Back again, with another summary update. So to recap; as you likely know we took an extended break from the project but coming up to a year ago now we picked things up again. It hasn’t been straightforward, there was lots of pressure back then and some things in 2.0 were designed in a rush without proper consideration and it didn’t really gel as a game when we tried to finish it into something…
If you’re new around here don’t buy the game, it’s unsupported and a mess in its current form, we’re working hard to put it right. Since thought a little more about the last post here when we mentioned that it’s too distracting to code and write blogs at the same time. I’m not happy with it that, I’m just not sure it’s true. To stay focused this time, we’re splitting development into manageable…
Work is still going on here on the server side of things, still writing tests and implementing base functionality. We have to set expectations here, this is going to take a long time. If you're new DON'T BUY THE GAME - the projects in a weird state and i'm not even sure it's playable right now. Some might say a mistake was made showing up empty handed 6 months ago and I would agree with that. T…
We've catalogued the games assets and we're in good shape. We have most of the components we need to rescue the project and the opportunity now to learn from the previous failures and adapt. We appreciate the project was abandoned and trust is low, so until we've made things right - we'll shortly be making the game free on Steam. There will be some challenges - multiplayer will need to be baked…
I must have sat down to write this post a thousand times … So the project had a number of failings. We had limited resources, driving the project took up a lot of that. There was a lot of stuff in the background that just wasn’t implemented or managed properly. Updates were rushed, manual and error prone because we had no tests or continuous integration and there were some game design issues. M…
It’s been an interesting year for the project, feedback fairly early on in the release caused us to slam on the brakes and have a real think about the direction in which the project was going. We had two choices; do what is normally done and continue down that path and release the game hoping to learn the lessons in the sequel, or do the honest thing taking it back to the start and work in the…
Just a quick note to add that we have a round of fixes and tweaks coming in for updates that have been released in the last few days - details below. Some great feedback coming back, special thanks to SnottyGremlin for his clear and constructive criticism , very useful to hear from new Players! As always, we really appreciate the support and we hope you have a great festive period! Update 6.1.2…
As promised, we are pleased to announce Update 6.1 boasting a fully interactive tutorial! By interactive we mean that it offers up a set of instructions and the tutorial continues once you have completed them. We figured it would be a better way to learn than an instructional video. It's comprehensive and will take you through camera controls, group creation and fleet movement, inventory manage…
Context Buttons and Dialogue windows also added in this update We are pleased to announce that Update 6 is ready! This is the most significant patch released to date with literally hundreds of additions and tweaks so we're going to break from the normal tradition of listing them all because there are simply too many. If you haven't already we recommend you take a look at the previous article wh…
The 3D UI has been decluttered giving the Zones a more open feel and the 2D UI has matured. So before we delve into creating the tutorial and adding new stuff we thought it prudent to get rid of the prototype UI elements and really look at how we interact with the game to make things a little more involving and intuitive. As you can no doubt immediately see, a number of things stand to change i…
Vote for us in the IndieDB Indie of the Year Awards 2016! Hopefully you've all enjoyed the rapid pace of progress over the last couple of months as we mature the Shallow Space Open-world Overhaul. Help us get into the Top 100 for the 3rd year running! You don't need an account, no requirement to log in at all, just a few clicks required to vote to help us secure a little bit of additional expos…
Added height lines to the movement waypoints to better aid perspective (click image for fullscreen.) Another BETA patch yielding additional work on unit veterancy and experience with the proceeds of a battle now distributed amongst the ships. Experience is dealt as a ratio, so if a single ship did 75% of the damage they'll receive 75% of the XP. Interesting to note that with this system, experi…
In this BETA patch we see a continuation of the saving and loading mechanics introduced in 5.3, one handy item is the 'emergency save' feature which will automatically save your game if there is a crash. Otherwise we continue the combat mechanics focus of Update 5 in general preparing to switch on unit veterancy and experience, and adding in idle shield recharge when not in combat. In addition…
As mentioned, a new beta branch has been opened up. The purpose of the BETA is to ensure that updates are more thoroughly testing before they hit the public domain, more information about this here . To get to the BETA: · Right click on the game in your Steam library · Select 'Properties' · Select 'BETAS' tab · Select 'testing - Overhaul Beta' from the list Note that the BETA is only available…
It’s that time again folks, but this time, rather than the mindless utterances of a dedicated developer – we’re going to directly discuss some of the feedback that’s coming in. Where's the damned tutorial? We do have in-game help listing controls with a basic explanation of some of the games mechanics (top-centre left, question mark button,) but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that there ne…
As promised another round of incremental updates to fix bugs introduced in 5.2 which was released last week. A new BETA branch will shortly open up increasing the pace of the adding of new features and increasing overall stability by including a more regimented testing phase between the updates. More details on this to follow. Massive thanks to all those reporting the issues, please do keep tho…
Good news, Update 5.2 is now available Commander! Additional markings on the Battlegrid should aid perspective and understanding of the visible area. The last week or so we have predominantly focused on hardening the codebase in preparation for Single Player campaign and Multiplayer - nothing exciting enough to talk about. But in addition, we've added some more useful markings to the Battlegrid…
As promised, the last few days has seen a flurry of incremental updates bringing predominantly fixes and visual tweaks. Feedback on the forums (both Official and Steam) regarding the stuff we should prioritise has yielded a potential change of tactics when we resume the adding of features next week. For more information on that - checkout the 'Player Polls' category over on the Official forums…
Good news, Update 5.1 is now available. More massive changes under the hood, the game looks more vibrant as a result We learnt a few lessons in the transition to 5.1. To address issues with the Linux build we needed to upgrade the core game engine to Unity 5.4.2 - this sadly broke a lot of the shaders and it took over a week to tweak and adjust, and get things back on track. During that time, U…
Good news, Update 5 has arrived! This update focuses on adding the more intricate mechanics that will compliment both the singleplayer and multiplayer experiences. In particular this update adds Shield Rebalancing, Subsystem Attack Mode, Engine Attack Mode and the Subsystem Targeting Ability. We've also added 20+ audio clips of an AI voice to compliment the UI. Combat is due to become far more…
Time to settle back into the proverbial leather couch and let out some more. It’s actually incredibly therapeutic, last time it literally felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders practically from the moment I hit post. So we concluded that fear is a big motivator to progress this thing. Seems a little extreme, but everybody is motivated by fear – if we don’t find the means t…
You probably noticed the game updating over the weekend. The changes made in 4.8.1 to the movement system were really quite massive and so we had a quick optimisation pass and a couple of rounds of bug fixing. Next in the pipeline is Update 5, ETA 2-3 days. BETA Hotfix Update 4.8.2 - Fixes further to log spam - Fixes to thrusters lagging framerate - Fixed OOZ concurrency GC collection causing s…
Bit of a packed incremental update this time round as we continue to fine tune and some additional major work going on under the hood to further refine ship movements. We tested Update 4.8 at a friends house to gather some feedback and it ended up as quite an exciting session for a number of reasons. As he played we described the pending mechanics soon to be injected; shield rebalancing, subsys…
While we’re busy cooking up the sandbox we thought it might be an idea to put in a skirmish mode of sorts. Similar to the ‘Tactical Simulator’ in the older alpha, Quick Battle mode allows you to dive in and get to grips with any of the ships and get used to the controls. Behind the scenes, Quick Battle mode will help to iron out the wrinkles, particularly with combat and already it’s sparked a…
Good news! Update 4.7 has arrived along with macOS / OS-X support! Now that support on all platforms has been restored, we're going to swap the old Alpha and new Beta builds around as we're a little conscious that people are missing out on the good stuff. So in other words: If you were testing the BETA simply switch the build back to normal! Managing multiple groups is now very easy by using TA…
Well it might have been the end of Eve Walters, but her legacy had far reaching implications across shallow space. We explore that legacy in a series of snippets from faction press outlets. (Missed the story? Then catup-up: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) PLEIADES PRESS “Terrorists neutralised in coup for Pleiades Police.” In another triumph for the Corporation’s principles and methodologies, terrorist Eve…
It’s about time for another developer ramble I feel, it’s been too long since our last one. Firstly, I feel the need to correct a statement that was made in my last post in suggesting that a ‘glass ceiling’ might prevent the project from truly reaching it’s potential. This is in error. The computer games industry employs countless million talented individuals who have spent their lives honing t…
The Roadmap and Gallery pages have been updated! Making a game is complex task, keeping you all updated on the project status; just as complex. You'll notice the frequency of the updates has been stepped up, so much so that it's likely you might miss out on some of the more pertinent information. The Roadmap is designed to give clear, at-a-glance information about the projects status. The aim i…
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Announcements are the developer’s own posts to the game’s Steam news feed: updates and their patch notes, in-game events, releases and sales. The important ones are marked on the players chart.