Star Rift Saga News

I've been hard at work on getting things ready for full release. A part of that has been going through the UI and getting things a little more final. A lot of those changes have been reflected in the early parts of the game, so the demo has been updated to better reflect the finished version. This is also being done in anticipation of the upcoming Steam Next Fest, which Star Rift Saga will be a part of.

Here's the highlights:
-The UI uses a new look which has a little bit less of a flat feel.
-Fonts have been reworked and are more uniform across the board.
-Some effects have been redone, most notably including the explosion sprites which are no longer scaled in game and are now pixel perfect.
-You'll now encounter enemies slightly earlier than you did before.
-Some slight balance adjustments, as well as new skill chips to discover.

There's even new content for you to discover in the demo.
-You can now play the target elevator mini game. Just head left out of the outpost and you'll be on your way to finding it. Some platforms have been added to allow you to reach it earlier than you otherwise will be able to in the full game. Notably, the game itself is slightly different from how it appears in the full game to accommodate your more limited moveset at that point in the game.

If you have already played the demo, I recommend checking it out again, especially during Next Fest. It really helps out with visibility if you do.

Really looking forward to you all being able to check out the full game on July 15th! It's really coming together!
-JV

I am very happy to announce that development is wrapping up. The trailer for the game is now available, here it is.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This has been a long journey for me. Originally when I showed the game for the first time at Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2023, I handed out cards that said the release date would be Fall 2024. That was optimistic, and game development isn't always so predictable.

Still, the game has come a long way, and I think the extra time was absolutely worth it to deliver a polished game to you.

Star Rift Saga will be available on July 15th. I'll have more to share about packaging and pricing as it gets closer.

[h2]Demo Available Now[/h2]
Starting today, and ahead of the upcoming Steam Next Fest in June, you can play the game's demo. It's pretty similar in content to what was shown publicly at a previous expo, but now you can play it at home.

It features a shortened tutorial that gets you right into the action as well as accelerated progression, so drop rates and leveling is greatly increased so you can experience more of it in a shorter time. The game goes all the way up to the first boss battle, and has a few good secrets to find as well. Every time you play it, you'll get a different build since skill chip drops are random and there are a lot available to you.


That's it for now! I'm super happy to be in the final stretch of development, and can't wait for you to be able to play the game!

I recently did a rework of some late game abilities. I removed an existing ability (though I don't rule it out coming back in either this game or a future one) and replaced it with a totally new one. This was a lot of work, and involved going through every single room in the game in order to make everything compatible and keep it accessible when the old ability was removed. This is kind of a difficult and unusual thing to do this late into development.

So why do it? What was wrong with the original ability? It all goes back to the game's core philosophies, which I'd like to highlight here.

As a general rule, every ability that you find in the game follows these guidelines:

• No pausing to switch abilities on or off. This goes to how items work in the game, you can use them without having to dig into a menu, and is something that breaks the flow of a lot of Castlevania games.
  
• Every ability should have multiple uses. Weapons are the best example of this, where they can be used to cross obstacles as well as for combat.
  
• Avoid context sensitive abilities. This means any abilities that can only be used in a specific situation or allows interaction with a certain object.
  

The ability that was removed was a grapple belt. It used specific points in the environment to pull you to them, retaining your momentum to slingshot from one to another. Was it cool? Sure, it allowed for some neat platforming segments. However, it also was only useful in specific situations (hook points) and had no other utility beyond traversing the environment.

Let's take a quick look at the magnet boots, their replacement.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This is a preview of its introduction, with some graphics not totally ready yet. It lets you stick onto almost any ceiling in the game for as long as you have fuel. While you're sticking you can jump and dash freely, shoot, jump, and drop at any time. It's as if gravity is reversed. Certain ceilings don't allow you to magnet to them, but they're the exception and not the rule.

With that in mind, how does the new ability do with these philosophies?

It doesn't require pausing to turn it on or off, it's a single input.

It has multiple uses, and can be used while fighting enemies or while exploring. It can even be used in some unexpected ways, or even to skip over previously seen platforming sections that would have been slower before.

It isn't context sensitive and can be used at any time.

In these regards it is a much better fit, and makes a lot of areas flow better. I think that having a good grasp on your game's philosophies helps to guide your design decisions.

Fortunately, Star Rift Saga is pretty late into development (and should be releasing this year) so this should be the last major ability rework I have to do.

Looking forward to sharing more, a lot is coming together.

This month, we're taking a look at one of the early environments you'll encounter, as well as how the Outpost Shop works and how you can increase its selection of items.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Before we start, here's the soundtrack for the area again.



The Crystalline Caverns are an environment that you'll go through shortly after you start the game. While you'll only visit them briefly, in order to close a small rift, you'll come back to them through a different entrance to go through their main portion. The two sections connect eventually, and can act as a good shortcut.



There's a continuous line of platforms attached to these chains. You can use them to travel vertically through this area.



That said, they can occasionally present a platforming challenge. In general, this region features lots of moving machinery and levers you'll have to find to move forward.

The caves are filled with a valuable mineral, but whoever dug these out didn't seem particularly interested in them for some reason. The colonists living in the outpost have started gathering some of the minerals. That is, until most of them disappeared because of the rifts.



The area ends with a boss battle that you'll fight while riding a hoverbike. Up until recently, the placeholder art I drew had you riding a minecart, but the bike idea was thrown out and stuck. Hoverbikes are cool.





Over the course of your adventure you'll find money and items by defeating enemies. Money can be spent at the item shop and other places. Want more options? Sell items to the shop and they'll be able to sell you more of them. Not every item can be purchased, but most can.



A core idea of Star Rift Saga is that upgrading everything. Just like you can upgrade the outpost itself by rescuing colonists, you can upgrade the supplies at the shop by selling items. The yellow and wiggling items indicate that they can be added to the shop's inventory by selling them. Add enough items to the shop and you'll even get special rewards.

Development continues, and now I'm actually getting some sort of timeline down. I don't want to announce anything official until I'm sure I'm at that point though, but it's looking like there is a finish line in sight.
With that out of the way, let's talk a little bit about the world of Star Rift Saga, specifically some of the ships.


This is the Dreadnaut. It's a large capital ship in orbit around the planet. They Syndicate is operating out of it, searching for you. Fortunately, due to the large amount of rift energy in the atmosphere, they can't easily come and go as they'd like to, but they've been deploying forces from orbit from their ship. Still, in spite of the fact that they have large space to ground capabilities, they haven't made a move against the outpost for some reason...
It's very big. Probably one of the largest single, non-background assets in the game so far.


In stark contrast to the Syndicate's massive firepower is your ship. Colloquially referred to as the scrap ship, it's light and maneuverable, but lacking in any sort of weapons. It was also bombarded with energy when you entered the atmosphere, so it can't fly without serious repairs. Not that it matters, if the mega rift isn't closed, you'll be blasted again if you try to leave the atmosphere. You're stranded until you can find a way to close the Mega Rift.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Crystalline Caverns have been featured in a few posts before, here's the soundtrack for the area. You'll enter the caverns early in your adventure, but only briefly. You'll have to take another entrance to explore the larger area, where you'll find the first force point and a new weapon.



Until next time, make sure you wishlist the game to help things move forward.