Brent “Zeraan” (that’s his Space Sector forum nickname) has been doing fantastic progress in Beyond Beyaan lately. After a period of perceived uncertainty on BB’s direction in past October Brent seems now to be committed on bringing BB to life more than ever. This can be witnessed by his regular updates on his blog.
Beyond Beyaan is a currently in development 4X space strategy game title that is heavily inspired by the 4x classic Master of Orion series. A couple of months ago I wrote an hands-on preview of Beyond Beyaan taking into account the development / alpha version of the time. The game was already playable by then but you could tell that there were many missing stuff still and lots of things to polish, mostly art and UI.
Brent has produced an alpha video footage to present his game’s current state. Since the video has no sound and Brent shows the game’s full screens, with some overlay explanatory text notes, I recommend you watch it full screen.
Alpha Footage Video
Progress Status
Since my preview a couple of months ago Brent has worked and improved many areas of the game. Some in what appears to be record time (at least judging from the pace and frequency of blog updates). Some of these improvements include a new ship design screen which seems to be more polished and usable than the previous one; the technology screen has also been improved featuring randomness elements and a new unlocking system.
There’s also a new planet screen that looks very nice where you can manage your planets on an integrated way without the need to go checking each one by one in the star map. There’s also a new fleet window, pollution, transports and much more. A ton of work. The game looks very different from when I last played that’s for sure.
There’s no release date for Beyond Beyaan set yet. I guess Brent will release it to the public when he’s happy with it. Speed on release will also depend on how successful Brent is with donations and pre-orders (details for this next).
Support Beyond Beyaan
Brent has set up a donation button in his blog in order to raise money to fund art work and other resources of the game. He explains what he plans to do with the donations funding. There will be perks involved to donors however I’m not sure if that information is up to date. By latest word Brent is also working on setting up a pre-order system in Desura, where people can pre-order the game, play and help on development.
Brent would be delighted, for sure, to hear your comments on what you’ve seen so far. If you want to support his project, then by all means do so! You can reach Brent and follow his work through his blog.
Latest Screenshots
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Wow, wasn’t expecting another article, but I’m glad that you’re liking the changes so far! The reason why video don’t have sounds is because I’m deaf :) Maybe when I finish re-doing the screens and send you the new version, you could create a new video with commentary?
Haa ok. Yes, it’s a good idea, I could do an audio commentary for you if you want.
The reason I did a second article is because I’ve been checking your progress and found it to be amazing. I’m quite glad actually that you didn’t abandon your project as it seemed to be the case (or at least it was my impression). The other reason I also did the article was because of the video footage you produced because it’s a good way to show your game project to people that didn’t pre-order yet while it’s still at Alpha.
Please keep up the good work! I’m one here hoping to continue to see good progress on Beyond Beyaan.
How is the Desura set up going btw?
I had to look at my blog posts in October to see why you got the impression that things got a bit shaky. When I looked, I remembered now, I had to accomplish a goal for my work (learn OpenGL), so I had to take a break from Beyond Beyaan. There was never an intention to abandon Beyond Beyaan, just that real life got into way. I’ve promised that if things get bad, that I can’t work on Beyond Beyaan anymore, then I will release the source code for other people to finish it. But that’s unlikely, since I think I will be able to finish it :)
Also, learning OpenGL have its advantages. If I were to port to Mac/Linux, I will convert the game to use OpenGL instead of SlimDX. The reason why I’m not doing that now is that it’d overhaul the entire game structure, and I’m not ready for that. However, once the game’s done, and if there’s sufficient demand, then I will look into that.
A friend is hosting a SVN server where I can commit my code, so if something were to happen to my computer, there’s a backup off-site. Also, if there were something to happen to me, my friend will have the code since it’s his server. I hope this all reassure you that I’m serious about this project :)
Desura told me to create a profile on moddb.com and upload videos and screenshots, then to contact a certain person. That was why I created the video. However, that person haven’t responded yet :( I will let you know as soon as I find out.
Yep, those where the kind of statements, like “I’ve promised that if things get bad, that I can’t work on Beyond Beyaan anymore, then I will release the source code for other people to finish it.” that made me wonder. “Hum, that boy is having doubts, god damn it.” That and you taking side jobs on other stuff, that OpenGL goal you had. All that made me wonder. Now I see it was never the case.
Regarding Desura, give the guy a couple more days and then send another email. Many times people just can’t handle all the stuff :)
I don’t have doubts in my skills or my ability to complete the game, just if people are patient enough to wait for the game to be done :) I’m a professional software developer, and I’m applying my “professional” skills and methodologies into developing this game. I think that’s one advantage that I have that many others don’t, since they mostly dabbled in hobby programming, but never really developed the skill of completing tasks, or developing a clean source base.
As for Desura, I plan on emailing them in a few days, and I will include a link to this article as well!
Great confidence, that’s good. Yep, being a professional software developer does help :) And it’s great you’re applying methodologies as well, that’s clearly something that many (even) “professional” developers don’t normally give much importance to, and they should. That’s a software engineer with a reasonsable experience here talking.
My faith in you is now on it’s peak. Not that I’ve doubted your skill, but I was wondering if your spirit was lacking a little bit of support ;)
Really looking forward to this one Zeraan!
@Zeraan I’m also writing a 4x strategy game in .NET. Do you mind if I backchannel you with some questions?
Sure! You can email me through my profile in my blog, or PM me in the Space Sector forums