Botanical Research; New Race Tomorrow

I spent today tweaking the Skunk Bottle Tavern and pondering the bartender's story. It will certainly be an intriguing one. And in the meantime, the Botanical Research Wing of the Progeny has gone under construction! This sector of the ship has become increasingly important in the past few days as the ship has orbited Desia. The planet surface scans have revealed a wide array of never-before-seen plant life with unusual properties, and the head botanist, with the help of her research assistant, has taken it upon herself to clone some of the alien plants in her lab. A few curious young scientists, as well as the head of the medical wing, Dr. Coz, have been poking around the specimens, attempting to determine any potential uses for them.

Are those edible?

After a day of grooming the botanical research wing of the Progeny, I am quite spent. Tomorrow will be the unveiling of another of Desia's alien races. Or is it that humans are the aliens? I guess it's a matter of perspective.

The Skunk Bottle Tavern

Today was a day for a bit of environmental work; I spent some time fleshing out some of the internal regions of the Progeny.

The Progeny was designed with efficiency in mind, of course, but it's important to also keep sanity in mind. And if there's one thing that has always gotten people through life's rollercoasters of insanity, it's booze.

The Skunk Bottle Tavern is a small business operated just adjacent to the Progeny Commons, and it's a favorite hangout spot for many of the ship's passengers and crew. The alcohol is in limited supply, of course, since the resources required to produce it are rationed, but that doesn't stop the patrons from having a good time.

And even better, daytime and nighttime don't exist when you're floating through space... which means happy hour is every hour. Drink up!

Designing the Progeny

It's been a hectic couple days. My Mondays through Wednesdays are basically spent face-first in expensive textbooks, so my game development time is pretty tight. I have managed to squeeze in some work here and there, though.

I've started digging into designing the layout of the inside of the Progeny. Level design is an interesting art, and I admit I'm quite new to it, but I understand the basics. And I have to say, I'm pretty excited about what I have in store for the opening scene in Skybrawler. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just say that there will be a bit of room for exploration right at the beginning.

The Progeny itself is an interesting machine. It was never intended to land; it's a space-only vehicle. As it turns out, the best possible shape for such a vehicle of that size is quite simple: it's a sphere. It is structurally the most compact; it doesn't have any protrusions that can get snagged on space debris, and it has the lowest surface area to volume ratio out of all possible geometric shapes, allowing the Progeny to retain heat quite easily. And because the ship was meant to last at least 2,000 years floating in space, efficiency is a high priority.

The Progeny's mission contains a simple and straightforward plan for colonization. The Progeny first enters orbit around the target planet to observe and collect data for approximately one week. The data collected includes information on local languages, customs, wildlife, plant life, planetary maps, resource locations, etc... This information is then transferred to the computers on the colonization pods. When data collection is complete, the operation is ready to begin.

The Progeny is equipped with specialized colonization pods which contain equipment for specific purposes. For example, one of the pods is for agricultural work, one is for engineering, and so forth. At the start of the operation, all passengers migrate to their designated colonization pods to prepare them for landing. The pods then eject from the ship and descend to the planet, slowing their falls with rocket thrusters. The thrusters guide the pods so that they land near one another, and upon landing, the pods burrow somewhat into the ground to transform into stationary buildings. If all goes according to plan and the pods land safely, the basis of a city is ready to go.

That's the plan, anyway.

Skybrawler: THE TALE

The Skybrawler Game Design Document is coming along nicely, and I've worked in a summary of the overall story arc in the game. It doesn't give away too much about the awesomeness you will discover within, but it does give a general sense of the main events you'll see in-game.

You play as Lionel Moore, captain of the space colonizing ship called Progeny. The crew and passengers of the Progeny are all that remains of the human race, and the ship has been drifting in space for hundreds of years. Early in the game, the crew is preparing to colonize the planet Desia when the ship is overtaken by its hyper-intelligent and extremely bored control computer, who renames itself "Garry." Garry sabotages the crew's attempts to colonize planet Desia by opening all of the airlocks on the ship and then, shortly after, simultaneously ejecting all of the ship's escape pods, along with whoever managed to get inside them. During the scuffle, you manage to destroy much of Progeny's hardware, causing the ship to fall out of orbit and crash-land on the surface of Desia on a large island continent, with a very angry -- yet somewhat entertained -- Garry trapped inside.

You must escape the falling ship before it crashes and get safely to the surface of Desia. Once there, your first task is to find the scattered escape pods to rescue the survivors and set up a base camp. The colonizing operation must continue. As you travel around the surface of the planet, looking for survivors, you encounter hostile life forms at every turn. For assistance and protection you must befriend and seek the aid of the various alien races you discover. But Garry, for little more than his own enjoyment, has begun playing a "game" with the Desian races. He has converted much of the crashed Progeny into a munitions factory and has dispatched an army of freshly constructed Bots, which is now advancing across the surface of Desia, destroying everything in its path. It seems that Garry aims to conquer the planet.

To save the colonizing operation and the rest of the planet from Garry's twisted game, you must gather your survivors and new alien allies to mount an assault on the Progeny. It won't be easy. Garry has been studying human behavior for hundreds of years and knows the full history of every military operation in the history of mankind, and he has instant information streaming from every one of his bots, who are completely loyal to his every command. But if you can destroy Garry and his army, the Desian races will be grateful and will protect your colony, granting humanity a second chance to flourish and prosper. Hopefully.

This is roughly how the final version of the story will unfold. Stay tuned for more updates!

CAPTAIN PUNCH!