LuckyCarbon's Space Adventure Indie

LuckyCarbon

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Unfettered - LuckyCarbon's Space Adventure Indie

Hello everyone!

I've decided I'm ready to reveal all my hard work to my friends here at RPGWatch. It's an open universe space action game, for easy reference it's similar in vein to Privateer or Freelancer and as indie as they come. I've threatened myself with making a game for years now and finally settled on this because there's really not much available for such a classic genre. I've been working on it for several months now, devoting nearly all of my available time to this and nothing else. Like most indie devs, I do have a day job and a family however, so progress isn't nearly as fast I'd like.

I'm developing it in Unity3D to be released on PC, hopefully sometime in mid 2012. I consist of the entire development team so far, programming, modeling, textures & sounds. I've got the programming covered but I'm learning modeling and texturing as I go here, I've learned a lot but I also still have a lot to learn. Unfortunately hiring a modeler is "out of the budget" right now though I am planning on purchasing some of the models soon.

The big thing I'm missing right now is a name! I haven't decided on one I like yet so I'm still hosting the development site at my personal site and still generically calling it "Space Adventure" until I fall in love with a name.

I have decided to name it Unfettered!

Please, take a look at my site and the few screenshots I put up and let me know what you think. Just a note, the ship models in the screenshots are all placeholders for now and will not be in the final release of the game. They're just random spaceship models I found on the internet when I first started development and haven't bothered removing them yet.

I'll admit it though, I'd love a kind word of interest in all my hard work and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the game or its development.

www.unfettered-game.com
 
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Looks interesting. Is it in the vein of the Wing Commander in terms of flight play?
 
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Looks interesting. Is it in the vein of the Wing Commander in terms of flight play?

Yes.

Simply put, you fly a plane in space, from a 1st person or 3rd person over the "shoulder" perspective with a hud that's always visible on top of the action.

On a more detailed level the controls are a little more mouse friendlier, somewhat more akin to Freelancer than classic Wing Commander.

I'm considering producing a couple of simple playable alpha demos so people can get a feel for the flight and trading if there's enough interest.
 
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Full-time job, family, and still time to do some game development? And presumably also time to play some RPGs. :) Maybe I should just get off my lazy ass and do it myself, too. Great work!

(Admission: as a developer, game creation tools like Unity kind of scare me.)
 
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Full-time job, family, and still time to do some game development? And presumably also time to play some RPGs. :) Maybe I should just get off my lazy ass and do it myself, too. Great work!

(Admission: as a developer, game creation tools like Unity kind of scare me.)

First of all, thank you!

Well, that's where I've been for way too long, telling myself to create something, at least take a shot at it. I've been saying for a few years now with the development tools available now and digital distribution, there's ample opportunity for indies to make a big splash in forgotten genre or niche games the big money developers & publishers have abandoned. So after flirting with it a while I decided to finally quit saying someone should do it and decided it should be me ( not that I'm the first by any means but I think the opportunities are still wide open ).

Time management is definitely a challenge. I've set a goal for myself of averaging at least 2 hours a day of development work, most days I get it but some days it just doesn't happen. As a fellow dev I'm sure you know how hard it can be to wrap yourself around a big problem or sub-system when you're lucky to get a single uninterrupted hour to wrap your brain around it.

As far as the tools, perhaps it's just matches up with my experience and skills in just the right way but I can't say enough good things about Unity3d. I only wish I could afford a Pro license! I've also tried working with Ogre which is too raw and I spent too much time on rendering/ui/sound stuff and UDK which is way too geared towards developing a FPS and the UI stuff was very lacking and confusing. I am however slowly, very slowly, getting over my fear of Blender and modeling.
 
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Sounds promising. Is this going to focus more on exploration, or is it going to be more about building an economy? Will the player be able to descend to planet level?
 
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Sounds promising. Is this going to focus more on exploration, or is it going to be more about building an economy? Will the player be able to descend to planet level?

Well, exploration will have it's merits, hidden secrets that may be very beneficial to you, profitable trade routes to discover, etc but I wouldn't call it at it's heart an exploration game. Also no economy to build, you'll play a lone actor in an established universe. I would love to be able to expand the game in that direction where your actions affect trade routes, supply lines, build mining stations, etc but it's just too far outside of the scope of what I'm hoping to accomplish with this game.

You'll be able to land on almost all planets, space stations and capital ships (if they're friendly with you). But it's really just an interface screen to trade goods, buy a new ship, equip your ship and accept new side missions, etc. No walking around or exploring the planet surface.

I love those ideas though. Next game, the sequel, after I sell enough of this one to convince my wife to let me quit my job and do this full time! :)

The primary goal, other than the main storyline, will be to amass a fortune via buying/selling goods between stations/planets, bounty hunting, randomly generated side quests, or piracy if you so choose. Then spend that fortune to buy better ships and equipment so you can do everything you've been doing even better. Of course the challenge to me will be to balance the risk/reward of all of those activities so the game is challenging yet fun. For example: Long distance trade routes should have great profit potential for your time ( especially if you're smuggling illegal goods ) but to make it more profitable than bounty hunting you'll need a ship with a large cargo hold but that will leave you nearly defenseless to fight off pirates in your flying bathtub.
 
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My comments about Unity are mostly unfounded, by the way, because it *is* very powerful. I've just always sort of retained the feeling that you should do everything yourself. :) (And I'm not even capable of doing it, let alone find the time to learn all that low-level stuff.)

This post did make me download XNA and I messed around with some 2D stuff tonight! So thanks for that. XNA is so very easy to use, I find. It offers a lot of functionlity, but to me it still feels more like programming than Unity (but I have next to no experience with that). I am *so* not a designer type. :)

P.S. I have really fond memories of Wing Commander 3 and Privateer!
 
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Carbon, this is impressive! I'm curious, was any of this influenced by Air Rivals, by chance (was once known as Space Cowboy Online, but shut down December of 2007)? The art direction looks strikingly similar in some ways.
 
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Carbon, this is impressive! I'm curious, was any of this influenced by Air Rivals, by chance (was once known as Space Cowboy Online, but shut down December of 2007)? The art direction looks strikingly similar in some ways.

Thank you Ragnaris, I appreciate that.

No, can't say I've heard of Air Rivals or Space Cowboy Online.

The models are placeholders for now and the UI is my own conglomeration (that still needs a good coat of polish). One of the first things I did when starting the project was I sat down and listed everything I loved and hated about the UI and controls from every space game I ever played. Crossed out the things that just weren't realistic in time investment ( like an individual cockpit view for each ship ) and the things I thought were good ideas that needed better implementation ( that's where my galaxy map navigation came out of ).
 
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Don't worry, you've already passed Skyrim in usability.

Well great, then it should be easy enough to pass it in sales too! ;)

I'm pretty sure I've got a name picked out now, I'll probably register the site in the next few days after I "smell test" the name on a few more people. Once the domain is registered I'll update the link. I've got a few clicks through but I am trying to keep the development blog on the site updated daily now for anyone who wants to follow my progress.
 
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I noticed the "Suggest a name" option in the upper left corner. Is there any way you can post a few names others have suggested, then perhaps create a poll and gather opinions?

Of course, this is entirely your project and I'm curious to know what it will soon be regardless of a vote count or not!
 
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Count me in as interested. Not too many Privateer games out there now. Just don't make it Privateer 2 or you'll go way over budget ;)

Stupid question: Can I use a gamepad with it? I prefer the old Thrustmaster joysticks for my flight sims, but those tiny joysticks on a gamepad will do in a pinch.
 
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Man, if it's anything like the first Wing Commander games, I will really like it. The screenshots look great! This genre could seriously use some new blood.


-Carn
 
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It's probably too much to ask for an awesome story campaign with full motion video and live actors, right? ;)

There will be a story. Will it be awesome? I hope so.

Full motion video and live actors, only if I can book Mark Hammill or Clive Owen. :)
 
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