Stargrazer: a game with orbits

So finally, here it is. The first public presence for Stargrazer! The first acknowledgement to the world (and also to myself) that this is really happening - my first ever game is now rumbling along a track towards an actual public release!

For years I have told myself that I would make a game of my very own, and yet it's take the chaos of a global pandemic to make me realize that the time to do it is now. As it happens, there is a convenient congruence of technology - it's become easier than ever to build and publish a game as a solo developer with limited time and no budget; something that was definitely easier said than done even a few years ago.

So here it is! Stargrazer is, at it's heart, a game about Kepler orbits. You pilot a giant interstellar craft that needs to skip past stars to pick up fuel for its long journey through the constellations. That means lining up your trajectories and perfecting your orbital maneuvers. Think of it as the orbital maneuver part from Kerbal Space Program, flattened to 2D, and stretched to the scale of constellations of giant stars!

The physics model is particularly accurate (something I'm quite proud of), and you'll find Newtonian mechanics work a bit different when you're at the solar system scale, a tiny mote beholden to the unstoppable power of stellar gravity! (Note: it is just Newtonian I'm afraid, I did toy with the idea of a general relativistic gravity model but well... maybe for another time ;) The essence of Indie game development is after all knowing what to cut!

The game itself is not quite ready, but it's definitely closing in on an Alpha release - with the idea of getting it in front of a few more people. It's build with the truly excellent Godot open source game engine, tagline "the game engine you waited for" and you know what, that's incredibly true for me. Over the years I've tried several times to build a game but the tools available never really clicked. Godot, particular in 2D, shines it how it helps you break down the big problem of building a game into bit-size chunks (Nodes and Scenes).

For now, I'm working on putting together the itch.io page and other media, while ironing out any egregious issues with the game itself so that it can at least be considered in alpha state. All this learning as I go - which is really have the fun :D