Divine Space is an action-RPG space game currently on Kickstarter, with a $100,000 funding goal.
The game will be free-to-play and the devs promise that it will be possible to complete the game from start to finish without spending any money. However, there’s in-game currency that can be acquired with real money to show “an expression of gratitude for our efforts and work”, and required to “maintain the atmosphere of a game”. What that means exactly I couldn’t find out.
Dodo Games promises an “immersive, beautiful space adventure in a hard sci-fi genre”. An interesting aspect of this space game is the use of real astronomical data, so the stars of our own galaxy are accurately represented. One of the purposes of this game, say the devs, is to be used as an educational tool also, where children can get acquainted with our galaxy and get to know the location of our own star and the names of the other stars near us, planets, etc.
But, not so fast PC folks, this one is for the mobile guys, more precisely for iOS and later for Android platforms, at least for now. PC, Mac, Linux and even Ouya (a video game console) versions are also planned, although not for now. They also have plans for a massively multiplayer game afterwards (an MMO), which the devs say will “depend on the commercial success of ‘Divine Space’ and the amount raised on Kickstarter”.
To the choice of why going with mobile platforms first, the devs replied that basically if it “works fast and well on iPads [it] will run without any problems on any modern computer with weak video cards.”. They also say that there are few of these games to be found for the iOS and Android markets, or at least of the same quality, they added.
For more information on this space action-RPG check the kickstarter page or visite the Divine Space official website.
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The demo was very, very pretty but I didn’t really get a sense of what kind of gameplay they want to support here or how they plan to tell a story, and I’m a PC-gamer type, which both counted against me backing it right away.
Looks tempting but any game that needs or has an option to use real currency for in-game currency or items is a game that I hate.
Heck diablo 3 turned Action RPG into Auction RPG
well, I indeed hope that this project does not get funded so as to tell the developers this is the absolutely wrong way to ask for support. What I find most cynical about this is to call this transformation of gaming into a shopping mall a ‘free to play’ model.
I tell you I wish that I could find a great game for my mobile devices and everytime I check google store and app store I am swamped with this “free to play” game that requires you to purchase stuff in order to play properly or to keep on playing.
Heck I hope Kairosoft would never shift to these kind of games, so far they are the only ones I saw who release quality games that are worth the price without the need to buy more “coins” and DLC maps.
+1, these so called f2p “games” are only marketing platform to suck it up cash flow and nothing else.
The mainstream and casual trend seems to want to kill gaming as we know or knew it
Hello.
Yes, in most situations games are becoming a business.
Read my answer below about our phylosophy and why we are different.
iOS..eww!
Hello guys!
Sorry I’m late, just found that we are featured here. Thanks to SpaceSector!
Going to answer to the questions now – feel free to ask if something will be still unclear!
Alright, first about versions. It’s iPads and Android first, but PC/Mac/Linux will follow without big delay. We are developing on Unity3D, so it won’t take too much time and won’t be necessary to rework game from scratch. If we will pull it out, and make first version – we will make for PC too. Maybe it won’t be as fast as if we will reach the stretched goal, though.
About free-to-pay. This system can be evil, this system can be a bless. If you would read FAQ, you would notice that I personally despise Pay-to-Win or Pay-to-Play. This is why 90% o goods can be bought and for rare money (gals), and for usual money (dis). Gals will make growing faster and speed up process, make game easier – but aren’t you hardcore players, do you really need this?
Example, on of our backers is the player from my previous project (space game too). He never ever payed anything to us – and yet, he was top-1 player in the game.
We had players who payed $300-500 per month for social things. We had ships that were absolutely same as others in firepower, but they had different models (unique) and slightly different weapon configuration (similar in firepower to the usual ships). Those ships were bought for sake of fun, and sometimes they were even worse than usual ships.
For instance, there been a VIP ship that could be destroyed form one shot of usual high-level weapon. This ship was being sold only for ‘real’ money – and players did buy it to have some fun. They died a lot, but it was cool.
Does that turn game into D3 auction system? No.
I understand why you think so bad about F2P, but don’t judge us, indie team, because some publisher did that bullshit. We are on your side, this is why we are on Kickstarter, and not in EA/Origin/similar publisher office. And yes, we had propositions.
Lastly, about F2P. Here, in Russia, and nearest countries, half of people simply do not have bank cards. Yes, that’s right. And a lot of them can’t afford to buy games. They will be able to play in Divine Space and have fun, and won’t be able to play it if it will not be free. I know such people, we had such players in our games – and they loved and respected me, because I always did stuff for them and their fun.
Take care, folks.
Think positive, not everyone are making business projects – some do games.
I am sorry about my prejudice against F2P games especially the ones in android and iOS. I must say that I can’t be blamed about how I see F2P games especially with the way F2P game devs (AAA or indie) make games that would nickle and dime gamers every step of the way. I wish you luck on your project and I must say that it looks tempting especially after you made things clear about how your game works and that it could be enjoyed with or without in-app purchases.
I will tell you that as much as possible I invest my money nowadays more on the indie market since most indie dev’s creativity is not hindered by the pressure of the company’s responsibility to the shareholders that would force them to forego creativity and innovation and stick to something tried and tested like the yearly release of Sports games and Call of Duty that is basically the same game every year.
As a personal preference, I would choose games that would let me pay once rather than F2P with optional/required purchase and subscription games like MMOs. I would like to own the game I have paid for rather than “renting” it from the game devs. This is my opinion and I must say that I am a bit apprehensive about your game but I would assure you that I would never spread ill rumours or jump on bandwagons to hate your game.
I applaud you sir for making it clear that you are making a game and not a business project and judging from what you have said, I would say that you are passionate about making a game for the sake of having fun and not only for profit.
Like I said, I wish you well and I hope your project succeeds and maybe you will be the first game dev who will change my mind about F2P games. :)
I completely understand you.
This is very sad that games are being turned into the money machines, but there is a good thing in F2P: if you see that it’s trying to milk you – you alway can throw that game away and stop playing.
This is our risk too – if we will make a wrong monetization, if it will be agressive and rude – we will lose players, because our target auditory is smart and won’t eat that. If we will make a shitty game – we will lose players too.
Honestly, from the business point it would be much, MUCH easier for us to make usual distribution through selling game copies. First, our Kickstarter would earn at least twice more than now; second – even if you make a shitty game, it will be sold (especially on Apple market, where PR and marketing sell games, not quality).
But as I said above, we have our mission. If we fail campaign, we will either relaunch with non-F2P, or just close development. Time will show (or, rather, I hope time won’t let us to make such decisions and we will do it).
All the best!
I do not get this fascination with real astronomical data people seem to have. Real space is boring and empty. Well at least from where we stand. We might see billions of stars / galaxies around us, but apart from their existence we know very little of them and even some of that is based on estimates, statistical probabilities and other such vague stuff.
As far as exoplanets go (that is planets outside of the solar system) we only know some 800 so far and even those are only the largest and / or brightest ones and most of those we did not even see for ourselves, but only revealed their existence indirectly through various other methods.
So to me, a game with “real astronomical data” pretty much translates to:
“We were too lazy to place some dots on a black sheet and name them ourselves”.
And I accidentally posted that as a reply when it was not intended as one.. oh well. My mistake.
We invested 2,5 moths to get this thing – parsing from the real astronomical sheets – working. If you aren’t interested in it – fine, you won’t even notice it. It was hell of the work and make simple map with random stars would be WAY easier, trust me.
About star naming, there will be names. But they won’t replace actual indexes, and people who want to fly in a real space will have that possibility. For you, there will be beautiful names too, don’t worry.
<<So to me, a game with “real astronomical data” pretty much translates to:
<<“We were too lazy to place some dots on a black sheet and name them ourselves”.
To make believable star systems is more complicated than to generate random ones.
I use the real ones in FAR Colony and I'm far to be lazy.
And to put astrophysics in the trash like you did doesn't require to push the debate further…
@Anti Danilevski: thanks for your explanation above for your f2p business plan, I hope that you'll succeed.
@Farcodev:
Thank you for the kind words!
Now, as never, we need support and I’m surprised that some space games ‘fans’ aren’t actually care for space – I’ve expected different. But we regulary getting special thanks for our realistic model – so it totally worth all those troubles and difficulties that we had to overcome.
Also, about ‘real space is boring and empty’ – I disagree. Real space is beautiful and wonderful, if you actually look, not just passing by.
@farcodev:
I see where you are coming from. Yes.. making believable star systems is most definitely a harder job than just making random ones. Never questioned that, though what I wrote might have been interpreted in such a way as well.
What I meant is that taking a bunch of tabled data from real charts and putting those into a game is easier than creating your own “believable” “galaxy” and pointed out how futile it is, considering the lack of data for whats inside those dots on the map, so even though you end up with a galaxy that looks like the milky way (as if anyone would really know how that looks, besides some spirally white mass), you will still have to make up whats inside the various stars so at the end of the day, you will have a galaxy that is merely just 10-20% real.
Sure.. in certain cases, when you deal with a single star system modeled after the solar system, or some close-by star that we have relatively much info about, you might up with a reasonably realistic approximation, but just that.
If such approximate realism for you is enough to claim something to be realistic, that’s cool. For me, it is not however. When I say or hear realistic, I expect it to be the real thing and in space scifi maps, that is impossible to achieve due to our severely lacking knowledge.
Let’s not even get into the discussion about the importance of realism on a field that is mostly unknown to humanity. Considering the vast size of the universe and the resulting variety of stellar phenomenon we might find, it is extremely interesting how some people are reluctant to let their fantasy run wild when dealing with space games. Not saying that we should completely ignore the laws of physics.. but let’s face it: When we look at how little we know of the universe, it would be unbelievable arrogance to assume that we know everything about how the world works around us.
So far be it to trash anything, let alone astrophysics. I do believe however that certain things should be looked at in the proper perspective and realism in space games is one such thing.
@Anti Danilevski:
I do not worry, nor do I want to devalue the work you did put into it. I might find it pointless and might even have my reasons for that, but it should not lessen the value of the game in any way.. merely makes me wonder why there are people who actually care about this thing.
Best of luck with your game I hope it succeeds. I sort of like the genre and could not care less myself how realistic the universe is as long as the game itself is fun, which I think is important for you as well, so we really have nothing more to discuss here, besides waiting to see how/when/in what quality the game gets released.
@csbal Agreed and thanks for the good wishes.
I hope that more space people will come to support us, some already in – but still need to increase our speed, or we will fall back to the ground. Gravity can be mean… so I call everyone to join our space conquest!
I have made you a thread on toucharcade.com for some publicity;)
Thank you very much for help!
This is exactly what we need – to spread the word and then, we big portals will surely notice us and our efforts.
Anti Danilevski I am one of the many fans who will be completely enthralled by your efforts in astronomical accuracy. Does that mean you will take into account real stellar distances and scales, star mass and habitable zones for all real data? I just wonder if I will be able to look at red supergiants in the game and really get a sense for the true orbits of its planetary system and marvel at all the majesty to be found. I agree the universe is a beautiful place.
Hello and thank you for support!
Not in first version (due to technical limitations of chosen platforms). In the future – sure, we will be moving exactly to such game. Probably actual sizes will be impossible due to technical restrictions of modern videocards (floating point precision loss at so big distances) though. But in later versions, they will deliver impression of sizes and distances to you.
I heard very often that ‘actual data is not needed’, but I didn’t let those voices to change the game universe – and I’m very happy that I didn’t allow it.
Thats still quite alright mate and good news for me, And hell yes its great that you didn’t let the masses sway your decision to change the game universe.
I just hope you can capture that mystery and jawdropping awe that an accurate universe will bring to your game. And the feeling one will get when staring at the beautiful renderings of planets, and thinking “This is really a planet or star somewhere out there?! WOW!.
Just on visuals alone your game seems quite polished and impressive already. Can I expect that every planet you put in your game will be unique and textured as best as the original? I understand the restrictions of todays tech, but it would be nice to get some basic scale even if just a rough approximation. Especially where stars and large gas giants are concerned. No game has ever truly shown something like NML Cygni (biggest known star) for instance to its whopping factual dimensions.
@Bruce, ‘ Can I expect that every planet you put in your game will be unique and textured as best as the original?’ – someday they will be original, but for start, we have a fixed number of them. Impossible to make so many planets original so quick, and especially for mobiles. But there are ways to solve it (generated textures) and we will do it for bigger versions.
UPDATE: There is a new presentaiton video uploaded, come take a look. Thanks to everyone who helped us to make it better and pushed me to finally find time to do it!
Video is here, lick play button to watch it: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dodogames/divine-space-sci-fi-space-arpg
Also, added demo-reel of our soundtrack pack – it’s about 20 minutes of good electronic music in different styles. Enjoy!