I was contracted for the past months (a week or two after opening this thread) to help out the game (primarily with bugtracking and QA when time allows). The dev seems intent on seeing this through to the end, although it's hard to say necessarily what his priorities and their order are. He has his own way to push it forward, but IMO it has been healthily moving forward.
He's a very chill and wholesome dude. He clearly felt the pressure from being a relatively tiny/small community of Beta Testers from the first game, to blowing up and getting the same or more views on Youtube than videos from things like Starfield or Star Citizen, which I seriously doubt he ever wanted to "challenge". He just wanted to make a sequel that had sandbox/open-world gameplay and more procedural generation than the first one, and boom.
There's definitely a lot to do and fix for it to become a complete whole, not to say a polished one that is really worth playing for more hardcore and seasoned space-people. I still see a lot of potential on it, especially if he goes after extending Construction features into being able to build on planets, and including ground battles with different units, as well as making planets more unique. Overall, he can go anywhere he wants with this. So much so people requested some features (which wasn't the right moment to add IMHO) like Capital Ships and big ships like a Carrier and he went on to add it. I've also had a chance to propose an addition and alternatives (limb damage and dismemberment, similar to Kenshi) and the dude went silent for a few hours and only came back when that stuff was working.
Ignoring any current poor implementations - as those can simply have their code edited, a new build released, and everything gets changed/improved - my only worry design-wise is the contrast between the more complex and hardcore allure of Faction/Empire-building, with the Arcade-style FPS and Ship combat. I believe the game could do better if it took the direction of Mount and Blade in Space and decided between an Arcade or Hardcore audience. The game's design seems to beg for that.
Right now, Arcade people enjoy the fast-paced progression and gameplay, but hit a brick wall with later features (e.g. Faction warfare).
Meanwhile, Hardcore people would rather remove all the RPG elements and make combat more intricate and involved (no levels, damage models for spaceships and ground units, add more "weight" to everything, etc).
Although I really love hybrid games in both design and concept, all my favorite games have probably bumped into this and all pretty much decided which kind of people they'd cater to. Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, Kenshi, Space Rangers 2.. I'm sure they knew they weren't going to be casual material.
It's interesting to see an indie game try to tackle the issue and sit in-between groups of people, but usually it's a struggle that costs way more time and money than its worth for an indie title, which takes away from the finished product potential.
Last time I remember a project force its hand (and its design) to keep its
made-for-casuals label was X Rebirth..
Of course..this is just a theory. A game theory.
(vomits)
I'm currently not contracted on it anymore due to worries with the game's budget in the long-run, but we're at the very best of terms.
Some here (likely no one) might remember I worked on a project with my wife and a modder-friend I met online, but after the second year of development (all of us being unpaid and having no budget), my wife had a stroke (even though she's on her 30s) and we had to immediately leave the project.
Thankfully she recovered after around 6 months with zero side effects, but that nearly killed us out of stress and turned our life upside down. I got to experience first-hand why some indie projects vanish or get cancelled - us leaving murdered the motivation and hope of the last-remaining team member.
That was a good eye opener on indie development.
If it wasn't for this SpaceBourne dude I might never have returned to gamedev as I got traumatized and haven't been back at thinking on games as a career for 2 years. Right now I'm taking steps back to transition into a gamedev career.
Therefore, I'm very grateful and appreciative of Burak. What I told him is that I hope he makes justice to his own idea - SpaceBourne 2 - and sees it to its end.
Author
Topic: Spacebourne 2: The [adjective] child of many space games (Read 3108 times)