A few tweaks to finish off version 1. Hopefully fixed bug with flamers so they fire consistently first time. Fixed mine launched on Argon mothership. Removed 'Early Access' label from Logo. ;)
A few tweaks to finish off version 1.
Fixed autoturret bug where they weren't cleaned up properly on time out, potentially resulting in hung game. Enhanced autoturrets as they were too puny. Fixed Challenge bug where challenge was changed just viewing components in the Designer.
Fixed autoturret bug where they weren't cleaned up properly on time out, potentially resulting in hung game.
Enhanced autoturrets as they were too puny.
Fixed Challenge bug where challenge was changed just viewing components in the Designer.
Fixed critical bug for new players introduced in last patch, causing game to fail on the Training mission. Had disabled the video player and didn't test further into the game past the fix for the tutorial to find this obvious fault. Thanks to redditor warbuddha for bringing this
Fixed critical bug for new players introduced in last patch, causing game to fail on the Training mission. Had disabled the video player and didn't test further into the game past the fix for the tutorial to find this obvious fault.
Thanks to redditor warbuddha for bringing this to my attention.
Fixed bug : First play through Options froze game when KBM selected Thanks to /MuttonTime's bug report on Reddit
Fixed bug : First play through Options froze game when KBM selected
Thanks to /MuttonTime's bug report on Reddit
Thanks to the input of you early users, ionAXXIA has found its identity and is ready for release! What started as a shell of an arena shooter has now evolved into a rich, “Big Brained” tactical space shooter. A lot of (unexpected!) time went into iterating the core engine to enab
What started as a shell of an arena shooter has now evolved into a rich, “Big Brained” tactical space shooter. A lot of (unexpected!) time went into iterating the core engine to enable the kinds of features that make ionAXXIA different to other shooters, plus bug-removal has been a priority in a triumphant stand against the horrific modern trend of releasing broken games. Here’s a summary of what the game contains at launch…
Combat equipment has a bunch of new toys like surface-mounted auto-turrets, and energy sapper mines that gain extra punch when attached to objects.
Complete challenges to unlock new items. Develop a sense of achievement and progression as you become a better, smarter space-pilot.
Levels now offer more variety of encounters, providing options to complete challenges by choosing which mission for which level.
An addition I’m pretty excited by, some aliens will leave a persistent feature when they die. The Globbluck Mk1 leaves an acid cloud-comet that inflicts serious damage, while the Cybosh CN4’s engine detonation leaves a wake in space-time, a ‘teleport’ wormhole. Levels with many of these vessels create an increasingly complex arena. The addition of more aliens to ionAXXIA will mean more arena transformation possibilities.
Hazards (for you or your enemy!) include exploding rocks, fire-trail rocks, magnetic rocks, and the scary, black, ultra-dense rocks that inflict massive collision damage. If you’re fortunate, you may come across a health-rock or a tactically advantageous energy-rock.
At launch, 12 different enemies with diverse abilities – health rippers, snares, “launch fighters”, teleportation, point-defence cannons – oppose you, creating a rock-paper-scissors type match-up, while our precious argon is stored in powerful starbases seemingly designed to withstand any assault...
Aliens have very different combat attitudes. Some rush in. Others keep their distance. Others will hit the gas and just keep going, attacking in fly-by encounters. Adds another consideration to your ship designs.
For millions of different customised ships. 17 different designs each with their own size and weapon mounts; weapons have added variety depending on the ship they are attached to.
12 different hull materials to keep the inside of the ship inside. 12 engine types, with different qualities of speed, acceleration, and manoeuvrability. 12 generators to power the weapons. 16 primary weapons, from beam weapons to missiles to guns to turrets, to plasma-clouds, to offensive satellites and big-arse bombs. And 12 secondary functions, from boosters and bubble-shields to tractor beams and grapplers.
Collect precious resources to upgrade your gear, with no level caps! Just keep making that laser beam longer, that knockback bigger, and that fire-rate faster.
My favourite feature of the original Star Control, the strategy game adds more pressure and more options for smart thinking. Often you'll have to use a less-than-ideal ship match-up to stop enemy movements, requiring clever combat. This strategy mode received a lot of work to provide interesting encounters with procedural algorithms being developed to generate different scenarios. One level might see you equipped with an armada to take down a new alien outpost. Another might see two sides struggling in a barren system, fighting over scarce resources. And then another, a desperate bid to hold back an attacking fleet to give you time to build up a counter-attack.
Disabled for launch as I focus on the PC version. The other ports will come afterwards and cloud saves re-enabled.
Please note your progress will be reset!
You will be restarted to experience the game proper as a new user, and of course all feedback of the early game, particularly balance and economy, is vital to get it ‘just right’.
A huge thanks to everyone who shared opinions and feedback. I hope ionAXXIA lives up to your expectations! And still let me know if something is off. Early game balance, when new players are having to learn to think and play differently to their preconceptions, is vital to get right and I can’t do that without people telling me what I’m getting wrong. Because after hundreds and hundreds of hours (really, thousands of hours) of play testing myself, I’m kinda removed from the new-player experience!
Enjoy!
This is a quite release of the final version of the game. Loads and loads and loads has changed. Putting this release out now rather than sitting it on, and will follow up with full details later when I get chance.
This is a quite release of the final version of the game. Loads and loads and loads has changed. Putting this release out now rather than sitting it on, and will follow up with full details later when I get chance.
A number of small changes have been added based on feedback in the discord channel, with user defined keyboard and mouse controls and a high-tempo audio track to liven things up. Now work is focussed on adding out the fun toys I want to play with. The basis of ionAXXIA's gameplay
A number of small changes have been added based on feedback in the discord channel, with user defined keyboard and mouse controls and a high-tempo audio track to liven things up. Now work is focussed on adding out the fun toys I want to play with. The basis of ionAXXIA's gameplay is variety - variety of ships, foes, weapons, and non-weapon abilities.
I'm aiming to launch with 12 of each ship component, and perhaps a dozen varied enemy craft. Here we see a Rogue's Gallery of pesky aliens who'll be doing their best to thwart your recovery of our Argon!
One of the key dreams for ionAXXIA was to create a proper arcade game on mobile devices. This major update includes cloud saves, so you can continue your progress on smartphones and back again. The new trailer sums the current build nicely. We've also got a Discord channel up and
One of the key dreams for ionAXXIA was to create a proper arcade game on mobile devices. This major update includes cloud saves, so you can continue your progress on smartphones and back again. The new trailer sums the current build nicely.
We've also got a Discord channel up and running for faster feedback.
https://discord.gg/s7EaBzJ
After a totally unexpected silence, I'm back with the most significant update yet. 0.6.3 introduces the galactic map that brings the whole game experience together. Plot a course of discovery through the galaxy. Each star can be played either as a strategy game through the star-s
After a totally unexpected silence, I'm back with the most significant update yet. 0.6.3 introduces the galactic map that brings the whole game experience together. Plot a course of discovery through the galaxy. Each star can be played either as a strategy game through the star-system, or a straight forward fight to the death (Super Melee in StarControl terms).
One of the major issues with this Early Access process has been a real lack of content variety for you guys, for which I'm sorry. Until the core systems were in place, I couldn't start adding more aliens and ship components.
The joyous news is that those systems should now be finished. So this update sees the introduction of a new weapon, the cluster missile, and three varied enemies. The cluster missile showcases the varied firing mechanics - fire once to launch and a second time to detonate and release the multiple warheads, while the three new enemies each have some peculiar tricks which I can make available in future ship components.
Going forwards, the primary concerns are game structure and economy. How do people want to unlock components? I'm thinking to have them hidden throughout the galaxy, perhaps in unique enemies that have that component. Choice of star route through the galaxy should be made to accumulate resources ahead of taking on harder challenges. How much you get paid for a victory is an important balancing act and one that needs feedback.
I'm very pleased to release to the Beta branch the beginnings of the working tactical map. Woohoo! It's very much based on the tactical map of the original Star Control game. You build ships and manoeuvre them around a randomised star-system, building mines, outposts, and fortifi
I'm very pleased to release to the Beta branch the beginnings of the working tactical map. Woohoo!
It's very much based on the tactical map of the original Star Control game. You build ships and manoeuvre them around a randomised star-system, building mines, outposts, and fortifications, making money, buying better ships, while the enemy pushes in from the top. Land a ship on the enemy starbase with no enemy ships present to win.
It's absolutely perfect for short play bouts and I auto-save so you can pick up where you left off.
This tactical combat has become the backbone to the game and its future balancing, and I'm very excited for its hopefully rapid progress. There's lots of opportunity to balance the game and ship designs so that they aren't just what you play in combat, but designs also may affect performance on the tactical map. It'll make the decision making in creating ships of a given price far more meaningful than at present.
The rest of the game should work okay but expect bugs. I'll concentrate of finishing the tactical map before cleaning up other issues and balancing properly.
Lots of work, lots of changes. Quick overview: · Enemies have secondary abilities · Autoshoot aiming super accurate · Classic mode added · Engine enhancements for future content · Beta builds to be made available I've added secondary abilities to the enemies, which required signi
Lots of work, lots of changes.
Quick overview:
· Enemies have secondary abilities
· Autoshoot aiming super accurate
· Classic mode added
· Engine enhancements for future content
· Beta builds to be made available
I've added secondary abilities to the enemies, which required significant changes to the AI and reworking some systems, and implemented a lot of engine changes to allow some really diverse abilities. eg. Notice one of the ships can launch a blob that can transmute a rock into three fighters. AI aiming has had probably three upgrades to the current solution where it should be pretty perfect. Future randomisation can dumb it down if needed! The engine now supports more complex firing patterns like fire once to launch, fire again to detonate, or hold-and-release activation.
I've also included a classic mode toggle. Enable that to have every level as a single planet, no extra features, in keeping with previous games of this ilk.
Word of warning - there is zero game balance! Enemies are possibly overpowered. It might be very hard to beat a star system at the moment. I won't look into balancing until the new strategy game is in place and attention shifts from game-engine to content.
Which is next up. The strategy game sees you build ships on the star system and move them through the stars, establishing mines and colonies, towards eradicating the opposition. Development progress should be fairly swift.
Finally, I've added a Beta option to Steam. If you subscribe to the Beta, you can experience more frequent updates where I won't worry about release quality. To enable, right-click "ionAXXIA" in the steam client and select Properties. On the "BETAS" tab, click the select drop-down and choose 'beta'. There's no password - you'll just get more frequent if somewhat buggier versions to play. ;)
Finally got it out the door! Woohoo! ːsteamhappyː This is the first step of Iteration 2, being a more fleshed out and solid version of ionAXXIA . There's procedural levels and star maps which are the precursor to the strategic sub-game to come next. AI is much improved and can be
Finally got it out the door! Woohoo! ːsteamhappyː
This is the first step of Iteration 2, being a more fleshed out and solid version of ionAXXIA. There's procedural levels and star maps which are the precursor to the strategic sub-game to come next. AI is much improved and can be punishing on anything other than easy difficulty, which is where using your special abilities and scenery comes in. Component upgrades are in so you can increase things like engine speed, weapon range, damage, hull health, allowing you take on tougher challenges.
There's still some engine work to do and no doubt a few bugs have still managed to sneak through despite god-knows how many hours playing and fixing and playing and fixing and playing and fixing...
However, I'm in a position now where updates should be far more frequent. Each change - moving to a better sprite system to allow larger ships, adding secondary abilities to the enemy ships, creating the strategic sub-game, adding more content - should be rolled out as they happen.
I feel I should have some awesome promo art-work, but truth is I've coding work to do. Upgraded to the latest Unity and things have stopped working...
Happy 2018! Here's what's been happening... My last update hoped to get ionAXXIA out before December. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha haaaaa. Suffice to say, more life got in the way, including Christmas. That is the problem being a part-time dev; it's not just a lack of hours, but a lack of
Happy 2018! Here's what's been happening...
My last update hoped to get ionAXXIA out before December. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha haaaaa. Suffice to say, more life got in the way, including Christmas. That is the problem being a part-time dev; it's not just a lack of hours, but a lack of momentum so even when I had time to work on ionAXXIA, it was hard to focus and find clear goals. Booo.
However, post-Christmas with a lot of thinking and pacing, I have a clearer sense of direction now. The AI is improved and the game plays better. Procedural star systems are in. And yesterday was spent solid, implementing a components upgrade system.
This'll form a significant part of the game's progression. I'm thinking of a galactic map that gets harder as you move towards the centre, so you'll have to work on designing and building your ships to become stronger to conquer it. Very Diablo 3 rifts!
Today I'll hopefully finish the back-end to that front-end and have the upgrades active. One area of work is 'pricing' these upgrades. I want to be confident the balance is right.
And finally, a new year and a new communication strategy. My idea of daily updates failed, because I was leaving them to the end of the day when I was busy coding or with something real-life related. So now my plan is to do a morning report on what I achieved yesterday, which I can write in the morning when my dev skills are at their lamest. I'll be posting these every morning on the Software Geezers blog...
Not going to offer any ETA. I've never managed to hit one of those yet! Suffice to say it's coming along. Much of the core elements are in and they just need tidying up.
Wishing you all a great and entertaining 2018!
David
Happy 2018! Here's what's been happening... My last update hoped to get ionAXXIA out before December. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha haaaaa. Suffice to say, more life got in the way, including Christmas. That is the problem being a part-time dev; it's not just a lack of hours, but a lack of
Happy 2018! Here's what's been happening...
My last update hoped to get ionAXXIA out before December. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha haaaaa. Suffice to say, more life got in the way, including Christmas. That is the problem being a part-time dev; it's not just a lack of hours, but a lack of momentum so even when I had time to work on ionAXXIA, it was hard to focus and find clear goals. Booo.
However, post-Christmas with a lot of thinking and pacing, I have a clearer sense of direction now. The AI is improved and the game plays better. Procedural star systems are in. And yesterday was spent solid, implementing a components upgrade system.
This'll form a significant part of the game's progression. I'm thinking of a galactic map that gets harder as you move towards the centre, so you'll have to work on designing and building your ships to become stronger to conquer it. Very Diablo 3 rifts!
Today I'll hopefully finish the back-end to that front-end and have the upgrades active. One area of work is 'pricing' these upgrades. I want to be confident the balance is right.
And finally, a new year and a new communication strategy. My idea of daily updates failed, because I was leaving them to the end of the day when I was busy coding or with something real-life related. So now my plan is to do a morning report on what I achieved yesterday, which I can write in the morning when my dev skills are at their lamest. I'll be posting these every morning on the Software Geezers blog...
Not going to offer any ETA. I've never managed to hit one of those yet! Suffice to say it's coming along. Much of the core elements are in and they just need tidying up.
Wishing you all a great and entertaining 2018!
David
Following an exciting launch on Steam, I've been eager to roll out updates quickly for my players and armed myself with a glorious Road-map to lead the way. Sadly, the sat-nav took me a different route and into a pond... Or rather, a lot of Real Life has gotten in the way and slo
Following an exciting launch on Steam, I've been eager to roll out updates quickly for my players and armed myself with a glorious Road-map to lead the way. Sadly, the sat-nav took me a different route and into a pond...
Or rather, a lot of Real Life has gotten in the way and slowed progress. Also, a notable detour has been taken from the roadmap where I wasn't happy with the core game-play. A primary inspiration for ionAXXIA was the campaign mode in the original Star Control. I felt my current objective-based levels and repairing of ships produced a very different feeling game, where the currency aspect didn't make much sense and the ship values were pointless as the biggest, most expensive ship would always be the best. So, even though procedural level creation didn't take too long to get running, I decided against refining the procedural objectives for that as they'd need to be replaced for a completely different balance in the new structure.
So the past 6 weeks when I've had time, I've beavered away at a different star map system and had to make some notable changes under the hood. The focus of the next patch will be more 1-on-1 combat and fighting on a budget.
You'll have a limited budget to clear all the stars. Healing will be rare, so you'll want to balance your 'garage' (selection of ships taken in to each star system) with different levels of affordability. Stars you can clear with a budget spaceship will free up more cash for using tougher ships in tougher battles, as it were.
There'll also be no in-level designer, which was only present as an introduction. It now resides in a separate phase where you'll design your ships, and then select from your designs for each star system.
The basics of this are all in, leaving just a lot of polish and some more content to go before I release the first update. I hope this can be managed by the end of the month. Feedback on balance will be very important! Looking forwards to what people think.
David
Following an exciting launch on Steam, I've been eager to roll out updates quickly for my players and armed myself with a glorious Road-map to lead the way. Sadly, the sat-nav took me a different route and into a pond... Or rather, a lot of Real Life has gotten in the way and slo
Following an exciting launch on Steam, I've been eager to roll out updates quickly for my players and armed myself with a glorious Road-map to lead the way. Sadly, the sat-nav took me a different route and into a pond...
Or rather, a lot of Real Life has gotten in the way and slowed progress. Also, a notable detour has been taken from the roadmap where I wasn't happy with the core game-play. A primary inspiration for ionAXXIA was the campaign mode in the original Star Control. I felt my current objective-based levels and repairing of ships produced a very different feeling game, where the currency aspect didn't make much sense and the ship values were pointless as the biggest, most expensive ship would always be the best. So, even though procedural level creation didn't take too long to get running, I decided against refining the procedural objectives for that as they'd need to be replaced for a completely different balance in the new structure.
So the past 6 weeks when I've had time, I've beavered away at a different star map system and had to make some notable changes under the hood. The focus of the next patch will be more 1-on-1 combat and fighting on a budget.
You'll have a limited budget to clear all the stars. Healing will be rare, so you'll want to balance your 'garage' (selection of ships taken in to each star system) with different levels of affordability. Stars you can clear with a budget spaceship will free up more cash for using tougher ships in tougher battles, as it were.
There'll also be no in-level designer, which was only present as an introduction. It now resides in a separate phase where you'll design your ships, and then select from your designs for each star system.
The basics of this are all in, leaving just a lot of polish and some more content to go before I release the first update. I hope this can be managed by the end of the month. Feedback on balance will be very important! Looking forwards to what people think.
David
Sorry that the release deadline has been missed. Wanted to put together a video showing different inputs, and have discovered an issue where touch input doesn't work nicely on Windows where mouse buttons get phantomly pressed. A nice fix means rolling out another control scheme,
Sorry that the release deadline has been missed. Wanted to put together a video showing different inputs, and have discovered an issue where touch input doesn't work nicely on Windows where mouse buttons get phantomly pressed. A nice fix means rolling out another control scheme, Mouse, where presently mouse input just emulates touch. So that's a bit more work, but ionAXXIA should be out in a couple of days all being well.
The good news is procedural level creation is progressing okay, so Iteration 1 should be out next month.
Sorry that the release deadline has been missed. Wanted to put together a video showing different inputs, and have discovered an issue where touch input doesn't work nicely on Windows where mouse buttons get phantomly pressed. A nice fix means rolling out another control scheme,
Sorry that the release deadline has been missed. Wanted to put together a video showing different inputs, and have discovered an issue where touch input doesn't work nicely on Windows where mouse buttons get phantomly pressed. A nice fix means rolling out another control scheme, Mouse, where presently mouse input just emulates touch. So that's a bit more work, but ionAXXIA should be out in a couple of days all being well.
The good news is procedural level creation is progressing okay, so Iteration 1 should be out next month.