Finally starting a dev blog! I plan to keep this as informal "as I want" and to start keeping better track of progress with my game development. Right now, that consists entirely of Astrobound, as I'm trying to stay focused on that and not divert my attention to other game dev ideas for now. I have some really good momentum going and have been working on it almost every day. It's hard to assess exactly how far along I am, but I've been able to integrate more core features and UI polish in the last couple months than I thought I would, so I'm starting to ramp up on sharing previews!

I do work a full-time job that requires me to drive into an office four days a week (I can work one day remotely per week). Outside of that, I balance my personal and social life with my game development hobby. Ultimately, I can only spend so much time on my game in a given day, so the overall pace may seem slow at times, but I promise it is steady. I'm at a phase where my brain obsessively thinks about how to implement my next features, visualizing the code and assets I need to make, faster than I can physically churn it all out. 

All this great progress may slow down temporarily next month, as I will be moving to a new house with my partner! It's a very exciting time and I will need to focus a bit on packing, moving, and selling my current house. But as soon as I'm set back up, the velocity should pick up more than ever. My unofficial plan is to get a Steam page up by my birthday in the summer!

I may make a more "historical" entry here in the near future to account for the journey to now - but to start, here is a list of features I already have working in Astrobound. It's long!

• Encounter system that raises randomized encounters

  • A weight/chance system that helps prevent repeated encounters and guarantees variety is already working

  • The encounters will get fleshed out in a "writing phase" coming very soon

  • Encounters will have a combination of conditional scenarios and unique interactable minigames, art, and audio cues

  • Space dysentery is a thing... (still trying to think of a more clever, but still recognizable name)

• Travel system that moves the player ship along in the game to find encounters and reach travel stops

  • Player ships travel through the galaxy, gaining distance towards travel stops as time passes

    • Food and fuel are consumed as days pass, depending on the ship and crew

  • Travel stops can be visited to explore their various sites when their distance is reached while travelling

    • These serve as the major checkpoints in the player's journey in Astrobound, similar to forts and towns in The Oregon Trail

    • Only Planets exist as travel stops right now, but soon Space Stations will be added

    • Cities, towns, and wilderness areas can be visited on a planet

    • Shops are working to let players buy and sell supplies from their ship

    • Garages are working to let players repair and buy upgrades for their ship

    • Taverns, Passenger Terminals, and Wilderness areas to be added as travel sites

    • All sorts of art is underway for these travel sites, such a multi-level parallax backgrounds when browsing city sites

• Multiple ships available for players to choose from, with varying art and statistics

  • Travel speed, fuel capacity, food capacity, and crew size all depend on the selected ship

  • The original ship drawn for Astrobound has been dubbed the "Winner Bagel", a not-so-subtle homage to a "Winnebago" recreational vehicle, inspired by a cult classic sci-fi comedy that most of us should know...

  • To introduce variance and get the ship selection system working, I created a second ship that is only a reskin of Winner Bagel to be a temporary addition (It is red and named "Evil Bagel")

  • Lots of ships will be created, with original styles and and subtle references to classic sci-fi culture, each with their own stats

• Ship management system that players can use to manage their ship and crew while not travelling

  • Players can currently repair the ship with spare parts at a constant rate, but this will be replaced with a minigame later

  • Players can select to "WAIT", which progresses a day and earns no travel distance, but can bring players closer to the next encounter

    • Yes, the crew still has to eat when a day is waited through

    • If players run out of fuel in their ship and find themselves stranded in space, waiting might be a good way to recover some luck...

  • Ship upgrades are shown here, but they currently don't impact anything

  • Crew and passenger management screens to be added

• Main Menu working to let players edit game settings and start a new game

  • New Game lets players choose a game mode (only one option yet), a ship, and lets them customize some starting resources

    • This will be updated to include more game modes and a starting crew selection screen instead of fully randomizing the crew

  • Load Game feature to be added once game saving is implemented

  • Settings screen just has volume for now, and already works across all game scenes

Additionally to the above list, there's a constant flow of new art, audio, and music that I'm developing for the game. I plan to showcase previews as often as I can without giving away all the good stuff. 

We'll see how long before my next dev blog post, but I hope to do these at a regular pace from here on!