As usually happens a few times a year, a really fun project idea has bitten me and won’t let go. This one is already looking really solid. Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly introduce to you Eternity:
Eternity Title Screen
Choosing a target
Basically this game will be a jump into the space exploration genre, taking after Escape Velocity which was one of my favorite games as a kid. It’s a nice break from the usual platformers and such that take heavy handed collision engines. Ideally I’d like to take this game to a level I’ve never achieved before, allowing some really cool emergent gameplay with the player able to visit different systems and trade items.. AI ships will travel from system to system, and they will range from civilian traders to rogue pirates to military vessels enforcing the peace.
Where it stands right now is that you start in a small shuttle, and as you cross a procedurally generated galaxy you may encounter pirate ships. You can dogfight with them and they explode into tasty particle engine goodness.
Enemy vaporized
The galaxy is recursively generated, beginning with a central star system and branching outwards, each solar system spawning a layer of children and so forth, as ‘space’ permits (ha, ha.) This produces some pretty interesting constellation-like formations in the overview of the galaxy.
Each star system may have planets, and each planet may have moons. As well each system has a unique star backdrop that is generated upon your entry into the system. I may have to drop this feature though, because it seems to slow down some computers rather harshly.
Anyway, if space exploration is your cup of tea, keep your eyes on this one.
