Flight of the Athena News

As a solo indie developer, getting Flight of the Athena to the Early Access stage back in August was a massive effort, and took a mountain of work closing of work items, fixing bugs, and getting the release out (with the Demo and 0.43 release coming out in August also). Subsequently I took a bit of time out to recharge, and work on some other (smaller!) projects. This time out has been beneficial, and has allowed some reflection time on the next updates in store for Athena. This leads to...


Whilst I would like to get the chapter 3 content and enemies up and running, asset building for these takes time. Given there were some issues I wanted to address sooner, I put together a short list of these, the fixes were done, and the release is now live!

Version 0.44 updates:

• Gameplay Issue: Secondary turret rotation speeds. Whilst the slower turret rotation speeds for the Missile Battery make sense as a trade off for that weapon (and any future heavy damage secondaries), the penalty has been too great for lighter weapons like the vulcan and laser cannon. Fix: Rotation speed increased for these lighter secondaries.
  
• Gameplay/UI Issue: Mid-mission pop ups break up the gameplay too much. Fix: Streamlined mid-mission event pop ups (and fixed a performance bug to boot!)
  
• Gameplay/UI Issue: No pause functionality available. Fix: Pause functionality added (abort mission option to add at a later date), trigger with start / options button..
  
• UI Issue: Slow menu transitions. Taking too long to move between menus in the main game. Fix: Sped up transitions.
  
• UI Issue: Bosstiary mode, description required. Fix: a brief description of the Bosstiary mode objective has been added to the Bosstiary mode setup screen.
  
• UI Issue: Unable to view game version for save files. This matters as new updates to weapons, craft, game types etc will impact new games, but not current saves, to reduce risk if bricking saves. Fix: Game version field added to the game load button (it's recommended to start a fresh campaign game with new Early Access versions in any case, to avoid issues during this development period).
  

I'll evaluate whether a smaller update before the next major content update (0.5) makes sense, but the quality of life updates in 0.44 have been good to release.

That's all for now, till the next update!

This interim update before the next major build (V0.5) adds the 4th boss, Reaper, into the game - for both the Bosstiary mode and into the main Campaign generation pool.

His main special is a gravity well generator; the gravity wells suck in practically everything, bullets, ships (friend and foe), so extreme caution is needed in the vicinity of these.



Any feedback on this boss or any other aspects of the game is appreciated. Till the next update!

Timi@AToPlay

The Flight of the Athena combat demo has been released! This gives access to the Bosstiary for combat against two available bosses (codenamed Mega & Locust) to give a feel for the twin stick combat in this shoot 'em up.



The demo can be obtained from the Flight of the Athena base storepage:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/751940/Flight_of_the_Athena/

Thanks,

Timi@AToPlay

Flight of the Athena has been released into Early Access!

The current Early Access version contains:

• campaign mode - procedurally generated campaigns, playable to the end of chapter 2 (eventually 5 chapters).
  
• 4 playable ships, with a range of primary and secondary weapons.
  
• bosstiary mode - time attack challenge with set craft loadouts against the bosses currently available (Mega, Locust & Aegis).
  

For full info, check the Early Access panel on the store page.

Thanks!

Timi @AToPlay

It's a trap

More ambush waves are being integrated into the level ProgGen engine. As this is a vertical shooter with the main bulk of attacks coming from the top, the ambush waves are generally going to hit from the sides and below. A GUI warning system will show the incoming direction of these ambush waves to give pilots a short warning. Being ambushes though, there may be instances of being hit from both sides, or even all directions at once...



Like a Boss

The Bosstiary mode is starting to take shape; it's a time attack challenge, with a set craft loadout depending on the challenge difficulty, fighting against a player selected target boss. The set craft loadouts should make this interesting, as the harder challenge difficulties could equip you with sub-optimal craft / weapon types to take down that particular boss, but it will be down to the pilot to adapt and make the best of it.



Release Me

The to-do list of dev tasks before the first Early Access release is down to the low tens, so tentatively looking at the end of May for the first release, depending on these remaining tasks and fixes. This would give access to the first two chapters worth of content for the Campaign, and the Bosstiary mode with the currently available bosses to challenge. With that main core in place, subsequent chapters of content, bosses, events, game types etc could be added and worked in by the procedural campaign generator as and when they are integrated.

Till the next update!