Underspace News

Happy continued summer starchasers! Grandiose thunderstorms are streaking across the sky here in Wisconsin, and we had a whole tornado warning right in the middle of all this game progress. My wife didn’t appreciate getting dragged down to the basement and interrupting her playing videogames, but there’s something appropriate about all these storms rolling in for this month’s progress!

By the way our next demo release is 2.0! With that, we hope to have actual interiors in stations, as well as full graphics for cockpits. Doesn’t sound like much of course, which makes sense given that we’re getting closer and closer to release. Now, onto progress! As always, feel free to check out our current demo, and join the Discord for more moment-to-moment gameplay! You can also read the full article this was paraphrased from here.


Bosses! This month was all about implementing every ambient (that means non-quest related) boss into the game! Over 20 bosses now have full mechanics, rewards, and more, though being the first drafts, many are missing smaller non-mechanic based attacks, voice acting for taunts, etc. Either way, have a sample!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]




Another big blocker of content that was hammered out this month was storm hazards: Those anomalies, monsters, and other spooky things you encounter in storms. From a greatly expanded pool of possible ghost ships, hellbeams from deep below, nests of strange stellar beasts, exploding rifts, etc, there’s a lot to go around here.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Regions can also control the color of hazards inside them, which saves me having to make a billion variations of each of them.


Also storm logic has been sped up. I wasn’t happy with the rate that storms spawned, surged, and moved across the galaxy. That’s all been greatly increased!


And of course, I always have time for some QoL and background work. You can view maps on star systems via clicking jumpgates, and capships now leave behind debris.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Train stations and train travel have a small graphic and cutscene for when you travel on them, and can have random events happen: For example waking up aboard a train with the entire crew dead and the ship stuck in warp.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Finally, a bit of asset stuff. Cockpits are getting their final models ready for texture and implementation, possibly even… working monitors that actively reflect your ship’s stats? Possibly. Possibly friend.


Interior work is also a thing now, as things like light fixtures and similar are being done to help detail those coming models.


And that’s all for this month. Not the longest update we’ve ever done for sure, but still a lot of stuff implemented and in. Check back at the end of the month for what will be a month of quests and more. But, mostly quests.

Summer is here once more starchasers! Rev up those grills, grill up those revs, and kick your feet back and eat a strawberry, as you enjoy a fabulous two weeks of humid overcast skies, before nature’s middle finger that we call winter rolls back in.

I don’t have much else to put here, testing on the game is going well and we’re making huge strides on everything, so… onto progress!

As always, you can join our Discord and check out the demo for all the latest cool stuff! You can also check the full article that this was paraphrased from.



The biggest thing this month is that all points of interest and vignettes are now in their final, ready to launch or near-ready-to-launch state. That’s over 70 or so custom hand-made activities that all are fully implemented and ready-to-nearly-ready for release. And there’s a LOT of stuff for them, from space races, our previously showcased dungeons, tracking giant leviathans, dodging security systems in lost star factories, exploring radioactive caves, restoring ancient machines, figuring out combination locks to lost ancient gates, taking down forcefields, dueling tiny angry planets, avoiding lost superweapons, and much much much much more.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


It’s a huge step forward for the game, so rejoice, as we’ve inched a big inch closer to release.



Big ships now have death effects: Explosions, catching fire, crewmen begging you to stop because they have families. You know how it is.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Don’t worry, they DO have debris. But that’s not done yet. For now, because big things can do big explosions, I’ve reworked a few bosses to die properly, while ALSO having some new mechanics, like Cahgurine here.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



I’ve done a few improvements to UIs based on watching people play through the demo. Some tutorial alerts are more obvious, and I’ve added keycode shortcuts for UI controls. For example, being able to deactivate guns via keys or go through dialogue on stations using keys.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Ship visuals have gotten an overhaul, featuring new effects for cloaking, buffs, self destruct, etc. Self destruct also does massive damage in multiplayer: Kill yourself for the sake of your friends, finally!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Cargo collection has a bunch of new stuff now. I restored some of the effects for it, you can tractor in just a single item, and you can run into cargo to collect it now.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And on that topic of redoing some fundamental mechanics, scanning pulses are much more readable now, and can have custom icons instead of just a normal pulse. I’m using these mostly for quests, to allow more specific pulses and instructions about said pulses to be given.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Not too much assetwork was done this month. I’ve been prepping a lot of accessories, hats, armor, etc, for character models, but I also found the time to redo the graphics on some big forward capitalship guns.


As well as redoing and remaking ambient sounds in places, like space dungeons. I’m also working on animating a few things for… reasons.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

That’s all for this month. Ideally next month we’ve got more quests and more bosses to show off. Welcome to the age of content, starchasers!

Hello starchasers and happy sunny May! For the first time since the start of these devlogs, we’ve missed a posting date! Shocking, I know, but yesterday, the 8th, was Mother’s Day and thus I had to make my cosmic journey to the edge of the universe to pay tribute to the infinite quasar that birthed me. We had brunch, she’s doing well.

Of course, in case you missed it, our latest demo is finally out! Demo 1.100 brings a host of graphical upgrades and behind-the-scene optimizations, as well as new mechanics which we’ll be talking about below.




You can download the demo for PC, Linux, and Mac at our itch.io page, check it out! Also consider, if you haven’t already, joining our Discord for more immediate updates. Now, onto progress. As always, this is a paraphrasing of the main article, which you can read here.



The biggest thing this year? Space Dungeons. Vast interiors and structures completely explorable out in space and filled with traps, enemies, treasure, and bosses galore. They’re got fully animated doors, removable hazards, everything.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Of course, while working on the tilesets for these we also went back over existing places and improved the models and tilesets there.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Hooking up all these space dungeons and going through all these vignettes will be this month’s focus!



I have to apologize to you all, as I violated my core axiom of “no feature creep” and spent two hours adding in a dodging mechanic and hooking it up to thrusters. But damn, if it don't look good.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Lots of across-the-board improvements now too. Saves now display if they’re overwritten, the decal
system has returned with a vengeance, and the navmap is easier to work with.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Higher tier equipment now costs stomeyes to purchase. Hope you’re ready to fight storms and bosses alike.




And of course, lots of new assets about. We’ve modeled, textured, and animated new gates for various ancient races.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We’ve also animated robots! Good old robots, you can’t go wrong with those.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Finally, we’re doing lots of interior work: retexturing customization hangars and hammering out models for things like planetside cars, trams, trucks, and trains.



That’s all for this month. Check back next month for another big dose of progress, mostly likely more quests, vignettes, and such. And of course, check out the new demo!

Welcome to April starchasers! Hopefully you survived April Fools intact, and if not, there’s always superglue.

Meanwhile, we’ve been chugging away at getting the game done. We’ve chosen our first round of testers and handed out the alpha build of the game to them, and a huge amount of progress was done this month.


Before we get into that, I’m announcing a small delay in the release of our next demo. 1.10 has some bugs to work out, and notably the Linux and Mac builds are both lagging behind due to some texture packing errors. The good news is when it releases, it should have a lot more features (including the new painting system among other things).

Now, onto progress! As always this is just a paraphrasing of the main article, which you can read here! You can also check out our demo and check out our Discord!




While not the focus this month, plenty more quests were added, and we’re closing in on a respectable 40/60 completed. A lot of the more complicated quests are being completed now, and those occasionally need new tech and extensions of the scripting system.


More of course, will get implemented later on.



Our first testing build was given out to testers, and with it, a whooole buncha bugs have been found. In between fixing those, I’ve taken the time to do some additional QoL and reworks of things.
The UI has been improved, with the hazard readouts reporting radiation damage per second, storm level, and the number of missiles or mines currently targeting you. Bandit holdups also now display the time until their generous offer expires.


Testers really loved the fact that you could enter formation with a hostile ship and use that to chase them. Except that was a bug, not a feature. So instead, I made it a feature.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I refactored how large ship AI worked, allowing it to fire a variety of projectiles and choose targets far more efficiently.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Painting is also getting a rework. Ships will now have three color channels while decals are far more efficient and work a lot close to how I want them to.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I’ve also just been passing over and polishing, redoing, and reorganizing systems in places to fit better.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Finally, things like gunboats, large drones, and more are getting proper explosion fuses worked out.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Last month as you recall, I promised to texture and model out every boss. Unlike SOME people, I keep my promises.


And while I was on that texturing binge, I textured a lot of assets that were missing said textures: missiles, NPC enemies, drones, and more.


Robotic characters, including both characters themselves and portraits for Hal-9000 AIs have gotten modeled out and textured (though they’re yet to be animated).


I’ve also been largely unsatisfied with how the game’s girder scrap models were. They used an alpha shader to simulate detail, but you couldn’t fly through so that means they’re bad. So I redid them to be properly detailed via geometry.



And that’s all for this month. Check back next month, for more updates, more content, and possibly even some… space dungeons? We’ll see.

Top of the morning to you, starchasers! Welcome to March, the month that hopefully sees the end of a long and mildly annoying winter and the start of the exact same winter. Wisconsin is fun like that.

Our next demo, demo 1.10, is scheduled to be out soon. This will also coincide with our first round of testers being chosen and the first beta testing build being released to those testers.

As always, you can check out and apply for testing in our Discord, and you can check out the current version of the demo here! Now, onto progress!

And of course, this is just a paraphrasing of the main article, which you can read here!


Last month I talked about how we were finally ready to implement the some 60 sidequests that make up Underspace’s content. This month, around half of those were added and are currently in a playable state. They lack polish and often voice acting, but they’re there and playable. There’s a great variety of quests too, from starship heists to facing down ancient monsters.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

A lot of background technology for quests got improved, and I think modders will have a fun time with the scripting system we’ve implemented (since it’s pretty easy to work with).

Stations got some improvements as well. NPCs can have conversations with one another, while you can use taxi services during some quests to get where you need to go.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Points of interest also got an improvement. All those ancient jumpgates, lost superstructures, and more all have custom textures. Surprisingly, thanks to the magic of actually properly compressing your assets (remember that AAA studios? Remember that???) the total file size of the game has actually gone down.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Next up for getting proper textures are bosses, that’ll be fun!



In an effort to preserve my sanity, I also spent the time doing some non-quest related things. Station descriptions now properly display things with COLORS, like what ships you’re able to afford. Certain station UIs now have animations too.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Storms have lots of improvements now too. Ones that spawn bosses will automatically shift your target to said boss, and approaching a storm now plays appropriate music, and treats it like the battle it is.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
There’s also new hazards. I hope you always make sure to avoid the giant ancient space train!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



And last but not least, a few assets. We’ve got a lot of various new characters and monsters. You’ve heard of chest mimics, but how about… space station mimics?


Also, space taxis and new models for things like say, computers and such.



That’s all for this month. Check back next month, we’ll have more quests, textured bosses, a new demo, and more!