In last month's update I touched on how little progress has been made due to being so focused on getting a separate project completed. The good news, is that project is now 99% complete, and prepared for launch, freeing up my time for the one project you all care about - Halcyon Online.
Beside the lack of programming the past 4 or 5 months, there has still been a lot of work on done in the background: on game design, skilling up in art direction and design, UI/UX work and a whole lot more. However, none of that matters if there's no game to play it on!
In the first half of 2023 I made quite a bit of progress around authentication and authorisation of players, as well as player management. Additionally, galaxy seeding utilising procedural generation was also completed. Unfortunately, not much has happened since then on the development front. This month however - was different.
Better support for apps
This month I revisited the authentication mechanisms for one sole purpose - the support and deployment of desktop and mobile apps. This means that from this point on, the game is built to support authentication for -any- game client, whether that be the browser, a desktop or mobile app, or even (hopefully in the future) - a dedicated Steam client.
This might seem a small thing, but the way you authenticate players across devices is considerably more complex than your standard web application method. To that end, this has now been implemented and tested - it's all working well. Test players are now able to log into the game, and colonise their first world - their Homeworld.
Currently when a player joins a galaxy, they're assigned a planet within protected space - a region within each galaxy that provides greater protection and safety mechanisms for new players, and by extension: their Homeworlds.
In Halcyon Online, protected space affords players the ability to play in a more relaxed manner, confident that should they be attacked, the "police faction" of the game will show up to help them. However, this also comes with a caveat: protected space has fewer and less valuable resources than hostile space (more on that to come in a future game mechanics article.)
The immediate future
There is so much on the horizon it's hard to capture it all, but let's go through it:
- Landfall Part 2 will land next week (if you haven't read our lore series yet, please do so, you won't be disappointed!)
- More work is being done on player profiles, namely around player settings, notifications, achievements and unlocks!
- Timer system and infrastructure. The first task players will take when they join a new galaxy is develop their Homeworld's infrastructure, starting with the Manufactory. This building is critical to a Homeworld's infrastructure projects, but to support that, there's a heap of technical infrastructure and architecture that has to be developed:
- Timers (the underlying game system that could effectively be considered the server's "game engine")
- Building placement and
- Hex maps that represent a planet's geography
Those 3 pieces are huge, hex maps being especially important to the game's Infrastructure system, and the mini-game that surrounds it. Again, more to come on that in a future game mechanics article.
Looking ahead
With my personal time now free to work (practically full time!) on Halcyon Online, progress on the game should move at a pretty fast pace, something I think you're all happy to hear - but none so more than me.
As I mentioned in my first article, Halcyon Online has been a dream of mine since the early 00s. Being able to focus so much of my energy and efforts at this game is a real dream come true!
So let's look at the path ahead, albeit briefly, with a rough roadmap:
- March: The Timer game system.
- April: Celestial body hex maps.
- Hex maps in particular are quite tricky, but I did a tech spike using them last year, and was able to find some success, including procedural hex map generation for celestial bodies.
- May: Infrastructure
- June: Spacecraft production
- July: Colonising celestial bodies
Anything beyond July is a bit too hard to envision at this point, as anything can and could go wrong during any of those months and their development timelines. However, rest assured that any delays, and wins will be communicated with the Halcyon Online community!
Getting the community involved
While all this development is going on, I shall continue to engage with the community to get your feedback on game design systems, player protections and other ideas (as has already happened!). But beyond that, once Infrastructure features are ready, I'll start reaching out to the community to help test out the game and its features. From that point on, invitations to test the game will become more regular, and more invites will be sent out with every completed feature.
It's incredibly important that the game's development is aligned with regular testing from the community, for two very important reasons:
- Get regular feedback around game stability and bug reports and;
- Listen to the community regarding the specific features and game's overall design.
If at any point the community believes the game's development is heading down the wrong path, then that will be a moment to take a step back, get clear input from the community and make the required changes to ensure Halcyon Online meets your expectations from a game design and execution perspective.
Words cannot express how blessed and grateful I feel for this opportunity, and the amount of input I've already received from those that want this game to succeed.
You're all amazing.
Until next month - adios!