saintxi.com

Hello everyone,

It has been a long time since my last post due to various things including the birth of my little girl Alice on Boxing day as well as my full time job simultaneously getting rather hectic. But GOOD NEWS! Moon Base Eridani is back in development again and I am just putting together the final touches on a sneak peek test demo for you.

Here is the obligatory picture to ponder over. I do apologise for my poor colony layout, I'm sure you will do better.



This demo will include a selection of game-play elements from the final game in order to get feedback on how to improve the controls, UI and general core feel. I've stripped out all the story stuff, campaign levels etc providing only a sandbox environment to try out some of the early buildings and for you to experiment on the best layouts.

Watch this space!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! YES! WHOOO! SWEET! AWESOME! HELL YEAH! capital letters rock! WHOOT!

On a more serious note: Based on what you said, Are we getting, for all practical purposes, full sandbox mode? Or just some sandbox? I just can't quite tell what the current restrictions are other than lack of campaign.

Onto the photo itself: First thing I noticed (when looking deeper) is what looks like energy tunnels or links similar to supreme commander 1-2 that power the buildings. My guess is that they actually power the buildings, as upposed to SC where they only make the "cost of energy" to go down. I obviously don't know.

Resources: I assume the game will have multiple economies: Duranite, energy, and food, as well as keeping the people happy (as the invader zim looking happy face on that food court looking thing near the landing pad may represent). I can imagine (and hope) that there will be a hard difficulty where keeping these levels above zero will be difficult, as I don't know if there will be outside dangers before the greedy Altarians show up and ruin everything.

Research: I'd like to have a real tech tree like in sins of a solar empire or galactic civilizations, where one thing leads to another (or spreads out) as upposed to having to wait forever for an arbuitary point in time for the research to randomly pop up. Maybe you've come up with a whole new system for all I know. Still, I'll keep you up to date with my thoughts when the demo is released.

The Unknown: I look forward to finally getting my greedy American hands on a demo, as well as many other UEO slaves of this planet. Keep it up.

Also, what is the building that is to the left of the three guys in the middle who are standing in front of a solar panel (or to the right of the two health clinics?)

My bet is that the demo is also some sort of beta, so it has stuff, but not everything, so I highly doubt it's a full sandbox mode (That would mean the only thing left would be story mode tops)

Picture wise: I see a hospital... A... mine in the foreground? A tree... I take this is a colony on the habitable world (Was there one? They certainly didn't use farms) And are all colonies inside a crater like place? No planet to move freely around?
What else... cables? We have to lay the network ala redstone on minecraft? How about ducts between buildings for people to move around?
Also... hearts? Residences or breeding grounds?

An algae farm... a food court (Invader Zim happy face? You mean this? )
What is that thing in the middle that Domino mentioned? (A BUILDING CRANE/LASER! XD) It has a vent like thingie... Looks like stuff falls from there and into the hole to turn it into something else...

Is it me, or the pic looks more cartoony than those before? Was there a change in graphics?

Research wise, Sins style? God no, that one sucked. I prefer those of GalCiv 2 or Distant Worlds.


God I want my computer so badly. MOVE IT YOU TURTLE SHIP!

the building to the right of the algea farm. the one with the water vats. is that some sort of purification plant?

also does this not reinforce the veiw that the game will be more like a generic city builder with colony managment based on individual colonys in craters. god i hope im wrong.

The full game will have a story based campaign as well as three separate sandboxes. This test demo will only contain a single sandbox that has a small slither of elements from the full game. Effectively it is taking elements from the 4th campaign mission (of 20) but putting them in a bigger level to play with. I really would like to get some feedback on the controls, usability etc.

this depends. will we get cookies for doing so.

Sure! And cake too.

We know it is not complete, but will we have small sites for colonies or we have free reign over the planet (with a small scale like LoA but a bit bigger?)

I doubt it becomes a City game with a bit of space stuff, remember he posted a pic of the Genesis traveling around space.
And after such lovely scenes in LoA, how could they not use space intensely.

Besides, this game takes place during LoA, Seekers expand starwards, they made the gates! I wonder if we will retake Earth here.