Eons of War development is going swimmingly: game loops are tightening, graphics are improving, and soundswellare sounding better. With this update, we'd like to start covering some of the core game mechanics and systems. The first topic is the in-game economy since it's used in many game loops.

Energy

Energy is used to power all of you space stations. If there is not enough energy then stations' efficiency steadily declines. This has different consequences for different types of stations. For example, shipyards will slow down ship production and sentries won't fire weapons as fast.
A cluster of solar arrays next to the Starbase. To get more energy you have to build solar arrays. The closer they are to the star the more energy they generate.

Credits

Credits are used to pay spaceships for their services. If a spaceship is assigned to a specific location then it expects to be paid a salary. If you don't have enough credits then the spaceship's loyalty will decrease. Decreasing loyalty affects spaceships behavior, making them worse workers, and, eventually, if their loyalty drops to zero, they will leave the colony.
More stationsmore credits! To earn credits, you have to build more stations at the beginning of the game. Later, once you research various improvements, spaceships will buy them from the colony bringing some of their earned credits back.

Minerals and Nuclear Fuel

Minerals and nuclear fuel are mined from asteroid fields and transported back to the colony by miner ships.
Mining minerals. Minerals are used to build and repair stations. Nuclear fuel is used to power planetary shields during stellar radiation spikes. Each asteroid field contains one type of resource and it's limited in quantity, so you have to explore the planetary system early in order to find more fields. Miner ships have weak defenses, so it's always a good idea to guard them with sentries or the military.

Antimatter

Antimatter is used for special actions such as super weapons, station and spaceship repairs, and some others.
Chasm spawning a Rift spaceship. To gain more antimatter you have to destroy more enemy spaceships from the Rift. The stronger the ship the more antimatter it generates.

Population

You need population to build new spaceships. Planets are the only source of population in the game. As long as the planet is protected from stellar radiation by an active shield and enemy ships are not bombing it, population will increase steadily. There are improvements and some other actions you can do to speed up population growth but those are currently a work in progress. Every planet has a population limit and if you've reached it, but you still need to build more ships, then you'll have to explore new planets and potentially terraform them if they don't support life.
Planet protected by a radiation shield.

[ 2021-03-05 21:10:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

After a long hiatus, I was pleased to announce a little over a month ago that Eons of War is back and it's being actively developed. We have an actual budget now to help us hit future milestones and contract out music, some graphics, creative writing, and marketing. While parsing the feedback from the private beta players and doing more internal playtesting, we realized that the 4X game mechanics weren't compelling enough, so we started brainstorming how to fix it. After several months of churning through various ideas, we made the decision to change direction. Eons of War is now a real-time survival strategy with rogue-lite progression elements. Whoa, that's a big change, right? It certainly is and we believe it's for the better. The updated game is in very early alpha and is already loads more fun to play. There are many more game loops left to implement but for the first time in over a year I'm very optimistic about the whole thing. Let's take a look at some of the more exciting new mechanics and graphics!

Survival and Base Management

Survival became the main theme of the game. According to the new lore, stars in your sector of the galaxy started to "malfunction" decades ago producing intense radiation spikes that destroyed space equipment and sterilized planets, killing millions.
The most effective remedy to those spikes are giant energy shields that can be enabled around planets and space stations. Shields require thorium to function making it critical to find the right balance between typical RTS-y things (like mining resources, building out your base, and hiring units) and managing shield protection levels. A good analogy for shields is the generator and steam hubs in Frostpunk.

Autonomous Spaceships

As in any typical strategy game, you have to build units, but in Eons of War you also have to hire crews to pilot them. Crews require space credits to keep performing their tasks otherwise they might quit and you'll be left empty-handed.
Spaceships act completely autonomously deciding themselves when to do their assigned jobs (terraforming, mining, exploration, battling, etc.) vs. having to perform upgrades and repairs with the money they've earned.

Rogue-lite Progression

To make level progression more interesting, we decided to add rogue-lite elements to the game. Just like before, all levels are procedurally generated for greater replayability. There are two game layers that you'll interact with while playing in the story mode: the galaxy layer and the planetary system layer. Planetary systems is where all the action takes place. As you complete a level, more planetary systems open up in the galaxy view.
The story unfolds during in-game quests that you can either complete or fail. Some quests will reward you with resources and artifacts. Artifacts are special items that can be deployed on planets and space stations. As levels get increasingly more difficult, it becomes more critical to pick the right collection of artifacts to bring with you on new missions. Hopefully, this gets you excited about the new direction! Our goal is to post monthly updates exploring game mechanics and features in more detail up until launch. We are going to run a private beta in June 2021, so if you are interested please signup on our site: https://www.eonsofwar.com/beta/

[ 2021-01-26 20:40:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! First of all, I'd like to apologize to the whole community about keeping you in the dark for over a year. Life and other projects got in the way of development but I'm pleased to announce that Eons of War is back on track. We've been making good progress addressing problematic game mechanics, writing code, and making things look pretty. After weeks of brainstorming and deliberation I decided to make significant changes to the game across multiple dimensions. First of all, Eons is not a turn-based 4X strategy game anymore. I know, I know...you've signed up for some 4X goodness in space and this might feel like a letdown but please hear me out first. The game is now a real-time indirect control survival strategy with 4X elements. All and all, it's a very good thing since the old vision wasn't working the way I wanted it to and, honestly, it just wasn't fun to play after a few hours. Even though the new mechanics are in the alpha stage, it's already way more exciting to play. The premise of the game has changed as well. Now, you are at the helm of a space corporation in a planetary system constantly ravaged by abnormal solar activity. To make matters worse, an unknown alien civilization has been carrying out attacks on peaceful planets through temporary interstellar rifts that open and close seemingly at random. As a player, you have to deal with the multiple crises that come in waves. You now get to hire different types of spaceships, manage solar flare shields, mine minerals, collect energy, research new technologies, and strategically defend and attack planets, rifts, asteroid fields, and space stations. All that in a constantly evolving planetary system with spaceships acting independently following their own agendas that don't always align with yours. Where do we currently stand in terms of development? Since so much of the game had to be changed, it's going to be a few months until we run a private beta for select players again. The goal is to have a playable beta by June and to launch the game in late 2021. In the next monthly update I will talk more about the new game mechanics and share some new screenshots. Again, thank you so much for being a part of the community and supporting the game! Happy holidays and let's make 2021 a great year!

[ 2020-12-20 19:35:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Apologies for the lack of updates! Thereve been lots different things happening in the past couple of months and I couldnt dedicate much time to Eons of War. I tested the most recent version with a small group of folks and it seems like the core game loop is still not where it should be. The problem is that after several battles it all starts to feel too similar and mundane. One way to fix it is to make every game session more dynamic and unpredictable by applying a few mechanics that Ive been experimenting with. The tough thing is that it will take several months to implement, test, and tune them properly. Since I wont have as much bandwidth for the next few months, I had to make a decision to postpone launch until 2020 and cancel (for now) the private beta. Id still very much like for this project to happen but I want to do it right and not launch something I am not proud of. On the flip side, while working on Eons I learned a ton, got a lot of feedback from all kinds of folks, and made a few friends. Once development is back on track Ill post another update. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-06-05 17:46:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Exciting news: I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, so private beta 2.0 will be starting on May 6! I am pretty excited about it since the game is in incredible shape compared to the first early beta that we ran in December of last year. There are tons of new game mechanics, better graphics, and, overall, much more enjoyable battles. There are still quite a few things to improve and kinks to work out over the next couple of weeksnamely better AI, balancing, bug fixing, and polishbut Im confident it will all be completed by the deadline. If you havent contacted me yet about participating in the beta please do so by joining our Discord server or shooting me an email at vasily@vasinovgames.com. This time around the beta will go for only two weeks. The reason for this is twofold:

• During the first beta, lots of folks procrastinated and didnt submit adequate feedback. Im hoping that having a tighter deadline will help with that.
• Running a beta is actually a lot of work, so Id like to be reasonable with how much time I spend on it, so I could collect feedback quickly and then move on with development.

Please do share any additional thoughts or comments that you might have about the game or the beta and thanks so much for participating! It means more than you can imagine! Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-04-11 19:38:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.17.0 of Eons of War is out on Steam with minor game mechanic changes and some polish work. Lets dive right in!

Karma

Prior to this update, the game didnt have a negative feedback loop meaning that players with a stronger initial position and economy would likely come out on top at the end. The fundamental positive feedback loopmore locations mean more resourcesis very similar to chess in the sense that the more pieces (or, in our case, resources) one player has the better off they are. Its fine to have in some games but it could result in a pretty frustrating grand strategy game experience: being crushed by a stronger opponent often feels unfair after youve spent hours expanding and building your empire. This update introduces a negative feedback loop called karma. Heres how it works: when the player builds structures their karma goes up and if they attack or use weapons then their karma goes down. If karma is above 50% then its more likely that a positive random event will happen instead of a negative one. Higher karma also affects how much of players population survives during battles. If your karma is at 100% then youll get only positive random events and the maximum possible population will survive in all battles. The opposite is true for when your karma is 0%. Thus overly aggressive players get meaningfully handicapped and disadvantaged players have an opportunity for a come back.

Notifications

In order to make the game more immersive we added overlay notifications that come up during some important events like the start of the game, discovery/colonization of new locations, and when the game is won or lost. Overlay notifications work as alerts in order to convey important information and engage players on a different level. I can see this mechanism being used more in the future when we implement story-based missions. For now, the most useful application of this new UI mechanism is the ability to display short summaries about newly discovered locations with location and race descriptions as well as several key location properties like mass, the amount of minerals, luminosity, and attitude.

Whats Next

Over the next two weeks well be focusing on rewriting the AI engine from scratch and doing more balancing. This is an exciting development that will contribute to the success of beta 2.0 starting at the end of April. I will post another announcement with the beta launch date at some point soon. Now, back to work! :) Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-04-04 16:38:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.16.0 of Eons of War is out on Steam! This update introduces a long-overdue change to how action energy costs are calculated. Before this change costs didnt take the underlying units into account. For example, the cost of a mineral transfer would be the same for one mineral as well as 20 minerals. This didnt make much sense, especially considering that costs for weapons were dynamic, so we decided to change it. Now, action costs for transfers and attacks depend on how many population units and minerals are involved. The final cost of an action depends on the number of units multiplied by the sum of all modifiers. Modifiers come from distance to target, star mass, research, race, structures, events, and factions just like they used to except now they are multipliers instead of cost components that get added and subtracted. We also ended up replacing the All Action Costs modifier with more granular Transfer Costs, Weapon Costs, Attack Cost, and Hyperlane Cost. This allows for more strategic decisions regarding research and faction choices. Another change that this update introduces has to do with locations that dont belong to players. Before this update all non-player locations were unpopulated and whenever a player built a hyperlane to such a location it would automatically become theirs. Now, some locations have neutral civilizations that dont expand or build structures. All resources around such locations increase every turn at a low rate and whoever builds a hyperlane to a neutral location will also have to attack it in order for it to become theirs. Finally, we decided to add the ringworld structure to space stations, so they can grow population just like regular stars. The only thing that space stations cant generate is minerals. This update might seem small but it changes battles for the better. The fact that locations can exchange low amounts of resources on the cheap is very important. It also makes it hard to steamroll the battlefield in the endgame when supernovae go off and some locations on the outskirts have tons of population left that can be used to take over the battlefield. Now, the cost of doing that is prohibitive. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-03-28 16:06:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Yesterday marked one year since I started working on Eons of Warat least thats what my version control history says! It felt like an important milestone to me, so I decided to go over some development highlights in this post. I was at a low point in March 2018. My cat just passed, I didnt have any desire to work on serious software projects, and I was considering switching careers into something more creative outside of computers. My wife suggested that I make a list of things that I always wanted to work on and dedicate two months to every entry on that list. I put make a computer game at the top of the list and thats how it all started.
After two months of tinkering with prototypes in Unity I didnt feel like stopping, so, naturally, I continued building. The first working prototype was a scifi RPG where the main character flew around star systems and engaged in arcade battles. After winning a battle the player could mine minerals and upgrade their ship combat components and the fuel tank. The character could also gain experience from battles and level up their battle skills. It was a simple game that ultimately didnt have any interesting mechanics, so I decided to keep brainstorming. During summer vacation I came up with an idea that made me re-think what kind of game I wanted to build. The idea could be described by asking one single question: what would a strategy game in space feel like if instead of the usual hundreds or thousands of years the gameplay was focused around tens of millions of years? That seemed like a thrilling idea with tons of possibilities: empire development mechanics focused on a general strategic direction instead of tactical micromanagement, stars constantly changing their properties and eventually going supernova, and outrageous mega-structure projects, like Dyson spheres and ringworlds, being commonplace. Of course I immediately jumped to prototyping it!
The first prototype was an RTS game with active pause. All stars had a certain amount of health that really was just the amount of energy they had left before collapsing into a black hole. The player could build three buildings around captured stars: energy spheres for capturing energy, ringworlds for growing population, and space fleets for higher combat strength. To reach other locations the player had to create hyperlanes. The game only featured two resourcesenergy and populationthat were used for all actions. I quickly realized that playing the game (even with such simple mechanics) was very tedious if the player had more than three locations to manage. Simple brute-force AI would beat me almost every time, which was a good sign that something was off. I decided to make the game turn-based and have actions take several turns depending on the distance between locations.
After a couple of months of work I had a prototype that was more fun: it introduced a new resource: minerals. The player could also transfer resources between their locations. I also made all actions take only one turn, which dramatically reduced the amount of tedious bookkeeping that the player had to do. It was October 1 and thats when I announced to the world what Ive been working on. I received some pretty subdued reactions, since the game was pretty simple and the graphics werent particularly impressive. I had to keep grinding to make my vision a reality! After two more months the game changed pretty dramatically. I added space stations for tech research, asteroid fields, fog of war, sounds and music, better graphics, and, finally, implemented the supernova mechanic. The game started to really shape up and I was ready to let players try out an early beta.
To my great surprise, most reactions were very positive and several people spent hours playing the game. They shared tons of great feedback and ideas for new features. Honestly, after looking at what the game offered back then Im shocked that people even gave it a chance. Beta success gave me more confidence in what I was doing. I decided to double down on quality and more mechanics to make patterns of emergence in the game more diverse. I also started to really think through how the game arc felt to players during each play session.
Fast forward a few more months to todaythe game is in great shape! I added lots of new features, improved graphics, and polished several game systems. Therere currently 10 different structures that the player can build around their locations. In addition to hyperlanes, black holes can be used for attacks and transportation. Each location has a race that provides different bonuses. The player can setup an energy shield to protect themselves against supernovae and attacks. Therere also remote weapons that affect resource production and can even destroy stars! Finally, I added factions, which are movable units that gain experience and can be upgraded to provide disproportionately high bonuses to individual locations. All new features fit nicely with the original idea of one million years passing by on every turn. Also, its still a pretty fast-paced game where each session takes 30-60 minutes on a medium map. Of course, theres still plenty of work to finish: improve AI, add multiplayer modes, balance factions, races, and research, polish the graphics, and add more content. Im super pumped to see what the game looks like in late April when beta 2.0 begins. Im grateful to everyone whos been supporting development from the beginning. I hope you are enjoying following the progress and learning how long-term projects are developed by (mostly) solo creators. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-03-26 23:16:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

After two weeks of focused work build 0.15.0 is finally out on Steam! It includes a new game mechanic called factions and several other improvements. This release concludes our work on core game mechanics. Its time to focus on AI, balance, content, and polish.

Factions

Factions are special units that can be moved around the map and upgraded after they gain experience. They also add disproportionately high bonuses to locations they are currently at. Think of them as super units that have to be strategically positioned around your empire. New factions can be added during turns 10, 20, and 30. Each player can only have up to three factions at a time. Factions can be moved between different player locations as long as there is a hyperlane or a wormhole between them. The cost of movement depends on the distance to the destination and its mass. Factions receive experience points from actions like attacks, construction, and some others. Each faction has three different traits that can be upgraded every time they level up. Therere currently six different factions in the game, each focusing on a specific resource or mechanic that can lead to victory. Lets take a look at all of them! Builders Guild Focuses on reducing all construction costs, construction time, and shield energy per turn cost. Add this faction if you want to build up new locations from the ground up quickly. Energy Institute Focuses on increasing energy collection rate, reducing all action energy costs, and reducing all weapon energy costs. Depending on your strategy this faction can be used for population attacks, cheaply firing weapons, or transferring resources around. The Brotherhood of Might The brotherhood focuses on increasing combat strength, reducing attack energy cost, and shield energy per turn cost. This is the only truly combat-focused faction that can be used for direct attacks. Asteroid Rats This faction of miners focuses on increasing mineral collection rate, reducing construction time, and reducing mineral transfer energy cost. Need to kick-start a new location? Use this faction! Nomad Alliance Focuses on increasing population growth rate, reducing population transfer energy cost, and race conversion energy cost. Frontier Academy This faction focuses on increasing research speed, research points per turn, and shield efficiency. Use Frontier Academy to try out various research-based strategies and to protect locations at the forefront of the battle more efficiently.

Other Changes

[UI] Add new structure icons in the construction panel. [UI] Dont show zero modifiers in tooltips. [UI] Improve CPU performance for several UI elements. [GRAPHICS] New hyperlane model. [GRAPHICS] New energy sphere model. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-03-18 22:42:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Super excited to get build 0.14.0 out on Steam! And its a big one too with the new weapons mechanic and several important UI optimizations that should increase FPS on slower machines.

Super Weapons

Adding weapons to the game has been on my mind for at least three months now and its finally here! This mechanic adds another dimension to the game by introducing special actions themed as weapons that allow the player to influence other stars and stations without having direct access to them through hyperlanes and wormholes. To start using weapons you have to build a Weapon Lab that unlocks weapons near a specific star. Each weapon has a range and an energy cost, which depend on the type of weapon and the amount of affected resources. To increase the range and decrease the energy cost players can upgrade their weapon labs. The current version of the game includes five different weapons. Lets take a look at all of them! Dark Matter Beam This weapon destroys population around another location or, if that location has the shield enabled, it reduces the shield. Its super useful in situations when you are low on population and are about to get attacked or when another one of your locations needs help attacking but cant quite win the battle during this turn. Mineral Teleporter This weapon steals minerals from other locations. Need I say more? :) Mineral Teleporter introduces a wide array of new strategies where the player can focus just on collecting energy and not harvesting minerals from asteroid fields. Psychic Beacon This weapon permanently reduces base combat strength at a given location. This is a powerful support weapon that can be used to effectively take over a location. Just remember that this effect lasts for the entirety of the game, so once the location is yours it will remain vulnerable unless you complete research that increases combat strength across all of your locations. Antimatter Bomb This weapon permanently reduces base energy collection rate. It can be used in multiple scenarios when the attacking player needs to handicap enemys energy production. Star Destroyer This is perhaps the most fun weapon in the game! It literally forces any star to go supernova even if the star cant naturally do it. Since this is such a destructive weapon that throws a whole star neighborhood into disarray the cost of it is pretty high and depends on the mass of the target star.
Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-03-06 19:04:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.13.0 is out on Steam! I managed to add several important quality-of-life fixes as well as a couple of major gameplay changes to it. Lets dive right in!

Custom Games

I reorganized the custom game screen where you can now add and remove AI players and customize their races and initial bonuses (more on that later). I also removed several settings that werent used by anyone. Another new feature that was added to this screen is the random seed that the game engine uses to generate the map. It gets reset every game but you can now change it to whatever you want. For example, if you liked a specific map setup then you can set the same seed for your next game and essentially play the same game but may be try different strategies and initial conditions.

New Race

I added the 5th racecalled deusto the roster. Deus represent enhanced beings that branched off from humans many millennia ago. They live and breath technology and science, so every location occupied by deus increases your research speed and research points.
Since therere five races now I decided to add two combat bonuses per race against two other races. Combat bonuses work the same way Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock outcomes work. Lets see if this system creates more interesting and fun battles.

Gameplay Changes

Many beta testers felt frustrated with negative effects of races and research that come hand in hand with bonuses. I understand the frustration, so I decided to try a version of research and races without any negative effects. Lets see if that works! Any game now begins with an initial bonus that can be set in the settings. Currently there are only four different bonuses: extra population, minerals, energy, or a little bit of everything. Depending on the bonus and the initial race combination, early game becomes very exciting and every time players face a different puzzle of how to approach growing their economy. Finally, I added a change to how research points are collected. Before, they were based on the number of locations. I changed it, so research points are just another property that can be increased through various means (on top of the number of occupied locations). For now, this property was added to the new deus race but I expect it to be added to structures and research in the future. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-02-26 23:43:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.12.0 is out on Steam! This update has lots of little changes that dramatically improve gaming experience. It also just dawned on me that Ive been sharing public Eons of War updates for 20 weeks now. I think its the longest streak of writing Ive ever done. Kind of neat :)

Better Races

Last update introduced population races and this update brings this mechanic a few steps further. Now, after the player captures a location, the population race stays the same. In order to change the race at a given location, youll have to go to the population manager (which is another new feature) and manually convert it to a new race. This process comes at a cost: some amount of energy is required during the conversion and you only end up with 70% of the original population at the end. Players dont have access to all races at the beginning of the gameyoull have to discover them by capturing locations with different races. If two locations have different races then you cant transfer population as easily between those two locations. Every such transfer comes with a 50% population cut. For example, if you want to transfer 10 population to a location with a different race, the target location will only receive 5 population. Finally, I added another race called Mollis. Mollises are great at harvesting minerals but all of their construction takes extra time. They also have a combat bonus against humans. With this addition the game is at four races that force the player to use different strategies during the game. The plan is to add two more races in the coming months.

Better AI

With new mechanics being added, game AI quality has been deteriorating, so it needed an overhaul. The game is at the early stage of AI 2.0, if you will, but it already comes with some real improvements. One of the bigger changes has to do with AI being aware of the supernovae. Gone are the battles when an AI player would transfer population to a blue giant a couple of turns away from exploding. AI has gotten a lot better at transferring minerals. Theres still a lot to tune but now all locations that are in dire need of minerals have a better chance of receiving them from neighbors. This is particularly important for space stations that cant generate minerals.

Other Changes

[UI] I added a new popup over the turn count that shows what the goal of the current game is. [GRAPHICS] I tuned some post-processing and brightness effects for a better look. [GAMEPLAY] Rate effects during random events are more severe now. [MUSIC] I added four more beautiful tracks to the soundtrack. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-02-21 19:30:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.11.0 is out on Steam! This update introduces races and several other more minor improvements. Lets dive right in!

Races

Races is a brand new game mechanic in the world of Eons of War. Now every occupied location in the game has a race of sapient beings. At the beginning of each game, initial locations are populated by the race set in the game settings. As the game progresses, locations become inhabited during colonization. Each race has a set of traits that directly affect construction, resource production, and research. Also, each race has a combat strength bonus against some other race. This adds another strategic layer to gameplay. If the player wins an attack against another location with a different race they will be presented with an option to assimilate attacking population, which effectively keeps the newly conquered locations race the same. It comes at a price of a one time population reduction but it could be very beneficial if the player is looking to add more races to their empire. The initial version of this mechanic includes three races (more are coming in future builds): humans, machines, and baloghs. Humans get to build structures on the cheap but their population doesnt grow as fast. Machines collect extra energy at the expense of the minerals. And baloghs are trueborn warriors with increased combat strength but reduced research speed.

Other Changes

[GAMEPLAY] Negative resource rates are now allowed. [GAMEPLAY] Structures were changed to have the maximum level of 3 instead of 5. [UI] Location panels are now highlighted with color of the player occupying them. Also, we cleaned them up to show less content by default. Hover over your locations with a cursor to see more details. [UI] Structures are now organized by category and name. [UI] Action properties now have tooltips explaining all bonuses and handicaps. [BUGFIX] Fog of war now renders correctly on all OpenGL setups. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-02-13 22:20:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Protostar about to turn into a yellow dwarf. Build 0.10.0 is out on Steam! This update contains two major changes: the stellar evolution mechanic and the wormhole mechanic. Both add new ways to strategize during all phases of the game but the endgame is particularly affected by those mechanics in a good way :)

Stellar Evolution

I built Eons of War around the idea of every turn taking a very long stretch of timean eon. Over many turns stars luminosity goes up and they loose more and more mass until they either collapse or go supernova. This update introduces star phases that match real-world stellar evolution. New stars start out as contracting disks of gasor protostars. Depending on the initial mass, protostars evolve into red or yellow dwarfs. Red dwarfs are small and cool stars that can sometimes exist for trillions of years. In the game they are one of the final star phases and never collapse or go supernova. Yellow dwarfs are stars like our Sun that evolve into red giants, which, depending on their mass, collapse into white dwarfs or evolve into blue giants. Red and blue giants are very bright active stars, so its easy to extract lot of energy from them with energy spheres. The downside of the giants is lower base population growth rate and more expensive construction. All dwarf stars have a high base population rate and low construction costs. Finally, blue giants are the only stars that go supernova that later collapse into black holes. Supernova resets minerals in the asteroid field, so black holes become very desirable locations in the late game with a high base population rate and cheap construction. Black holes can also be used as wormholes and completely change how the endgame is played.

Wormholes

Wormholes in Eons of War represent an invisible network between black holes. This mechanic introduces another way to attack and transport population and minerals between locations. Wormholes behave just like hyperlanes, except there is no distance or mass energy cost when you use them to perform an action. If you occupy at least one black hole all other black holes become visible on the map. To start using a black hole as a wormhole you have to build a wormhole portal that allows you to initiate actions to other black holes. As the time goes by, more stars collapse into black holes, which leaves the back of your empire more vulnerable. Suddenly, you have to not only worry about hyperlanes but also about wormholes. This is an exciting dynamic that adds spice in the endgame.

Other Changes

[GAMEPLAY] Renamed hyperspace tunnels to hyperlanes. [GAMEPLAY] Now initial minerals dont depend on the star type. [GAMEPLAY] Construction mineral cost is now inversely proportional to luminosity. [GAMEPLAY] Base population rate is now inversely proportional to luminosity. [GAMEPLAY] Updated action cost modifiers to be incremental instead of percentage-based. [UI] Added a turn countdown to the resources bar with a tooltip containing information about the current phase and the next phase of the stellar lifecycle. [UI] Added more information to the minerals tooltip about the total amount of minerals left to harvest. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-02-06 18:44:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.9.0 is out on Steam for beta players to test. It doesnt contain as many changes as I have planned last week though. The whole stellar lifecycle mechanic is taking longer than expected because I had to completely re-write the part of the game logic thats responsible for processing stars every turn. This build mainly includes research updates and some minor bug fixes:

• Now, research costs depend on how large the map is. Its really neat because the static cost system that we had before didnt make sense for large and dense maps when the player ended up with 15+ stars in midgame and most research done before endgame. Now, its more balanced and fun.
• All research items now support the new incremental resource modifier system (it used to be percentage-based before 0.8.0).
• All research items were re-evaluated to be more in line with different in-game points of focus: military superiority, mineral harvesting, population growth, energy generation, and construction speed and cost.
• All research item properties are now shown in one tooltip.
• All structure mineral and turn costs now include clear modifier breakdowns that can be seen in the tooltips.

New Launch Date

We are moving the launch date to the second half of September 2019. That was a tough decision to make but its definitely for the better. I want the game to be the best it can be and it wouldve been tough to achieve that without going into a major crunch for at least two months before the original launch date in May (been there, done that: its not good). I want the game to be enjoyable in single player and multiplayer modes and the latter is hard to get right on the first attempt. We are still working on adding core game mechanics like stellar evolution, population races, leaders, and super weapons. The plan is to be done with those by the end of March and then focus on polishing, balancing, and adding content.

Private Beta Update

I received tons of great feedback from the beta testers over the past two months and Im still processing it. I will be doing the second round of private beta staring in April but you can sign up for it now. Everyone who signed up before today and who hasnt received a beta key yet will receive it in the next two weeks as promised :) Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-01-29 21:49:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Updated UI: Tooltips and Construction Panels Build 0.8.0 is out on Steam for beta players to test. It includes lots of overdue improvements that Ive been wanting to work on since December. It also includes several gameplay changes proposed by beta players. This is a pretty important release that consolidates and streamlines several mechanics. I also refactored some game components, which should save development time in the future. The biggest visible change in this update is an improved UI. Lots of folks werent happy with how UI elements scale on smaller screens, so its fixed now and nothing should look small anymore. Another UI change introduces structure panels instead of just buttons. This provides players with a much better view of the construction progress. Panels include mineral and time costs as well as the structure name. Panel tooltips show rate and limit changes. Since panels take up more space than buttons I moved them to the right of the screen. This forced me to move action buttons and panels to the bottom center of the screen. I think its a good change that will result in less mouse movements during the game. Another big change in this update has to do with consolidating all resource properties under one umbrella and removing percentage changes from research and events. Each resource property now consists of four components: base, structures, research, and events. If you move the cursor over any resource the tooltip will show a much more clear breakdown of what contributes to a specific property. By removing percentage modifiers in favor of number increments (and decrements) I was able to solve the ambiguity that many players werent happy with. Its especially useful when making decisions about research and events.

Other Changes

[GAMEPLAY] Hyperspace tunnels now have a distance limit. Even if you have enough energy, you cant build a tunnel to a far away location. This change stops tunnel craziness in the end game and makes locations more strategic. [GAMEPLAY] Hyperspace tunnel cost is now linear instead of exponential (just like all other actions). It still costs more to build a tunnel than any other action. As a reminder, each action has two cost components: distance to and the mass of the target. [GAMEPLAY] When the star goes supernova all connected hyperspace tunnels get destroyed. This adds an interesting twist to the end game and also protects vulnerable post-supernova stars from immediate attacks. [GAMEPLAY] I dropped population limit on research stations since it doesnt contribute to gameplay meaningfully. [GAMEPLAY] The map generation density setting logic was updated for better gameplay experience. [AI] Tunnel building logic now takes different contexts (like proximity to enemies and the relative level of energy) into account for more realistic AI behavior. [BUGFIX] The far apart option for the player proximity setting in the battle setup panel now works correctly.

Next Week

Over the next week Ill be working on introducing new game mechanics focused on stellar life cycles. It will include proto stars, star evolution from an orange dwarf to a red giant, and a few others. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-01-22 23:38:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

This past week was pretty busy running the beta but I still managed to finish an important gameplay feature: energy shield. Energy shields are protective mechanisms that consume energy every turn once they are activated. When the enemy attacks a location with an energy shield up, some, or all, damage gets absorbed by that shield, which consumes energy. Depending on how efficient the shield is, it could quickly drain your location energy. For example, if the shield efficiency is at 70% and the location has 10 energy then the shield can absorb up to 7 damage units (equivalent to 7 population units). If the defending location has any population, then the attacker will receive the same amount of damage that they would if there was no shield. I also added a new structure called shield generator that unlocks the energy shield action. Shield generators can be upgraded to lower energy the shield cost and to increase its efficiency. Energy shield is a new type of game mechanic that only uses energy in order to achieve player goals. Sure, attacks and transfers consume energy but its just an enabling secondary resource since population still reigns supreme during direct attacks. Thats a pretty important development because it enables another high-level strategy for playersenergy harvestingthat complements two other general strategies: population growth and combat focus. There are a few more energy-based mechanics that will be coming out in the next weeks. Exciting!

Other Changes

• [GAMEPLAY] Higher combat strength will result in more damage dealt to the defender. Now players can rationalize investing into military more.
• [GAMEPLAY] All combat strength modifiers were increased by a factor of 10.
• [GAMEPLAY] Supernovae now last only one turn. Its more realistic since real supernovae only last up to several months, so it doesnt make sense for them to last for several turns (one turn takes a million years in Eons of War). Another reason for the change is that players didnt like how their locations became disabled for several turns during active supernovae.
• [GAMEPLAY] In-game event choices that change resources were changed to be based on the relative value of the resource instead of a generic value.
• [UI] I added a special location notification that lets the player know that their star is about to go supernova next turn.

Build 0.7.0 that contains all of those changes was just uploaded to Steam for beta players to try.

Next Week

Over the next seven days Ill be focusing on a list of improvements thatve been long overdue. Most of them have to do with fixing certain game mechanics, improving UI, and addressing player experience issues that beta testers brought up. Im also planning on refactoring some of the game internals to get ready for massive features that are scheduled to be added in February. Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-01-15 03:41:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy New Year! I took a few days off from development enjoying winter in the mountains and still managed to work on a few long overdue improvements. I just pushed build 0.6.0 to Steam that includes the following updates:

• [AI] AI players learned how to upgrade structures around their locations.
• [AI] AI players became aware of asteroid fields and research stations and can build tunnels and attack them.
• [AI] AI players learned how to transport populations and minerals between their locations. This is huge! Now AI can actually execute more meaningful strategies and adapt to changes on the battlefield.
• [GAMEPLAY] Event probability now depends on when the last event occurred: first turn after an event has the probability of a new event happening at 0% and seventh turn at 100%. Turns in between have a linearly increasing probability.
• [GAMEPLAY] Players can now set the initial proximity to other players in the battle settings panel.
• [GAMEPLAY] Stars go supernovae faster that before.
• [GAMEPLAY] Maximum mass of blue giants was increased, which affects incoming action costs.
• [UI] Location details panel now includes the combat strength value.

As you can see, most improvements in this update are related to AI, which should make battles way more exciting. There are still quite a few things that AI doesnt do well (for example, avoiding supernova losses) but Ill be improving it incrementally with every new update.

Next Week

Over the next seven days Ill be focusing on:

• Adding more actions like fortifying and bombing locations without involving populations.
• More gameplay balancing and general improvements.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-01-08 23:10:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welp, apparently Im not good at counting calendar days and update #12 from last Tuesday was not the final update of 2018 after all. This one most definitely is! :) It took me longer than I thought to get the new events system to the point where it generated meaningful random events. For now it only has eight high-level event types with outcomes that affect population, mineral, and energy limits and collection rates as well as combat strength modifiers. In the future updates Ill be adding more outcomes and event types. An event is something that randomly happens at a specific star or globally across all of your stars. It could be a positive event, like a scientific breakthrough, or negative, like a pandemic. Any event has three levels of severity (minor, normal, and major) that determine the outcomes. The outcomes are 2-3 different options affecting your economy and military might that you must choose from. Events generate a constant stream of trade-offs that significantly change the gameplay for the better. Heres a screenshot with a pandemic event that provides the player with three outcomes to choose from:
This screenshot also gives you a glimpse into the new tooltip system that lists all rate and limit modifiers from the star, events, and research. This is helpful when you make decisions about attacks, transportation, and event outcomes. Build 0.5.0 on Steam that I pushed moments ago has both of these changes as well as the following minor changes:

• [GAMEPLAY] Set initial rates for population, minerals, and energy back to zero.
• [GAMEPLAY] Changed combat strength to a number instead of a percentage.
• [AI] Updated AI players to follow specific research paths instead of randomly selecting available research items.
• [GRAPHICS] Increased camera field of view for a more 3D-like look of the battlefield.
• [GRAPHICS] Updated the background generator to include more realistic nebulae.

Next Week

Im finally taking a few days off for the first time since July, so I wont be working much on the actual game. I still expect to brainstorm a few things and come up with a more solid roadmap for 2019. Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks so much for your support and Ill catch you on the flip side! Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2019-01-01 00:59:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its hard for me to believe that its almost 2019. Last year was great on so many levels and I know that next year will be even better! Happy holidays and enjoy the last few days of this year! Im going to keep cranking for another week and then take a few days off to recharge and brainstorm new ideas. I started working on Eons of War in early August and officially announced it on October 1. Since then the game has been improved dramatically and I collected lots of really good feedback (thank you, players!). The private beta started less than a month ago, on December 3, and more than 50 people played the game already. Im truly humbled and also excited about all the interest from the community! Last week was a bit slow in terms of progress but Im happy to push version 0.4.0 on Steam today. It mostly addresses several bugs and has a few minor improvements. What Ive been really focusing on is the new events system (to be released in 0.5.0). The events system generates random global and location-specific events that can be both good and bad (for example, a scientific breakthrough or a virus epidemic). For each event youll have to make a choice between rewards (for good events) and setbacks (for bad events). I truly believe that it will spice up the game and contribute something special to the genre. Stay tuned for the updates!
Heres a list of bug fixes and new features in version 0.4.0:

• [GAMEPLAY] Added a new map mode random grid. In this mode location positions are generated based on a random grid, which resolves several oddities with completely random maps and makes battles slightly more predictable.
• [BUGFIX] Fix victory condition checks, so the game doesnt stall when therere no more enemy locations left.
• [BUGFIX] Several location details panel fixes.
• [BUGFIX] Add correct player color highlights to the ringworld and space station models.
• [BUGFIX] Fix incorrect battle populations after the attack when the player chooses attack population with a slider.

Next Week

Next few days are expected to be hectic with all the holiday bustle abound but I am determined to finish the events system and may be address a few other issues. Again, enjoy the next week and thank you for everything! Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-12-25 00:51:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another great week went by and Im ready to push version 0.3.0 of Eons of War to Steam! This update is filled with pretty significant changes based on the feedback from private beta players. Lets dive right in!

New Combat System

One recurring comment from beta players that I kept getting was about how the combat system feels like a black box. Another problem with it is that enemy attacks are unpredictable and they take out locations in one charge. The new system is based on combat strength (CS) and population. CS comes from multiple modifiers that include the type of location, research, and a few others. The damage is calculated based on the CS difference between the two combating locations and involved populations. You can still control how much population you want to participate in the battle but now, unless you have a huge military advantage, you cant take out all of your enemys population in one attack and vice versa.
We also updated the combat interface. It gives you a breakdown of CS modifiers as well as how much of yours and enemys populations will survive after the attack. As you can see, the population is shown as a range. This is because we added a degree of randomness to damage calculation to make it more exciting. Therere countless other little interface changes improving the combat experience that youll notice during the game.

Adviser

Several beta testers pointed out that certain Eons of War game mechanics are not obvious (e.g., how resources work, what happens when stars go supernova, etc.). Instead of creating a tutorial mission, I decided to add an adviser (similar to the one in Civilization V) that provides information based on the current context. It was more work than adding a tutorial but I think its a worthy investment at this stage since I can tune the timing and the content of the adviser messages as more game mechanics are added.

Other Changes

Heres the list of other less significant changes:

• [UI] Add numbers for turns until supernova and remaining minerals to the location details panel.
• [GAMEPLAY] Lock the next turn button until the player picks a new research item.
• [GAMEPLAY] Increase base amount of minerals in all locations.
• [GAMEPLAY] Lower attack and population/mineral transportation energy costs.
• [GAMEPLAY] Increase energy sphere and reactor energy outputs.
• [GAMEPLAY] Building a hyperspace tunnel to a neutral location automatically colonizes it.
• [GAMEPLAY] Make enemy resources visible if the location is directly connected to one of our locations by a hyperspace tunnel.
• [GAMEPLAY] Drop the space fleet requirement for mineral and population transportation.

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to focus on:

• [GAMEPLAY] New game mechanic that generates random positive and negative events in your locations.
• [GAMEPLAY] New game mechanic for fortifying locations.
• [GAMEPLAY] Other minor changes based on player feedback.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-12-18 18:32:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

A whole week flew by like it didnt happen! We launched the private beta on Monday for about 100 folks who originally signed up for the beta test. About ten of them played the game for over an hour and provided a lot of great in-depth feedback. I certainly learned a lot of lessons on how to run betas with limited time and resources; Ill write up a blog at some point in the future describing the juicy details. Based on the feedback three things stood out the most:

• People generally like the game and find it fun once they learn the rules.
• The battle system has to be completely revamped. Currently, its too simplistic and unpredictable.
• About 70% of folks didnt have any trouble figuring out the mechanics; some got frustrated because they didnt feel like there was a clear direction during the game and they werent sure how different types of resources and structures relate to each other.

Theres still more to learn but Im really glad that the beta resulted in more clarity about the direction of the game as well as the missing pieces. I just pushed version 0.2.0 of the game to Steam with tons of improvements. Heres a high-level breakdown:

• [UI]: Added a settings menu with sound effect and music volume controls.
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a serious bug when, in certain edge cases, resource rates didnt take research values into account.
• [BUGFIX] Fixed performance issues on older video cards.
• [GAMEPLAY] Lowered population and energy limits.
• [GAMEPLAY] Added low (instead of zero) initial rates for population, minerals, and energy.
• [GAMEPLAY] Increased research point cost for higher level research items.
• [UI] Added lots of tooltips that explain game mechanics and the meaning behind structures and resources.
• [UI] Hide population rate for when a location has no more resources to mine; hide population rate for asteroid fields.
• [UI] Renamed resources to minerals. Now resources represent all three key resources: population, energy, and minerals.
• [GAMEPLAY] Remove fog of war around all locations connected to our locations by hyperspace tunnel. The clear radius around those locations is extra small because the point of the change is to give a clear view of location messages.

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to focus on:

• Working on the Civ-style adviser.
• New battle system.
• Balance tweaks as we learn more from beta players.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-12-11 03:26:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Great news: we officially launched the private beta today! Last week was mostly filled with tons of testing, planning, and various uninspiring errands that had to be run prior to the launch. But its all done now and we can focus on building the game again. You can join the fun if you are interested in trying out early versions of the game and providing feedback! We still managed to squeeze in several important gameplay changes. The most significant one is the new type of location called asteroid field. Asteroid fields represent large asteroid deposits that contain significantly more resources than regular locations.
Asteroid fields dont generate any energy or population, so the only viable strategy for extracting resources from them is to build an energy reactor, an asteroid harvester, and a space fleet, so you can transport resources to neighboring locations. If you want to increase population in asteroid fields (say, for defence purposes), youll have to transport it from other locations. Another change has to do with asteroids contributing to locations total mass. As you extract resources around stars, the total mass of the star system goes down making it cheaper for other stars to attack or transport resources and population to it. We also modified the supernova logic. Now stars dont ever completely disappear but instead, depending on the type of star, either collapse into white dwarfs without the explosion or go supernova and collapse into black holes. Other minor improvements include:

• Global notifications when new research becomes available.
• The AI difficulty setting now maps to AIs attack modifier. Basically, the harder the AI setting the more painful attacks become.
• AI players dont cheat anymore by having the whole map visible to them. Now, they also have to deal with the fog of war and build space telescope to discover stars near them.

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to focus on:

• Working with the private beta community to figure out which core game mechanics work and which ones dont.
• Adding better tooltips that describe game mechanics.
• Working on the hotseat multiplayer mode.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-12-04 04:19:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

First of all, Id like to thank everyone who signed up for the private beta! You are all awesome and Im thankful for your interest in Eons of War.
Im officially launching the private beta of Eons of War on Windows, Mac, and Linux today. Its a very early version of the game thats currently only about 30% done. Heres a list of things to consider before installing it and providing feedback:

• We are a small shop with one full-time developer and a handful of contractors. Well try to be on top of updates and communication as much as we can but please be patient if we dont respond to you right away. A gentle nudge is always appreciated though.
• Eons of War is not Stellaris or Master of Orion. Its a 4X grand strategy in space with some unique mechanics but dont expect the same type of gameplay from it. Im fully committed to building a unique game that borrows some good ideas but is not a direct clone of another great title. Also, we are not a team of 50, so expect less in-game content.
• I see the game being fast-paced (no 1+ hour battles) but still deeply strategic.
• The single player campaign format and storyline are being worked on and they are currently not part of the beta.

If you are okay with everything from the list above then welcome to the beta! To get a Steam key please do one of the following things (if you havent done it already):

• Join our Discord server.
• Subscribe to beta updates with your email.
• Email me directly at vasily@vasinovgames.com

Sharing Feedback

You can share your feedback directly through the following channels:

• Messaging the private beta #feedback channel on our Discord server.
• Directly emailing us at hello@vasinovgames.com.
• Commenting or creating a discussion in the Eons of War Steam Community.

All feedback is welcome but heres the list of things that Im particularly interested in:

• Are the core game mechanics fun? Would you change anything? Would you add anything new?
• Did you notice any bugs or glitches?
• Do you like the aesthetics? Hows the graphics? Do you like the music and sound effects?

Development Roadmap

Our current plan is to run the beta up until April to get as much feedback as possible. The game launch is scheduled for May. We are using a public Trello board to track the progress and capture game ideas. Anyone can vote on cards and its really important that more people do that, so we can focus on important things.
Again, thanks for your interest and enjoy the game! Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-12-03 20:03:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Last week was filled with lots of Eons of War improvements and turkey eating! We are about a week behind in our development, so we decided to move the private beta launch to December 3. Now, let's take a look at the changes over the past seven days.

Gameplay

We were finally able to finish designing and implementing all technology research items. There're six research branches with four technologies per branch. Each branch focuses on a specific game style that players can adopt to bring victory to their civilization. There's a lot of research balancing that will have to happen over the next few weeks during the beta test.
Here are other gameplay additions and updates:

• Space fleet is required to transport resources and population. This meaningfully slows down expansion and makes it more difficult to use the rush strategy.
• We changed all base rate and storage multipliers to be percentage-based. This way it's easier to make decisions about research and colonization decisions.
• All base multipliers like the population rate multiplier (and many others) get affected by the type of location. For example, black holes have a higher attack multiplier but lower population rate multiplier.
• We decided to go back to fractional rates for increments. We realized that by using percentage multipliers it makes sense to either increase the granularity of population, energy, and resource increments or increase the absolute amounts of stored items. We decided to go for the former to keep in-game numbers low as it's easier to reason about them. So, now your location's energy rate can be 2.4 and in three turns your stored energy will be equal to 7 instead of 6 with the old rounding down system.

User Interface

• More tooltips were added to different UI elements explaining how certain values are calculated.
• Location info panel now includes base multiplier information.
• Location details panel now includes icons for structures that can be built or upgraded during the current turn. This is super useful because players don't need to shuffle through their locations to see what's available for construction.

Check out some of the UI changes in this screenshot of the glorious black hole:

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to work on:

• More playtesting and gameplay improvements.
• Graphics optimizations.
• New type of location: asteroid fields.
• AI improvements.
• Steam build upload shenanigans for the private beta.
• Launching the private beta!

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-11-26 20:09:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

We added tons of good stuff over the past seven days! We are also getting closer and closer to the private beta. The current plan is to have the beta out sometime during the week of November 26.

Gameplay

Here's the list of various gameplay additions and updates:

• The base attack multiplier is now different for every location. The higher the energy output of the star the lower the attack multiplier. This was done to balance out overpowered blue giants that generated too much energy and population, which resulted in their ability to execute swift crushing attacks that didn't seem fair. Before this change the only downside of blue giants was their shorter lifetime. Now, it feels a lot more balanced. The "scientific" justification behind this change is that stars with higher luminosity make it harder for civilizations to coordinate offensive and defensive operations in space. Since research stations are not stars and don't have regular star properties, we changed their base attack multipliers to be extra low.
• Research stations have limited population now. This change makes a lot of logical sense and also makes stations much easier to re-capture.
• Black holes and research stations don't have energy spheres anymore. We needed this change for logical and gameplay consistency, since neither of the two objects have any energy output capabilities.
• How do black holes and research generate energy now? We added a new structure called an *energy reactor*. It generates less energy than energy spheres but is cheaper and takes less time to build. You can also build it in any other location if you need a little bit of energy quickly.
• Research stations now have a research lab structure. It increases population and resource limits and the research rate.
• Research rate was changed to be dynamic based on the number of stations (5% per station) and research lab structure upgrades.

User Interface

• We added more properties to the location info panel that now includes the base attack multiplier and the building cost rate. We also added a popup message to research points that shows what the current rate of research is.
• We added a global (not location-specific) message that shows up at the top of the screen at the beginning of the turn. For now it only tells you when a research item is done. In the future, we'll add more items to it like when a player gets eliminated or some plot-specific event happens.
• We added icons for all location structures!

Check out some of the UI changes in this screenshot:
To prepare for the addition of the hotseat multiplayer mode we had to refactor turn processing and the event notification system. Those changes aren't immediately visible but are necessary for the work that we are going to focus on over the next two weeks.

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to work on:

• More playtesting and gameplay improvements.
• Finish technology research tree and do some initial work on trying to balance different research items.
• Graphics optimizations. Ideally, I want the game to run smoothly on systems with Intel HD Graphics. There're some low-hanging fruit fixes that I can quickly apply to get closer to this goal.
• Steam build upload shenanigans for the private beta.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-11-19 18:03:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

This week's update is mostly focused on incremental and quality changes to the game. The reason for that is because we had to produce a playable and relatively bug-less alpha build to meet the Indie MEGABOOTH deadline on November 9. I'm happy to report that we successfully submitted Eons of War for consideration on Friday and if the game gets accepted we'll get to present it at GDC or PAX in 2019!

Music and Sounds

We added new sounds for when players press buttons and select locations. We also added three amazing songs to the soundtrack. Check out one of them in this three minute alpha footage of me playing the game: YouTube Video: Eons of War Raw Gameplay (1.0.0-alpha.6)

New Main Graphic

We also updated the main graphic that is used everywhere on Steam and social media:
The rest of the changes had to do with minor bug fixes, graphics glitches, and balance improvements. We also added research support to AI.

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to work on:

• Adding a UI system that shows global messages to players. For example, if a player is eliminated then the system will let you know about it.
• Finish adding all research items.
• Add more improvements to AI.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-11-12 23:15:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Jeesh, what a crazy week! I'm publishing this weekly update a day later because there were a few loose ends that I wanted to wrap up yesterday. With this update we are introducing some monumental changes to the game! You can finally do more than just build megastructures, colonize other stars, and try to survive in an evolving stellar environment with supernovae and black holes. Now, you can research new technologies, capture space stations, and finally, thanks to a completely rebuilt action UI, make sense of why certain actions are not possible to execute.

Research Stations

Research stations are a new type of object that players can build hyperspace tunnels to. They operate differently from stars, in a sense that they don't have any resources to harvest and their energy output is low. They also generate very little population and you can only build the radar and the space fleet around them.
Why capture research stations then? They accelerate technology researcha brand new mechanic that we added last week!

Technology Research

What good is a grand strategy game without a research tree? I was planning on adding research a while back but never got around to it. After a few days of going pedal to the metal for 12 hours straight, I was able to design, build and somewhat balance the first version of research. This is one of the better looking countless drafts that I generated during brainstorming.
So far, we have 12 out of 24 research technologies implemented. There are three core research groups: building, exploration, and colonization. Each group has to do with different aspects of the game and different styles that players can adopt during the battle. There are four tiers of research items (two research items per tier). One researched item in the lower tier unlocks both items in the higher tier. Every research item has positive and negative affects during the game. For example, Management Automation improves all construction time by 20% but also decreases energy collection rate in all locations by five points.
Each item requires a certain number of research points in order to be researched. Research points are a global resource that gets incremented every turn based on the number of captured locations. For example, if the player controls three stars and one research station then they get four research points per turn. Research takes a certain number of turns to complete and controlling research stations improves research speed by 15% per station.

Action UI, Tooltips, and Better Camera

We also managed to squeeze in several UI improvements. The biggest one is the action UI update. Now, whenever you attempt to start an attack, build a hyperspace tunnel, and transport resources or population, the action panel will give you reasons why something is not possible.
Other improvements include:

• Tooltips for some labels and buttons without text on them.
• Camera can be moved by pushing the cursor against any edge of the screen. Before this change, camera movement was only possible if you dragged it with the right mouse button.

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to work on:

• Preparing the Indie MEGABOOTH submission.
• Adding better sounds and music.
• Finishing the rest of the research items.
• Starting work on the hotseat multiplayer mode.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-11-06 22:37:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update #4, folks! On top of regular bug fixes, minor UI improvements, and general polish we managed to add two major features last week: supernovae and custom battle settings. Before launching the private beta in the middle of November we are going to submit Eons of War to the Indie MEGABOOTH! The idea is to show off the game either at the GDC or PAX in 2019 before launch. The Indie MEGABOOTH is a curated showcase of games from different game developers; getting accepted would be a huge honor!

Supernovae

Most of the week was taken up with supernova and stellar mechanics development. Here's are several new game mechanics around star cluster evolution that we added:

• At the beginning of every battle the star system is at 70% "capacity." It means that as the game progresses new stars appear randomly with diminishing probabilities until the star system is "full."
• Stars go supernova when they get down to about 20% of their original mass. Before the supernova, luminosityor energy outputgoes up allowing players to harvest more energy.
• Once the star enters the supernova stage, it lasts for several turns (it's impossible to know how many). During this time nothing can be built and no action (like attack and population/resource transportation) can be executed. Also, the supernova kills off a small percentage of nearby stars' population every turn.
• Once the supernova is over, the star either disappears, turns into a black hole, or a white dwarf. All structures that existed before the supernova are damaged and sometimes completely destroyed. Some population, stored energy, and resources are destroyed as well.
• Black holes and white dwarfs never go supernova and are eternal in the context of the battle.

With the addition of supernova mechanics we finally executed on our original vision of the grand 4X strategy experience that doesn't exist in any other game. Pretty exciting stuff!

Battle Settings

Since the beginning, in addition to standard single and multiplayer modes, we wanted to have a customizable battle mode where players can set whatever battle parameters they want. Now we have it! Currently, the game supports custom settings displayed in this screenshot:
We also updated the main menu to make it more presentable:
That's all for now! Random aside: happy national cat day!

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to work on:

• Adding research advancements.
• Adding research stations.
• AI improvements that we didn't get to work on this week.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-10-29 22:01:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Week #3 is here! We keep making good progress towards the private beta. Currently, the plan is to have a playable version of the game for folks to test by November 12.

Fog of War

We really doubled down on adding improvements to various aspects of the fog of war mechanic.
First, we added partial fog to areas that have been previously explored by the player. For example, if you used to control a star that was later re-taken by the enemy, you'll still see that region of the star system with the star in it. The region will be translucent and it won't show any upgrades to the star structures that the new owner made. Second, we added a new type of star structurea space radarthat allows you to increase uncovered fog of war area around the star. Consequently, we reduced the initial fog of war radius for all stars.

Star Details UI

We added several major improvements to the star details panel:

• Whenever the resource or energy limit is reached, the corresponding number is highlighted in red.
• A new notification system was added across the whole game with some actions generating messages above player's stars. You'll see those messages when a structure is built or upgraded, when the enemy captures your star, and when your attack succeeds or fails.
• When the player zooms in on a star the panel scales correctly without looking huge at maximum zoom.

These changes turned out to be disproportionally beneficial to how the gameplay feels. For the first time ever, I was truly sucked into the process of playing the game during one of the playtesting session :).

Next Week

Over the next seven days we are going to work on:

• Improving the supernova mechanics and new star generation.
• Random map generator UI.
• AI improvements.
• Balancing more game mechanics.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-10-22 18:04:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another busy week after the official Eons of War announcement! These past few days we focused on defining the list of features that we want to test during the private beta in November. There will be a follow-up post describing the private beta goals in more depth. Aside from that, we also made some progress on the game itself.

Graphics Improvements

After spending an unreasonable amount of time playing with different color palettes, brightness, contrast, and special effect settings (we finally have interstellar dust!), I think we finally got to the point where the look and the aesthetic feel of the game is acceptable (at least for now). I'm really happy to see the background brightened up and the objects stand out more.
One important graphics and gameplay-related feature that we added is the fog of war. It's a standard strategy game mechanic that will be optional in Eons of War depending on the type of battle. It really brings out that 4X "explore" component.

Minor Features and Game Mechanics Updates

We updated the following game mechanics and added some minor features:

• Game mechanics: all operations happen right away now. This is actually a pretty big update that dramatically improved the game. Before this change operations like attack*, *travel*, and *transportation took several turns depending on the mass of the target star and the distance to this star. Building upgrades still take several turns to complete depending on the level of the upgrade.
• Balance: star mass-to-energy conversion ratio was balanced, so star lifespan is longer across all types of stars.
• Balance: initial star resources were increased across all star types.
• Balance: star resource harvesting rate was lowered.
• Balance: energy sphere maximum energy storage amount was lowered.
• Controls: the game camera can be moved with the right mouse button.
• UI: if any numeric value overflows the parent container ellipsis is added.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-10-15 18:44:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Following the Eons of War announcement from last Monday were going to start publishing weekly developer updates to keep the community engaged. These past seven days were pretty busy as we were receiving feedback from friends and fellow game developers. It definitely takes time to process it and even longer to implement. Its exciting to be getting any feedback at all though!

New Graphics

One of the points that people kept making after the announcement is that the game looks too indy, which is not the look and feel were going after. We decided to spend time updating main promo graphics and changing the look of the game itself. Here is an updated promo screen (yes, Jupiter will be an important part of the single-player campaign ;) ):
We updated the battle mode with new 3D models for energy spheres and ringworlds. We also made lighting more bold, added contrast to the nebula backdrop, and added the stardust effect. Stardust is hard to see in the screenshots but it makes the scene look way more epic when the camera moves.

Interface

We added a star info panel with several relevant stats like the total energy output, supernova countdown, and remaining resources. It was added, so players can make better tactical decisions about which stars to abandon and which ones to attack. Depending on unlocked research or type of map some star stats might be hidden.
We also updated UI icons, made buttons smaller, added the main menu (and consolidated it with the game over menu) in the battle mode, and made padding around some UI elements smaller.

Game Mechanics

After several playtesting sessions, we updated the following game mechanics:

• Stars have more initial resources and it takes longer to harvest them.
• Star luminosity (energy output) is now calculated based on the star type (it used to be hardcoded) and, as the game progresses, the mass is reduced proportionally to luminosity. It was tricky to get the balance between stars physical properties and the gameplay right. We ended up with a mass to energy conversion ratio thats far different from the famous E = mc equation :)
• Stars go supernova way before their mass hits zero (as it should be). Now its based on a random percentage (10-30%) of the initial mass.

Originally published on Vasinov Games.

[ 2018-10-09 03:09:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Im pretty pumped to finally announce something that Ive been working on for the past few months! Early 2018 was a confusing time when I wasnt sure what to focus on in terms of work. I got disillusioned in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space and nothing seemed interesting enough to pursue. It got so bad that I started to do things from one of those self-help how to re-discover your passion blogs. I wrote a list of things that always seemed interesting to me but I never had a chance to work on. Some of them were outside of tech, which was terrifying since it meant a career change. One of the things that I kept coming back to was game development. Continue reading...

[ 2018-10-01 21:25:58 CET ] [ Original post ]