OXY stations are a somewhat circular shape, reminicent of the bubbles of air they represent. An operational OXY station is the most welcome sight in the known universe.
The Captain Jameson Station Field Guide series continues later this week.
<3
Farbs
Ooh. Looking good. Are those blurst shields or oxy storage tanks?
They’re too wide to be blurst shields. They’ve gotta be oxy modules.
Anyway, I like the design here. Very easily recognizable.
Oh, on an unrelated note, I’ve always thought it would be cool if when someone exits your ship you’d see a little man in a space suit come out on a long and winding life support line. Though I doubt that would work for this game. However, if you ever do that 3D Captain Forever installment, I could see it working as a means of editing your ship configuration. It would make some kind of sense to control some kind of avatar in a 3D game.
Though I think the effect would be really cool in 2D
Ooh, what if you had to get out of your ship and physically power up some stations?… But then again, if their telnet systems are working then I guess it seems a little unnecessary… Though, stuff could be broken and need fixing, I suppose.
Clearly there’s a calender in the works “Modules of Cpt Jameson” OXY can be Miss December.
@Chris K
The idea of a little man in a space suit at first seemed repulsive (considering the graphical style, an actual human body would seem a little too detailed for my tastes since I had imagined the Captain Forever game as a GUI which only used symbols to represent the actual objects), but then I realized this could influence how ships are built if the life support line could not only act as a graphical detail, but also be a literal tether. For example, only modules within reach of the tether could be grabbed readily(I say this, because I know that I for one have exploited the fact that at least one module can be carried by the mouse cursor). This might discourage players from snapping every single module they see unto their ships, but I’m not sure whether that would also hinder certain playing styles. Also, I know that this would alter game play even more, but perhaps the sort of passenger could influence this (a straight-up civilian passenger would have an average tether length and booster speed, while a repairman or station operator could have longer tethers/faster pickup speed). Keep in mind though, this is just an idea. Personally I would rather keep module construction the way it is now, since this the aforementioned route might end up making module experimentation tedious and boring (especially if the passenger is very slow in picking up the modules).
The speed issue is definitely a fair point, and not one I hadn’t considered, but you must also keep in mind that in a 3D game, moving modules around may not be able to be done very well with just the mouse, but if you had an avatar you could move about through 3D space then it may solve that problem. Keeping that processing from feeling slow and boring would admittedly be a challenge, though.
As for the 2D games, I would not want to even attempt constructing anything that way. However, if there were a few specific instances that allowed for you to make an EVA, I think it might add something to the game. It would just have to be used sparingly.
So after all the conversations in the last post, are those oxy tanks attachable.. if so.. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!
re EVA: Yeah, I’ve been thinking for a while that this might be a way to do a non-pointer version, eg a dual stick version for consoles, in 2D or 3D. It could be rather slow and frustrating compared to the mouse though. Still, 3D EVA would be awesome.
re Tanks: They’re currently just simple modules marked as Fluid Storage, and since you can never destroy the core of a station (the anchor bit in the middle) you can’t steal and equip them. There’s no rare but game changing and awesome way to obtain and use one yet, but that might change in future.
Chris K, don’t forget about the airlock he showed off a bit back. thats where the passengers are coming from i believe.
Gee, i’d hate to say this because i might delay the release time and everyone might blame me but…
If only you can build your own stations…
So I think something needs to be said about the awesomeness of Farbs, and why hes such a respected game designer. He actually listens and communicates with his fans.. Hes not like some imaginary being that occasionally spits out a game, hes like an actual person, and when someone says something that could fit in the game on here. He actually looks into it. So Farbs, YOU ROCK and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE finish Jameson because I wanna play it SO BAD!
Once again, ^^^, <3
So mister Farbs, would you say a release within the next two weeks is feasible? It would be pretty great if I could load Captain Jameson up before I leave on my flight to Florida and play it on the plane.
Unfortunately a release within two weeks is pretty unlikely. Sorry Chris.
Aw well, it was worth asking about.
Well I look forward to it when it is finally ready.
Cheers :)
:)
I really appreciate how you treat people like me. You’ve earned a lot more than my fifteen dollars.
…Though don’t expect monthly payments. I mean you’ve earned my respect as a developer and as a person.
By the way, how have sales been on Captain Forever?
Aw shucks :)
You can see overall suppporter numbers here:
http://www.captainforever.com/stats.php
About 1/3 of these are from the Indie Summer Of Love Bundle or are free promotional accounts, with the rest split somewhat evenly between pre-release and release. It’s a substantial amount of money, but still short of a decent wage. Hopefully Jameson will offer enough for some of the many non-supporter Forever players to consider signing up. I guess we’ll see.
Huh, just shy of 3,000 people and a fairly large chunk didn’t buy in at full price. There must be some way to get more people’s attention. Maybe a VCD editor either as an unlockabled for reaching the endgame of Forever or for becoming a supporter that allows you to design custom enemies or maybe even build scenarios and send them to friends. Or maybe every supporter account could be given a set number of invitations to send out for people to try Captain Successor… I dunno. Something.
I’m a bit of a skin flint and dont fork out for games on the net but this was the best 20 dollars i ever spent. Not that i often spend dollars cos they look funny at you in shops in england if you try to palm off forign cash. hell they turn their noses up at scotish notes… i digress, it was well worth the money, and that was before all the Jamison hype too.
Farbs its not just your skill at programming (of which i have none at all, the last thing i did that came close to programming was on my BBC-B;
10 print “boobs”;,
20 goto 10
or press start on the microwave to heat heat up a coffee) its your imagination and attention to detail i think is amazing.
keep up the good work, if you do think of any ways for promotion and you need help i’ll do what i can.
Cheers
I am heartfully glad that I purchased captain forever/imposter. It’s worth a lot more than I paid for, and I was delighted when I heard/read about Jameson in progress. It sounds like it will be pretty epic. I’m currently studying Computer Games Programming at university, and you’re one of my biggest inspirations. Keep up the excellent work ^^
it would be interesting if you could attach some sort of bomb to the station core to blow it up or make it implode…. the effect in the style would be cool.
The field guides helped! I could recognize stations when I saw them.