Author Topic: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)  (Read 22457 times)

Offline x4000

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Original: http://arcengames.com/stars-beyond-reach-beta-approaches-have-some-screenshots/

STARS-BEYOND-REACH-cropped

 

How did you enjoy our accidental pre-April-Fool's day prank on ourselves?  I'm not really a fan of how the internet turns into a big pile of mostly-unfunny jokes one day out of the year, but this time the joke was unintentional and on ourselves.  Gremlins with the servers!

Anyway, it's been a while since my last Stars Beyond Reach update, and I apologize for that.  It's been a big struggle to get things ready for beta.  We now have another week to go and then we'll start the beta on the 13th or VERY close to that.  The full release of the game is planned for June 5th.

I have a lot to do next week to get the beta ready for those who will be in it (balance stuff, documenting stuff that I understand but that you won't without more text than "~*~", and so on).  Until the last couple of days, the game didn't have any sound, and prior to that the combat animations and visual feedback in general was... very rough.  It was one of those things that we could test but it would make no sense to anyone else.  The completion of those two things were my big tasks for this past week, and it went really well.  I'm quite pleased with how that turned out.

In other news, the graphics are coming along to the point where the main non-HUD parts of the game are getting very finalized.  We're super excited about that.  You may know that the AI-controlled races use different buildings (both on the surface and underground) compared to what you as the player get to use.  The set of buildings you use as a player are larger, and consistent regardless of which of the 8 playable races you choose to be (but which race you choose affects many other things).  Anyway, I thought you might enjoy seeing the surface building graphics (some of them, anyhow) for 9 out of the 14 total races (click for fullsize):

acutians

Above: Acutians


andors


Above: Andors


burlusts


Above: Burlusts


fenyn


Above: Fenyn


neinzul


Above: Neinzul


peltians


Above: Peltians


skylaxiansandspire


Above: Skylaxians in the middle, Spire floating around them.


thoraxians


Above: Thoraxians


What About The Beta?

I haven't officially asked for beta signups yet, but we already had 40-some people preemptively volunteer.  Which is awesome!  I wanted to see who came out first without me asking, but at this point we're now asking: if you want to be added to the list of future beta players, please feel free to post on the forums on this thread.

Oh, Also

If you want to help us with the components for procedural market item names, that would be awesome.  It's a big task, but if a lot of us do just a bit on there, we'll have two big nice things.  Firstly, nobody goes brain-dead from trying to fill out the whole thing.  And secondly, we get a wider variety of creativity from a larger group.

Give Me Video, Fool!

There is some footage coming next week in a teaser video that's about a minute long.  We'll also be releasing part one of a three-part set of video shorts set in the game universe.  Thanks for your patience!

Have a great weekend, everybody.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Teal_Blue

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2015, 05:35:44 pm »
:)   very cool!   will try out the thread for the components list you noted. and see if i can get the gray matter in gear. :)

Just dying to see the video next week!!!   :)

-Teal

Offline Billick

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2015, 05:47:55 pm »
The screenshots look great!  I'm looking forward to playing this.

Offline UsF

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2015, 05:51:18 pm »
I find it funny that you actually enjoy people preemptively asking for being part of the beta. Usually developers like to have their fans keep the hype up but personal communications on the low burner until you know you can deliver something for their hunger.

I would like to participate, but if there is a queue, you can let someone else take my spot, if someone really desires it. I am not really part of the community, so I feel like others should have priority. If a spot is left, sure I'd take it. :) Still mostly confused on what to expect from the game, but sort of secretly hoping for a mix of Simcity with SimEarth. Probably am very far off, but who knows. At least Simcity was mentioned previously.

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2015, 06:41:05 pm »
I have to say those screen shots look pretty the screenshots of the city's belonging to lf races are pretty interesting to me considering that you never got to take a detailed look at their architecture in tlf.
c.r

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2015, 06:42:43 pm »

Offline mrhanman

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2015, 07:40:29 pm »
This game looks gorgeous, fellas!  I really like how the GUI is coming together.  The minimap looks great.  I see that it has two sizes.  Will it be dynamically scalable, or are there set sizes to choose from?

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2015, 07:51:03 pm »
Oh! Is that bars on the right, in the Burlust's picture? Like the one where the incident took place

And I already love the Fenyn. (Being a vegetable, I love plants.)

Can't wait!
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Offline tbrass

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2015, 08:24:17 pm »
I, for one, look forward to finding the city Kocate in 58 hours and crushing them before their research is complete. Looks delightful, can't wait to take it for a test drive.

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2015, 09:13:55 pm »
Quote
documenting stuff that I understand but that you won't without more text than "~*~"
So a bunch of the documentation was in tilde-emoticons until recently? ;)

The Skylaxians & Spire look pretty nice together like that, but the Neinzul one looks odd in comparison with its...emptiness? Aside from the semi-blending in to the foliage Fenyn picture, everyone else seems much more easy to spot.

Offline Zebeast46

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2015, 10:27:08 pm »
Looks great, cool screenshots and waiting forward for the videos. Hope SBR is not that complicated because I do not do that well with complicated games (except for europa universalis 4 and TLF, which for some reason I easily learned how to play, unlike crusader kings of crusader kings, which I have given up trying to learn after 8 hours).
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Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #11 on: April 04, 2015, 12:57:09 am »
Hey Chris, glad to see the game is moving along. I'd be working on the market list but a it looks like my freetime's spoken for for a small eternity...

Offline YoukaiCountry

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #12 on: April 04, 2015, 03:14:50 am »
I've been following this game with anticipation.
I'll have some free time, so I'd like to sign up for the beta, please!

Offline wwwhhattt

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #13 on: April 04, 2015, 05:53:44 am »
I'm not sure if I'll have the time to test this properly any more*.

The week starting the 13th I'll be fine but from the 18th I might only be able to play once or twice a week, and there'll be enough distractions for some weeks to be missed altogether (although I'd try to avoid that). Would it be possible to usefully test the game with that amount of time? (Never done this before, so I really have no idea). If not I should probably come off the beta list. (Although if I could be useful I'd rather stay - this looks exciting  :D)


*When I signed up the beta looked like it might start in March. I wasn't being irresponsible!

Offline Mayjori

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Re: Stars Beyond Reach Beta Approaches! Have some screenshots. :)
« Reply #14 on: April 04, 2015, 09:52:24 am »
I would like to beta test please, add me to the list!
« Last Edit: April 04, 2015, 09:54:42 am by Mayjori »