Space rocks and patchers – Development Update 004

We’re a little later than usual, but once again we come bearing goodies. As of today Interstellar Rift will be using a launcher with a built-in patcher. This way you’ll just have to start the game and wait for it to find and install updates. No more downloading rar files and guessing which file you need to run, just open the launcher and click play when it has finished updating.

We are also bringing a test asteroid field into the game. Just take a look out of the window of your ship. Now, these asteroids aren’t just for show. Each one is synced over the local network. For the player this syncing doesn’t do much as of yet. So if multiple players would join they would see the asteroids the same way, in preparation for one of the coming networking updates. We’re venturing into some new and exciting territory here with these asteroids and other space based objects. But in the end we believe it’ll result in a space game unlike any other out there.

But wait, there’s more! In the last patch, we introduced the first phase of the power systems. This time we’ve made a few changes and added in the ability to save them. So from now on you don’t have to worry about losing all your work when you’ve set up a very fuel efficient ship. There are more things that we’ll be adding to this system in the next few updates, and we have some ideas on how to improve it, so please give us your thoughts and any feedback you’re willing to give will help us to greatly improve this system.

Interstellar Rift v0.0.5 can be downloaded here.

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Interstellar Rift Vidblog 002

We recorded a small video to talk a bit about the new power distribution system and how you can connect systems. These new additions to the game are not in any way complete and will have bugs and issues. In the coming updates we will build on this system and slowly open up the possibilities to control your ship.

You can download the latest version of the ship builder here.

Please let us know what you think, you can discuss the changes on our forums.

Interstellar Rift Development Update 003

Another two weeks have passed and its time to update again. We have lots of stuff going on under the hood this time, networking is where the focus is right now, and we will be sharing more information about this soon. But we have some new features for you guys to play around with as well. This fortnight, we bring you sound! Thats right, we have some early music in this week! Composed by Pim ”Sir Xemic” Schreurs. For the moment it’s just the one song, but expect more to come in the near future as we build on our sound engine and start supporting more audio.

 

Apart from sound, we’re also introducing the basics of power distribution and system connectivity. This system is a very early work in progress, but we want to get it into your hands and see what you think about it right out of the gate. This system needs refining and might change a lot over the coming weeks and months but we want you guys to be comfortable using it, since it’s going to be the backbone of your starship.

We’re also adding support for multi block props, this feature is necessary for tech II and higher ship systems and certain large props. This automatically creates room space for the placed prop. This will also enable us to place things like the hyperdrive we showed you in the devblog without it poking through the hull on all sides. For this update however we have only added the tech II hydrogen generator. But expect a lot more to come soon.

You can find the new editor available for download here. We appreciate any input and critique you guys are willing to share.

Interstellar Rift Development Update 002

Well it’s been two weeks and just like we said in our last blog post, it’s time for another update.

This week we’re going to enable virtual tour mode. This will allow you to walk around in your ships. When you’ve built a ship simply save it, go back to the main menu and press play. Make sure you place a teleporter in your ship, this is where you’ll spawn once you jump into a ship. Without a teleporter inside the ship it cannot be saved, as there’s nowhere to spawn.

Besides this, we have made several usability features for the shipbuilder based on your feedback, such as rotating props by click-dragging the mouse, border scrolling and of course saving different files. Naturally, we received far more feedback than we were able to implement in just two weeks. More features will follow with each update so please keep giving us feedback, show us your creations, and check back regularly.

The Interstellar Rift Alpha V0.0.3 can be downloaded here

for more info and the complete patch notes, please refer to our forums here

Interstellar Rift Ship Builder v0.01 released!

Two weeks ago we revealed Interstellar Rift to the world, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. Today we hit our first major milestone and we’re ready to let you guys play with our ship builder. With today’s release you’ll be able to create a space ship interior and hull. Over the coming days/weeks/months we’ll continue to improve and add new features to the ship builder based on your feedback. From today and forever you’ll be able to download the shipbuilder for free! as a standalone download. And when the alpha release rolls around you’ll be able to import the ships you’ve designed right into the main game!

The Interstellar Rift Alpha V0.01 can be downloaded Here

This pre-alpha build will allow you to design a ship from the inside out, however, please keep in mind that this is a pre alpha build, so there will be bugs, crashes and a lot of missing features. We plan to update the ship builder every two weeks with new content in the form of building blocks, visual improvements, new features and more, and walking around is just over the horizon.

For more instructions on how to use the ship builder please visit this page.

 

However we need your help to make this game the best it can be. Play around with the builder and let us know what you like and dislike, put it through the wringer, try to break it! We want to know what you want to see in Interstellar Rift and what we should probably leave out.

You can reach out to us through these channels:

Facebook
Twitter
Or go to our Forum

We are only human and we know there are infinitely more creative people out there than we can ever be. So show off that amazing new ship you’ve built. And let’s find out what we can do to make your creations even better.

We hope you enjoy the ship builder in its current incarnation and that it gives you a taste of what is to come.

Interstellar Rift Development Update 001

After about a year of hard work, It is time to officially announce our game, Interstellar Rift. A game where players will explore the galaxy in their own custom spaceship. We are thrilled to show some of the progress and explain how the game works.

To briefly explain the game. In Interstellar Rift players will be able to create their very own spaceship and explore the galaxy. Players will have to walk around in their ship to manage it, fly the ship in space, and above all, this can be done in multi player. For a more detailed description of Interstellar Rift please check here.

The ship in this video is about 170 meters long and is considered to be a medium to large ship. We categorize ships as small, medium, large and capital class.

Interstellar Rift is made using our own in-house engine, this allows us to cater the technology directly to the unique needs of our game. For example; because we want to give players maximum freedom in designing their own ships, the engine needs to be able to handle tons of dynamic lights and custom geometry without taking a significant performance hit. Therefore we opted to create a deferred rendering engine for ship interiors. and a forward renderer for the less customizable space environment. This has allowed us to keep performance high while still providing a visually appealing experience on low end systems.

We are very happy to say we have working prototypes of all our main gameplay pillars and we are working hard to merge them together into one working game. The ship builder is where most of the work has been done and while we still need to tweak a bit with it we feel we’ll soon be able to let you guys play around with it, we have tons of assets to place in the game, we are fairly happy about our workflow and pipelines, walking around in the ship and the outside space world work together in harmony and as I said, the renderer is working smoothly.

The very basics of spaceflight are also in working condition. There is not much to be found in space yet, but it is possible to fly around and the ship’s handling, acceleration and speed are based on the ship’s size and engines.

So what does all of this mean for you guys? With the basics in place, we should be able to implement features relatively quickly, and you will be able to see the game grow. Please check out our forums and let us know what you think about the game and the concept, what you like or what you dislike, what you would like to see or just your general opinion.

Thanks for reading our blog post, you can follow us on twitter and facebook, be sure to check back soon!