Beyond These Stars News

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Hello everyone!

I’ve been away from you all spending time being the Narrative Designer of Beyond These Stars, instead of your Community Manager. Now it’s time for me to swap back, so here I am, writing a post for my favourite community (I am not biased, it’s a simple fact, ok?!)

[h2]The Building Showcase[/h2]

I’ve been working on a treat for you all - a Building Showcase! This includes tidbits of information about how the buildings work (wow!), plus in-game footage (gasp!). Let me introduce you to some early game buildings.

[h3]The Home Spaceship[/h3]

Some of you have seen this new friend before, but let me formally introduce you! The Home Spaceship is how you left your home, and how you arrived on the back of this massive, strange Space Whale. It will be your early-game lifeline in Beyond These Stars - it slowly produces everything the Peeps need to start a village.

Also, isn't the music beautiful? Benedict Nichols, the composer for Before We Leave, has returned for Beyond These Stars! More on that later down the track, though.

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[h3]Huts, Gardens, and the Waterpump[/h3]

For our second video, you’ll see some familiar tech and buildings with a new twist!

Like in Before We Leave, the Peeps need help surviving after emerging from their Shelter (in BTS, this is the Home Spaceship). Build humble little Huts, sow Gardens teeming with… uh… potatoes? And, access the water flowing on the Space Whale’s back with the Water Pump.

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I’ll have more building showcase videos for you in the coming weeks - if you want these sneak peeks sooner, join our Discord!

[h2]Embracing Chaos: Our Managing Director Tests the Game[/h2]

Part of why indie development is so great is that you can discover things that need doing, understanding when they need doing, then leaping into action fast. Would it surprise you to know that can sometimes happen within the space of a quick, 15 minute meeting?

Well that’s exactly what happened a few weeks ago! Anna undertook a day of playtesting under our Quality Assurance Analysts guidance, and she kindly kept a log of what her day ended up looking like.

9.54. Standup is over. There's a dev blog due soon, but the dev team has been testing and polishing for the last four weeks, so I haven't written one—incremental improvements to the game aren’t the most exciting things to show off.

"I could do a diary of a day of playtesting" I say.

"A manager tests the game" says our game designer MJ. Everyone laughs. What could go wrong?

This will be my second day of playtesting, ever.

Read the full blog over on our website!

[h2]We’ll be at GamesCom! Sort of?![/h2]

Beyond These Stars will be at GamesCom (Wed, 23 Aug 2023 – Mon, 28 Aug 2023) in Cologne, Germany! Unfortunately since we’re on the opposite side of the world we can’t make it this time, but our lovely publisher Hooded Horse will be there to help you see our game and to answer your questions! Make sure you check out the other games Hooded Horse are publishing, too - their roster is pretty impressive, in my opinion.

Thanks for reading and talk to you all again soon
Emily,
Community Manager/Narrative Designer

(PS - if you want these posts direct to your email, you can sign up for our newsletters here!)

Kia ora and happy May!

Beyond These Stars has taken an interesting turn in development lately - it’s begun feeling less like a prototype and more like a fully fleshed out game. Sometimes this feeling can come suddenly, like a light switch turning on, or sometimes it can be something slow and steady that you notice suddenly. For me, I’d say it feels like the latter of those two things!

Before we get into it, a gentle reminder that all these pictures are works in progress! There’s a very high chance the game will look different when it gets to you.

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This is a pretty long post, so let me give you the TL;DR right here. Scroll down if you want the juicy details!

• We’ve been tinkering with in-game UI in an effort to make it easy to understand but looking slick
  
• Sam and Isaac have been designing and implementing Mining Resource overlays, similar to the overlays in Before We Leave
  
• Isaac has also been working on making tiles look more lifelike; think raised garden beds, and “scuffed” looking edges to cliff tiles. He’s also been working on Spaceship animations (check the video above!)
  
• The composting mechanic has been implemented (scroll down for that video)
  
• Mereana has been working on save and load menus; it’s fiddly and important work!
  
• I’ve been writing and implementing the very first version of the tutorial. I’m happy with it but it could be better.
  

Okay, time for specifics:

[h3]RESOURCE PRODUCTION [/h3]
We’ve been experimenting with resource production diagrams! We’re hoping it will give you a clearer understanding of how certain resources come to be, and which ones are needed in certain buildings. Ultimately, this should help you make decisions easier and faster.


[h3]OVERHAULING OVERLAYS[/h3]
Some of you will remember the overlays in Before We Leave: they were super handy, right? Well, we’re rehashing them for Beyond These Stars! Sam and Isaac together have been working on an overlay which shows what Mining resources are available on Kewa’s back.


[h3]BEVELLED TO PERFECTION (sort of)[/h3]
Isaac has also been working on the edges of the hexagonal tiles - they're now beveled and roughed up, which makes the world on Kewa's back look so much more real. It also has the advantage of hiding some pesky texture seams! Of course, this is just a first pass, and Tom or Rafał will make better textures so Isaac’s initial efforts work well for different tile types. Isaac also reassured us that there’s tons of environmental assets still to come. No pictures of this yet, sorry!

What I can show you is puffy fields. Sounds weird, but that’s pretty much what they are. Dirt and fields aren’t perfectly flat, so Isaac has done a great job putting this beautiful, perfectly natural imperfection into the game.


[h3]YEAH? NAH…[/h3]
For Aussies and Kiwis, “yeah nah” and “nah yeah” are essential pieces of slang in our vocabularies. So naturally, Mereana simply had to include them while working on the Save/Load menu. Given that everything is very much still a work in progress, we’ll probably take them out… unless…? Tell me what you think and we might keep them in 👀



Mereana has also been working on the Load menu. This UI element involves a lot less slang, but that’s okay.

[h3]TUTORIAL WRITING [/h3]
In case you missed the memo, I’m working as Narrative Designer for this project as well as being the Community Manager! The community has been quiet lately, and part of the reason why is because I’ve been working on our tutorial. I’m very pleased to say, after a whole lot of grinding, the very first version of the tutorial is in the game. I am so glad to finally have it done - citybuilding games are quite complex, and so writing a tutorial that is easy to understand, not too wordy, and engaging is not an easy task. That said, this is the first version and I have a long way to go before I am truly content with it.



[h3]COMPOSTING[/h3]
In Beyond These Stars, the Peeps compost waste from their homes and use it to revitalise the environment around them! This is what that mechanic currently looks like in game:
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[h3]STUDIO NEWS[/h3]
We've had a lot of stuff happening at the studio too, but for the sake of brevity, please check out those blogs over on our website! (here & here.)

Whew, that was a long one folks! I hope you enjoyed reading.

Until next time!

Emily :)
Community Manager/Narrative Designer

Kia ora everyone!

Our new dev blog is out - for all the juicy details, please hop over to our website read it. For those of you who want a summary (and believe me it is a summary), read on:

[h3]Crafting the UI[/h3]
With city builders and other simulation games, the UI can often be a "make or break'' moment for them. MJ, Sam, and Tom have been working *very* hard for quite a while now to make it as slick and intuitive as possible. There's also been a massive effort put towards making the tutorial UI flow well, too. No screenshots yet, sorry 🤐

[h3]Writing the Tutorial[/h3]
Wondering why I've been so quiet? Well, it's because I've been writing the tutorial for the game! I'm up to my third revision right now, and I'm writing it with all the feedback from BWL's tutorial in mind. It's challenging work, but it'll be very worth it in the end.

[h3]Making Kewa Shine[/h3]
Tom, Isaac, and Rafał (our 3D artist in Poland), have been working their butts off to make Kewa look absolutely incredible. Since Kewa is so big, Tom has been putting a lot of thought into scaling the textures correctly. Isaac has also been working on developer tools to make Kewa aesthetically pleasing, too.


[h3]Pathfinding[/h3]
Speaking of Isaac, he’s been working on Peep pathfinding too! Please note that he’s doing all of this while dealing with the exhaustion of being a new dad a second time around. What a legend.


[h3]Testing, One Two Three[/h3] - Nina has been making headway on playtesting Beyond These Stars with our friends and family, and assessing the data from those sessions. Some trends are starting to emerge, and I think I speak for the whole team when I say we’re VERY excited to learn her findings.

[h3]Planning and Performing[/h3] - Behind the scenes, Sarah has been the hardworking navigator of the BMG ship, tracking, planning, and steering us away from risky shores. She’s also been very active on TikTok, tracking trends and making content to bring people joy and information about us and our Very Cool New Game.

[h3]FINS[/h3] - We’re also attending the inaugural Festival of Interactive Narrative & Storytelling in Dunedin! I'm one of the speakers; hopefully the talk will be recorded so I can share it with you all.

Thank you for reading! I’ll be back soon with another chonky news update for you all ❤

- Emily
Community Manager

Hey gang!

I'm popping in to post the most recent dev blog from Sam, our creative director. If you're keen to see specifics on what we've been working on in terms of mechanics and systems, this is the dev blog for you!

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Hello again! We’ve cycled through everyone at the company doing Dev Blogs, and so it’s come back to me, Sam, your friendly neighbourhood Creative Director.

Lots has been happening since I was last here, because with 11 of us working on the game in some capacity there’s always lots happening! Just in the last few weeks, off the top of my head:

[h3]Elevators[/h3]
Elevators are working! Elevators in Before We Leave were many layers of hacks and refactors and redesigns layered on top of each other in a teetering pile, so this time around we wanted to make them much more solid. That did mean though that they kept getting put off as there were other more important systems to build - so it feels great to get to the point where we can start giving some attention to things like this.

[h3]Look and Feel[/h3]
Just about every time I look at the game it’s gotten more pretty to look at and better to play - new building models, better peep models, polishing features that used to be just “good enough for now” and many many bugfixes.


[h3]Decisions on UI[/h3]
We’ve decided on the graphical style and basic layout for the main game UI elements. A huge amount of design and analysis has gone into this to get something that will display as much useful information as possible without being overwhelming!

[h3]Game Balancing and Analysis[/h3]
We’re putting systems together to allow for a much more analytical game balance. Last time the game balance was just whatever I thought made sense (then lots of tweaking with player feedback). This time we want to find a balance between a carefully structured tightly wound web of resources and buildings and a relaxing amount of slack, so having systems and processes in place to help us manage that is vital.

[h3]Playtesting... Soon(ish)[/h3]
We’re putting into place the systems we will need to run our playtesting - private Alphas and Betas and the like. NDAs, feedback systems, plans for what to test and who to look for etc. Very exciting! We’ll be announcing more about this fairly soon, so keep your eyes peeled on our Discord.

[h3]Writing the Tutorial[/h3]
Work on the tutorial has begun! Timing when to create the tutorial is tricky - too early and the systems you’re teaching are going to change too much, too late and the game has become too locked in to change if needed to make the tutorial play right.

[h3]Scoping and Planning[/h3]
And we’re just finishing off planning out our next phase of development, trying to take account of all the things we need to get done in the next couple of months then estimating how long it will actually take.

Whew, that’s a lot of things! But the thing is, I’m not the primary person working on any of those things. As Creative Director I help with all of them, whether giving my thoughts or helping get things done or signing things off as complete (enough, for now). On Before We Leave, everything listed above was either done by me or didn’t happen (at least until the last few months of development when Isaac and then Emily came along), so this time it’s quite a different beast!

In my heart I’m still a programmer, and some days I do miss just sitting by myself coding on the game (although I do still do that a bunch). But seeing this list of all the things that are happening because other people are working on this project with me is amazing and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

See you next time around,
- Sam