Companions "Welcome to the party, pal!" In my last devlog, I discussed non-combat support personnel that you could recruit for your cause. This devlog will focus on combat companions/party members. These are allies you can recruit to join you on missions if you choose, or you can opt to go it alone. There might be some people that want to murder hobo everyone in the game, including potential companions. Yes, there's even room for serial killers in Sector Unknown... Read More
Support Personnel In your adventures across various planets, you'll have the opportunity to recruit a wide range of characters into your organization. While not all of these characters are suited for combat, they will each bring unique skills and contributions that are vital toward your success... Read More
Space Travel In Sector Unknown you find yourself stranded on the desert planet Maku. From there, once you find a ship of your own, the stars open up to you with six story planets available to explore and bring under your control, either through diplomacy or by force... Read More
Bounty Hunting & Contracts In Null Sector, a region unmarked on star charts and devoid of formal settlements, inhabitants are continually threatened by both bipedal adversaries and wild beasts. To counteract these dangers, locals sometimes gather their resources to handle a threat beyond their capacity. Read More
Crafting & Resources After claiming the abandoned mining facility on Maku as your base, you will unlock crafting in the game... Read More
After creating quite a few strategy games as an indie (and mostly solo) developer, I decided to create an cRPG instead. This is the genre that I find myself playing and enjoying the most, from classics such as Baldur’s Gate 2, Fallout 2, Fallout New Vegas, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, to more contemporary games such as Pillars of Eternity, Outer Worlds, Colony Ship, Trudograd, Underrail, and Encased. In short, I really, really like RPGs, and especially ones that use an isometric angle of gameplay.
Sector Unknown is sort of my love letter to both the classics and the contemporaries. I think I’m better suited for telling a story than number crunching strategy games (as evidenced by my mixture of reviews in that genre).
After three years working part-time (well almost full time) on the systems, the game is close to complete on features (movement, inventory, party management, quests, dialogue, crafting, combat, itemization, space flight, etc). I’m aiming to have a demo for the game completed in a month or so. It’s close to completion now, but I’m still not happy with the tutorial level. What I do not want is for it to be a barrier to entry like the much-maligned temple tutorial level in Fallout 2 (I almost never experienced the rest of that fantastic game due to being so turned off by the temple).
The goal for this game is to launch into Early Access. I intend to have over half of the game completed by that EA launch with full launch occurring 6-9 months after that. The idea to do an EA launch was not one taken lightly, but one thing I have found with my past launches is that just when I think a game is bug-free and ready for a seamless launch, players will find new and interesting ways to break things – leading to frantic post-launch schedule of rushing out bug-fixes and patches. I think this way is better. Launch into Early Access and take player feedback over time so that I can get everything sorted for a smooth launch after that.
The other factor is budget. Right now, I do not have the armor or model system in place for player characters and NPCs. These are assets. This will change before Early Access as I have the models done (with no armor or clothing yet), but even after that, I suspect I will need some of the additional revenue from EA launch to finish the last 2-3 planets (as mentioned I aim to have 3-4 story planets complete for EA launch, with the first one ready for the demo in the coming month or so).
I hope people will wishlist and follow this game. It’s always been a dream of mine to create a sci-fi cRPG, and there doesn’t seem to be many on the market except for Colony Ship (which I completed three times). So I hope there’s a market for something like this, a game taking inspiration from early Bioware and some of the great current game developers on the market today.
I will continue to provide updates in the next while, including game systems, story, ideas, and more. I really look forward to people's feedback and thoughts as well.
Age of Gladiators Reforged Launched! 50% Discount For Owners
Thanks for your patience last week with the delay.
Age of Gladiators Reforged has now launched (a few minutes early even!)
I hope you all enjoy the new version of the game. It was a lot of fun for me to revisit my first foray into game design. Looking at my old code I had to shake my head. This one is a complete remake from scratch - the nice thing as well is that it can be updated far easier than the old version.
As some of you might know, I created the 2016 game in an engine I (barely) cobbled together from several books. It didn't work in most resolutions and UI/quality-of-life changes were near impossible to implement - so I decided to recreate it in Unity from scratch.
The UI has been updated to something made in 2022 (featuring more icons and less text as well as better-looking windows that conform to the overall palette) and many new quality of life additions have been added (daily alert icons across the top for example).
As well, numerous other gameplay and aesthetic changes have been made:
Combat Mitigation now fed by agility and reflexes as well, making these attributes more useful.
Improved alerts system
Revised Gladiator Expertise system
Revised Player Perks system
Age incline and decline more drastic
Added Killer Instinct and Work Ethic to gladiator personalities
Drastically improved tooltips
Works on most resolutions
Staff, Lender, Other portraits added throughout the UI - now you can put a face to a name
Weapons and Armor now have Stamina costs (making stamina much more important now)
Dodging and Blocking now use Stamina (again, making stamina much more important now)
Greed also affects daily spending of gladiator
Gladiator portraits added to all UI
Stable now contributes to fatigue recovery time
Stable now has countdown for improvements
Custom mouse cursor instead of system one
Added a fight log so players can recap exactly what happened during battle
Scrollbars instead of burdensome next/previous buttons
Animals now have names
More Player Portraits
Fight Setup screens made more efficiently - a fight can now be started with two clicks instead of the many clicks previously
Improved music player
Icons instead of just text
These are just some of the changes - there are plenty more I am not thinking of here.
Will keep everyone posted.
And of course, previous owners of Age of Gladiators will enjoy a discount if they choose to purchase the remastered version.
So please wishlist and follow Age of Gladiators Reforged today.
Thanks!
Deadwater Saloon - Coming Spring 2022
I'm pleased to announce our next game Deadwater Saloon, coming out Spring 2022. Hope to see you all there!
Dive into the wild west as a saloon owner in a volatile frontier town. Customize your character and face the consequences of your choices as you forge friendships and enemies of townsfolk, travellers, outlaws and lawmen. Build the most famous saloon in the territory, or be overrun and destroyed.
Create Your Character
Playing as a rich and dynamic character in the old west, you will be able to fully customize your attributes to fit your playstyle, such as Mixology, Seduction, and Sneakiness. You will manage your life as well as your saloon, such as maintaining your reputation and getting married. You will struggle with the effects of disease, aging, sanity, and addictions.
Form Relationships
Provide travellers with a distinct drink parlour, gaining legendary stories to regale and build your legend. Interact with townspeople as they populate the town, forging friendships with blacksmiths, sheriffs, and preachers, romance prospective partners, or blackmail, abduct, and murder those who threaten you.
Build
Build your saloon from the ground up. Expand the walls, build bordellos, opium dens, high stakes gambling rooms, and railed porches. Buy and place spittoons, tables, chairs, handcrafted bars, pianos, chandeliers, and diamond dust mirrors.
Manage
Thrive within a complex economy system, stockpiling booze, food, guns, and opium. Research a diverse array of drinks and foods to serve customers. Hire and manage staff from within the town populace, including barkeeps, cooks, servers, prostitutes, croupiers, pianists and bouncers. Help them reach their full potential, or fire and replace them with those more skilled.
Hundreds of Events
Face the forces of nature, meddlesome customers, firebrand Preachers, rival outlaw gangs, and much more. At some point, you will be tested by stronger and more formidable nemesis in longer event chains. Whatever you choose, you will face the consequences of your choices. The frontier is an unforgiving place.
Raiders! Forsaken Earth Discount For Age of Gladiators Owners
Raiders! Forsaken Earth will be going live on Tuesday, November 10th with a launch discount of 15%. All owners of Age of Gladiators will be eligible for a further discount of 10%, making the total discount to 25%.
This will be done by purchasing the bundle containing Age of Gladiators and Raiders! Forsaken Earth when the game is live - however, anyone already owning Age of Gladiators will only have to pay for Raiders.
