Steam Marines 2 (a Steam Marines-like) (Now at Alpha 1!) $

[Worthless_Bums]

Hello, all!

In a few weeks I hope to launch the Steam Marines 2 alpha via Itch.io. I'll be updating this thread as that time approaches (no hard date yet) and I'll also be active on the dedicated Itch forums through the alpha process until release (slated for Q4 2018.)


What's New For Returning Players?

Some comments for players of Steam Marines 1 who may be interested in differences between the two games:

• Marine squad size has been increased. Still try not to reach zero marines.
• You control your spaceship instead of just fighting inside of it. Ships can pew pew at each other.
• Your marines are aboard the I.S.S. Delhi and you can land on planets, moons, et cetera to insert your marines into combat.
• Marine firing is no longer restricted to cardinal directions. Movement is still based on a square tile grid.
• Steam Marines 2 separates out Action Points and Attack Points. Whereas in the first game all attacks/abilities used some set amount of Action, the sequel allows more granularity in what each marine can do per turn via separation of resources.
• Marines now reveal fog of war in a 360 degree sphere instead of just a cone in the direction they face.
• Tactical combat is a lot less about lining up marines and Guarding and a lot more about line of sight positioning and choosing shots.
• Marines are now differentiated not only by class/weapons/armor but by personality traits. Traits have chances to trigger per marine per turn that can boost Action, experience gain for the turn, and other effects.
• Portraits. Lots of portraits.

Move and Shoot Game

The game is now fully 3D with all the pain and tedious code that entails xD But it sure does look shiny.

We lost some things but gained some others. No more just punching your way through walls - levels are fully connected and chokepoints are more valuable/vulnerable due to this. You now control six marines instead of four, and this can mean more effective focus fire or simply splitting into two teams of three to sweep the level faster.

"But, Bums, can we still move and shoot?"
Of course you can.


"But, Bums, do we get sexy 3D action cam?"
Uh, sure...


"But, Bums, can we target specific parts?"
That's a Work-in-Progress.



Marines Need Toys
There is a bare bones ship combat implementation, but it's not really solid. I mean it's playable, but the playability is literally 1) fire missiles until the enemy's shields are down, 2) either destroy the ship or launch marines in capsules to board it. I'd like to flesh this out post-alpha.


Building your own fleet is an interesting concept. Multiple marine squads, one per ship? Multiple per ship. That seems more complicated. I'd like to at least explore manual control of your original ship and automating something with any ships you buy or capture.


"But, Bums, what about the Hulk Sui..."
Yeah.


"But, Bums, what about the Hulk Suit flame..."
I'M ON IT.


"But, Bums, what about the Alien Merchant in a Tube?
Oh. Err. Okay, that's not in the game in any form yet. But it's on the todo list. No, really.



So what is Steam Marines 2 about?
There's not a whole lot of plot in-game at the moment, but the gist is you're in a fringe system and robots and aliens are fighting over resources. The first Steam Marines basically had you kick the robot/alien invaders off your ship then New Game Plus started with all your marines and gear and upgrades.

For Steam Marines 2 there are no difficulty levels, and what I'd like to consider instead of a NGP approach is a more sandbox end game. Yes, you beat the campaign, credits roll, et cetera - but instead of the main menu you're allowed to jump out of the system; possibly to procedurally generated systems and missions. Mount & Blade in space? Be still, my beating heart. If I had the time and funds!

It's all still very up in the air at the moment: part of the reason I like to do alpha development, to get player feedback.


This isn't a roguelike!
Close enough!


Okay, it's not as dungeon-y as Steam Marines and it's certainly more open world than some traditional roguelikes. It's not single avatar (although I have an evil idea concerning this issue... !!), and like I said earlier ship combat is not turn-based. But I think it hits a lot of the right checkboxes, if we're doing checkbox definitions.


You can contact me in this thread, via Twitter, or via email at yjseow@worthlessbums.com - your call!

Thanks for reading!
Mister Bums

[getter77]

Bodes well indeed---let that scope creep you unto victory.   

[Worthless_Bums]

Bodes well indeed---let that scope creep you unto victory.   

What do you get when you put a programmer with extra time and a hole in the game design?

A dead project.

[Worthless_Bums]

Been making some progress on the polishing and art asset side of things lately. Alpha in late September/early October, hopefully! Been trying to cram most of my assets into my first system to let players know how the overall structure of the game plays out. Still working on two planet side tactical environments.

Unfortunately I don't believe the alpha release is going to have fully fleshed out environments like desks, chairs, lockers, and that sort of thing. Because of the nature of them being interactable I ran into some issues with the level generator and placing them to work well with the core gameplay. Still working on that.

Fire/Lava World


Ice/Water World



People told me they didn't want real time (anything!) ship combat in a turn-based game so I stripped out ship combat for now. I've repurposed the shield shader for personal use. Steampunk battery technology is awesome, right? Well, maybe it's actually alien tech. Who knows. Certainly not me.

Repurposed Ship Shield Shader

[getter77]

Looking good, ice/water samples especially though fire as well.

[Worthless_Bums]

Had a bunch of delays, including art because Hurricane Matthew chased one of my artists out of his home! More or less back on track now.

This enemy-repurposed space station is now fully operational.
(Spaceships and space station by Daniel Allen.)



Alpha is still scheduled to release at the end of 2016!

[jere]

Well goddamn, I haven't popped this thread open until now. Those portraits are stunning. I somehow started following your artist on twitter some time back, so I'm not surprised.

Kornel Hel. Hehe, nice.

[Worthless_Bums]

Well goddamn, I haven't popped this thread open until now. Those portraits are stunning. I somehow started following your artist on twitter some time back, so I'm not surprised.

Kornel Hel. Hehe, nice.

Thanks! Working on cranking out the final portraits and planetary tilesets for alpha release now 

[Worthless_Bums]

Well, some political upheaval and unforeseen circumstances delayed alpha launch. How not unexpected for game development xD

Been revamping the marine relationship system and adding in an ability toolbar that allows all marine to mix and match, with modifiers based on marine class, marine personalities, and gear stats. Got my character animator back to work on enemy assets and have been mocking up concepts between the 2D sprites of Steam Marines 1 for the 3D units of Steam Marines 2. Also working on new marine armor and weapon variants:










I have high hopes I'll actually be able to alpha release this year  (Oh God please let this gel into a real game.) Also toyed with having flying units, but the short version at least for now seems to be "overly complicated, doesn't add much to the core system."



That's about it for now.

[Worthless_Bums]

Back in the swing of things. I got a legal monkey off my back that was there for months xD

Patriarch boss by Edward del Villar (concept by Daniel Allen, based off the Steam Marines 1 sprite by Jay Bramhall) and marine skill icons by David Baumgart!

[Worthless_Bums]

Current status: strategy layer implementation. Because who doesn't like aliens and robots taking back planets you already seized?




Also been playing with squad formations. Although, like in Steam Marines 1, I've run into much the same problems and I'm not sure if this will make the cut. Unit stacking is fun, though!

[Worthless_Bums]

I did it. I finally launched the alpha. About damn time.

https://worthlessbums.itch.io/steam-marines-2

[getter77]

Huzzah! 

[Worthless_Bums]

And no one has sent me an angry email about the price or Linux yet! DOUBLE HUZZAH.

[Worthless_Bums]

Still hacking at UI. UI is the worst.

Considering some kind of outline/shader deal for targets behind other targets when there are stacking situations like this.

#6 is a space avocado.