- Hopefully fixed bug with flamers so they fire consistently first time.
- Fixed mine launched on Argon mothership.
- Removed 'Early Access' label from Logo. ;)
IonAxxia
End of Early Access!
Patch notes - Nov 26th '21
Enhanced autoturrets as they were too puny.
Fixed Challenge bug where challenge was changed just viewing components in the Designer.
Critical bug fix
Thanks to redditor warbuddha for bringing this to my attention.
Bug fix
Thanks to /MuttonTime's bug report on Reddit
ionAXXIA leaving Early Access, 3rd December!
Thanks to the input of you early users, ionAXXIA has found its identity and is ready for release!
[previewyoutube="wnc9ebSlIfA;full"]
What started as a shell of an arena shooter has now evolved into a rich, “Big Brained” tactical space shooter. A lot of (unexpected!) time went into iterating the core engine to enable the kinds of features that make ionAXXIA different to other shooters, plus bug-removal has been a priority in a triumphant stand against the horrific modern trend of releasing broken games. Here’s a summary of what the game contains at launch…
Tactical space combat
Combat equipment has a bunch of new toys like surface-mounted auto-turrets, and energy sapper mines that gain extra punch when attached to objects.
Challenge based game loop
Complete challenges to unlock new items. Develop a sense of achievement and progression as you become a better, smarter space-pilot.
Refined procedural scenarios
Levels now offer more variety of encounters, providing options to complete challenges by choosing which mission for which level.
Alien remnants
An addition I’m pretty excited by, some aliens will leave a persistent feature when they die. The Globbluck Mk1 leaves an acid cloud-comet that inflicts serious damage, while the Cybosh CN4’s engine detonation leaves a wake in space-time, a ‘teleport’ wormhole. Levels with many of these vessels create an increasingly complex arena. The addition of more aliens to ionAXXIA will mean more arena transformation possibilities.
Multiple rock types
Hazards (for you or your enemy!) include exploding rocks, fire-trail rocks, magnetic rocks, and the scary, black, ultra-dense rocks that inflict massive collision damage. If you’re fortunate, you may come across a health-rock or a tactically advantageous energy-rock.
Thirteen pesky aliens
At launch, 12 different enemies with diverse abilities – health rippers, snares, “launch fighters”, teleportation, point-defence cannons – oppose you, creating a rock-paper-scissors type match-up, while our precious argon is stored in powerful starbases seemingly designed to withstand any assault...
Ensmartened alien AI
Aliens have very different combat attitudes. Some rush in. Others keep their distance. Others will hit the gas and just keep going, attacking in fly-by encounters. Adds another consideration to your ship designs.
Eighty-one ship components
For millions of different customised ships. 17 different designs each with their own size and weapon mounts; weapons have added variety depending on the ship they are attached to.
12 different hull materials to keep the inside of the ship inside. 12 engine types, with different qualities of speed, acceleration, and manoeuvrability. 12 generators to power the weapons. 16 primary weapons, from beam weapons to missiles to guns to turrets, to plasma-clouds, to offensive satellites and big-arse bombs. And 12 secondary functions, from boosters and bubble-shields to tractor beams and grapplers.
Limitless upgrades
Collect precious resources to upgrade your gear, with no level caps! Just keep making that laser beam longer, that knockback bigger, and that fire-rate faster.
Strategy game
My favourite feature of the original Star Control, the strategy game adds more pressure and more options for smart thinking. Often you'll have to use a less-than-ideal ship match-up to stop enemy movements, requiring clever combat. This strategy mode received a lot of work to provide interesting encounters with procedural algorithms being developed to generate different scenarios. One level might see you equipped with an armada to take down a new alien outpost. Another might see two sides struggling in a barren system, fighting over scarce resources. And then another, a desperate bid to hold back an attacking fleet to give you time to build up a counter-attack.
Cloud Saves paused
Disabled for launch as I focus on the PC version. The other ports will come afterwards and cloud saves re-enabled.
Please note your progress will be reset!
You will be restarted to experience the game proper as a new user, and of course all feedback of the early game, particularly balance and economy, is vital to get it ‘just right’.
A huge thanks to everyone who shared opinions and feedback. I hope ionAXXIA lives up to your expectations! And still let me know if something is off. Early game balance, when new players are having to learn to think and play differently to their preconceptions, is vital to get right and I can’t do that without people telling me what I’m getting wrong. Because after hundreds and hundreds of hours (really, thousands of hours) of play testing myself, I’m kinda removed from the new-player experience!
Enjoy!
ionAXXIA Launch Candidate!
Quick update - lots of content coming!
A number of small changes have been added based on feedback in the discord channel, with user defined keyboard and mouse controls and a high-tempo audio track to liven things up. Now work is focussed on adding out the fun toys I want to play with. The basis of ionAXXIA's gameplay is variety - variety of ships, foes, weapons, and non-weapon abilities.
I'm aiming to launch with 12 of each ship component, and perhaps a dozen varied enemy craft. Here we see a Rogue's Gallery of pesky aliens who'll be doing their best to thwart your recovery of our Argon!
Cloud saves! Discord!
One of the key dreams for ionAXXIA was to create a proper arcade game on mobile devices. This major update includes cloud saves, so you can continue your progress on smartphones and back again. The new trailer sums the current build nicely.
We've also got a Discord channel up and running for faster feedback.
https://discord.gg/s7EaBzJ
Long awaited epic update
After a totally unexpected silence, I'm back with the most significant update yet. 0.6.3 introduces the galactic map that brings the whole game experience together. Plot a course of discovery through the galaxy. Each star can be played either as a strategy game through the star-system, or a straight forward fight to the death (Super Melee in StarControl terms).
One of the major issues with this Early Access process has been a real lack of content variety for you guys, for which I'm sorry. Until the core systems were in place, I couldn't start adding more aliens and ship components.
The joyous news is that those systems should now be finished. So this update sees the introduction of a new weapon, the cluster missile, and three varied enemies. The cluster missile showcases the varied firing mechanics - fire once to launch and a second time to detonate and release the multiple warheads, while the three new enemies each have some peculiar tricks which I can make available in future ship components.
Going forwards, the primary concerns are game structure and economy. How do people want to unlock components? I'm thinking to have them hidden throughout the galaxy, perhaps in unique enemies that have that component. Choice of star route through the galaxy should be made to accumulate resources ahead of taking on harder challenges. How much you get paid for a victory is an important balancing act and one that needs feedback.
Tactical map released to Beta branch
It's very much based on the tactical map of the original Star Control game. You build ships and manoeuvre them around a randomised star-system, building mines, outposts, and fortifications, making money, buying better ships, while the enemy pushes in from the top. Land a ship on the enemy starbase with no enemy ships present to win.
It's absolutely perfect for short play bouts and I auto-save so you can pick up where you left off.
This tactical combat has become the backbone to the game and its future balancing, and I'm very excited for its hopefully rapid progress. There's lots of opportunity to balance the game and ship designs so that they aren't just what you play in combat, but designs also may affect performance on the tactical map. It'll make the decision making in creating ships of a given price far more meaningful than at present.
The rest of the game should work okay but expect bugs. I'll concentrate of finishing the tactical map before cleaning up other issues and balancing properly.