After 3 long years, my hobby game project is almost done. Looking for any and all feedback!

[ArkisVir]

So 3 years ago, I decided to take my skills as a professional software developer, and avid board/video game player, and make the game I always wanted.   It's a 4-player strategy game that takes place in a sci-fi setting that mixes the deep strategy of board games with the awesome visual simulation that video games offer.. and it has online multiplayer!  You can play by yourself against AI opponents, or join some friends in a free-for-all  or human vs AI battle for the galaxy.

 

This started as a "passion project" and I think that's one of the things that will help make this game stand out in the competitive world of strategy games.  It offers a new experience to players in the genre due to its disdain for strict rule sets and the balance towards faster games.  You can play an entire game in 50-75 minutes, or set the victory conditions to any one of the longer variants that can last really as long as you want them to.

 

And what I mean when I say "disdain" for strict rule sets.. there are tons of events in this game that fundamentally alter how the game plays based on players choices.  Politics and diplomacy are at the forefront of the games design, and the outcome of these political agendas can gimp construction of space fleets, lock down a planet from being conquered, create uprisings, the list goes on.  Any of the games mechanics can, and will, be fundamentally altered throughout the game to create a unique experience every time you play. 

 

There is a ton more I can talk about, but if you're interested in seeing some of the general gameplay, check out this preview video I made.  Thanks for reading!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed9XbjEHPCE

[legoclone09]

This looks awesome! Is there a download anywhere? It reminds me of Civilization V with the hexagon tiles.

[ArkisVir]

Thanks! Yeah there is a closed beta right now, you can sign up at the forums here.  It's a small taste of the game for now so I can leave something for the final version.

http://forums.lnlpublishing.com/forums/falling-stars-war-of-empires.38/

If you sign up today I can get you in.  Just shoot me a message

[problemecium]

Neat! I too am interested in whether it has a download, although turn-based strategy isn't generally my thing.

[ArkisVir]

I'll post about some specific topics in the game.

Online Multiplayer and why we felt it was a critical part of Falling Stars

 

Most people are reminded more of the huge issues that online multiplayer brings to a 4x game rather than what it adds.  There's a good reason for this.  4x games are balanced towards solitary play (if they're balanced at all), they require a lot of time to manage your empire and each turn can take up to an hour to finish, if not more depending on the game and the player.  Micro level games, where you are in charge of production for each system, or even each planet, are simply not geared towards fluid multiplayer games.

 

Even ruling out turn-based games, RTS or pausable RTS have the same problems.  Most of the games require you to either stop the game in order to decide on what you want to do (which would be horrible in a multiplayer setting).  If they don't require that, they are just so darn long that 100 turns would take weeks or months to finish with another player.  That kind of commitment is not reasonable to expect.

 

So, why did we decide to have multiplayer in spite of these hurdles? Because the game was balanced to have the features of a contemporary video game, while also relying on the type of macro strategy and back stabbing that makes board games so enjoyable to play in one sitting.  While I have personally been inspired by MoO and SoaSE, this is not the exact same type of game as those.  You play a commander who makes 5-10 major command decisions per turn, which can take anywhere from 2-5 minutes, and each of which carries a huge impact and rewarding gameplay.  All games I've played have required careful set up and strategic decisions in order to block another player, or make a huge play.  I'm not spending tons of time reading through long tech trees, or checking up on every planets production, or even setting up governors.  I'm planning how I can overthrow the leader of the galactic council, or flank the strongest military thread!  These are BIG decisions that don't require dozens of turns to plan, it all happens fast.

 

Ok, so that being said, how long does a typical game last? I've mentioned this before, and the only real limiting factor is how many AI opponents you have.  A 4 player game against other human players will take 60-75 minutes, whereas a single player game against AI can be over 45-60 minutes.  An hour seems to be about as long as most people can allot from their day, and we've tried to stay true to that.

 

Now, what about those players who want a game they can drag on, and come back to later? There are multiple victory conditions you can choose from, some much longer than others.  What I referenced above is our "vanilla" ruleset, which is what the game is balanced towards.  This is a 20 victory point game where you gain VPs from technology advancement, battle, politics, and other in-game missions.  But if you just want a total extermination variant, or a larger galaxy with more victory points, these are totally configurable, so never fear!

 

Alright that's my spiel on multiplayer, I'll get back to the tactical actions next time!

 

Edited December 15, 2015 by ArkisVir

[ArkisVir]

Some more info on the game (and just pm me if you want to play!)

I'm a huge fan of Frank Herbert's Dune, and I tried to capture how technical and subtle galactic rivalries are. Because of this, you can be at total war with someone, but still negotiating with them at the round table. I think this makes the game more "realistic" (if you can call something so hypothetical and theoretical realistic) in that wars between empires are not one-dimensional. 
 

There various types of agendas you can resolve as well. You can hold elections which can have both positive and negative consequences, and affect one player in particular.  These are especially fun because the player who wins gets a victory point, even if the outcome is negative.  So one player might have to pay an extremely high trade tax, that will gimp them in resources, but they might take the hit and move forward in victory points.

 

Players also vote on agendas that have positive and negative outcomes.  Lets say the unions in charge of maintaining construction facilities are feeling undervalued.  You can vote to only allow new constructions facilities to build this round (whereas normally you need to wait a turn for new OCFs) or else NO ONE can build that round.

 

As you can see, all kinds of things can happen when the galaxy is living and breathing.  Not to mention all of this can be modded too to support whatever other effects you might want!

[Camacha]

It already looks great. The models look nice and the gameplay well thought out. One thing I do notice is that you might need a polish up in the text department, specifically fonts. Icon and graphic design actually looks pretty good, but the text might benefit from a look over by someone with some more experience in that area.

I am interested to see where this goes

[ArkisVir]

Thanks for the input! Ive felt the same way, but just put it on the backburner because no one had commented on it before.  Its an easy thing to swap out so I can probably come up with something

[ArkisVir]

While it's already late in development as the game will be released in the next 1-2 months, for an expansion I think it would be great to have some sort of persistence between matches, kind of like what Risk Legacy does.

 

Say you are playing in a galaxy with 3 of your friends, and the winner of the game gets to choose some improvements or advancements that they want for the next game.  But between games, the universe is transformed by AI through simulation, so what the winning player has really done is set a "seed" for the simulation to create the next game board.

 

This gives a potential bonus to the winning player (maybe even potential detriment, but at least they had the decision!) and an ever-changing gameboard that has little bits and pieces inspired by all previous games you've played with friends in your "story".  Good idea or bad idea?

[TopHeavy11]

This smell like Space Engineers...

[ArkisVir]

Just checked out that game, and it doesn't really share many similarities other than that they both take place in space: Here's my steam page: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=387410923

[ArkisVir]

Progress on Falling Stars went great in December, with some finishing touches on the Single Player version of the game, completion of almost all of the features, and tons and tons and tons of feedback from beta testers (much of which has already been incorporated into the base game).  Hearing players frustrations about UI woes,lack of tutorials, unintuitiveness, etc in other games and getting their input on how we could avoid that is 100% the biggest takeaway from we had from this last month of work.  Being the developer on a game and understanding every nook and cranny will always leave you blind to the player experience, so we logged every bullet point of feedback we received, implemented everything that wasn't a major change in the core game, incorporated some things that WERE major changes to the core game, and the rest we put on a schedule to either patch in post-release as little enhancements or even sneak in before release.

One feature that our next beta build will make available to players is the diplomacy system, which is really a mixture of many systems but encompasses the majority of diplomatic relations especially with the lesser races in the galaxy.  This directly influences your ability to expand your empire, because you need to interact directly with each planet you encounter when you decide to conquer them and use up all of the planets resources, or instead form a treaty with them where you get an offering in place of resources each turn.  

Whether or not you choose to "Barter" with them or "Conquer" them is dependent on a few different things, and it makes each decision meaningful but also very very important:

    *Who the allies of that particular planet are  
    *Who the enemies of that particular planet are  
    *How close the planet is to enemy territory
    *What your particular needs are at that point in the game

To expand on what I mean by the above, when you discover a planet you have 3 options: Conquer, Barter, or... do nothing.  Just orbit the planet until you're ready to make a decision on what you want to do.  While orbiting a planet gives you no immediate benefits, it protects the planet from the grasp of another empire, and it also allows you use a very well-timed barter to take other players by surprise.  Bartering can give you instant technology, resources, fleet, or even cause an uprising on another planet.  So if another player takes their ground forces off of the ally of the planet you are guarding, and you cause an uprising, it will immediately revert it back to neutral, forcing the player to lose the resource benefits of the planet.  That's just one of many examples.

Conquering is much like your typical exploitation in 4x games.  You take the planet by force, defeating any uprising and gaining their resources each turn.  Pretty simple.  But what you also much take into account, and why this is so closely tied with diplomacy, is that each planet has allies and enemies.  If you conquer a planet, their enemies will rejoice and you can potentially gain additional bartering benefits from them.  However, their allies will shun you, and can potentially reduce your benefits to zero, or even cause an uprising on one of the planets you've already conquered, temporarily costing you valuable resources.

This really just skims the surface, but keep in mind every planet has their own unique set of allies and enemies, bartering benefits, resources, and influence and based on their random placement throughout the galaxy every game, it makes for a really unique experience and challenge every time you play.

[ArkisVir]

Hey guys, I know I was quiet on this for a while but I finally have huge news! We will be releasing the game April 12th.  Here's the launch trailer!