Wow, what a month! After being rick-rolled by real life for the past few months, July saw me return to development of Halcyon Online with a might and fury befitting of a planetary bombardment! The result - great news in the coming weeks ahead, so let's talk about it.
Strap yourselves in, as this is a big update!
Infrastructure management
Infrastructure management has remained somewhat stagnant the last few months, mostly due to technical challenges. As it stands, in order to get the first major set of game mechanics working, I've had to build all the underlying systems that essentially power the entire game. Everything from the Timewarp engine to notifications, numerous code refactors, queued services, you name it - it all had to be built just to get Infrastructure working. To give you an idea, that's over 270 files and nearly 7,500 lines of code to get to where we are today. And that's mostly been done this month.
The good news is... it's done. Well, almost. There's some ancillary features I still need to write and support, but it's in a great place right now and on the cusp of being opened to playtesters.
The UI screens for infrastructure management have come a long way, as well - I'll talk about this more in my upcoming devlog (more on that in a bit), and despite it lacking the polish it sorely needs from my UI designer, it still is looking good enough to start testing and breaking. The goal is that as each screen is completed and I find there's nothing left to do, I'll have my designer put his artistic talents to use who take it from good, to incredible. More of this to come later in the year.
Terraforming mars... I mean Halcyon Online.
(Hope some of you got that reference 😛)
An interesting thing happened this month. One of the more unique aspects to Halcyon Online within this niche genre, is colony infrastructure, and how it is held up by the celestial body's geography that it happens to find itself on.
Alright, alright... I hear you. Let me explain.
Each celestial body in Halcyon Online has a procedurally generated hexmap, meaning that no two celestial bodies are the same. From planets, to moons, to asteroids, no matter what you colonise - they all have their own unique maps (geography) and resource nodes (geology). Except for one small, yet very important exception - homeworlds.
Homeworlds are the planets that you will launch your Empires from. Homeworlds are therefore, something that all players have. And all players should have the same starting point, right? You're god damn right! For that reason, even though all celestial bodies have unique geographical maps and resource nodes, when a player joins a galaxy and is assigned a planet at random, that planet needs to be converted to a Homeworld. However, a technical challenge here was that all planets were different as they were procedurally generated, so I had to have some way of converting them to a Homeworld type planet so that every player has the same planet size, and resources available. And that's where THE TERRAFORMER comes in! (capslock and italics for extra emphasis!)
Fact is I hadn't really thought about terraforming as an actual game feature, it was something I had to develop for unique cases such as Homeworlds, but as I developed that system, I realised that it opened up potential for some truly unique features in the future, which I will go into in more detail when the time is right.
Yes, yes, I know other games have terraforming, but not to the level that Halcyon will have, and already has in its toolbox 😋
Private galaxies
As part of a discussion earlier this week on the discord, we talked about private galaxies and their potential for circles of friends and alliances using them as part of a paid feature. What was interesting about this discussion however, was how developing a system to support that could be a really good way to run playtest rounds! So, that's exactly what I'm doing.
The past few days I've been working on the features to support private galaxies, ensuring that playtest rounds are secure and are only accessible by invited players, and by extension be able to support private galaxies for alliances, friends, or tournament organisers. I owe a great deal of thanks to the small but budding community over on our Discord, as it's great ideas like this that have been born out of those discussions, and will end up in the game!
To conclude, I need to have that feature up and ready before playtesting can begin in just a few weeks. On that note...
Pre-alpha stage 1
Our first ever playtest will be going live in a couple of weeks, with some lucky playtester applicants being invited to the playtest round. The round will focus on player authentication and infrastructure management, with invites being sent out very soon, and playtesters invited to a private channel to discuss the round, issues found, questions, as well as brainstorm ideas. So, if you've applied to be a playtester, be sure to watch your email inbox! I'll be inviting just 10 players, as this in my opinion is enough to find many issues without overloading me with too much input.
This first round is limited in focus by design, as what may seem like a slim set of features, is in reality testing the entire set of systems that will be supporting the game now and into the future. Having a narrow yet deep focus on these systems will pay dividends as I develop the more complex game mechanics in the future that will rely on these early foundations. It is important that they are built fit for purpose and can stand against the most wily and crafty of playtester shenanigans! lol
In the future, each stage will see more and more playtesters invited to test the game, and those that offer invaluable support and feedback may just find themselves with a few treats in their player profile bag when the game launches, but shhhh, mum's the word! 😉
Devlog #2
As I said earlier, it's just about time to do my next livestream, which will come before the playtest round. The next DevLog will be livestreamed on Friday, 9th August (3pm AEST, 7am CEST) and Thursday 8th Augst 10pm PDT. It's very difficult for me to get everyone sorted at a respectable time, and this is the best I could do - hopefully this gives everyone enough of a chance to hop on and tune in! If you can't make those times I will of course be recording the livestream and will have it available for later viewing. Be sure to follow my YouTube channel over at Halcyon Online.
I've got quite a bit to cover as part of the 2nd installment, including going through various screens of the game, covering some faction details, talking about terraforming features and a bunch more. I'll also be announcing who will be invited to playtest not long after!
Alright, I think that's enough for today...
If you can't tell from this post, my excitement and enthusiasm for this project continues to grow and I cannot wait to share with you all the blood, sweat and tears that has been put into this passion project.
Until next time, travellers!
Adios!