Can’t get enough of that music Dan :) Combat is shaping nicely, and look at those planetary bombardments. And there’s interactive ground invasions too? Yes! Diplomacy with Samurai Bears? Nothing that suspension of disbelief can’t overcome, if you achieve on giving us that I mean.
For the ones of you that didn’t know yet, StarDrive is a new space action-4X/RTS game for the PC being developed by Daniel DiCicco from Zero Sum Games. Dan succeeded at Kickstarter about 8 months ago, went to Desura 1 month after, signed with Iceberg Interactive 4 months later and has scheduled StarDrive’s release to Q4 2012 (or at least was the last word). It’s not open for pre-orders yet.
Here’s our Alpha Preview from 6 months ago. Things were already looking very good back then. Although not exactly playable at the time the game surely looked well on track. Here’s a bunch of screenshots. All we have on it here.
Enjoy the teaser!
Subscribe RSS
30 Comments
Related Articles:
- Daniel DiCicco Has Just Signed With Iceberg For His Space 4X Game StarDrive !
- StarDrive Open Beta Now Available on Steam
- StarDrive Beta Giveaway Contest – 5 Steam Keys! [CLOSED]
- StarDrive: Beta Pre-Orders Pushed to Beginning of 2013
- Amplitude Studios Signed with Iceberg for Endless Space !
Loading ...
I’m really excited about StarDrive. I’m glad to see the project is still alive.
My god! That was really orgasmic. You’re very talented Dan…
Yea, same here. Brilliant stuff. Dan surely has it on him.
Great job on the visuals considering the budget.
This game is shaping amazingly well !
I’m glad I pre-ordered on Desura while it was still possible.
Keep up the good work Dan !
Wow, quite a few changes from the current version, Dan. It is coming along really nicely.
For those who are curious about how the game plays, I’ll be writing an updated preview piece for SpaceSector once this next update hits. I’m quite excited about it after seeing this trailer. I thought ground combat was a lost art. Thanks for bringing it back!
Glad you guys like it! I’m going to be pushing out our final pre-beta patch today or Monday so Keith can tear it apart:)
Then basically we’ll be in beta for 2 – 3 months while we content fill and polish, polish, polish.
Dan… take my money… take it!!!
I love the simple interface, none too cluttered, the ship design certainly surpasses anything I’ve seen in a long time and diplomacy looks to be solid. I noticed the tone in which you can conduct negotiations and threats… Why don’t more 4X games do that!?
The style of the starmap ticks a huge box for me. I just love that vast open lonesomeness of space between the planets and systems, and the beautifully rendered background goes a long way to achieving that.
Solid animations, gorgeous animated races, great looking cutscenes… the list could go on. There looks to be so much polish here already. You talk of more polish, it’s like a marine polishing his already shiny boots because they’re still dirty, it’s great!
The only constructive critical feedback I can give on this trailer and the game itself is perhaps the ground invasion combat. That seems like it needs a little more work in regards to the visual feedback and the static soldiers might be better given animations. So it falls in line with the rest of the game.
But if I know development cycles etc, and this being an Alpha. I imagine you’ll tell me this was one of the last features to be implemented into the game and much of it is place-holder art only. So you’ll no doubt have it looking as awesome as those space battles you’ve proudly shown in the trailer too.
Great work so far, especially at an Alpha stage. This title really is shaping up to be impressive!
Thanks, Saracen! As it so happens, we’re adding all animated units to the ground combat. Those units are definitely alpha-stage stuff. You can check out our forums at stardrivegame.com and you can see an example of what the final ground combat troops look like.
The thing with making games is that it can always always always be better. It’s kind of hard to know when you’re “done” with it. So we’ll just polish off every speck of dirt we can find and when I can’t see any more, well I suppose I’ll be done.
Wow – Just noticed this.. thanks to Space Sector. Looks very impressive so far. Timeline wise when do you approximately expect to have something in the late beta stages?
Ray
Brilliant, just seen the flash animation detail on the Shogunate Bear Troop, and I’m sold now. I can only expect this game to smash any 4X game released this year, and I honestly believe that.
Your comment in the forums “Oh, and if you run out of money entirely, your ships will turn to piracy.” – I hope this stays in if it’s a balanced option and affects diplomacy as a result, what a gameplay feature!
So once Pre-ordering commences, I’ll put my money down on this for certain. You’ve got my support. A couple of questions.
1. – Will Iceberg be releasing a hard copy of this game?
2. – I love how you can control your flagship in an arcade fashion. But is there also an ability to just command the ship during battle if you so wish?
In regard to the 2nd question. If you cannot command it, I could see the late game or larger battles especially becoming quite a difficult task. My concern would be that trying to manually control the ship whilst in the carnage of micromanaging the rest of the fleet could cause juggling headaches for some users.
So being able to command the ship as just another unit would be perfect. Perhaps assigning a hot-key and/or GUI button to toggle manual control and command modes is ideal. It would work well in battle being able to do something like that so players can combat RTS style and then if the AI or other player (if incorporating a multiplayer feature) focus fires on the flagship, be able to finely adjust the positioning of their ship so other areas of the hull take abuse. Or just take control more directly to turn the tide of battle if they wish.
You can whichever you want. You don’t have to command your ship personally. It’s just an option. You can order it around like any other ship. And you can choose any ship to drive manually as well.
When StarDrive was first conceived there was a stronger focus on commanding your personal ship. But now it’s more of a just for fun type of feature.
Iceberg will be doing retail release in Europe.
I’m aiming to deliver a gold master to the publisher on November 15th, which we’ll run through the paces and have ready for a pre-Christmas release.
finally, zero you have brought back ground combat to 4x, i have waited an eternity for this to happen you cant have space/scifi battles without actually being able to have ground combat, it adds to the flavour of the genre -> stormtroopers, away team, etc need i say more
Do not rush such a beutifle game man, for i and a great many others will definatley be buying this, also the ship combat is reminicent of all good sci fi shows, just wondering could you add like an animation of troops when you board enemy vessels, doesnt have to be unit wise, just a short progress video of marines fighting to various locations like bridge, engine room etc and their continued progress within the vessel
also, i have noted a big note that there doesnt appear to be any fighter craft yet, only shuttles which for shuttles are quite large almost light frigate size
I am more satisfied than ever that I supported this on Kickstarter! I knew this would become a real gem!
great work, Dan
Looking good as usual Dan. Can’t wait to try out the game later this year!
How much work has gone into making the galaxy seem alive outside of the main factions.Will we see spacemonsters,random events,space loot,minor civs on planets,etc.
A lot! The main way we make the universe feel alive is to have everything simulated simultaneously and in real time. If you need to transport food and colonists and goods to new planets, you will see the freighters actually doing it on the map and you can intercept them too.
We’ve got a sort of villain “creep” faction that inhabits strong solar systems so that you’ll need to clear them out if you want to colonize them.
We’ve got some designs for space monsters and time allowing we’ll get a couple of them rendered and thrown in there as well.
Piracy will be a problem when civilizations break. So if you run out of money and can’t pay your ships, there’s a fair chance that they’ll turn to piracy. If you defeat a civilization and they can’t pay for their ships, those ships will turn to piracy. So defeating a civilization is a bit of a double-edged sword.
There are definitely a few hidden gems for explorers too. And traps!
Basically Distant Worlds 10.0 :D
I love it!
Yes…. this does look a LOT like Distant Worlds. Note: this is far from a bad thing, as I consider DW an epic achievement in 4X. Would you be willing to say that this game indeed is sort of a DW 2.0? If so, that would be AMAZING!!!
Well, I was definitely playing a lot of Distant Worlds when I started coding this, thinking…”wouldn’t it be nice if…”
I was cheering the whole video! Dan, you probably won’t read this one as much people are commenting, but just wanted to say to take your time and don’t rush things out. Game’s done when it’s done. I think there’s a lot of people counting on you out there. If you pull this out the right way… (this is ironic now): You may become a LEGEND. LOL.
Thinking it over after addicting myself to the music, it quite feels like the Tron Movie music. And I specially liked it!
Looks great! Keep it up!
Dammit! Every new piece of footage makes me regret I missed the chance to back the game.
Dan this looks even more amazing than before! I noticed you mentioned that defeated Civs may turn to Piracy, which actually a great idea. Will we be able to conduct any sort of Diplomacy with said Pirates? Of course, if the pirates were part of a civ that the player defeated they would likely hold a permanent grudge and maybe work with another of the player’s enemies.
Also, have you considered the possibility that a Pirate faction/defeated civilization makes a comeback and attempts to re-etablish an empire? Not a necessary function but it definitely be an interesting twist!
There are some pirates that you can deal with. Mostly they will just try to shake you down for money and you can choose to pay or to reject them, in which case they will attack you. Hint: pay them if it’s early game!
The pirates that result from a civilization being unable to pay are basically just rogue ships that will go on a murderous rampage until they are stopped.
Looks really nice but…. Why are there hundreds of new 4x-Space strategy games without a REAL ship designer? I mean where you can see the modifications you add and create own hulls like in Galactic Civilications????
Nevetheless I’ really looking forward to that game!
Cheers
You mean adding superficial bling on a ship that makes them look like children toys.Thank god there isn’t.