It’s been a while since we wrote about Deep Space Settlement, an indie space 4X/RTS game that has been in the works for the past three years. I discovered the project almost two years ago and back then I wrote a stellar indie venture piece. Since then, Stéphanie Rancourt, the programmer, and Mathias, the artist have been pumping new shots and videos in their website showing their progress once in a while.
Here’s their two latest videos. The first video shows ships circulating around in 3D space with some zooming in and out, some ship close ups and a few glimpses on the UI.
The second (older) video shows an implementation of space fog (fine grains of dirt, I guess) and an asteroid field.
There’s no recent video showing off the empire-building aspects of the game. So, for now what they have to show from their recent work is mostly focused on ships. But, this is of no surprise, I think, as ships do seem to be the game’s main focus anyway. The list of features does include empire-building features such as trade, technologies unlocking and resource gathering but this seems to be a game much more about managing fleets from big capital ships to smaller support ships, and space stations, apparently.
The devs also promise single-player, multiplayer and high moddability.
We’ll continue following Stéphanie’s and Mathias’ journey and let you know when there’s further progress.
There’s no pre-orders available and no indication of when the game will be released at this time. For the time being you can donate in their website to help with the development. If you want more frequent updates you can always follow the devs’ progress by following their programming (Stéphanie) and art (Mathias) twitter feeds.
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Thanks for the mention Adam, we appreciate it. The latest video is actually this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHA9L5YxqKg Our NY wishes :)
If anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to answer anything.
You’re welcome. For the videos I followed what you have in the site. Nice fireworks! ;)
Hey Mathias! Your game looks very interesting! Do you plan on having a single player campaign? Or will it be entirely sandbox?
Also, do you plan on opening it up to alpha or beta testers?
Lastly, what will be the overarching goal of each game?
Thanks!
Thanks Devildog! Yes there will be a single player campaign, not just sandbox.
We also will provide access to alpha versions and hope to have an announcement in regard to this in a bit.
The overarching goal in the game is to establish a flourishing settlement in this far away region of the galaxy, make new allies and fight off enemies.
You’re welcome, thanks for the interest!
Worst game music.
EVER.
Looks really interesting, will be looking forward to more updates!
Thanks, glad you think so!
Pretty impressive for a 2-person team, and I love RT4x. I’ll be keeping an eye on this.
Thanks, it’s a dream project for both us is really.
Reminds me a lot of Homeworld, but since Homeworld is a great game, this is by no means a bad thing. :D
Nope, it’s not, it’s a compliment, I love Homeworld :)
Looks pretty interesting, I’d like to know what their plans are regarding the wider game, i.e. colony management, diplomacy, espionage – if any of these will be included, and if so how fleshed out they will be… Reading about the focus on ships over empire building (thats what i took from Adam’s Summary) brings back memories of StarDrive, it seems that Dev spent too much time on the ship building/customisation and not enough on the rest of the game, resulting in a great ship building sim with little else of note… . Although on the otherhand, Homeworld had none of this so if this is more of a Homeworld “clone” then I’d still be interested :D
There really is no ship over empire building focus. It’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time on the cruiser assets lately.
Many of the stations (Refinery, Solar, Factory, Shipyard, Colony) and their modules are completed already and building them is fully functional.
Each of these stations needs and produces different goods, which is how the player economy is created(think The Settlers).
That’s why you see small ships buzzing around. They are transporting goods from one station to another.
In addition, you can trade goods with neutral trading stations.
Diplomacy will be kept very simple, at least initially and espionage is currently not on our map.
Thanks for the reply Mathias, I’ve never minded simple diplomacy though would love to see espionage added if possible, but not at the expense of the rest of the games features. Really impressed with whats cooking (especially considering this is a two person operation!)
PS will there be a Steam greenlight push or early access scheme?
Always loved scifi games. My concern is flat plane, even the camera did not pan under the plane. Engine limitation?
Not sure what you mean, in the “fog and asteroids” video the camera goes clearly below the grid. Also there’s this video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5BbXkJEiAc) to emphasize you are not restricted to a 2D plane at all.
Looks great. It reminds me of Homeworld, one of the best game I have ever played. I will certainly be keeping my eye out on this game. Hopefully it will offer the depth and complexity without the tedious micromanagement to keep the hard core 4x gamers happy
Thanks, glad you like it!
The music as far as I know is by a Bulgarian lady, if you mean in the trailer of the game, it isn’t original to the game. And it’s lovely. Even for the trailer.
Hey, glad you like it. You are right, it sung by Neli Andreeva and it’s called “Malka moma”. It’s credited at the e3nd of the video. My music choices seem pretty controversial it seems, people either love it or hate it :)
hi
Nice game
cant wait to see more
can you show us gameplay?
when it will be in beta?
Hey Chris, glad you like what you see! The next thing on my list is a video about cruiser customization. Once this is out, it makes sense to show off gameplay.
As for the beta, we don’t have a specific date yet, other than “when it’s done”.
Where the hell are the stars and planetary orbits? This has gone from marbles of planets on a gameboard in space, to just a plain gameboard in space. WTF!
In DSS you don’t settle planets, but in deep space – by building stations. This includes colony stations, which is the closest you will get to colonies on planets as is common in 4X games.
There are different star systems or sectors as seen in this screenshot http://dss.stephanierct.com/img/032.jpg , but whether stars will be part of the playing field is not clear at the moment.
For what it’s worth, consider Homeworld. There’s no planets or stars there either except for background decoration.
Hmmm that seems very odd.A 4X with empty star systems but no planets is not going to go down well.
I see what you mean, but then again if you manage a station like you’d manage a colony (planet) I can’t see it being a problem. Its good IMO that they are planning to do something slightly different with the colonisation aspect, and to be fair i think you can probably do more with a space station (increase size, add weapons, etc..) than you can do (as well) with planets.
I was more into Conquest Frontier Wars than Homeworld. And even more into Hegemonia than the former 2. So this is a dealbreaker for me. I might give it a pass unless it scores highly.
Looking forward to this. I’m glad 4x space games are making a big splash. The concept and graphics sound cool so I’ll pass this along to my friend who is also into this kind of 4x sim. Keep us posted!
This looks like Sins of a Solar Empire meets Homeworld. Very much my thing. Best of luck with it!