Ok, I'm done animating this cockpit:



Of course, additional nitpicking and polish is always an option. Suggestions, critics...shoot. A note that not all frames are present. The one where the captain rocks toward our right is missing, as well as some frames in the back (the red lights and the right console monitor)


Now I'm turning toward a third cockpit. It's just a cool idea I need to start executing right away.

Ok, here it is:



I'm still not sure about the guy in the back, but I spent over an hour trying different things, and this seems the best I can do at this point.

Now I need to do the animation. I'm only sure about the captain rocking as you steer the ship, but I don't know how to execute others with the crew in the front (thrust, shooting, special ability). Any ideas?

Ok, working on another cockpit for the Rammer ship (human crew).

I almost completed the "room":



I will be adding the crew soon. I'm thinking two crew members at the front consoles, the captain on the chair (of course), and maybe one in the back. Ack! I'm horrible with drawing people.

And I think I placed a too high bar form myself with the Nuuk cockpit. Oh, well.

I guess I didn't think that would be neccesary, althought I did imagine short voice messages being said during the battle. I'll see.

To make things clear, my game does not feature SC like dialogue scenes. These are strictly battle cockpits.

Ok, finished animating the Nuuk cockpit. Yeah, it took me a while. Hopefully it will go faster with the next cockpits.



This is basically a demo. The real sprites file is split in layers so two animations can happen at once. Also, on this demo gif image thrust (hand on the yellow orb) and main weapon (yellow orb) are not shown.

The nostrils movement should be independent on the player's action, and will prolly be triggered randomly.

Let me know what you think.

I didn't mean any disrespect with my comments. And the second one was mainly motivated by the fact you paid for those graphics. I was merely speaking from my own perspective. If I would resort to buying graphics, it would have to be something way better than my maximum.

I ran the game once in OpenGL mode, but I seem to have problems with either graphics card overheating or my power unit, as it completed turned off my PC after some 20 minutes of playing. Same thing happened to me with BioShock, but it stopped when I switched to 800*600 resolution and did some switches with virtual memory usage. But this newly experience with your game makes me think I have a serious problem with overheating or my power unit. I suspect overheating more because I played BioShock while the temperatures in my room were quite lower. Anyway, this is rather annoying as I'm making an OpenGL game too. So, no, I used a non-OpenGL mode. I have GeForce 8600 GTS, 512 MB RAM.

When I landed on the planet alien and asteroid sprites were constantly smeared/pasted or like being spawned from the left edge of the screen. Same for a part of the terrain. Odd. I should have taken a screenshot. Will do it if I find an opportunity.

Well, if you paid your artists then it's understandible you trying to get your investment back. The graphics just didn't seem to be anything super-cool to me. I mean, no animated full screen alien dialogue screens for the starts. Maybe some big cinematics appear in full version. I don't know.

I wish people trusted their own abilities more, especially in projects that really don't require special skills. Static alien face images, space ship sprites, planet sprites (really didn't like that in your game => try FlamingPear's LunaCell plugin for PhotoShop)...hrm, not something I would pay for...Game cinematics, jaw dropping space scenes (like for main menu, etc)....that's another thing.

This could be an excellent freeware game, but something I would buy…hrm, I don't think so. And indie game I would buy must be one spear above the best freeware games, or have something they don't. Pioneer contains too many graphics design clumsiness (and even some bugs, like when being on a planet collecting minerals), interface incoherencies and few misplaced music tracks for me to warrant it top notch.

Also, the dialogue and story is rather un-imerrsive. The game appears, at least in the beginning, too linear, with other characters only guiding you from point A to point B, and you don't feel like you are really interacting with them.

I will admit that I really liked the pace and mechanics of battles, as well as slow travel speed. It's somewhat hypnotic, and the way that dialogue between Blain and Nova was inserted into that trip to the rebel station…really cool.

Came to the part when racing with Velays. Have to go back to upgrade obviously.

Let's face the hard truth - Toys for Bob are slaves of their publisher(s) making Madagascar games (WTF?) and we'll never see a game innovative and special as SC for them any time soon (if ever). And if one day they are ALLOWED (WTF?) to make an SC game, it will be modeled for the taste of current gamers and most of people who grew up with SC2 will dislike it.

So I'm personally totally uninterested in what Toys for Bob does and plans...sadly.

My two cents.

I like the Thraddash Torch. It rules against cyborgs. But I haven't play melee much against human opponents so...not sure how good that ship really is.

Jaenis, I know your intentions are good, but I've seen too many programmers rushing into game dev projects without prior experience in such.

To me, programming part of a computer game was always the easiest, or to say it better, the least challenging. Of course, this depends on the game, but it’s usually the case unless you are making something in the style of World of Goo. The only thing I see as challenging in a SC-like game is AI, and maybe some procedural world generation code, if a specific game would feature it. To build a skeleton of majority of games is relatively easy. But to create a real game out of it...now that's a challenge. Just an advice from an experienced game developer.

Well, no offense, but MMO suck. MMO is the opposite of a story-driven game, and SC was all about that.

And why are you talking about market here? Fan made Star Control sequel has to be freeware. Or did I miss something here?

People should be said the hard truth that game design is a painstaking and challenging process and that even completing a polished small game is rather difficult.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Anyway, one of my team members did an interesting post processing of this cockpit:


Now I'm not sure what is better. I will definitely work with the original images while animating them, but I'm split on the amount of light/blur effects I should apply afterwards.

I like almost all of them, but ever since I saw your design of the Cruiser I had a problem with it. I don't know. I just think the front part should be done differently and the cockpit (blue window) redesigned. These are 3D models? Are they 3D models in the very engine or 2D sprites?

Also, I'm not sure I like the stars in the previous screenshot.

BTW, how do you plan to draw the cockpits? Plain pixel art skill or 3D models?