Interplanetary Alpha

Hello, everyone! As you may have noticed, we've had some big things happening recently. We released a new alpha gameplay trailer, have been handing out alpha test codes to willing participants and even got featured on Rock, Paper, Shotgun! Feels good, man.

Today, we'll be going into more detail about the alpha (which you can get here, once you've pinged us about a code.)

Interplanetary Alpha Features

So, what is actually included in the Windows alpha version? Well, the very basic gameplay is there, but being an alpha version, even that's not shaped to perfection yet. It is possible to finish a match and even have a bit of fun doing it! The proper feature list is:

• Hotseat and LAN multiplayer
• Hotseat is currently restricted to two players, while LAN allows for more. Because the feature is not finished however, the game ends if the host loses.
• Structure building
• You can purchase and set some basic structures on your planet, forming Power Grids. It is also possible to repair, sell and reconnect buildings to the Power Grid.
• Power Grid
• You can connect structures together, so that they're linked to a Power Plant that keeps them online.
• Cities
• The function of Cities is greatly simplified in this version: they act as your planet's health, their population grows, they generate Material and Energy and act as connection points for your Power Grids.
• Resource Management
• It is possible to gather Material and Energy, using Mines and Power Plants.
• Defenses
• Forcefield and Kinetic Defense can be built to defend your planet, for the cost of Energy.
• Firing weapons
• Basic versions of railgun, missile and laser are usable. In the current build, the missile doesn't always hit where it's supposed to.

These are the features you can test. We really welcome all kinds of comments, whether you think something would work better differently or that some features are unbalanced. It's very easy to change the basic values, such as weapon damage and planet speeds, but bigger changes take more time.

A big thing we want to get comments on is the targeting and firing of weapons. Is it fun? Does it work? All the values of the planetary system, from gravities to planet sizes, are easily fixable, so don't hesitate to give your thoughts! 

What's to come?

We are planning on updating the alpha version periodically, so people can also test newer features. This will go on until we reach what we determine to be the beta-stage.

Some features to be expected sooner or later:

• Single player against AI
• Intelligence mode
• Adds some fog of war-like features
• Technology progression
• A tech tree allows players to choose their strategy better and unlock new buildings and bonuses
• Expanded City functionality
• The players will be able to allocate the population to work on Projects that give certain bonuses
• More features!

Happy testing everyone! Send us comments and we'll take your experiences into account when planning the next build!

What's up, Interplanetary?

The game is actually starting to look kind of nice! After all the recent devblog posts, we thought it would be nice to get back to the basics for a moment and give a little update on how we are doing with Interplanetary and internal Team Jolly Roger stuff.

Interplanetary is prettier and more functional!

It's true, a big part of why I wanted to write a quick status update is to showcase some of the new graphics! We've been busy implementing a graphical beauty that we won't be ashamed to show around. Of course, this is still not final, but it's a nice improvement to what we've had in the past.

We've come a long way...

...and we're still not done!

We're currently working on creating something nice looking and playable for o
ur upcoming visit to DigiExpo in Helsinki. Something big is brewing and we'd like to have a nice slice of the game to show to people there, and maybe even let them try it hands-on.

As for the gameplay, we basically have all the basic features of the game present, one way or the other. For showcasing the game, we're concentrating on getting the targeting phase work properly and feel good. It is, after all, a major draw of the game. The other main feature that we aim to polish, is the building of structures and maintaining them. These two features by themselves already make a kind of a nice little game, but there's a lot more in store for the next version.

TJR is a company, for reals!

This is quite huge for us: we managed to break free from the grasp of our university and form an independent company, officially known as TJR Games! We're still the good old Team Jolly Roger, just a bit more official.

Starting a company wasn't a simple thing to do, and preparing for it has slowed down the game development considerably at times. There was a period, when we didn't actually have a work space to do our game development and the team was separated to work in their homes. This rarely works.

Was going to add a picture of the office, but who cares? The game looks nice.

Luckily, we found an office space for a manageable price and filled it with computers and other stuff needed for game making. For a new indie company, this wasn't exactly cheap overall, but at least the situation is more stable now and work can resume in normal pace. Or, extranormal, since we're in a full-on crunch mode! Busy, busy.

Hungry for more screens? Check out our stash of pics, from the oldest of versions to the new shiny ones.