New Years Greetings

First of all, happy new year. I hope 2022 will be more productive for Spaceward Cosmic Conflict than the year before.

Screenshots

Click individual images to view them at their original resolution.

Player scores a missile hit while he himself is the target of another

Chasing after the wounded space fighter

Player comes head to head with an enemy squadron

Zooming in to aim better

Someone behind the player shoots him while player is duking it out with another enemy

Rebel fighters defending the Graveyard

Rebel fighters defending the Graveyard

Graveyard map, warmup round, two seconds remaining

Integrity Compromised, player's space fighter tumbles uncontrollably before exploding

Spectating an enemy space fighter

Rebel (yellow) and Federation(blue) Stingray Mk3 space fighters

Progress Report

Development earnestly began in July 2019 and I have been developing Spaceward Cosmic Conflict ever since, on and off, on my freetime.

Beginning - Initial Version

At the end of July 2019 the initial version, v0.1, had finished; and with the help of early alpha testers it was patched to v0.1.2. Several years prior I made a tech demo called simTechDemo, it was a bit of a mess though. Essentially what I did with initial version was to process all the feedback from simTechDemo to fix and improve the game design as well as it's underlying systems, such as networking and flight mechanics. Compared to the old tech demo, testing of this initial version was very well received by testers. A tester who never played the tech demo managed to beat me 3 to 1, in one on one, which was euphoric. That particular tester's feedback was, "Incredibly intuitive controls!". And I thought to myself, "I must be doing something right."

Gameplay - 2nd Major Release

First major update to the game was huge, because I was adamant in finishing the entire space fighter gameplay mechanics. Which included a whole lot of things, and development took nine and a half months to complete, plus 7 days for patches to wrap up version 0.2.2 in May 2020. It took such a long time to develop, but I was doing everything from programming, 3d modeling to all the other miscellaneous work by myself.

Some of the things included in the update:

• Fully functional cockpit displays
• Controller and joystick support
• Strafe movement
• Landing legs and ability to land anywhere
• Consumables
• Rearm and refuel
• Hud (first person as well as third person)
• Radar
• Missiles (with multiple guidance and fuses)
• Deploy payloads such as flare and chaff
• Explosions
• AI
• Improved camera
• Various improvements to graphics, physics as well as bugfixes

Menus, Game Modes and Network Services - 3rd Major Release

Second Major Update to the game, v0.3.0, was focused on mostly boring stuff, such as menus and network services. Before this update there was only a single menu where players entered IP and Port of the server they wanted to join. I wanted to make the game easier to play. I wanted a whole bunch of menus, expose gameplay settings as well as graphics, ability to rebind controls and to be able to list servers, select one from the list and click join. I also wanted to establish basic game modes such as Team Deathmatch and Battle as well as Maps. I did all of that in about 7 months and finished on December 2020.

But testing showed there were major game breaking bugs, and those took about one and a half months to patch up for v0.3.1. However the patch wasn't an ideal solution to design issues on the part of game modes. Patch made sure the game no longer crashed but the experience left a bitter taste regardless. I also started implementing Steamworks with this version.

I believe gameplay programming can be perfect by design, and v0.3.1 was by no means, perfect. So I started working on v0.3.2, applying many more fixes as well as making some changes under the hood to game mode systems. Also to implement Steam Lobby.

Unfortunately, v0.3.2 took 11 months to develop due to health/finance issues. But it wasn't all bad, I also made this website, and applied to Steam Direct, because game is functioning better than ever before. I just finished v0.3.3 yesterday, as of writing this post. Which is just a graphical update, to produce screenshots for website and steam store. Steam Store Page is going through the review process as of writing. I'll share a link to it as it becomes available in the future.

I'm currently working on v0.3.4, it includes some quality of life improvements. I will start a small closed beta through Steam with this version in the coming weeks.

Beyond

Beyond is v0.4. The third major update, fourth major release. I'm already working on this version despite not finishing patches for v0.3. The reason for this is because, v0.4 is focused on adding more content as well as the first mission into the game. Several small and big spaceship 3d models are at various stages of production at the moment. This version will also bring Procedural Planetoids, which is also a work in progress.

And after v0.4 I will produce increasingly more content. v0.5 will bring first singleplayer missions, including a tutorial. I might think about Early Access at some point, but it's too early for that. I have a big checklist to check before thinking about it, earliest possible version for Early Access is probably v0.5. I will reevaluate then.