DevBlog #1 - First steps to a prototype.

Bugbyte presents... Space Haven!

Welcome to the very first development blog post! It is my pleasure to announce that we have started on a new game and we want to take you with us on this journey. We are going to show you step-by-step of how this new game comes alive! We have worked around 2 months on our new game now, and we are in a stage where we are prototyping and developing the game further based on what we feel we need. It is mostly about functions now, adding features to our game editor so that we can use the tool to create content in the future.

(Credit to Nvision Illustration for the placeholder spider enemy )

What is Space Haven?

Current idea (NOTE! A LOT MIGHT CHANGE, IT'S PART OF THIS PROCESS): Game where you start with 1 crew member, the original. You start cloning him to create more crew members. The game is a mix of survival base building and defense buildings against enemy attacks. You have to build certain rooms to get oxygen, food and other resources required to live and build. You build turrets and train fighter clones to fend off enemies.

Wow! That sounds so cool, when do you think this game will be ready?

We are looking at something between 12-24 months. The reason we are making this blog is to demonstrate the massive amount of work that goes into making a new game. To show how this game comes alive from beginning to end.  At the same time we want to hear your feedback, it has served us well in the past with Battlestation: Harbinger.


Above you can see a small clip of what we have now. It's an isometric game, and it looks great already. At least we think so, do you agree? Keep in mind this is only after 2 months of development, so the game is still in very early stages. It's impossible to say how long this project will take to complete, but it will definitely be over 12 months.

How we started the project:

• Around 1-2 months of planning and discussions of what kind of a game we would like to create. Yes we discussed for weeks!
  
• Deciding that it would be an isometric game, something completely new to us.
  
• Starting to develop the game editor, which will be the main tool for all of us to add content to the game. This includes everything, characters, turrets, walls, rooms, chairs etc.
  
• Our graphic designer Matti has been creating graphics for over a month now.
  
• First things that we made: A character and walking animation for him, floor tiles, simple walls.
  
• Using the above assets we created our first visible prototype, where a character was walking on some floor.
  
• Now we have added more animations and a lot more objects, path finding for the characters. We use a certain algorithm to calculate and find paths quickly.
  

Additionally we created a simple building process, where units walk to a wall and build by simply standing there. We are going to add building animations to this, don't worry
What you see in this post is the result out of all of these tasks and more.

Screenshots:



Note! This game is in a prototype stage, meaning the content might change drastically. We just want to show you how this game comes alive from beginning to end, we want to show all the new features that come into the game. Keep in mind that we might add features and then take them away, creating a good game is a complicated creative process, involving a lot of "try and see" type of testing. At least for us.

Whatever dreams these clips and images produce for you, tell us here in the forums! You have given us great feature ideas before and I'm sure you will come up with great stuff again We cannot promise that any feature is implemented but we always want to hear your feedback.

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Neat idea for a game. One thought how about  
Instead of cloning you can add a female so they reproduce? It would make for more diversity so i dont see like 100 of the same guy walking arround lol. Looks like a fun game. I like games that allow me to sometimes do other things while it plays like cook dinner. Please let me know if you have a beta for it.

Thanks! Well, let's see about the beta in 8 months or so So hard to say how long this game will take, this is just 2 months progress that we show here. 1 month of that was planning essentially. A lot of work ahead but we will keep showing new stuff as we make them! Keep the feedback and ideas flowing, it helps!

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Will this space station be stationary, or will it be like a ship? If it does move, "away" missions to planets or other stations, or even derelict ships would be useful diversions and something to break up any potential monotony. Perhaps "ancient technologies" could be found, researched, and made into special facilities or weapons.
Maybe there could be travelling stores or trading posts.
I think working toward something might be cool, perhaps missions to certain planets, with difficulties based on different obstacles you might face on the way. This would also make an "endless mode" an option for those wishing for that experience as well.

Excellent concept ... Taking players along on the development journey!  Thanks!

For the game ...
Problem? ... Have been playing 'Xenowerk' and 'Space Marshals' ... (Both VERY well done) ... Every once in a while found myself wishing for a break in the constant similarity of the environment. (especially apparent in 'Xenowerk')

Solution? ...  Maybe a creative way to have the user take the hero on a walk, drive a vehicle,  or fly some machine to, or through a perceptually different  environment ...   in 'Xenowerk' some outside time would be  a great way to break up that similarity.

  This break should take some time, maybe not as long as a game episode, but long enough to give the mind a break from the main game environment?

  In this new game that might take the form of piloting a space craft off of, or onto the planet, or driving from one location to another ... anything like that which gives the mind a sense of change.

will it be a multiplayer kinda thimg so everyone could build up a fleet with some kind of hangars and then battle each other
and the cloning idea isn't bad but then the people wouldn't be individual and it would be boring after some time of playing you could do it like spacebase-DF9 where all characters were random generated i think

sorry for the bad english

this game is looking awesome !! very promissing

I don't like the idea of clones unless you can modify the DNA for more variety.
And hopefully this time you create a true PC game.

This looks like a cool game and I am looking forward to learning about the dev process through this blog. I hope you keep it up over the course of development! Thanks for doing this!