Hello, Luke here.
v0.89 is coming along well. Heck it's 0.9 really... sorry it's taking a while I just want this thing to come together well before I replace the - very old and crappy, but reliable and functional - live version of the game.
OK got some cool art things to show off.
As a one-man-team it takes a huge amount of mental work to both handle the technical, design and artistic sides of the game. So some parts are always going to be neglected until I have time later. In my recent post I pointed out how I was overhauling the game's engine for performance - which is very very good at present. Now I've moved onto actually getting this game an artstyle I can make... first I did the weapons and bullets and drones now I'm doing the map itself.
Look at those polygonal planets and star! Those new clouds, those mission-links, those curvey words! The SUN RAYS! ooo. Beautiful.
The game is Vector Armada, so I should do a vectored abstract style. Obviously! Why was I trying to go for a semi-realistic looking solar system? Agh, well. Because I was focused on making the game work, not making the game look good - and realism is the thing you know, so you kind of just try. Same is said for the UI and UX, you just throw stuff at the wall and try to make it work. But now I have a vision, and it's also something that's more in my ballpark of "technical challenge" rather than "artistic challenge" since I can program a shader, but I can't draw a planet by hand.
I've made myself a bunch of shaders, and have started making in an abstract style that I think will go over quite well with the fact the ships are 2D abstractions of objects.
Then the story, so to catch you up if you haven't tried the experimental-branch, I've been trying to write an actual story for VA. Up until now I've largely been having fun with it - in the sense that I've been messing around with something far too big for what VA is. People are here to play a ship building game, not read a novel. So I've scrapped a lot of what I wrote (it's in the library for a future project), and restarted with something simpler and clearer.
AND, although I can't do art myself, I can always get it made...
(Story background hard, the briefing text is on the right)
The Oppressor, must fall.
OK I got to get back to work and get an update out for VA sometime this millenium... no one really cares about VA yet, but perhaps this update will help retain people's interest in VA for longer.
Cheers,
Luke