Nova Drift News

Hello everyone, thanks so much for what has been an amazing launch. I really appreciate all the positive energy sent our way, and we're excited for what comes next. Today we've got information for you in two parts. I'd like to talk about Pixeljam's next game, as well as go over how to create your own custom skins for Nova Drift, and share some awesome community creations.



First, allow me to introduce:

[h2]+UTOPIA MUST FALL+[/h2]


A base-defending arcade game, created by Datassette and our very own Miles Tilmann (the musician and publisher behind Nova Drift), Utopia Must Fall is releasing Monday the 9th. It's the first internally developed game by Pixeljam in six years (they've spent most of their time on Dino Run 2 and Nova Drift), and I believe it is something special. I've never experienced anything quite like the audio-visual combo this game has. It's also quite funny and tough as nails. While it's not a roguelike, it has elements of them in procedural generation, permadeath, and interesting upgrades. Give it a try, or at least drop them a Wishlist. What is good for Pixeljam is also good for the future of Nova Drift! Check it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2849680/Utopia_Must_Fall/

[h2]Nova Drift Custom Skins[/h2]

The game comes with 3 custom skins by default, and in this guide I'll break down how to add your own. Additionally, since some players expressed interest, I'll demonstrate how to match the Nova Drift art style exactly.

fourpointedstar's "Orphnim, The Chariot" Skin. (A fusion between Seraph and Glaucus)

[h3]Using & Creating Custom Nova Drift Skins[/h3]
To select and use Custom Skins, just go to the Settings menu and choose your favorite. Any that are set up correctly will appear in the "Custom Skins" option.



I've tried to make adding custom skins as accessible as possible, requiring you only to drop artwork the game's custom_skins folder and edit one line of text for each skin. A skin must have the text data, body artwork, and force armor artwork. Optionally, drone artwork and jet position data may also be included.

[h3]Setting Up Custom Skin Artwork Data[/h3]

Data for custom skins is found in the custom_skins folder, which is in this filepath by default:

PC: Nova Drift\datafiles\custom_skins

OSX: NovaDrift/Contents/Resources/custom_skins

If you're using Steam, that file path might look more like:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Nova Drift\custom_skins

Every skin needs two elements: Artwork, and the data inside of the custom_skins.csv file. The .csv file tells the game which artwork goes with which skin.



To add your own custom skin, follow the examples of the included custom skins provided. The .csv file can be edited with most text editors, including Notepad. The file looks like this:



Here, we can see the data for the three default custom skins: Saris, Orbiter, and Ultra C.

Please note:

• The first line of the .csv is an example that the code ignores.
  
• Every custom skin should be on its own line in the document.
  
• The data values for each custom skin should be separated by commas, with no spaces.
  
• Each skin must follow the format of: name,artwork,force_armor_artwork,drone_artwork,jet_angle,jet_distance
  

I'll explain the values that can be defined, from the left to right:

1. Name: This is a string of text that will be shown in the settings menu, labeling the custom skin.
   
2. Body Artwork: This is the file name of the sprite that will replace whatever the default body artwork is. More info below.
   
3. Body Force Armor Artwork (required): This is the file name of the sprite that will be layered below the body if the player has the "Force Armor" upgrade. More info below.
   
4. Drone Artwork (optional): This works just like the body artwork, but it applies to drones instead of the body. If this is left blank, no change to the drone artwork will occur.
   
5. Jet Angle (optional): Jet angle and Jet Distance define where the body's two jet trails originate from relative to the origin (the center) of the body artwork. Jet Angle defines the angle, in degrees, from where the jet originates (where zero is the front-facing of the body), while Jet Distance defines the distance (in pixels) from the origin of the ship. Then, these values are mirrored for the other jet. For instance, if you have a body whose wings are straight out to the sides you would use 90 for the jet angle, and the number of pixels from the center of the artwork for jet distance. This is an optional value; leaving it blank would result in both jets coming from the central origin of the ship.
   
6. Jet Distance (optional): See above.
   

[h3]Artwork Recommendations[/h3]

I recommend providing a .png file for artwork, as they are lossless, but .gif and .jpg/.jpeg files should also work. For best results, the artwork should be somewhere around 200-320 pixels in width and length.

Note that the game will do its best to make the custom body a similar size to the body gear it is representing. It does this by comparing the largest dimension of the original artwork to the largest dimension of the custom artwork and adjusting the artwork size by the difference. So, if you provide an oversized piece of artwork, it won't result in a larger body. If the provided artwork is too small, it may appear blurry if the game scales it up, which it may do either to fit the body size or accommodate retina displays. Also, it's best to avoid empty space around the artwork, as it will be included in the size calculation and will result in a smaller looking body. For reference, most bodies are visualized in-game at around 40% of their original artwork size.

[h3]Sprite Color[/h3]
I recommend that your sprites are pure white. Player color is defined by their shield color. This coloration is applied multiplicatively, so if the custom artwork is pure white, it will look consistent with the art style of the game when shield color is applied.

[h3]Hit Boxes[/h3]
The collision box for custom skins is created automatically from the image sprite. Portions of the image that have very high opacity, or 100% opacity, will have collision. In terms of the Gamemaker engine, this is a "precise collision" set to tolerance of 200.

[h3]Sprite Offsets[/h3]
The offset for the sprite will automatically be set by finding the center of the image provided. It is important that both the body artwork and the force armor artwork share the same origin position relative to each other if they are to align in-game.

[h3]Notes[/h3]

• Custom skins don't make a visual Viper body barrier indicator. This has no effect on gameplay.
  
• Leviathan body segments are all assigned the same sprite as the custom skin.
  

Please consider that while we encourage you to create, play with, and share custom skins, we must disable submitting global scores while they are in use, since players can easily use this feature to make the game more or less difficult.

[h3]How to Match the Nova Drift Art Style[/h3]
If you'd like to, here's a guide to help you make your skins consistent with the Nova Drift art direction. I personally used Photoshop, but you can use anything that will let you draw with vectors and apply glows.

It's all about minimalist geometry, hard angles, and subtle glows.

[h3]Step 1: The body vector shape[/h3]


Draw the body using white vector shapes. In Photoshop, this is accomplished using the Pen tool.

[h3]Step 2: The "tight" body glow (On the same layer as above)[/h3]
Nova Drift usually layers several glows on top of each other for its signature style. One of them is very small and traces the object shape, making it look neon. The second is the same but much larger, appearing to radiate light outward. And the third is a diffuse, circular glow. This one doesn't trace the shape of the object, it's just a circular gradient.

If you don't want to deal with all of this, feel free to just be lazy and make a single glow that averages the values between first two that I demonstrate. It won't make a huge difference.

I'll demonstrate the "tight" glow first:


In Photoshop, this is accomplished by double-clicking a layer to get to the "Layer Styles" menu, checking "Outer Glow" and entering some numbers. Everything we make in this tutorial will use the same color as the body artwork, true white. For the glow I use a opacity of 25%, a size of 10px, and a range of 50%. The rest of the values are the defaults.

[h3]Step 3: The "wide" body glow (On a duplicate layer)[/h3]



To make the wide glow, duplicate the previous layer so that you have a copy of your body artwork with a glow on it. Edit the Outer Glow in Layer Style to be wider and less opaque. I use 15% opacity and 100px size.

Finally, just so that the body artwork's alpha doesn't overlap, reduce the Fill of this layer to 0%. This makes the body art invisible, but doesn't hide the glow.

[h3]Step 4: The "diffuse" glow (On a new layer)[/h3]



The diffuse glow doesn't use the body artwork. It's just a white blob. On a new layer, just draw a white radial gradient with 100% white as the starting color and 0% white as the ending color. To make it subtle, you can either draw it at 20% opacity in the gradient settings like I am showing above, or reduce the opacity of the layer itself to 20%. The shape should span the width of your document's size.

Turning all three layers on, you should see something like this:


I should have just used shaders for all of this, but at the time I figured using purely sprites would simplify things. Nova Drift doesn't use any shaders at all, actually. We old school.

Now, the Force Armor effect is the last thing to create.

[h3]Step 5: The Force Armor stroke (On a new layer)[/h3]



Using a vector line tool (in Photoshop this is called the Pen tool, turn off Fill and turn on Stroke), draw a shape around the whole body. It should be 10px in width and 100% opaque, and it looks good if there's around a 15 pixel buffer between the body and the inside of the effect. In-game it actually draws more like 30% opaque, but that is handled through code.

[h3]Step 6: Export your artwork[/h3]



Finally, save two copies of the artwork: One version with just the Force Armor stroke visible, and one version with everything except the Force Armor stroke visible. The background should be totally empty.

To make the drone skins, the process is identical, except there's no need for Force Armor artwork.

Make sure your file names match the file names that the .csv file is indicating.

[h3]Share Your Skins![/h3]
If you create any, please share your custom skins on the official Nova Drift Discord! We have a special channel ready for them, and we've already seen many amazing ones.

Avtraxi's Custom Skin

tempest153's Star Eater Cosplay Skin on a Leviathan

I can't wait to see what you all come up with!

[h2]Want to help Nova Drift grow?[/h2]
Steam Reviews really help! As a tiny operation, Nova Drift relies on its quality and reputation to sell, and reviews encourage players and content creators to give the game a chance. Please do take a moment to fill out a short review, even if it's only a few words. It just might make a big difference.

[h3]Don't want to miss my next game? Follow me![/h3]
On Twitter, BlueSky, and TikTok

Thanks for reading. Best wishes,

Jeffrey (Chimeric)

Hello all,

The final bug fixes from 1.0 launch are live, including the one that causes cursor drift. Other changes include Star Eater boss tweaks and updates to the way the window repositions.

Full changelog here as usual: https://steamcommunity.com/app/858210/discussions/0/3658515990056189069/

Hello all,

We just updated to version 1.09, with some small hotfixes addressing some rare crashes and bugs.

We're currently testing a balance pass for the final boss, as well as a fix for the cursor drift some players are experiencing in Windowed Mode. I expect these changes will be live within a week. If you'd like to experience them sooner, feel free to switch over to the beta branch.

Changelog for 1.09: https://steamcommunity.com/app/858210/discussions/0/3658515990056189069/

I'm no shoot 'em up nutter - or "shmutter", as I understand they prefer to be called - but some of the first games I remember playing are shmups. Games like Maelstrom, Ambrosia's Macintosh clone of Asteroids, and the proto-shmup Crystal Quest from Patrick Buckland, who would go on to make Carmageddon. Little did I know that the humble premise of a small 2D spacecraft shooting baddies on a wrap-around screen would reach the glittering heights of Nova Drift. Had you shown me this game back in 1995, I dare say I'd have shmupped myself.

Read more

Early Access has finally ended... Nova Drift Version 1.0 is now available!

[h2]New Features:[/h2]

• Added a final boss(!)
  
• Added the game ending sequence, which you will encounter if the Endless challenge mode is disabled
  
• Endless Mode can now be turned off, and unlocks when you first beat the game's final boss for the first time
  
• Added new sound effects and 4 new background music tracks, completing the OST
  
• Added the ability to override body and drone artwork with custom skins. Added 3 sets of custom skins. Players may also create and play with their own!
  
• Added German localization
  
• Added new settings including Assist Mode, and High-Visibility mode
  
• Implemented texture compression, significantly improving performance!
  
• Implemented several hundred balance changes, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements
  

[h2]Notable Changes Include: [/h2]

• Improvements/buffs to several Gear upgrades, including Research, Pulse, Blades, and Siphon
  
• Improvements/buffs to many Mods, including Rapid Reconstruction, Deadly Wake, Homing Strike, Mines, Allies, Firing Array, Charged Shot, Flash Shielding, Construct Specialist Wild Mods, and Transmogrification
  
• Improvements/buffs to several Super Mods, including Celestial Surge, Singular Strike, Sanctuary, Antimatter Rounds, and Ataraxia
  
• Improved boss, enemy and hazard behavior, including asteroids, comets, Scion, Glaucus, Warbringer, Bolt-Throwers, Juggernauts, and Hives
  
• Improved GUI, controls, menus, stats, text clarity, and the save system
  

[h2]Complete List of Changes[/h2]
https://steamcommunity.com/app/858210/discussions/0/3658515990056189069/



I'll be writing a proper Postmortem later, but I find I want to reflect on the game's development now, both to express my gratitude to everyone involved, and because I think it's been unorthodox enough that it may be interesting to players and useful to other game developers. I'm also writing to gain some closure and catharsis; It's been a long road. This will be quite long and personal, so if you're here for it, great, otherwise you could skip to the end if you just want to find out what's next for Chimeric and Nova Drift.

[h2]The Initial Nova Drift Pitch[/h2]
Nova Drift was originally pitched more than a decade ago, in 2013, for a client who ran a web portal called Dojo. The request was to create an HTML5 game that would take 3 months(!) to make. I came up with a few simple pitches, Nova Drift being one of them.

This is the original concept art from 2013. At the time, it was "Asteroid Assault", later to be renamed "Star Drift", and finally "Nova Drift.

At the time, I was playing a ton of Path of Exile, which was by far Nova Drift's strongest influence. I wanted to explore ways to distill the experience of that game's hundred-hour character building into quick game sessions. Remember, this was more than a decade ago, we didn't have the scores of fast paced rogue-likes exploring that design space like we do today.

At this point in my life, I'd just quit corporate game development in favor of working in a more official capacity with Pixeljam, a tiny indie company who I had a ton of admiration for, and who had already become like mentors to me. This appealed to me greatly because I'd become fed up with corporate game culture and I was determined to solve this by working as small and as honestly as possible. For Nova Drift, I knew this meant reducing scope as much as I could while still retaining the mechanical complexity that defined it. In exploring this, I became so excited about building the game that I decided I would make it whether or not our client accepted it.

They passed on the pitch (thank goodness!) in favor of another one of my designs, Last Horizon, which Pixeljam and I developed as partners. Coming from an entirely art-focused background, Last Horizon served as my crash-course in coding. For the first time ever, I didn't make artwork on a project I was working on. Seeing its potential on mobile devices, it was expanded from a 3 month web-jam into a 1 year project.

Last Horizon was a minimal space exploration and survival game about mastering gravity mechanics. "Pilot the last vessel of a fallen civilization into the vast unknown, in search of a new world to call home."

While Last Horizon was being developed, I planned to chip away at the prototype for Nova Drift just to maintain the momentum I'd had on it. In reality, I didn't have much time for it, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I finally managed to get Last Horizon to a presentable state, but as my first commercial programming project, it was a nightmare. With no formal training in programming or computer science, and using an engine that none of my coworkers were familiar with, I was on my own for every technical challenge. While it was rough, in retrospect, making this game allowed me an alternative to going back to college for programming. I also learned the importance of work life balance, and the game ended up doing very well on mobile, funding all of Nova Drift's early development.

[h2]Chimeric & Pixeljam[/h2]
With Last Horizon shipped, I was finally free to jam on Nova Drift. Unlike the previous games I'd worked on, this wouldn't be a Pixeljam title, it would be self-directed. I formed my company and called it "Chimeric". By this point, Pixeljam had become what you might call a "micro-publisher". With micro-publishers you might trade the clout, up-front cash, and marketing power that bigger organizations can offer for a small team that acts more like a personal, experienced advocate and cheerleader. I'd heard the horror stories about all the constraints and pitfalls that could come with large publishers, and I didn't want to owe any money, so this suited me just fine. Besides, Pixeljam's Miles and Rich had been my friends and partners for years. Publishing would be Miles' area, and I knew that he would always have my back, and that he would always put my well being, and the quality of the game, before profit or deadlines (And he has). I signed on with them, and with Pixeljam in my corner, I was ecstatic to begin.

[h2]The Nova Drift First Playable[/h2]
The first stages of a game project are always the best this was especially true with Nova Drift. I wanted to do nothing else, and would work late into the night simply because I enjoyed it. The prototype was immediately fun. I now realize that this is very rare, and it's never been true for any of the other several dozen games I've worked on, professionally or otherwise. I think this was due to the combination of a tried-and-true super-minimal core loop that could be implemented in a day along with the fact that new features were so modular that they were a breeze to stack on top of each other. In other projects, I've had to work hard and keep faith that I would eventually "find the fun". In a lot of prototypes, you never do, and that's just part of the process.

I took my awesome morale as a sign that I had something really worthwhile, and that pushed me through the anxiety that comes with forming your own enterprise. At first, I focused solely on making the basic shooting and movement as fun as I possibly could. I knew that if it could feel fantastic with only the most basic gear, every enemy and upgrade I stacked on top of it would be more of a good thing. This seemed to work, so I committed to the strategy. The game didn't need levels or a campaign, those would be distractions to the singular goal of making the best possible super-concentrated character building arcade game. To this end, I settled on simple arena combat with procedurally generated encounters.

The first playable versions of the game contained placeholder artwork. While it was refined and stylized over time, its roots of flat-colored geometric shapes remained.

Nova Drift as a first playable in 2013.

[h2]Nova Drift Alpha: Iteration and Exploration[/h2]
Alpha lasted about four years. In that time I mostly piled on enemies and player upgrades until building felt diverse enough, while incrementally experimenting with the presentation.

The first attempt at an art overhaul retained the bold color treatment but introduced more complex forms and negative-space line art, and the menus also followed suit. I felt like this was a step in the right direction, but something about it still appeared immature to me.



The upgrade interface changed often. At first, the mod pool didn't contain any progression. This quickly revealed itself as problematic: In order to have the depth I wanted, the game needed a lot of mods. However, the game also had to remain accessible, unlike its Action-RPG influences. Too many mods meant too much info dumped on a player all at once. It also meant that the player's build would be mostly left to chance. I didn't want that, especially because The Binding of Isaac (the most popular Rogue-like at the time) had already thoroughly explored that.



The answer ended up being the mini-trees and Super Mod combos that are present in the game, now. While not a perfect solution, they provided a middle-ground between deterministic building and rogue-like randomness.

The version of Nova Drift that was playable during the 2017 Kickstarter campaign had placeholder monochrome upgrades.

With the third re-imagining of the art treatment, I discovered that portraying the entities in neon resulted in a more modern look that at the same time represented its retro arcade roots. This also provided greater contrast which granted the freedom to paint detailed celestial backgrounds.

Nova Drift's splash artwork circa 2017, during the launch of its Kickstarter campaign.

Nova Drift's 1.0 artwork. Fun fact: Nova Drift uses zero shaders or modern vfx. Everything is either just a sprite or a drawn polygonal shape, just like in the olden days.

Nova Drift's finished iconography.

[h2]The Kickstarter[/h2]
In 2017 it was almost time to make the game public. By then, that early momentum was starting to wear off. The game was becoming more complex and the introduction of the first real deadline made it harder to retain the super positive mental state I'd previously had. It wasn't just me messing around and finding out what I could do anymore– I'd gone all in– there were about to be financial stakes and other people to make happy. I'd also been developing alone for quite some time. Without player feedback coming in, development became an act of faith. I was adding things every day, but was the game really any good? How could I be sure? I learned that three years is a long time to work in a vacuum. It was time to get the game into the hands of players.

Since I had savings from my previous game development work and Last Horizon, Pixeljam and I created the Kickstarter with the modest goal of raising enough money for Miles to create the game's soundtrack (one of his many talents) and to gauge the amount of interest in the game. It performed about as well as we expected, not impressive, but not a failure, either. However, its never been easy to make it big on Kickstarter, and it turned out that the tangential benefits of running the campaign vastly outweighed the monetary value. The backers that put their faith in the game became the seed community that would become an indispensable part of development.

[h2]Nova Drift Beta: Early Access Begins[/h2]
The positive feedback from the Kickstarter backers quickly galvanized me, inspiring a level of energy I hadn't felt since prototyping. I wasn't in the dark anymore. As game updates became Kickstarter newsletters, I continuously invited players to join the Discord I'd created for the game. I updated the game very frequently for two years. People started to become regulars, and I fell into a routine of involving them in balance and content discussions.

Miles and I started putting effort into getting eyes on the game for the upcoming early access debut on Steam and we were both surprised by our success! I wrote a blog post that detailed Path of Exile's influence on my game and posted it on their subreddit. The post garnered praise from the game's co-founder and lead programmer, and got the attention of a decent chunk of the game's audience. The post would later lead to the streamer ZiggyD covering the game, which lead to other Path streamers playing, and awareness spread further from there.

Super entertaining content creators Celerity and Wanderbots started covering the game regularly, and many others followed suit. It was becoming abundantly clear that content creators had become the modern way to advertise a game. Later, UltraC would create videos consistently all throughout development, eventually resulting in a collection of almost 600 by the time the game was finished! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When the game came to Steam early access in 2019, people started to flow into the community more steadily and we continued to collaborate. At first, my regular player interaction was mostly a marketing effort, but it quickly proved itself incredibly useful, and was soon completely integrated with my design process.



We also started to amass a really impressive fan art gallery. These works are by Advent Zen.

All of our efforts resulted in a gradual but very long slow burn. The game never reached the explosive viral growth you see in mega-hits like Slay the Spire, but it steadily grew throughout early access. This eventually got the attention of the Steam algorithms, which showed the game to more people and created a feedback loop. Our numbers would have been no big deal for most games, but for a company this small, it was. The game had begun to fund its own development. Since each update resulted in more growth, I started to feel less inclination to finish the game and instead a desire to make it as good as I thought it could be. And it seemed to be working.



I liked updating the game, and I felt like I had little reason to stop doing so in the lower-pressure-environment that is early access. So I grew it for years, adding modes like Wild Metamorphosis and other major features.

[h2]Climbing Content Mountain[/h2]
Of course, the honey moon period of early development couldn't last forever, especially as the complexity started to mount, time dragged on, and I felt the pressure of player opinions weighing on me. I was still a relatively new programmer. As the game continued to expand, the technical problems were becoming too big to solve alone. Moreover, there were now so many upgrades that a large portion of my time became balance work. Since Nova Drift was initially so easy to support, I spent a long time thinking about where things had taken a turn. I narrowed it down to a few main reasons:

• An "everything works with everything" upgrade system meant that whenever I added an upgrade to the game, it compounded the challenge of balancing every upgrade that came before it. When we exceeded about 150 upgrades, things started to get problematic.
  
• Games with an endless mode are massively harder to balance than games with endings. For instance, in Hades, builds are considered viable if they can defeat the final boss. In Nova Drift, a build tends to be judged by how far it can push in waves. The higher the wave, the fewer builds are considered viable for it. This isn't great for build variety. Thankfully, this changed with 1.0, as Nova Drift now has an ending, with Endless Mode being optional.
  
• Architecture. While I did a good job of keeping the overall structure of the game simple and untangled, the code I wrote was sometimes error prone, hard to work with, and repetitious. It didn't help that Gamemaker's capabilities and features changed every few years. What can I say, I was self-taught.
  

It's hard to express how difficult solo game development is. Game development is already demanding, and doing it alone means you're performing a multitude of jobs at once, with a fraction of the resources. While I couldn't imagine doing anything else, I am very hesitant to ever recommend it, much in the same way someone might be hesitant to recommend boxing. You have to really want it because it is risky and it is punishing. Very few indie games even break even, let alone with tiny teams.

Despite all of this, I never doubted that it was right for me. While I admit that it working out involved a great deal of privilege and luck, I think what made it possible was certainty and obsession more than anything else. After I'd seen a video game, there was never a point when I didn't know I wanted to make one. I was always thinking about mechanics. I never stopped practicing the skill set, even before I was old enough to understand that what I was doing was practicing. Most game developer aspirants or professionals that I'd met didn't consider the risk of going solo to be worth it. If there are secret ingredients that make solo development work, I don't think its talent or intelligence, I think it's obsession, conviction, and tenacity.

Its interesting to think back on all of this now. Its been a decade since the start, and I realize that the project has now spanned a quarter of my life! It's grown much larger than my aspirations, and I attempted to do more alone than is reasonable or healthy. Over its course, I'd dragged myself back from the brink of burnout several times, and I can say with certainty that pushing through until the end was the hardest thing I have ever done. Still, it was consistently rewarding and always fascinating. Practicing so many skills at once kept me challenged, and as a result, exploded my potential as a person. I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything else.

[h2]The Discord Arc[/h2]
It was very fortunate that I started speaking more frequently with a member of the community who had been there since the start, Ken "Ultraken" Miller. Ken is a veteran coder who has worked on many beloved AAA titles, but is most well known for his integral support on the Battlezone series. Ken began to help me over the years, patiently teaching me best practices, better scripting methods, good use of source control, tidy architecture, and helping out with particularly insidious bugs. Before long, he was optimizing the code base and submitting his own features and improvements. By the end of the project, Ken was responsible for many of the more elegant behaviors in the game, such as the construct swarm and Leviathan physics. Thinking back, he kept everything running smoothly whenever the pressure was on and anticipated problems before they manifested, several of which I wouldn't have known existed until it was too late. I don't know what I would have done without him.

Before I realized it, I wasn't really a solo developer anymore, and soon, many more helpers from the community become involved organically. In particular, a secretive person known only as "Lurk" began logging, organizing, and troubleshooting bugs with impressive precision and detail. He still does today. By the end, we'd found fantastic help with moderation, quality assurance, technical writing, and translators for 11 different languages. Amazing. A huge shout out to all of them, you are wonderful.

Every once in a while I meet a game developer who works mostly in a vacuum and I have to wonder why (or even how) they do it.

Above works by Hexacryonic

If I was technically unprepared, I was even less prepared to receive the level of criticism and attention the game was starting to generate. While I never doubted that I wanted to make Nova Drift, I didn't expect other people to actually care about it as much as they did. I thought it was just a cute little diversion that would be a stepping stone on my path to becoming a decent game designer. I made it for me... but other people had very strong opinions! I knew that this was inevitable with any game release, and on a good day I could handle it, but at times it felt like a torrent.

A trend I've noticed in creators, or maybe just in people, is that we tend to disregard praise and obsess over the negative. I think its difficult to maintain distance between ourselves and our projects. Creating is inherently very personal. After all, it's that we care deeply that allows our works to mean something.

Without a community manager, I had to learn to not take criticism personally, control my exposure to social media, and delegate volunteers when I needed to step away. It took about 5 years to become decent at it, but I got there. I am deeply grateful to those on my team that helped me manage.

Most of the feedback was still super positive, though. Sometimes alarmingly so (note their hours on record):
Dear Pony Slaystation, I am truly sorry. I didn't know this would happen. I hope you are ok.

By 2020, our slow and steady iteration had resulted in a polished game long before I felt that it was ready to be released. We started getting big-name streamers playing, and Steam featured it in many Daily Deal events. Players were frequently surprised to find out that the game was not, in fact, "out yet". I started getting questioned about why the hell I hadn't released it yet. I always told people it was because the game didn't have an ending or a final boss yet, and there were still a few big improvements I wanted to make, anyway. But I also think it was because I was comfortable and a little afraid. I didn't know how to put it to rest.

[h2]The Rogue-Like Explosion of 2021[/h2]
By 2021, I had planned one more major update to the game before I would begin wrapping it up, and we called it "Enemies 2.0". It was a total overhaul to enemy waves and behaviors. It also introduced more enemies and several alternate bosses. I wasn't sure if I should have done it. Players found it divisive, it took ages to develop, and it released in several parts. Each part ended up being the largest update we had ever made. If I hadn't done it, the game may have come out several years sooner, but I don't think it would have had a fraction of the replayability that it has now. In any case, during its development something interesting happened...

Rogue-likes, and then "Survivors-likes", suddenly exploded in popularity. After Vampire Survivors went viral, everybody started making them. You'd think that this would have buried Nova Drift, but the opposite started happening. You see, Steam is really good at showing players games that they might like, and it was of the distinct opinion that if you liked this funny vampire game, you might also like the silly spaceship game. And the same was true of many different fast-paced rogue-like games, all having each other recommended to each other by players and the Steam algorithms alike. The game exploded in popularity again, filling us with excitement and uncertainty. How long would this last? Were we waiting too long to release the game, should we rush to strike while the iron was hot? Was the market going to be oversaturated by the genre or was Nova Drift a unique enough take on it? It was a little unsettling to see so many games begin and end their development before Nova Drift was finished, several of which had taken distinct inspiration from our systems. We ended up sticking to the original plan, and I think that no matter what happens with launch, I'm glad that we did. I believe it was the right thing for the game.

[h2]Finishing, Finishing, Finishing[/h2]
By now, Nova Drift was also exceeding 200 upgrades, almost all of which were compatible with each other. The complexity creep was real. Additionally, the metagame had become so mature that veterans players understood it far better than I did, and they were surviving farther in waves than I'd ever imagined. I started to accept that it had grown beyond my capacity to balance it. Our lead moderator, Soren Lily, saw me struggling with this and offered his help. Soren is a math enthusiast in the extreme, and has a deep understanding of Nova Drift along with a strong sense of game design. As the project neared its end, I came to lean on Soren more and more to help me untangle the ever-growing web of balance problems. We complimented each other's abilities fantastically, and ended up collaborating on most of the game's finishing touches. Soren was responsible for revitalizing several previously underwhelming mods near the end of the project, including Ataraxia, Sanctuary, Research, Void Slice, and Celestial Surge.

At the same time, I was becoming aware of how much less fluid the project had become. Far from the energetic pace of its alpha, the game became resistant to the smallest change. I expect this can be seen in any software old enough. Porting and localization multiply the scope of things for obvious reasons, but what isn't as clear is that a complex enough web of interlaced mechanics can mean that pulling a single thread cascades disastrously. Layering on more and more of an audience also increases the consequences of getting anything wrong. Not just because mistakes become costly, but because each one becomes a debate. It can all be disheartening, because experimentation is valuable, and making mistakes is an inexorable part of that process. This brings me back to earlier, when I mentioned how enjoyable a nascent game project is. For me, Nova Drift's inelasticity was a sign that it just needed to be completed. So, I allowed myself one more update to change a few more fun things, and then I would focus on the game's ending.

Turns out its really hard to finish a game. If you haven't done it before, you can think you're nearly done and still have years ahead of you, let alone how much work comes with then releasing the game. Hell, even veterans make the mistake. I thought I was "finishing" the game as early as the start of Enemies 2.0, and that ended up taking years.

Image is by Matt Hackett, the author of "How To Make A Video Game All By Yourself". I believe I am one of the people responsible for this image being updated with more "finishing" cells.

[h2]Nova Drift's Final Early Access Days[/h2]
2024 has been a blur, but somehow we managed to get the final boss and the game's ending completed, slay 170 bugs, shine the game up, and slip in some really cool features at the 11th hour.

While we were wrapping it up, the rogue-like hype explosion did die down, and the ever-fickle gaze of the Steam Algorithms roamed onward. Nova Drift had officially existed in early access long enough to witness the resurgence and fall of its own genre. What I'm very curious to learn is whether a game in this position can get a second chance to go viral upon release. We've lined up as much hype as we could, and there's nothing to do now but wait and see what happens.

Now that it's complete, it doesn't even seem "real" to say that the game is done. I've been doing this for so long that I feel like I am a different person now than when I started, and I haven't dared to imagine a version of myself that wasn't entrenched in the project. I'm deeply appreciative that it all happened, and I am quite proud of it, but I am so, so ready to take a break and do something else. It was just all-consuming.

I'm anxious, but I'm also quite excited. I have entire notebooks full of concepts, and it's clear to me now just how much harder I was working than I had to (but I'll save that for the postmortem). With more experience, better planning, clean architecture, and skillful allies, building something new should make me feel like I'd been running with weights on my ankles the whole time. But don't worry, if you're hoping for more, I'm sure I'll come back to Nova Drift in good time.

[h2]So... What's Next?[/h2]
I'm still exploring options for Nova Drift, but there are a few things I would like to happen if launch goes well:

• Mobile ports for iOS and Android
  
• Major console ports
  
• A major DLC and/or update
  

Most players and our team seem agreed that the most valuable addition to the game would be a Daily Challenge mode, though we also receive a huge amount of requests for new Gear and Mod upgrades. Personally, I think that introducing new, versatile enemy types could be just as good for the longevity of the game.

[h2]Daily Challenge Mode?[/h2]
Daily Challenge is a Challenge Mode that I hope to release in the future. It would allow players to compete against each other on a global leader board with specific game modifiers that change daily. Modifiers could include rule changes, buffs to specific player or enemy abilities, or feature all new mini-games. Everyone would play with the same game seed. Here are three example Daily Challenges that could appear:

• High Stakes: Players gain much more experience, take more damage from enemies, and cannot reroll upgrades.
  
• Cosmic Egg: Enemies target a Cosmic Egg, instead of you, which is always present, and can be pushed. If the egg dies, the game is over. The player has improved recovery.
  
• Purity: You begin with Ataraxia and the Gear of your choice, but you are limited to purchasing 7 mods. Ataraxia is much stronger than usual.
  
• Boss Rush: Compete for the best time as you face every boss in the game in succession, gaining several levels between each.
  
• Serpentine Drift: Play a version of the classic "Snake" game as an ever-growing Leviathan gobbling up points and tanking asteroids and comets.
  

[h2]Want to help Nova Drift grow?[/h2]
Steam Reviews really help! As a tiny operation, Nova Drift relies on its quality and reputation to sell, and fantastic reviews help people choose games with less exposure. Please do take a moment to fill out a short review, even if it's only a few words. It just might make a big difference.

[h2]Thank You[/h2]
To everyone who has patiently awaited the release of Nova Drift throughout its long development, I appreciate you! It wouldn't be half the game it has become without its community, and I thank you for the opportunity to do what I love for a living. Good luck out there, in the cosmos!

-Jeffrey (Chimeric)