Space Salvage Blog #4 : Demo – Pickups – Combat
The first month of the new year is nearly over and boy have we been busy! We have a lot of new things to tell you about this month!
First, we would like to give a big thank you to everyone who has downloaded our demo! We are currently at 6.7k downloads on SideQuestVR and we are ecstatic! Thank you so much for all of the support and because of this, we have a big treat for you all!
If you haven’t already, please tell more people to give our FREE demo a try!
Also, don’t forget to join our discord to get first hand updates! As well as chat to devs and give us any feedback you want to share.
Demo
As mentioned before, we are currently at 6.7k downloads for the demo on SideQuestVR. The demo has been a huge hit and we want to give more back to the community, so we have decided to update the FREE demo with a whole bunch of new things! Including pickups, infrastructures and so much more! Keep reading to find out more.
Player
One of the changes we will be adding is a player body with a special Space Salvage suit; you can’t start your job without a uniform to represent Space Salvage Corp! We’ve also incorporated some gloves for your hands which are animated to give you a better feel when sitting in the pod. No more robot body!
Below are some images:
Sound
One of the feedbacks we got from you all was that the sound effects didn’t feel quite right. So we did a complete rehaul and updated them all! We have a lot more satisfying button presses which really give it that “umph” as well as switches!
We’ve included ambient background music so you don’t feel so lonely while cleaning everything. We aimed for it to not be intrusive but we would love your feedback when the updated demo is out!
Below are some videos giving you a little teaser:
VFX
We have also updated our visual effects! We know some of you felt like you weren’t really moving in the pod and didn’t feel like you were going fast; don’t worry, we got you. A bunch of visual effects have been updated and new ones have been added, one being the classic speed lines you see in retro-esque games. Sticking to our style, we want you to feel fast in your pod and feel like you’re really driving a space pod; controls help with this alot but visual effects also provide support.
Another important effect we have changed is the tractor beam! Previously, it felt like the pickups would just float towards you, this time, we really feel like it gives you a more pull effect with an accompanying sound to give it more of an impact.
Have a peek below at the video and tell us how you feel about it:
We have so much more to tell you about but we don’t want to spoil it all for you! We’ll only go through some of the biggest changes so keep on reading to find out more!
Pickups
Looking back at the current game, we have the standard pickups you see in any game where they look like loot boxes. We felt this was very out of place and wanted our pickups to relate to the lore of the world. So, we have created objects which your clients will actually want you to obtain, such as battery packs, server nodes and so much more.
With new pickups comes a tier list as well; the higher the tier, the higher the value. However, don’t be fooled by common game conceptions, instead of having a standard colour scheme, we have wear and tear to differentiate the value. No one will pay for a broken up battery pack!
Here is an image to give you a better understanding of the pickups and the tiers they come in:
Hidden Loot
As devs, we love to give you players a challenge so we have included S tier, top of the range pickups hidden in places you’ll (hopefully) never find. We’ve scattered them in new infrastructures and in new environments! So keep your eyes peeled for those high quality pickups to grab those juicy credits.
Combat
One of the common feedback we got from you all was that you wanted combat. The current demo doesn’t really showcase that very well so we’ve decided to give you a better taste of what’s to come!
Hopefully you’ve completed the demo, if not sorry but there’s spoilers! At the end you have a Space Pirate who is angered that you stole his booty and he will shoot you down, you have to find him and shoot the mines to blow him up. This combat system is very basic and doesn’t feel exciting. We are planning to completely revamp the entire combat system.
Instead of you stealing his loot, the pirate will now protect it as any good pirate should! You won’t be able to sneak past without his radars picking you up and you better be prepared when it does.
As with any boss fight, the pirate will have multiple stages to his health and combat. We want to implement a modular ship system which will allow you to target different parts of his ship. This will allow you to determine what is the highest threat, what needs to be destroyed first and how to manoeuvre around him and outsmart him.
That’s not all, we will also be introducing turrets. They will fire back at you, target you with various patterns so don’t think this fight will be easy!
This is all under development so it is subject to change but this is what we are hoping to achieve for the demo, we look forward to creating a pirate which will give you a challenge as well as a better excitement factor.
What’s to come!
We are hoping to release this update for the demo next month so please look out for it! You’ll be able to grab it on SideQuestVR as well as the App lab.
Next month we’ll talk about the release of the demo update and what other new things that are added into it, such as a pod update, lore and much more!
Don’t forget to follow our social media to keep up to date with Space Salvage!