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TychoCelchuuu
Jan 2, 2012

This space for Rent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56fCuO7JEy4



House of the Dying Sun is a space sim. You fly a starfighter around and blow stuff up. Also eventually you get to recruit other ships and order them around while you fly around. Your goal is to assassinate the traitor lords. You can play it with an Oculus Rift. You can play it with a gamepad. You can play it in space. It comes out on Steam Early Access in June 2016.

Links

TychoCelchuuu fucked around with this message at 15:14 on May 27, 2016

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meadowlark
May 25, 2012
I hate how 'rogue-like' has become a catch-all term for anything random.

Jackie D
May 27, 2009

Democracy is like a tambourine - not everyone can be trusted with it.


Amazing concept, and I hope it ends up looking a lot better than it does right now. I'm not a graphics-whore by any stretch, but those screens are hard for me to look at.


Sir_Seth posted:

I hate how 'rogue-like' has become a catch-all term for anything random.

Also can we not do this I hate this argument

TychoCelchuuu
Jan 2, 2012

This space for Rent.
Randomized campaign/encounters + permadeath are the two key components but I've edited the offending word out of the OP so that we don't have to be invaded by pedants.

Personally I think the graphics look amazing. It's like Flotilla but up close and personal. The developer has mentioned in YouTube comments that he has thought about doing a Kickstarter to hire an artist but I hope nothing ever changes. The game is beautiful as it is.

1stGear
Jan 16, 2010

Here's to the new us.
The flight model looks solid and very Freespace-y. I like the touch of being able to free-look around the cockpit and I like that there's apparently a system for ordering wingmates around. Honestly, if he just copied everything about the flying over from Freespace, I would be a-okay with that.

The brief clip of the pre-mission planning seems interesting but spergy. I think my main hope there would be that the friendly AI is intelligent enough to effectively use what you give them and when/where you have them warp in. If you have to meticulously plot out every arrival and weapon, its going to suck the fun out of the game instantly.

I also hope that the game starts you in the middle of big capital ship battles and Cool Stuff fairly soon. Rogue-like-inspired games (gently caress you I'll call it what I want) have a tendency to make you grind through a bunch of simple, boring bullshit at the beginning. Freespace 2 had you zipping between big-rear end ships blowing each other up a couple of missions in. If the first ten missions of each campaign are you and a bunch of fighters fighting a bunch of other fighters, its going to be boring as hell and make me not want to start a new campaign.

MadMattH
Sep 8, 2011
The graphics I hope are just placeholders, they look like Starfox 64. The not-even-attempting-to-be-realistic graphics are what turned me off of Flotilla. It just take away from the immersion factor. Otherwise the idea sounds pretty cool.

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007
This doesn't look very fun to me, it also seems like one of the weapons is like mounted on the nose of the spaceship or something, making it so you have to chase and center enemies to shoot at them. The flying part looks very smooth and I liked that the turning seemed to be sharp, so you don't have to do a big loop or flip to turn around. I'm a sucker for perma-death and randomized content, though.

Spaceman Future!
Feb 9, 2007

Khanstant posted:

This doesn't look very fun to me, it also seems like one of the weapons is like mounted on the nose of the spaceship or something, making it so you have to chase and center enemies to shoot at them.

This post but the opposite, I love the old school non turret dogfighting. Its all about thrust control.

Pacing looks awesome, responsive quick dogfighting. Dude needs some serious help in the art dept. though, but as long as the engine is solid he should be able to bring someone onboard for texturing and models. So long as he addresses that this could be a real nice timesink.

Babby Sathanas
May 16, 2006

bearbating is now adorable
I was really on-board with this right up until...

TychoCelchuuu posted:

a randomized campaign with permadeath.

Ugh, I am so sick of this crutch being used. Outside of exploration games I'm yet to play a game for which randomised levels aren't terrible. It is so far from being a replacement for designed levels it's not even funny.

It always feels like such a misguided thing to do. The initial thought being "I don't have time to make content, I know, the game will make content for me!" and then 6 months down the line you realise how hard it is to make random generation give you something good and by that point it's too late.

quote:

Freespace 2 had you zipping between big-rear end ships blowing each other up a couple of missions in.

FS2 does it in the very first mission. It's supposed to draw you in immediately, it's a very well designed game. Imagine that, a game with levels that a human thought up for other humans to play.

Babby Sathanas fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Jan 26, 2013

ModeSix
Mar 14, 2009

MadMattH posted:

The graphics I hope are just placeholders, they look like Starfox 64. The not-even-attempting-to-be-realistic graphics are what turned me off of Flotilla. It just take away from the immersion factor. Otherwise the idea sounds pretty cool.

I think the graphical style is simple but elegant. Games don't always have to use high-res quadruple phased seamless realistic actual superHD textures to look really good. This uses a very interesting palette and I for one approve.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Baby Sathanas posted:

Ugh, I am so sick of this crutch being used. Outside of exploration games I'm yet to play a game for which randomised levels aren't terrible. It is so far from being a replacement for designed levels it's not even funny.

What like the Diablo series? Or the Dawn of War expansion campaigns? Or when playing Sins of a Solar Empire? Any number of games have pulled off the dynamic gameplay shtick pretty well. The trick is to keep a hand on the tiller and make sure that the player isn't simply at the mercy of the randomizer. I'm all for games with a dynamic campaign. This looks pretty sweet.

Babby Sathanas
May 16, 2006

bearbating is now adorable

Kaal posted:

What like the Diablo series? Or the Dawn of War expansion campaigns? Or when playing Sins of a Solar Empire?

Yes, absolutely. Diablo is so loving boring, it's just a loot grind, there's nothing else to it. It's hollow and soulless in the worst way.

Since when were the DoW expansion campaigns randomly generated? They were a series of connected skirmish maps with a handful of fun levels at enemy HQs. I don't know a single person who prefered the DoW expansion campaigns to the original and Winter Assault's. They were panned for this very reason. :confused:

hopterque
Mar 9, 2007

     sup
I think he meant dawn of war 2 and expansions.

SBJ
Apr 10, 2009

Apple of My Eye

Laughter in the Sky
This game sounds like it could scratch the Freespace itch but I hate the graphics. I've seen games from the 90's that look better than this poo poo. Then again, feel free to ignore my opinion as I'm the kind of person who wouldn't touch a game that has worse graphics than the Nintendo 64 in 2013 unless it's some gem like Bastion. It's just lazy and I think the presentation of a game is just as important as the programming.

hopterque
Mar 9, 2007

     sup

SBJ posted:

This game sounds like it could scratch the Freespace itch but I hate the graphics. I've seen games from the 90's that look better than this poo poo. Then again, feel free to ignore my opinion as I'm the kind of person who wouldn't touch a game that has worse graphics than the Nintendo 64 in 2013 unless it's some gem like Bastion. It's just lazy and I think the presentation of a game is just as important as the programming.

Bastion has incredible graphics though, it is a gorgeous game.


I think the art style is great, personally, I like the simplistic stylized thing it has going on.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
I really like the aesthetics of the game. I loved the black and white monitor in the cockpit of the fighter.

TychoCelchuuu
Jan 2, 2012

This space for Rent.

Baby Sathanas posted:

I was really on-board with this right up until...

[random]

Ugh, I am so sick of this crutch being used. Outside of exploration games I'm yet to play a game for which randomised levels aren't terrible. It is so far from being a replacement for designed levels it's not even funny.
We don't know what degree of randomization there is. It might just be that you get pre-planned levels in a different order. The game's still in pre-alpha so I think it might be a little early to start deciding that it's terrible. Then again if you hated Diablo then I suppose it is possible that you actually do have a hatred of anything at all random (although if you hated Diablo because it's a boring grind I don't think you necessarily hated the random part of it).

Kind of surprised, or maybe not surprised but rather disappointed, to see a lot of unhappiness with the graphics. I look at games like Freelancer and Darkstart One and Strike Suit Zero and Sol: Exodus and Evochron and Tarr Chronicles and Battlecruiser 3000 and Starshatter and they all just look... uninteresting. It's like come on, I can only play so many games that do a mediocre job of ripping off Star Wars before they just become instantly forgettable. Right now, Enemy Starfighter looks like something new and fresh and beautiful and spare, and I hope it never changes. But I suppose that any interesting aesthetic choice that departs from the fairly boring norm is always going to be met with push-back, which is how you know it's an interesting aesthetic choice.

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry
Master of Orion and X-COM had randomly generated lots of things, and those were great games.

Random generation can be done well. It is too early to say with this game. I personally find the concept interesting, so I'll keep an eye on it.

Bruxism
Apr 29, 2009

Absolutely not anxious about anything.

Bleak Gremlin

TychoCelchuuu posted:

We don't know what degree of randomization there is. It might just be that you get pre-planned levels in a different order. The game's still in pre-alpha so I think it might be a little early to start deciding that it's terrible. Then again if you hated Diablo then I suppose it is possible that you actually do have a hatred of anything at all random (although if you hated Diablo because it's a boring grind I don't think you necessarily hated the random part of it).

Kind of surprised, or maybe not surprised but rather disappointed, to see a lot of unhappiness with the graphics. I look at games like Freelancer and Darkstart One and Strike Suit Zero and Sol: Exodus and Evochron and Tarr Chronicles and Battlecruiser 3000 and Starshatter and they all just look... uninteresting. It's like come on, I can only play so many games that do a mediocre job of ripping off Star Wars before they just become instantly forgettable. Right now, Enemy Starfighter looks like something new and fresh and beautiful and spare, and I hope it never changes. But I suppose that any interesting aesthetic choice that departs from the fairly boring norm is always going to be met with push-back, which is how you know it's an interesting aesthetic choice.

This game looks awesome and I'll be watching it closely. I'm excited with the randomization as well as the art style. I've played plenty of games with a few great set-pieces connected by strings of random missions. For a small developer like this it really allows them to release a game with an amount of content that would normally be beyond their means. Also, I'm totally cool with unconventional looking Space. It actually reminds me of the style from Flotilla.

timn
Mar 16, 2010
There are a lot things I really like from that first trailer in the OP. I'm very intrigued by the idea of coming up with your own tactical plan of engagement for each mission. Kind of like a Rainbow Six/SWAT but in space. I imagine orchestrating operations where your forces jump in for a blitzkrieg surprise attack, complete the objective, and get back out before enemy reinforcements can respond.

I also love all of the little touches in the audio. The realistic sounding radio chatter, the sound of your pilot breathing through his oxygen mask, the way the ship engines and explosions tend towards low vibrating rumbles. I find a lot of space combat games out there tend towards an extremely arcadey style that I've always thought feels shallow and flippant. Touches like this though give the game a kind of gravity and sense of realism that harkens back to glory days of Freespace, Starlancer, Tachyon, etc.

Lastly, I do dig the art style. It gives the game a very clean look that is easy to parse even with loads of stuff going on. It's abstract enough to give a nostalgic retro feel, yet combined with the nice audio touches it still feels immersive. If the developer does get an artist on board, I hope they can refine the visuals without losing the sweet spot they're in right now.

Very excited.

MadMattH
Sep 8, 2011

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Kind of surprised, or maybe not surprised but rather disappointed, to see a lot of unhappiness with the graphics. I look at games like Freelancer and Darkstart One and Strike Suit Zero and Sol: Exodus and Evochron and Tarr Chronicles and Battlecruiser 3000 and Starshatter and they all just look... uninteresting. It's like come on, I can only play so many games that do a mediocre job of ripping off Star Wars before they just become instantly forgettable. Right now, Enemy Starfighter looks like something new and fresh and beautiful and spare, and I hope it never changes. But I suppose that any interesting aesthetic choice that departs from the fairly boring norm is always going to be met with push-back, which is how you know it's an interesting aesthetic choice.

Well that's kind of the whole point, the graphics aren't new or fresh or even beutiful. The only thing they are is spare. If they were new or interesting then there would't be comparisons to 90's game graphics. The only reason that the aesthetics seem to be an "interesting" choice is that they look so outdated. Nothing new is being presented in this game's graphics. If you watch the video, just about every ship explosion and laser shot looks directly ripped from some older game.

EDIT:

Oh and by the way if you look at the guys Dec 12th blog entry, he straight up says that it's placeholder art. So I guess until we see the actual art, the art discussion is moot.

MadMattH fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jan 26, 2013

TychoCelchuuu
Jan 2, 2012

This space for Rent.
Yes, it's placeholder art, but the question is whether the finished game will look like a first person version of Flotilla, with orange space and spare, flat colors and simple geometric shapes for the ships, or a first person version of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident and pretty much every other space game we've ever played. Like, when you're whipping up placeholder art you don't accidentally make space orange. I feel like if the goal were to look like most other space sim games, space would be black at this point.

Stocking
Jul 24, 2007

Maybe it's piss.

Farecoal
Oct 15, 2011

There he go

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Yes, it's placeholder art, but the question is whether the finished game will look like a first person version of Flotilla, with orange space and spare, flat colors and simple geometric shapes for the ships, or a first person version of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident and pretty much every other space game we've ever played. Like, when you're whipping up placeholder art you don't accidentally make space orange. I feel like if the goal were to look like most other space sim games, space would be black at this point.

On the one hand, I do like myself some ultra-realistic metallic explosiony special-effects space-sim graphics. On the other hand, this is kind of refreshing.

MadMattH
Sep 8, 2011

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Yes, it's placeholder art, but the question is whether the finished game will look like a first person version of Flotilla, with orange space and spare, flat colors and simple geometric shapes for the ships, or a first person version of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident and pretty much every other space game we've ever played. Like, when you're whipping up placeholder art you don't accidentally make space orange. I feel like if the goal were to look like most other space sim games, space would be black at this point.

It really could be neither, It doesn't have to be one or the other.

TychoCelchuuu
Jan 2, 2012

This space for Rent.

MadMattH posted:

It really could be neither, It doesn't have to be one or the other.
That's certainly true, I drew a hell of a false dichotomy there. I guess the best option would be a third, really - something like Homeworld would combine the best of both worlds. Unique + colorful instead of "let's try to ape Star Wars" but also with high production values and shiny stuff for people who don't like the stark, simple flat colors of Flotilla or the placeholder graphics. Space was often orange in Homeworld too! Anything to get us away from generic sci-fi.

MadMattH
Sep 8, 2011

TychoCelchuuu posted:

That's certainly true, I drew a hell of a false dichotomy there. I guess the best option would be a third, really - something like Homeworld would combine the best of both worlds. Unique + colorful instead of "let's try to ape Star Wars" but also with high production values and shiny stuff for people who don't like the stark, simple flat colors of Flotilla or the placeholder graphics. Space was often orange in Homeworld too! Anything to get us away from generic sci-fi.

Now that's something I'd like to see. A Homeworld art style would fit this perfectly.

Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


This game looks awesome. I personally like the simplistic art style and hope it doesn't change too much, though I'll be fine if it gets a more realistic style (though personally realistic "Boilerplate" style is so... mundane at this point). I definitely wouldn't complain if the game had colorful, early 80s sci-fi Chris Foss style artwork, ala Homeworld.

The_White_Crane
May 10, 2008
This looks pretty drat cool!

I have just one question:
If all other allied fighters have been destroyed, do you get Death Blossom (a weapon of last resort)?

Phrosphor
Feb 25, 2007

Urbanisation

I really like the look of this, I hope that you can include bigger ships in your mission planning. I would love cool stuff like dropping into a hostile system knowing that I have some battlecruisers or suchlike hotdropping in once I have pissed off the enemy enough to commit something important.

I just want to see big ships shoot at each other.

hemale in pain
Jun 5, 2010




I really don't mind the graphics, it look nicer if the background wasn't poo brown but I assume down the road that will be something randomly generated. A big part of randomly generated content for me is exploring so I hope it doesn't just dump you into combat every time and sometimes you'll have to search through an asteroid field or something.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

NoneSuch posted:

I really don't mind the graphics, it look nicer if the background wasn't poo brown but I assume down the road that will be something randomly generated. A big part of randomly generated content for me is exploring so I hope it doesn't just dump you into combat every time and sometimes you'll have to search through an asteroid field or something.

On the Homeworld theme that brings to mind missions like the super nova station and derelict ship levels from the original or the mission where you had to escort the crippled carrier in Cataclysm. This game couldn't directly copy them but it could take inspiration from it.

Spaceman Future!
Feb 9, 2007

TychoCelchuuu posted:

That's certainly true, I drew a hell of a false dichotomy there. I guess the best option would be a third, really - something like Homeworld would combine the best of both worlds. Unique + colorful instead of "let's try to ape Star Wars" but also with high production values and shiny stuff for people who don't like the stark, simple flat colors of Flotilla or the placeholder graphics. Space was often orange in Homeworld too! Anything to get us away from generic sci-fi.

You can have a more "realistic" (I mean, its all fake spaceships but hey) visual style without making everything just black space. You draw out Nexus, remember that minefield mission? There's your problem, you're drawing the line way to hard. You can have those super sharp visuals on the ships without having everything in a void, take a look at Freelancer. Colors and skyboxes like that with a more intense dogfighting focus would be perfect.

Shart Carbuncle
Aug 4, 2004

Star Trek:
The Motion Picture
I love the look. For a one person operation, it's a far better direction to go in than, say,



Not to crap on the work of the StarWraith guy, because his games are cool, but artless piles of detail are not attractive. I find the screenshots of this thing very pleasing. I also loved the look of Flotilla.

Willie Tomg
Feb 2, 2006
Woah, someone is finally making the game I've wanted since the day I found the cockpit-camera in Homeworld: Cataclysm's demo...


I. Require. Fresh. Pants.


If they (or I guess "he" since its just one dude for now) make(s) capital ship battles Freespace levels of interesting this is a slam dunk purchase.

my kinda ape
Sep 15, 2008

Everything's gonna be A-OK
Oven Wrangler

Willie Tomg posted:

I. Require. Fresh. Pants.

As do I.

There's so many visual and audio nods to Homeworld and Freespace in the trailer that I'm going to have a nostalgia boner for the next week.

Ringo Star Get
Sep 18, 2006

JUST FUCKING TAKE OFF ALREADY, SHIT
How can I throw money at this project? This is everything I've been wanting for a long time.

TychoCelchuuu
Jan 2, 2012

This space for Rent.
He's working on the AI right now and posted a screenshot of it in progress with what I assume is debug information:

Biplane
Jul 18, 2005

I think it looks sickeningly good. It just screams HOMEWORLD to me! The broad, dark colors, the sense of scale (which is something I miss in a lot of games). How can I give this person money?

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Glimpse
Jun 5, 2011


The mission planning and dynamic campaign remind me of Falcon 3. I always wished more games would take up that idea. the actual combat looks pretty rad too. I'm all about this.

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