Astrobase Command
Got Management? – Astrobase Command Dev Update – 16 April 2018
Hey everybody!
With the recent addition of a new programmer, work on save files has picked back up nicely. On top of my responsibilities keeping him unblocked and well-fed with tasks, I’ve done a bunch of project management work to keep programming clear on its objectives and on track with progress.
I also used the opportunity to knock out some overdue bugs. While the build is pretty stable, there’s still an accumulation of small things to get to. Since adding new features tends to create new bugs as well, it’s important to get ahead of it.
Once we’ve got a stable workflow going with the new programmer, we’ll pick back up on weekly builds.
Daniel – @Polygonatron
Greetings Humans!
This week I’ve been been heading up a big effort to clean up, organize, and bring up to date our task tracking. In a team as small as ours it’s easy to let things like this slip. But that’s a dangerous path to walk. So my entire week has been filled with going through every task and bug we have in our backlog, labeled and sorted them, pruned out dead things and non-task, and much more.
I feel there might be some parallels to Astrobase Command in this.
Dave – @Dave_Astrobase
Hey guys,
This week I’ve been working on in-game GUI upgrades and doing my part in our project tracking software.
Also, getting through some big-picture design planning that coincide with project-wide goals.
Max – @Max_Shields
Hello!
I invested some time in breaking down our monolithic audio tasks into more manageable chunks.
On the production front, I tweaked some of the existing UI sound work, and worked in a background sound track. It’s so nice to hear another fantastic piece of music from the talented Orb Soundwerx crew!
News From Command: The Astrobase Team Grows — Weekly Dev Update, April 9th 2018
I had to wait until things were official, but I can finally share some great news!
As many of you know, for most of its lifetime Jellyfish Games has been entirely self-funded through contract work. Since programming contracts are usually the easiest to find and most lucrative, I’ve taken on the lion’s share of that to keep the lights on.
While I enjoyed working with different teams on a bunch of fun projects, this kept pulling me away from Astrobase Command. Art and design were coming along nicely, but programming work was piling up.
Lucky for us, we had Daniel and Max on our team and they convinced us (some would say kicking and screaming) to launch a Kickstarter campaign last year. The community answered the call in a big way, handing us the development time we needed to get the game to a playable alpha. This would allow us to gather hands-on feedback from the community and start selling the game to sci-fi nerds everywhere.
We hit our alpha date as promised and started selling the game soon after. While we’ve seen steady sales since then, it isn’t at a rate that could sustain development on its own until launch, for reasons that have nothing to do with the game.
Funds started to get tight towards the end of last year and I couldn’t shake up any work from my usual contacts. So, after a few months of looking for a solution, I found one: I got a day job! I curse my alarm in the morning and curse other people in traffic in the evening, just like everyone else! Luckily, I have the soothing power of podcasts to keep me sane.
But seriously, the thought was that I could relieve financial pressure from my new family (have I show you pictures of my son yet?) and from Jellyfish during the day and still code my little heart out on evenings and weekends on Astrobase Command. Free coding hours!
If you’ve noticed a slowdown on meatier weekly builds, that’s because I set aside the scary tasks in favor of small things that have been piling up for a long time and just needed a bit of work to get out the door.
Obviously, we couldn’t work like this indefinitely, which brings me to the aforementioned great news!
The guys worked their magic once again and found us an amazing programmer to join the team right up until launch! He was jazzed to work on the game, and was open to a deal that everyone was happy with. I can’t say more about him just yet for reasons, but I’ve already seen him in action and *chef’s kiss*! Given everything we’ve done with just four people, imagine what adding a fifth will do!
We’ll share more with you over the weeks and months to come. I really look forward to upcoming versions of the game and hopefully you do too!
See you on the space lanes!
-Adam
Previous Dev Updates
In case you're wondering why we don't have any development updates here, it's because we've been posting them directly to the store page. If you want to see what we've been up to all this time, you can find everything you need there.
From now on, we'll start using the Steam Group to keep you up to date on how development is going.
Jellyfish Games’ Spacebunny Dispatch – 30 March 2018
We want to take a moment to wish all of you a Happy Spacebunny Day! It only happens once a year, so enjoy.
Before parting ways this week, we’d like to remind you of our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/jellyfishgames/overview). You can add continued support to our efforts to make Astrobase Command, and bring a new paradigm to the funding of video games.
Patrons supporting us for $5/month or more also receive an exclusive monthly work-in-progress chapter of the Astrobase Command novel. Originally intended as an exploration of Astrobase’s storytelling possibilities, the novel has expended into a serious endeavour.
Here’s a sample of this month’s chapter, Alone.
The freshly-minted Chief Einar Vong stood tall and proud before Sanmar. His silver hair and dark blue skin were matted down with grime and his white eyes were creased with fatigue, lending him the look of a much older man. A barely visible tattoo peeked just over his collar on the right side of his neck. Three days ago, Sanmar would have berated the young fellow for being undisciplined had he noticed the marking.
What a wonder two days of hardship and scratching away for minute-to-minute survival did for one’s priorities.
“Biochemical reactors A and C have been brought up to full capacity, sir.” His voice weary, and the way he continuously shifted his body ever so slightly suggested he was far from comfortable in his new green engineering department overalls.
“But? There’s always a but, Chief Vong. Let’s have it.” Prodded Sanmar.
Einar took a deep breath. “But we had to cannibalize reactor B to get them up. And, we don’t have any more replacement parts. Those were lost when the storage module vented all of its pods. Bottom line: We have about six months before we’ll need to take one of the other reactors apart to keep the last one running.”
“That’s good news. That gives us six months to get parts. You’re doing good, Chief.”
With that, we hope you’ll have a fantastic Easter. May the Giant Space Bunny be generous, and its offerings sweet!