Posts from ‘Physics’ Category

DevLog Spotlight: Relativity

By: Derek Yu

On: July 8th, 2015

Relativity, by Willy Chyr

What if gravity worked differently, and you could walk on walls and ceilings? In the world of Willy Chyr’s RELATIVITY, the universe repeats endlessly in every direction. Falling down actually leads you to the top. In this world, up is down and down is up. It’s all relative.

Willy Chyr has been conscientiously updating his TIGForums devlog for Relativity since November, 2013, when the game was a much-different-looking prototype. An installation artist who studied physics in school, Willy takes us with him step-by-step through the process of developing his game, discussing everything from architecture to Unity technology to game conventions in depth, with plenty of screenshots and gifs to boot. It’s hard to ask anything more of a devlog and the game, which promises beautiful puzzle worlds that repeat infinitely in every direction, is worth checking out.

The game is slated for 2016 release on PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, and Linux.

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Kerbal Space Program v1.0 Has Been Launched

By: Alehkhs

On: April 27th, 2015

Version 1.0 of Kerbal Space Program, the premier game from independent Mexican studio Squad, has achieved liftoff.

Kerbal Space Program has been under development now for over four years, and this final update before leaving Early Access brings with it some of the most requested features yet. The aerodynamics model has been completely overhauled, making atmospheric flight more realistic – and more challenging, with the addition of re-entry heat. Additionally, interplanetary prospecting and off-world mining have also been added, allowing players to establish mining colonies to gather and process the mysterious “ore” into fuel. And the kerbals that will be stationed on those colonies will no longer all be unisexual: Female kerbals have arrived. Finally, in addition to a collection of new and polished spaceship parts, Squad has also gone through and added interiors to every manned part, allowing players to take a more immersive look through the eyes of their brave kerbal explorers.

Whether you are a veteran kerbonaut, or you’ve never played the game, right now is a fantastic time to check out Kerbal Space Program. Even as version 1.0 leaves the launch pad, Squad is busy planning future updates, with more features, more learning, and more exploration.

Game Website / Steam Page / GOG Page

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Kickstart This: Catacomb Kids

By: Lorne Whiting

On: December 6th, 2013

FourbitFriday’s game Catacomb Kids has just under 5 days left for it’s Kickstarter campaign. The game is a platformer roguelike with a heavy emphasis on the roguelike elements when compared to similar games, with random enchantments on equipment, the ability to chop limbs off of your opponents (or have your own cut off), and deep interactions between objects in the game.

Though its reached its goal already, Catacomb Kids is worth checking out if just for the depth shown in the short video above.

Sui Generis: Pre-Alpha Gameplay

By: Derek Yu

On: November 18th, 2013

Bare Mettle Entertainment has released the first public footage of Sui Generis since its Kickstarter began a year ago. This video was announced to backers with the following message:

Somewhat later than promised, here finally is a new public video!

During development it’s easy to dismiss many glitches and other issues due to things being unfinished and as you know we are developing all technology in house. As we endeavoured to make this video we became determined to solve every issue we encountered rather than avoiding them or using temporary workarounds. We are after all making a game, not just videos. The game is now very stable, the performance is solid and we removed every glitch we could find.

While the game still deserves many tweaks and improvements, and we want to continue improving it almost indefinitely, we feel we’ve reached a good level of quality and functionality. We’ve avoided showing some aspects of the game that we don’t feel are complete enough yet but we tried to convey the spirit of the game in the video’s narrative. Hope you enjoy it!

The physics-based combat (which looks a little more stable now) has rightly drawn a lot of attention, but Bare Mettle has promised a lot of things for Sui Generis: a detailed and highly-interactive open world, non-linear storytelling, and deep customization. Time will tell whether the game lives up to those ambitions, but even if the team quit now, at least we’d still have the best “medieval tripping on furniture” simulation out there. In all seriousness, though, good luck to them – I’m really looking forward to this one.

(Source)

Kerbal Space Program 0.22

By: Alehkhs

On: October 15th, 2013

The 0.22 update for Kerbal Space Program is scheduled to launch tomorrow, and will bring with it a new research-and-development system.

This update will be the first version to allow players access to the structured “Campaign” mode, which attempts to provide more structured gameplay than the current “Sandbox” mode. Players will now be able to collect scientific data on their various missions, which can then be used to progress along a branched tech tree and unlock new, more advanced parts. The game’s development studio, Squad, has plans to add even more of a “tycoon-like” structure to the game in future updates, with a part-cost system and procedurally-generated missions.

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Kerbal Space Program 0.21

By: Alehkhs

On: July 24th, 2013

The 0.21 update to Kerbal Space Program has arrived, bringing with it a slew of new parts for building rockets and planes.

KSP 0.18

Also added in this update are a terrain overhaul, a revamped Kerbal Space Center, and the ability to “hire” specific Kerbals and assign them to missions. While this hiring feature currently doesn’t offer much beyond more control over who’s on what mission, it lays some of the groundwork for KSP developer, Squad, to begin working on the eagerly awaited “Career Mode” for the game – which is planned to add mission contracts and funding rewards for players based on their progress, providing a more Kerbal Space “Tycoon” gameplay experience.

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Antichamber

By: Derek Yu

On: February 11th, 2013

Antichamber, by Alexander Bruce

It’s maybe easiest to compare Antichamber to Portal, but it actually reminds me more of The Manhole, an old children’s adventure game where a boat ride down a river might take you into the teacup of a character you were chatting with earlier. Like that game, Antichamber is constantly subverting your expectations about what is possible, especially with regards to physical space, and gives you a relatively large amount of freedom to explore its interconnected world. However, whereas The Manhole was goalless and sometimes completely random, Antichamber has a logic behind it – a method to its madness – that makes it such an interesting puzzler (and a technical marvel, as well).

There’s no story to speak of in the game and barely even any text. Instead, proverbs are found on posters as you play, encouraging outside and inside the box thinking in life and acting as simple metaphors for the game’s puzzles. Antichamber is almost self-referential in this sense, since, according to its press page, the development got its start 7 years ago through “a series of naive programming mistakes” made by its creator, Alexander Bruce. And just as Bruce must have undoubtedly felt surprised, frustrated, and ultimately elated during his development of the game, so should fans of puzzle games that end up playing this terrific title.

Kerbal Space Program 0.18

By: Alehkhs

On: November 30th, 2012

Rocket-construction and space-exploration game Kerbal Space Program celebrated its two-year anniversary tonight, and version 0.18 has just launched.

Kerbal Space Program 0.18

The jump to 0.18 is the largest update KSP has seen and brings with it many new additions, including new resource and flight-planning systems, new parts like solar panels and unmanned probes, the ability to dock ships together, two new celestial bodies to explore, and more.

On a two-year anniversary stream, the team behind KSP also unveiled Kerbal SpacePort a new community hub for the sharing of user-created content. Future development plans were discussed as well, including aspects like weather, resource-mining, and rover creation.

Desperate Gods

By: Derek Yu

On: November 29th, 2012

Desperate Gods is an open source “digital board game” developed by Wolfire Games for Fuck This Jam, a week-and-a-half-long game jam based around making games in genres you generally dislike. In his design overview, Wolfire’s David Rosen describes how he enjoys board games but feels that their video game counterparts lack a lot of what makes them fun. Check out the video above to see how he and artist Aubrey Serr tried to overcome these problems while developing a unique board game from the ground up.

Kickstart This: Sui Generis

By: Derek Yu

On: November 9th, 2012

Sui Generis is the name of a new RPG from Bare Mettle Entertainment. Well, it’s really just a tech demo at this point, but the engine and toolset behind it are extremely promising, offering powerful physics simulation and impressive procedurally-generated terrain at the click of a button. Combat is also physics-based and while it currently looks quite wobbly (drunken is perhaps more accurate), it seems like great fun, too.

RPG players have a lot to look forward to these days from the indie game development community, with lots of small developers bunkering down for the long-term to develop their dream games. Dwarf Fortress, Age of Decadence, Grim Dawn, Kenshi, Starfarer, and the candy-coated Cube World all show a lot of potential. Hopefully Sui Generis will join them in seeing a successful release some day.

Also, this is probably as good a time as any to announce that Kickstarter has finally opened its doors to the UK.

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