Deep Space Exploitation News

[p]Hello!
Today I'm announcing the release date for Deep Space Exploitation! Along with releasing the two trailers I've been working on and an update for the demo.[/p][p]If you haven't already, go Wishlist the game! It will really help out in the run up to release :)
[/p][p]Release Date!
I'm aiming for the 6th of November 2025 (2 weeks from posting this), but in most of the marketing stuff I'll just be saying "November 2025" so that I can give myself some breathing room in case I want to spend a bit more time on anything or I find out my chosen date is a bad idea. Release will be on Itch and Steam at pretty much the same time. Oh yeah, I'm also looking at around 8.99 USD for the price, most likely with a 20% launch discount.
[/p][p]Trailers!
I ended up making two trailers, one which is all action, and one which gives more of a look at the story. I did this because I felt that the story elements were too slow for the main trailer, and that I had some good content (the intro cutscene) for the story trailer that people would like but is otherwise too slow to lead with in a traditional trailer (this is going with the advice that a trailer needs to lead with action in the first 5 seconds). So here they are:[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
Demo Update
With the release coming I'll be updating the demo to the latest version. The biggest change here will be that the demo will actually end after so many in-game days, instead of switching to randomly generated levels and being infinitely playable. The reason for this is so that I can keep the save files from the demo compatible with the full release version of the game, so you can finish the demo and then buy the full game and jump right back in (once it's released, that is).
[/p][p]What's Next?
Right now I'll be contacting as many people as possible about the release, and posting about it wherever I can. For the next two weeks until release I'll be reacting to content creators, pushing the game some more, doing any last minute changes, and writing some tech dev logs. I've been looking forward to writing some dev logs about some aspects of the game like the engine and my approach to destructible asteroids, so these next few weeks should be quite fun for me.[/p][p]As always, thanks so much for your interest and support :)[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello![/p][p]I thought that the recent v0.7 demo update was going to be the last before the release of the game, but there have been quite a few tweaks and fixes that I wanted to get in now since they're pretty important for a demo. What spurred a lot of these updates was a recent discovery that a small but significant number of demo players weren't playing further than the tutorial because they didn't realise the demo went on. This is obviously bad because the tutorial is only about 10% of the demo, and all the fun and interesting stuff comes in the other 90%! [/p][p]I've written a bit extra about the bigger changes in the v0.7.4 demo update (full change log is at the bottom).
[/p][p]Tutorial Updates[/p][p]This isn't the first time I've made a significant update to the tutorial, the previous time I re-arranged some steps to make it harder to breeze past the important sections on how the scanner works, and this time I'm adding more to ensure that players aren't getting stuck or confused by the tutorial steps. There's a step in the tutorial where you need to fly around and scan three difference resources before you're allowed to use your mining gun to extract them; quite short-sightedly I didn't add any kind of counter for the number of resources you've scanned, so players have been quite rightly a bit stumped at with this and only seem to get through by guess work. So now I've added an actual counter to the scanning and resource picking-up sections, which I hope will help with some player frustration. I also realised I should move the placement of the asteroids and resources closer to where the scanner is on the screen, to make it more comfortable when players are first learning this.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Terminal and Menu Updates[/p][p]I had some feedback from a few different players that some things in the terminal screen are difficult to find, like the upgrades page on the market, and that the difference between cargo and storage wasn't clear at first. I think I initially went for a light approach to explaining this screen because I didn't want to get in the player's face with explanations that they might not need, but also because the menus were intuitive to me (which is obviously a trap most developers will fall in to). [/p][p]To help with this problem I've added little popup explainers for most of the terminal pages that show when you first navigate on to them. I've kept these short since I don't think people like being assaulted with tutorial text all the time, but hopefully they'll nudge people in the right direction. There was also the issue of some players not realising that the demo continues after the tutorial, so I've made navigation to the "next job" page unavoidable, and repeat the term "next job" in a few of the popups they see up to that point, which should hammer home the existence of more stuff to play.[/p][p]Another little addition which is only slightly related to this is a "NEW!" tag on items when they first become available in the market place. I added this because at the moment I'm adding a lot of new items and I realised it's not obvious when there's something new to go look at, and it would be annoying for players to go look and not find anything. It was a simple addition, but I think it looks quite neat and tidy.[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p][p]Secondary Control Bindings[/p][p]You can now bind a second key to a game control, so if you can't decide between WASD and Up-Down-Left-Right, you now don't have to! This is something I definitely should have had in when I first added control binding, but I thought it wouldn't be necessary and that I couldn't display it properly in the UI (I would have preferred to let you bind as many keys as you like to a game control, but there's just no way I could pull off the UX for that given the tiny screen in the game). The tipping point for making me add this was watching some people play the game on SteamDeck and see them trying to use the D-Pad or the left stick for menu controls, then I had to say that it's either one or the other, which made me feel like a half ass. :)
[/p][p]Here's a full list of the changes for Version 0.7.4 of the Demo:[/p][p]Changes[/p][p]- New market items are tagged as "NEW!"[/p][p]- Back button can now be used to navigate back from terminal pages to the menu buttons[/p][p]- Added item descriptions for some items that are now able to be picked up[/p][p]- Items ejected from cargo are now pushed away with force based on their mass, so all items are pushed out at roughly the same speed. This is to stop heavier items getting backed up[/p][p]- Added charging up SFX for gatling gun[/p][p]- Scrap processor can now detect when an entity is stuck in its door and then turn itself off, pushing the entity out[/p][p]- Updated some tutorial wording to make it clear that a button needs to be held down[/p][p]- Added counters for tutorial tasks so it's clear how much needs to be done to move on to the next step[/p][p]- The second secret message that the player can see in the game is now visible in the demo (previously it was only shown on the day after the demo ended, but better to show it in the actual demo)[/p][p]- Upgrade info can now be viewed in the ship page, and can uninstall for a fee[/p][p]- Main menu shows "no mouse controls" popup if you keep clicking the mouse[/p][p]- Added popup explainers for most terminal pages
[/p][p]Tweaks[/p][p]- "\[install now]" button is selected by default when buying tool/upgrade that can be installed immediately[/p][p]- Tweaked a scrap processor exploit so that it's less effective (but still in the game since it was funny)[/p][p]- Terminal settings page buttons now wrap from top to bottom[/p][p]- Video settings "integer scaling: on/off" now changed to "scaling: pixel perfect/stretch" to be a little more explanatory[/p][p]- Day 1 ammo reminder happens after 5 shots instead of 10[/p][p]- Tutorial asteroid layout updated to be closer to the left panel so it's easier to look between the scanner and the asteroids[/p][p]- Turned on stuck entity detection for the extraction ship (if player exploded inside the extraction ship then the physics objects of the shrapnel would get stuck inside the extraction ship's physics objects and infinitely make collision noise)
[/p][p]Fixes[/p][p]- Removed blank job spec from the end of demo job list (this was used as a blank slate when developing new levels and sneaked in the demo)[/p][p]- Fixed some late game terminal features showing during the demo if you play for many days[/p][p]- Fixed issue where you can start rebinding for a device you don't have connected (gamepad if on PC, or keyboard if on SteamDeck) and then can't back out of it[/p][p]- Having negative credits doesn't stop you starting a job without a permit fee[/p]

[p]Hello![/p][p]It's been a while (about 2 months actually!) since I've put out an update for the demo, making it v0.7! I've been working mostly on content that comes after the demo ends but I realised there are still quite a few tweaks and bug fixes that the demo can benefit from too. There are even some bigger things in there too, like the intro cutscene, and some new upgrades.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Here's the full list of changes you can see in Demo v0.7!
[/p][p]General[/p][p]- Intro cutscene![/p][p]- Activator tool now shows more informative text[/p][p]- Drones will beep and complain when damaged[/p][p]- Drones can now be deactivated/activated[/p][p]- Reduced attractor beam length and width, and added upgrades to increase these[/p][p]- Added lateral control (strafe) upgrade[/p][p]- Added refurbished explosive charge[/p][p]- Crystals now create particles when colliding[/p][p]- Added background signal noise modifiers so that using different tools creates some interference with the scanner[/p][p]- Entities like drones, containers, etc. now give off a pulsing signal[/p][p]- Moved some unnecessary stuff out of the save file, which should help avoid breaking changes in the future[/p][p]- Entities attached to asteroids now leave a slightly larger hole when they're detached[/p][p]- Small change to how red crystals determine which direction to move in[/p][p]- Better scrap placement on randomised levels[/p][p]- Some small changes to story text[/p][p]- Improvements to NPC pathing code, more performant in most cases and more precise overall[/p][p]- Lowered damage required to open containers[/p][p]- Tweaks to tutorial so that scanner functionality is better explained and the explanation is visible while you're actually meant to be scanning[/p][p]- Added hint on day 2 about being able to push asteroids safely[/p][p]- Containers will now always gently push their contents out (previously they only did it for a short period and things could stay hidden in there)[/p][p]- Added message when finally paying off debt[/p][p]- Changed "Civilian Capital" to "Civilian Resources"[/p][p]- Archived mail is now sorted properly and displays date in the list[/p][p]- Tweaked positioning of crystals on charge training day so that they're easier to get with a second charge[/p][p]- Job times and permits are sorted now, and the selection with the most amount of time is selected first[/p][p]- Red crystal shards value now add up to the value of a full shard[/p][p]- Added confirmation popup when restarting a job[/p][p]- Added rounded corners to some physics objects to make them easier to handle and less likely to get stuck when trying to pick them up[/p][p]- Charge launcher build up SFX now uses tweaked volume and pitch[/p][p]- SFX now plays when entities detach from asteroids[/p][p]- Tweak to tool usage colour on tools page
[/p][p]Fixes[/p][p]- Fix for message sometimes flickering on and off once when starting a new job[/p][p]- Upgrades are now removed from the market after installing them from the market page[/p][p]- Fixed some cases where entities are trying to interact with the physics objects of entities that were removed on that update[/p][p]- Fixed some maths utilities bugs that were resulting in NaNs and then causing physics to behave in strange ways or be ignored altogether[/p][p]- Can no longer pause while extracting, dying, or dead[/p][p]- Gameover and pause menu buttons now wrap from top to bottom[/p][p]- Fix for laser effect remaining visible after extraction[/p][p]- Fix for rough transition to new game state when that game state took a while to load[/p][p]- Fix for TOOL_NONE status notification not clearing when installing a tool directly after purchasing it on the market page[/p][p][/p][p]And if you read all of that, here's a peak at the mining laser I've added (only available in the finished game)![/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello![/p][p]Recent work has been 100% on prologue and epilogue cutscenes. This has been pretty interesting from a development point of view because it's an important part of the game which is entirely story and art (at least my approach to it is).[/p][p][/p][p]Making the Cutscenes[/p][p]The design goals of these cutscenes are pretty simple; the prologue needs to quickly set the scene for the game as well as give a little introduction to who you are, and the epilogues need to wrap up the story and provide a satisfying ending (though not necessarily complete closure). I wanted to use Papers Please's cutscenes as a model, since they're simple and effective, but also very accessible in terms of development and artistic skill.[/p][p]The actual making of the cutscenes was quite straight forward. I worked on the prologue cutscene first since it's a straight sequence without any variations (unlike the epilogues) and the storytelling goals for it are pretty simple. I sketched out a bunch of panel ideas, from there worked out a sequence that would let me show and explain the setting, and then got to making the actual pixel art. [/p][p]I found that they came together quite easily (compared to some of the epilogue panels where I'm trying to show more complex scenes). The small size and reduced colour palettes help with that, I think, but I'm also enjoying pixel art more and more, and this game seems to have been the perfect thing to properly get started on it with.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
(I had a rough time making this video, and I'm still not 100% happy with it. More on that below.)[/p][p]Coding the cutscenes was pretty pleasant. I now have a little cutscene engine that takes arbitrary sequences of panels and captions and displays them in order, letting the player skip to the next panel or the whole thing. I also made it so that the highlights in the captions are specified in the source text by enclosing text in pairs of asterisks, something which will come in handy if I get round to adding localisation support.[/p][p][/p][p]Recording for YouTube[/p][p]To make it easy to show the opening cutscene for this devlog I thought I'd just record it and stick it on YouTube. I thought this would be easy but I had huge issues getting the colours to not appear super washed out in the final uploaded video. I think I haven't really had this issue so far because I've mostly been using gifs which tend to have very true colours (at least for pixel art), or the videos I have made haven't really had noticeable colour issues (the trailer for the Alpha is mostly fine.).[/p][p]I tried a lot of different colour formats for the video, and had some really nice results until it finally came to upload to YouTube. Ultimately I ended up moving from using ShotCut for my editing to Davinci Resolve and then just manually colour grading the video until I was happy with the final uploaded video. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I need to move on at some point, and the cutscenes are going to look fine when rendered in the actual game.[/p][p]I've included a gif version of the cutscene here so you can see the colours a little more as I intended.
[/p][p](Text is a little squashed by the page here, so open in its own tab to see nice crisp pixels)[/p][p][/p][p]Finishing Up Epilogues[/p][p]I still have a little bit of work left to do for the epilogue cutscenes, and then some tweaks to make sure everything is cohesive. Since there are multiple endings to the game (at least 5 at the moment, with varying levels of difference) I want to make sure that each path and its epilogue is actually satisfying, and players don't get punished for their choices with a lame outcome to the story. Doing all this art and figuring out how to end things has been a really welcome break, but I'm ready to start designing and coding some more interesting tools for the player's ship now. :)[/p][p]I'll leave you with one panel from the epilogues that I hope is interesting enough while not spoiling anything.[/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello![/p][p]There has been a lot of progress recently but not a lot of big exciting things to show off, apart from maybe the mines. Mostly I've been working on story and levels to build out a single run of the game to the length I want. I think this has also been the longest break in dev logs, which shows I've either run out of interesting things to talk about, or I've been way too stuck in the details of everything and now need to come up for air.[/p][p][/p][p]Mines![/p][p]As part of adding some more chaos and danger to the levels I worked on some exploding mines. They're quite simple, in that generally they will explode if you get too close, but combining that with physics and the ability to hide them makes for some fun and unpredictable scenarios. There's a story reason for these mines being here while pilots are engaged in peaceful mining activities, but I'll talk about that a little bit more below.[/p][p]There's a Seeker mine, which will roam around the level looking for a target, and once it finds one will follow it until close enough, and then explode! This uses the same pathfinding as the Drones, though I had to update it to be able to deal with pathfinding to a constantly moving target. I also got to test out the pathfinding's parameterisation of minimum path widths, since I wanted the Seekers to move quite close to things and not take a longer and safer path. Here's a gif of one creeping up on the player:[/p][p][/p][p]There's a very simple "touch" mine, which has four pressure points on it which when touched will detonate the mine. Pretty standard but also useful to the clever miner who can have them explode where they want. I actually ended up updating some core entity code for these guys since I wanted to be able to embed them within asteroids and have their pressure points work perfectly.[/p][p]
[/p][p]The third type is the Jumper, which are definitely my favourite (maybe for obvious reasons). They're embedded within asteroids, sometimes visibly and sometimes not, and jump out of the surface to explode as close as possible to a target. If you're fast enough you might even be able to catch one...[/p][p]
[/p][p]Giant Asteroids[/p][p]I'll quickly mention some giant asteroids that I've been adding in preparation for some more "diggy" tools I'm thinking to add. When adding these I had to update some of the game's screen wrapping code to handle entities that could be off both the top and bottom of the screen at the same time, which had just never happened before. I also found out that the wrapping code happily handles giant entities colliding with themselves![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] (Giant banana is for illustration purposes only. I can't guarantee that there'll be a giant banana in the game.)[/p][p][/p][p]Story[/p][p]Much of the work I've been doing recently is on writing the story and events that take place, and then building out the rest of the levels for a full playthrough. I didn't start this project with the goal of writing a cool story, but I knew I needed some form of story in order to give the game structure. To that end, I wanted the story to be simple and coherent, give an actual reason for the events and scenario of the game, and then not get in the way of people just playing the game. I've heard a few people actually describe the writing as good, which is not something I expected, but I think the best thing for me is to not focus on making an amazing story, just on an overall good game.[/p][p]So the story I've been working on involves an organised resistance group, the mining corporation becoming more involved with military corporations, and general background worker exploitation. Through all of this you are trying to pay off your debt before your contract is up. This all ties together through your choices, some of which are very explicit (like replying to a mail) and some of which require a little more commitment and action from you (trying not to spoil anything here). But what I've ended up with here is a story with multiple endings, which is cool but now I have to keep track of these endings and provide some satisfying closure for each. :)[/p][p][/p][p]Full Playthrough[/p][p]I've now finished a first draft of all of the levels and general flow of the game. I've been aiming for 4-5 hours for a single playthrough, then there's replayability for different story choices and upgrade/money choices. This has been one of the most challenging parts of development for me, having to sit down and think of levels that are interesting, fresh, and let players play how they want. But I'm happy to have done it, and I'm excited to start play testing the whole thing and see how it holds together.[/p][p][/p][p]What's next (or what's left)?[/p][p]Now that finishing this project is feeling closer than ever, there are only so many things left on my todo list. So I think in roughly this order, this is how I'm going to tackle them:[/p][p]- Play Testing.
A few full playthroughs of the game as-is will help me take proper stock of everything.[/p][p]- Endings, Prologue, Epilogues.
I need to properly track each ending and see how I can make each one satisfying, then create epilogue cutscenes for each. Probably more on this in another devlog.[/p][p]- More upgrades!
Lots of ideas.[/p][p]- More tools!
Even more ideas.[/p][p]- Localisation.
I'm going to sit on this one for a bit first, not sure whether I want to do it before or after release.[/p][p][/p][p]We'll see how all of this goes :)[/p]