Developer Diary 07: Protogalaxy

After our full reveal infinite (previously known as the project title of Kepler), the response has been outstanding! Comments on the blog, from twitter, email, facebook, in person, whichever, all have been extremely positive and we’re very pleased that everyone is excited about our new game.

We’ve been cracking away at the game even more, and have some of the features more fleshed out and realized now. The biggest design overhaul we have had recently was the galaxy , this plays a big part of the game and is far from a simple menu.

The galaxy not only a map and guide to all the various levels, but it shows player progression as well as the users creativity. As we’ve stated before in a previous developer diary, each galaxy is unique to every player. Since there is no specific design for a galaxy, we’ve decided to let the player create their own, in space, the possibilities are infinite. At first it will appear barren, but the more the user plays, the more stars will form, populating their galaxy. We allow each user to place their stars manually before they are born, this concept enables players to design the galaxy as they see fit.

As you can see from the examples below, you’ll be able to tell the difference from a novice player who may have a smaller, low populated galaxy (top), from an experienced player who may have a much larger galaxy with many stars (bottom). Please note that these images are just from a prototype demo and is not from the actual game, galaxies won’t be square.

The colour of your galaxy will all be dependent on how you play the game, each star has a colour and based on game mode and player performance will change the colour and brightness of that particular star. If the star is placed rather close to a neighboring star, then their colours will blend, forming a new the colour around them (ex. a red star within close proximity of a blue star will blend and will appear to be purple). This dynamically changes the galaxy but allows users to get creative if they wish for their galaxy to appear a particular colour.

Right now, as you can see, this system is very early in development but is our main focus right now. We will be talking more about how our galaxy system works as well as more features of this system in a future dev dairy. Remember, be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest information and development progress.