I've said I made Dead Reckoning as a "solo developer"; that's not really true. I made it and coded it on my own. But a game this size doesn't get built by one person, and every screen you sit in front of is held together by people I've never met — people who were passionate enough to do the work, then put it out, sometimes as Creative Commons to build on. I had a tiny budget, so there are some paid commercial usages, but most of it was free. So before this game releases into Early Access, I want to put the spotlight on them. Support their work, if you can.
The Genesis — John Ayliff
None of this exists without Seedship (which you can buy at the link provided). John Ayliff's little text game about steering a sleeper ship to a new home knocked around in my head (and on my phone) for years before I ever opened a design doc. After reading some forum posts, I got scared I'd crossed the line from "inspired-by" into "copied-from", and I emailed John, expecting to possibly get told off. Instead he was nothing but warm, thoughtful, and kind. He said he'd be honoured by a shout-out, and that he's still "amazed whenever I see people say ... it inspired them to make something."
John makes games as Space Goblin Games now and he's put out a proper successor to Seedship, Beyond the Chiron Gate. If you like what I made here, go play what he made first.
I owe many people thanks for being the shoulders that I stood on to start this game, but John is the start. I really appreciate it John, and I hope you know that being called "seedshiplike" is one of the biggest compliments I can receive, because that game is untouchable to me, and it's brought so many people joy over the years.
Music
I can't write a note. These people can, and they let me use theirs.
Scott Buckley — "The Long Dark," "Decoherence," "Permafrost"
Nihilore (James Opie) — "The Lights In The Sky Are Stars," "Crux," "Dreams of Escape"
Kevin MacLeod — "Stay the Course"
TinyWorlds (Rick Hoppmann) — "Narrow Corridors," "Grief and Anger," "Space Graveyard"
Maxstack — "Awakening," "Inevitable," "Deprecation," "Advanced Simulacra"
Christian DeTamble — "Timebender"
Hitctrl — "Drifting Beyond the Stars"
Ruskerdax — "Pondering the Cosmos"
Vitalezzz — "Claimed by the Void"
Stefan Grossman, Tsorthan Grove & migfus20 — "Continuum"
SRG774 — "Airy," "Title"
yd — "Out There"
Sound
Every beep, klaxon, and hull groan in the game were created by these people:
Kenney — the interface bed: clicks, confirms, the UI hum
rubberduck — sci-fi SFX: probes, research, alerts
inconsequentialist / Unicae Games — the soft typewriter keys
Bart — the cryo-wake steam release
NASA / Houston Audio Control Room — the real STS-87 Columbia launch
Freesound's CC0 crew — the ship's stress and alarms: bumpelsnake, SieuAmThanh, wrstone, Engineer_815, NachtmahrTV, Lewooz, belanhud, brunoboselli
3D models
The ship interiors and the ending scenes lean on models these folks built and shared.
Mixmamo.studio — "Spaceship 003 Control Room"
neilken — "Colony Ship Explorer"
the_table — "Spaceship Corridor"
Epilogue Ronin — "Cryopod"
wpanayides — "Server Racking System"
jakuza — "Sci-Fi Crates"
Binkley-Spacetrucker — "TF-DS-ENGINEERING" & "Cargo Commodities"
Tronin Dmitry (kosmotron) — "Sci-Fi Terminal"
tnnv — "Spacesuit"
Domenico D'Alisa — "DISCOVERY" astronaut
engine9 — "Solar System Planets Scale"
martinjario — "Skull"
offbranddoodles — "Crowbar"
chanmagomed — "Pipe Wrench"
agung.ihackstuff — "Mechanical Room"
sbastuff — "Scifi Room Interior"
Lumoize — "Fusion Reactor"
Jason_Phillips — "Low Poly Habitat" kit & greenhouse
Backgrounds, planets & textures
overboy — OVERSTELLAR animated pixel planets & stars
Screaming Brain Studios — seamless space backgrounds
Solar System Scope — planet surface textures
Poly Haven — HDRI skies & PBR metal/rust textures
NASA, ESA & the Hubble Heritage Team — "Mystic Mountain," the Carina Nebula
These are the people that took this ship out into the stars. Thank you again.
— Garan Lorn