start moving, but you will keep moving if you don’t use AP to stop, etc.
I played a concept version on paper with a friend, but the third dimension was hard to convey in tabletop and we got carried away with number crunching. We did feel like it would be fun as CRPG combat. Fortunately I'm almost at the stage where I can implement some rules in the engine. I'll post the progress and let you know more about the system as it starts to take shape.
You can gather companions just like in Titan Outpost, and there will be more opportunities to bring them along with you, including fights.
Story
The stakes are lower than Titan Outpost. You're not deciding the fate of the solar system, just your neck of the woods. Become king shit of an independent Jupiter, bring everyone back into the fold, or bail and get back to civilization.
Right now it’s not a sequel to TO but takes place around the same time, just about 640 million kilometres closer to the sun. I might move it a few years further into the future and turn it into an actual sequel, but I’d have to pick a canonical ending for TO and I have other ideas for that.
The narrative is a bit more free form, although I'll still be telling a story. You will have factions, some which are also present in Titan Outpost, with some depth to them that you can align your interests with or vice versa, but you won’t have one predetermined goal and you are in charge of your own 'faction' as soon as you start playing.
If it evolves in such a way that I can’t fit it within the setting, I have no qualms about cutting it loose from Titan Outpost in terms of story altogether. I like the idea of them being tied together and I really enjoy expanding upon the world building, which is going fine so far, but I’m not married to the concept.
How to fund development?
I'm gonna call Microsoft.
Jokes aside, I funded Titan Outpost out of pocket with money I had saved up. I no longer have that luxury. By funding, I mean paying for my living expenses to be able to devote the time. The additional costs, like my Unity subscription, a few purchased assets, some commissions, etc. were minor compared to the insane amount of hours I put in.
Ideally, Titan Outpost sales would fund this next game, which may very well happen, but I’m not counting on that carrying development all the way through. Titan Outpost has sold 614 copies as of today. That’s not terrible for a niche title like this, but it’s also nowhere near enough to financially justify years of working pretty much full time on it, let alone set up a budget for a sequel.
There are still about 5000 people who’ve wishlisted TO on Steam, so there’s plenty of room for the sales to grow, although probably not at full price. I'm still busy getting the word out. Most publications don't appear interested but word of mouth seems to be spreading. Huge thanks to everyone who's doing that, and while I'm at it, thanks to everyone who helped refine Titan Outpost with feedback.
I really enjoyed working on Titan Outpost. Players who liked the game responded really well to it and reading some of those positive reviews made having no spare time for a couple of years worth it.
I knew I wanted to develop more games and I’ve always had plenty of ideas, but during development, every now and then a week would go by where I didn't sleep pretty much at all. That's something I can manage quite well for short bursts, but it’s not healthy or sustainable. I apply the same relentless monomanic fervor to everything I do, but something like recording an album only takes a couple of months. This was a different beast. I will get into that zone, it's just who I am, but I will need to step away every now and then.
My plan was to wrap up Titan Outpost and focus more on other activities for a while and get back to gamedev when the season was over. Of course, it’s 2020 and there is no live music season.
I was about to consider getting a freelance corporate IT gig or something for a while, when Titan Outpost sales spiked in March. Quarantaine caused a spike in sales all across the board on Steam. Devoting more time to development longer term was possible again. I spent the rest of spring and summer working on the expansion content and more fixes and improvements for TO, as well as prototyping this new game.
Sales are still trickling in, and as long as that’s enough to pay my bills, I’m working on this next game full time. I'm a First Worldian, but I’m pretty damn frugal and 35 copies a month is all I need to sell. Last month was a little under that, this month looks like it’s going to be right on the mark.
All in all, I’ve learned a lot from Titan Outpost, Unity 2020 is a lot easier to work with and so is Blender 2.8. I have a working engine framework to expand upon, so I think I can get this game to Early Access in two years in a much better state than TO was on release if I work full time. If not, it’s anybody’s guess. I have plenty of marketable skills, so don't worry, I won't starve, but development would definitely take longer
Alternatively, I could set up a Patreon or something, but I’ve always had reservations about such things. The same goes for Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. Then again, if I get enough moolah, maybe I can even get some help on board.
The other prototype was a far-future sequel, influenced by Forbidden Planet, where the singularity evolves to be a machine capable of manifesting the thoughts of people hooked up to it. It is slowly breaking down. On the surface it’s a high magic fantasy setting that has lost almost all its magic. The magic is actually the singularity manifesting thoughts, like the Kryll machine in Forbidden Planet. Instead of the Kryll dying, however, the machine is losing power. The main stat for the PC of that game is going to be imagination and in the few areas where the machine still works, anything goes. I like the concept because I can thematically throw in everything including the kitchen sink, like Heroes of Might & Magic but with a rationale. I also have some ideas about high concept imagination-based roleplaying. But I couldn’t build upon Titan Outpost for this idea, so I put it away for now.
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