Actually, it’s more like “the rest is drawing, and animations, and shaders, and an actual art concept, and a deep-dive into that bloody engine I’m working with, and that stuff is scary and overwhelming, and I suck at it, and I’m not going to touch it unless I know it’s going to be worth it”…
I do code. I’m good at code. I like making code do interesting, fun things, to write systems that grow into more than the sum of their parts while still being understandable. That’s basically why I’m doing this. Graphics… yeah, that’s the scary part.
I’m not going to spend liquid resources on the project until a certain point, I’m afraid, so no. Weeeell, kinda. I mean, my wife is a graphic designer, but she’s not into games and fiction in general to a degree that is hard to comprehend. Sometimes I’m getting slight granny weatherwax vibes from her…
She agreed to see what she could do about the UI at some point, though, so at least there I’ll have some help.
Yeah, that weird mindset is actually pretty commonplace. Somehow people think that the mere idea of a game concept is worth money. In truth, it’s not even copyrightable. As long as you don’t build it, or pay somebody else to build it, you got nothing.
Hi jedidia, I tried your game today, and I’m getting stuck in the turorial.
Half the buttons only react when I press them for 2-3 sec, and sometimes when I click them, they just turn red, even though I have done what the tutorial asked for.
The game is not frozen; I can still close the pane and reopen it. I like how robust this tutorial is. Sometimes reopening the challenge, or tabbing out and back in, fixes the buttons and they react again, sometimes not. I haven’t found pattern yet.
What kind of info do you need from me to figure out what this means? (Like, usually, we report our GPU and RAM, but this game does not strike me as resource hogging )
Is simply my Java too old? You could use me as “odd Java” test person.
openjdk version "1.8.0_242"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (AdoptOpenJDK)(build 1.8.0_242-b08)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (AdoptOpenJDK)(build 25.242-b08, mixed mode)
I’ll also comment on itchio but a conversation about buttons and Java is a bit too boring for a forum that is meant to advertise your game.
PS: No clue why it chose JDK 8… Anyway, I switched to JDK 21 and it’s the same problem with the buttons (OpenJDK Runtime Environment Temurin-21.0.1+12 (build 21.0.1+12-LTS)
This sounds… highly irregular. I’m not even sure what could cause issues with something so fundamental as mouse event handling. Your Java version doesn’t actually matter, the game comes with its own packaged JRE, it isn’t using the default one from your system.
The only thing I could think of if that JRE has issues with your system for some reason. So probably the most important information from your side would be the OS you’re running on.
Also, there seem to be 2 issues. One of them is that buttons don’t seem to react unless pressed for a long time, the other is that they’re turning red without doing anything.
I have no idea what could cause the first one. The second one sounds as though the button is disabled and not currently active, which is a state several buttons can have under certain conditions, but it isi not visually marked at the moment.
It’s possible that either some buttons are disabled because they need to be and you’re not realising it, or that they get disabled and not re-enabled properly when they’re supposed to be, which would be a bug.
If you could give me a reproduction procedure how you get to that state, that would be extremely valuable.
Huh… You know, it took me until just about now to realise just what you were saying. The challenge is in fact available at pretty much any moment. Even during emergencies. That was definitely not intended.
I realised just what you meant when it started showing up during EVA while trying to reach the ship without a tether while running out of air… Definitely not the time to make some calls and ask for a job…
Unfortunately no update for december. I could make it, but it would be too close to christmas, and that just makes no sense whatsoever. Still, if you’re interested in what’s going on with the game, there’s almost all I know at the current time in that post…
Au contraire…
I plan on doing nothing but playing games Xmas day. Since it falls on a Monday, any family time will occur over the weekend and likely at various places. Monday, I will wake at my normal 4am, grab my Steam Deck and start my day with a game in bed. (It feels so self-indulgent) Then I will get up and cook a huge breakfast which will fuel the next few hours of gaming. Somewhere in there, I will feed my dogs. Maybe I will make my bed. I will use the dishwasher and return to gaming.
Anyway… I understand, most people will be sticking to the traditional schedule.
Enjoy your down time!
In before the next NMS update. At least now I can claim to have one feature that NMS doesn’t have: Spacewalks!
Appart from that there are not many changes, so really, the only thing I’d ask of anybody at this point is to get one of the new jobs, play them, and tell me what they think about it. Meanwhile, I’ll be over there, overhauling some of the core mechanics to shake things up. Read more about that (and the new update) in the current state vector:
This one changes the dynamics of the game somewhat by introducing various status effects for low drive or accumulating burnout. Maintaining your motivation is now actually important.
Also, I threw in some status effects that make the spacecraft more or less difficult to control depending on how much it is loaded, which was kind of necessary to balance a bit in favor of the maintenance jobs. Just flying from a to b can now be significantly more difficult with a fat payload than when you’re empty.
As always, I’m thankful for anybody giving it a go and giving me some feedback!
There’s also a new state vector, talking a bit about the direction the art for the game should go in, once it becomes a thing (still a ways of, but I was grabbed by a fey mood the past month):
Another month, another version! This one increases mechanical depth by quite a bit by introducing condition for spacecraft, EMU, and the players body. There’s also a couple new events going along with that in case you screw up. I’ve also added a “push” mechanic, that lets you reroll your dice pool under certain circumstances.
Next up will be another job type, and possibly the ability to assign character attributes to your liking at the start of the game, I’ll have to see how things move along.
Get it on itch, as always I’m extremely happy about any feedback I can get:
For anyone that might be interested, there’s also a new state vector that goes a little into the architecture of the whole thing:
The new update isn’t quite there yet, but I’ve published the development update for April. It talks a bit about what’s to come relatively soon (I hope), and also some ramblings about test-driven development and me and games, for anybody that might be interested.
This update actually reaches the mechanical goals I had set forth for “prototype 2”, which I gave myself 6 months for. That leaves me with enough time to dig into the UI overhaul that I halfways believe I might actually make it, which would be cool. There is the one or other smaller thing that I hope to be able to get in on the sidelines, so there might be another update before july, but UI will take top priority now.
Now, let’s try to remember how the hell Inkscape and Gimp work…
)
