Void Destroyer - [Greenlit] and [Funded Kickstarter]

[chaosavy]

Thanks guys Truly appreciated.


Less than 48 hours to go - then time for some less sleep and more code!

[holocronweaver]

Congratulations man! $35K ain't bad! I was hoping at least $50k, but next time, right?

Keep in mind that you can always have a second campaign if this funding is not sufficient, perhaps using a different service like Indiegogo. Especially for more niche/hardcore games like Void Destroyer, finding the best media outlets and getting the word out is critical. Word of mouth is slow in small gaming communities, so you might want to start building up the excitement a week or two prior to the beginning of the campaign. After a few more months of development, your alpha/beta should be sufficiently improved gameplay that it could attract allot more gamers.

At any rate, I wish you the best of luck on Void Destroyer and look forward to seeing it come together, both as a gamer and fellow developer.

[chaosavy]

That's some good advice.

35K means most art constraints disappear. Time/knowledge constraint still exists. To get those to disappear would need a lot more than 50k.

The Kickstarter campaign was incredibly time consuming - it cost me a month+ of development along with a high rate of burnout.


Very glad its over, very happy that it made 35k. Thanks!

[mkultra333]

You made more on Kickstarter than I dream of making for my entire game, so the setup time was worth it.

BTW, voted for you on Greenlight.

[syedhs]

$35K.. just like I prophesized Of course just a coincidence..can't wait to see the games to complete..

[chaosavy]

Although technically I could do whatever I want with the money - its going to go towards art - which my wife says: what if no one buys it and all you did was spend money on art? Well that's how it goes then heh - funny indie world we live in.

So far coding/development towards beta is going great - I have to think about things differently now that I have to deliver something that was paid for. Plan is to focus on content in the "middile" of the month timeline so that I'm sure that there is something new to deliver to the people that backed at the Beta level.

[chaosavy]

Hey guys! I haven't "promoted/marketed" since Kickstarter... over 60 days I believe. With the recent 100 games being greenlit Void Destroyer jumped up in rankings, we are now in the top 100 (out of over 1300). So I'm devoting some time to get closer to Valve's attention in the rankings.

So - if you haven't yet - please vote for Void Destroyer getting onto Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =146068036 (since voting via the web page is somewhat clumsy you can also find Void Destroyer via going to your Steam Client - then clicking Community - then choosing Greenlight and entering in "Void Destroyer" into the search). And if you'd be so kind as to bug your Steam (and other) friends to vote that would be incredibly helpful as well.




Here is an updated video of updates since Kickstarter:

[youtube]oOrjz1FPlLk[/youtube]


There is an updated demo on the main site here: http://www.VoidDestroyer.com so you can check out the changes.

Here's a vid where I talk about the recent mouse changes and new time dilation (aka pause) system:

[youtube]JEc6yLL445U[/youtube]



Thank you!

Paul

[Jabberwocky]

I watched the recent changes vid - good stuff. For sure, there are so many different ways of approaching controls in a space sim - trying out a few different things and presenting them as options to your players seems like a great idea. If you get greenlit before Void Destroyer is finished, there's an early access option which could probably bring in a lot more people to test your game, in case that's something that would help you out.

[areay]

Good posts. Regarding the melee class of ships, how is that going to work in practise? I assume that you will make this class of ships really fast and the tactic will be to ram an enemy. If that happens will they bounce off or clamp onto them? Also, how will they avoid being destroyed by normal ranged weapons before they get anywhere near their quarry?

[Klaim]

Void Destroyer looks very very nice.

However, comparing to my Homeworld-fan-awake-dream-game, I would have changed some things:

- have some spheric kind of platforms and ships (not all, only these which are defensive or non offensive);
- have alien styles (maybe for additional factions) which would also have very alien gameplay (not like Zerg, but really really strange strategies);
- play a lot more with verticality;
- Mega structures in which the skirmishes happen (like, very very large structures in which these ships are tiny);
- inside nebula, stars and giant gaz planet atmospheres;

And some other funky ideas...

[chaosavy]

Jabberwocky: early access is tricky because - Kickstarter early access rewards tend to be priced higher than the typical early access. So the question becomes who do I piss off? The backer that paid 20+ to get into the Beta or someone on Steam who thinks that paying 20+ for a Beta is too much. Either way early access would mean much easier updates - in my frequent update way of development. The "good" news of not being Greenlit yet is that the Kickstarter Beta level backers are getting early access for a longer period and that I can focus more on development - still its one of those things that I'm sure you know - you just want nailed down. Congratulations again

areay: this is one of the trickiest and weakest aspects of those ships. I actually started working on that sort of weapon system on a much larger ship (not pictured/shown since its a spoiler). Then the smaller ships came along. The larger ship would push whoever it was attacking away (which worked well), but the smaller ships would bounce off (depending on the size differences). The larger ship needed to be more maneuverable, faster and its AI in regards to turning improved to be reasonably able to hit.

The small shocking ships were intended to disable ships, to help the larger ships out, I also considered a missile that would do this, but dropped that idea due to the visual aspect of the model - plus I didn't want the big ship to be a total murder machine. The lightning guys would kill eachother, if the lightning weapon did damage because the damage radius would overlap. So I turned that off and they have a emp/disable like effect (which was the original intention anyway).



Another neggative aspect and complication - somewhat unique - to Void Destroyer - is that flying the ship yourself and attempting to do combat in - is hard, due to the - 3D nature and physics. Aiming and bounces.

There is a lot of work to be done, I constantly have to fight for ships to be both good enemies and good to fly.


A positive/cool thing though is the avoiding of being destroyed before hitting their enemy - when testing the physics engine (Bullet) had issues going through the collision detection object linked to the weapon and it would by pass the ship when active. So I simply told the collision detection object to kill the the projectiles/missiles. So when the weapons are on that makes the melee ships invulerable from the front. Leading to more tactics

[chaosavy]

Klaim: those are some good ideas - I'm limited by my artistic skill. I hope one day to be less limited.

[Klaim]

Klaim: those are some good ideas - I'm limited by my artistic skill. I hope one day to be less limited.

I totally understand, don't worry (I'm making a big bame alone too with Ogre), I just wanted to share my crazy Homeworld-related dreams
Solar system physics simulation and being able to fight on ground in the same game would be cool too.

[chaosavy]

Hey guys! Iteration 18 is out - featuring many changes including formations, rally points and dust clouds

Here's a video showing off the new mine field generating stations:

[youtube]OuXLzwr1U4s[/youtube]

Here's a video of some work leading up to iteration 18 - including the visual changes to Tactical mode (thanks to consulting with Xavyiy):

[youtube]jgWXGQzMNcY[/youtube]

We are doing really well on the Greenlight front - but not yet victorious - so please consider voting: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =146068036

For more info and to download the demo check out the main page: http://www.VoidDestroyer.com

thanks

Paul

[chaosavy]

Hey guys! Great news - Void Destroyer has been Greenlit

Again thanks for all the great support from the Ogre community! Without you this difficult path would have been exponentially more dificult.

[Wolfmanfx]

Congrats!

[Klaim]

Congrats! Nice!

[holocronweaver]

Well deserved. Really looking forward to the completion of this game!

[areay]

Great news, it's all downhill from here pal ! You'll be on easy-street in no time