StarTrippers
Episode One: Our Friends Electric (working title)
Working status:
- graphics 39%
- puzzles 45%
- scripting 60%
- sound fx 20%
- soundtrack 20%
Devteam: 1 (Me, a penniless games development degree student. Hello)
Members needed?: Not at the moment, I'll wait until the demo's finished until I see about expanding or not. However, if you're interested in helping, drop me a PM!
Plot:
Meet Jack. Sometime courier, occasional bounty hunter and all around roister-doisterer. Together with his best mate Cipher, an AI construct hooked into the system substructure of the good ship Shutterbug. Which brings us to the ship, an old ex-military scout/light recon interstellar craft that's seen considerably better days.
We join our intrepid crew as they return to New Trachtenberg for a simple little deal with the local lowlife (sorry, 'indigenous entrepreneurs'). However, as with most things these days, simple little deals never quite seem to work out that way for Jack and Cy.
Latest blurbage:
Okay, I've got a feeling this might be a controversial one, I was a little hesitant about posting status on this one at all due to some of the more 'colourful' subject matter. It's a sci-fi comedy adventure, with some occasional swearing and mild violence, but it also contains quite graphic sex scenes in its current alpha build. These might be toned down a little for public demo/release (most likely there'll be two versions for the less open-minded), but it's always kinda ticked me off that people go up in arms over two people having consensual sex in a game, when you can run around in counterstrike shooting people in the head all day and nobody bats an eyelid. But that's a soapbox I'll save for another time.
Progress is coming along nicely so far, slowly but surely, mainly thanks to the massive amount of hi-res graphical elements and animations needed for the project. It'll be played mainly in the first person, with occasional cutscene interludes played out in a cinematic style to give things a little more life. And thanks to some really quite spectacularly messy scripting, I've implemented a weapon targeter, which can punch location-specific decals into the background and the like (metal dents, glass cracks etc). I'm a musician as well, so further along the line I'll be adding an optional custom soundtrack, but that can wait until the final stages.
I realise I'm probably aiming way too high for my first project, especially for a one-man team, but so far so good. I'll keep you all posted with updates and a demo as soon as they're available. With any luck, the demo should be forthcoming in the next week or two.
Some screens from the first finished scenes. I've edited these for content, but let me know if any need removed.
You can start screaming 'PERV!' at me now if you like
UPDATE (5th May): FINALLY finished a ship design I'm happy with. Here's pics of the ShutterBug's exterior, and a close-up of the pinup on the ship's nose (well, you GOTTA have one of those
). These scenes are all taken from the intro:
On a technical note, the larger pics here are actually fullsize shots, as the game's being developed in 640x480. Partly to save on filesize, and also because some of the tricks using alpha channels and fullscreen background animation would've caused massive slowdown on less powerful machines.
Oh, and If anyone wants uncensored sample images from the racier scenes, PM me. You're only getting a couple though, no point spoiling the game for yourselves
UPDATE (7th May): Finished a rough mix of the intro theme. You can download it and check it out for yourselves here (1.84MB 192kbps Mp3). It's a rough mix at the mo, but let me know what ya think. I'll probably overdub some ambient live guitar along with the synths before release, to give it a bit more depth.
UPDATE (12th May): Just a quick piccy for you all, just so you know I'm not dead yet (it's worse, EXAM time
). It's a pic of new Trachtenberg, again from the intro. Ingame it's a slow pan across the city, but you'll have to make do with a screengrab 'til the demo hits in a few weeks 
. Also, I finished a couple more tunes, but I'll leave those until I'm a little more conscious. Anyway, here's the latest shot:
UPDATE (29th May): After a brief hiatus due to exams, work continues on graphics and scripting. There's still a massive amount to get done, but it's slowly starting to come together, especially now the story's a lot more near completion. Anyway, new screens time, first one's a better pic of Jack (having some trouble with a little local colour), and the second's a pic of NTPD receptionist Becca:
