DevBlog9
Space Salvage Blog #9 : Characters – Wreckage – Meteor Showers and more!
June Dev Blog! We have a lot to recap this month! With early access on the horizon, a lot of puzzle pieces are starting to fit. Below there is a detailed list of these new changes and events.
As always, please follow the links to help us out more; leave a review on the app lab page if you haven’t already!
Don't forget! To get the latest updates every Friday and even chat with the devs, join our discord!
Characters
So far, we have two new characters in the early access build, with one more on their way! Let us begin with introductions:
Pomeline Liaison
A core employee of the SSC, she is in charge of making sure the company has a steady influx of new livesto- rookies… so she will likely be the first person you meet on your Space Salvage journey. Her diligent work ethic and efficiency does often leave her with too much time on her hands. With this time, Pomeline enjoys putting together training courses to initiate new pilots. Though at first that may sound like a noble effort, in actuality, it is really because watching new pilots crash is a rather amusing hobby of hers… Even though she is banned from galactic expeditions, she does also set up challenges for her favourite pilots to race against her best times zooming across the galaxy, against company orders (she is too important to get rid of her).
Colstin Monrove
An important official for the scav clan, Monrove, Colstinis in charge of distributing Nexmed products across the galaxy, that is after he sources them from the SSC by commissioning dozens of pilots. This intergalactic marketeer is very important to maintaining a good relationship with the only scav clan currently cooperating with salvage corp. A well known figure among multiple factions, he is a rather charismatic senior salesman, but do not be fooled, this opportunistic old man will probably ask you to carry more than your ship can handle, disregarding your wellbeing.
Environment Updates
Wreckage
For a while now, players have expressed the desire to see and fly around ship scrapyards. After lots of days spent designing a modular kit, we finally have the building blocks to create an array of abandoned hunks of metal for you to explore. There are even exposed metal skeletal structures to fly through! I wonder what dangers or treasures we can hide in there….
Below are the different component sets that will be used to build the abandoned ships.
Meteor Showers
Following up on the previous VFX updates, we will be featuring the first of many environmental hazards we hope to have in the full release of the game. For early access, you will get to experience Sceptrum, a hostile part of the galaxy with frequent meteor showers. Below you can see some snippets of the progress. There still is work to be done to make the meteors more threatening, but we’ve made lots of steps in the right direction from the start.
Events
Steam Next Fest
We are a part of Steam next fest and were delighted to have a livestream hosted by Brannigan Brushes, who voiced the scav enemy in the demo that many of you have defeated or got blown to bits by! The livestream featured an interview with our art lead, and we hope to host streams like this in the future. Over the last weekend of June, you can find Brannigan Brushes on twitch painting a bust of our ssc uniform, which will be gifted to a lucky one of you! A one of a kind prize!
Gamescom
Going to Gamescom in late August? So are we! We will be displaying the demo and chatting with as many people as we can, so make sure that if you’re in the area to come say hello and get yourself some Space Salvage swag!
Logo Update
We’ve had some professional opinions on our logo, which has been with us for a while now. We also polled our community on discord for some changes to hear what the more dedicated people to the game had to say. Taking all that in, we have made a few tweaks to our logo, and we hope it has a better feel and more consistent look now, even though it may go through more iterations and revamps in the future.
What’s to come!
We are getting really close to finalizing the early access, which is very exciting for all of us! In the later half of the summer, we expect to have fewer visual changes to showcase as we will begin rigorously testing the build for bugs (which is not always exciting, but we might find some funny ones to show). That being said, we have a lot more exciting events planned so between August-September expect us to see you at some of your favourite conventions, in multiple countries!
DevBlog8
Space Salvage Blog #8 : GaMaYo – Animations – Mission Types
May Dev Blog! We talk about a small event we went to called GaMaYo and showcased our demo to other fellow developers and gamers! We will also talk about what we have been adding such as animations, new maps and even story!
As always, please follow the links to help us out more; leave a review on the app lab page if you haven’t already!
Don't forget! To get the latest updates every Friday and even chat with the devs, join our discord!
GaMaYo
On 25th May 2022, GaMaYo held an event in Leeds! We showcased our demo there as well as a few other game developers! It was filled with amazing people who were very friendly, and it was a great way to connect! Amazing games are coming out, so be on the lookout for them!
We had amazing feedback from the people who tried out our game, and we would just like to thank you all! We had an amazing time! Below are some pictures of the event, and you will be able to see some of our devs dancing, and a lovely fellow by the name of Will Buckle took a great group photo of us!
Animations
Drones have been added into the game! Watch out for these pesky buggers when they fly by and shoot you!
These drones belong to a company called F.loc. They are herded by a Shepherd, with the sole mission to gather followers to believe in the one true Metal God. Unfortunately, they have branded anyone under SSC as a heretic, so will shoot on sight! Be on the lookout for them; whether they be flying around, communicating with other objects or dashing towards you, shoot them down!
Below are some animations of these metal lambs.
Mission Types
Let us talk about the current mission types we have implemented so far!
Tutorials
The Tutorials are completed! These will help you to learn how to shoot, fly around and even score/time you on how well you have done! So if you need a refresher, this is the best way to do it!
Race Missions
What is a good space game without a little racing! Fly through rings and try to get the best time possible! Upgrade your pod to get a bit more speed and go back to these missions to see how well you can do!
Story
Space Salvage will include story missions for you to get a better understanding of the world you are in as well as your place. You won’t just be salvaging and racing around, you will have a purpose. Do be careful…you don’t know what sort of small…or large entities are out there.
What’s to come!
As levels are added, we will keep you up to date! We are also adding in characters to debrief you on your missions, as well as an SSC trainer to help you through your tutorials! Characters will come from the Corp side as well as the Scav side; they will be posted on our discord as they are designed or wait till next month’s Dev Blog where we will give a more in-depth talk about them!
DevBlog7
Space Salvage Blog #7 : Tutorials – New Levels – Combat
It’s the April Dev Blog, and we are working hard on our early access release coming to you this year!
We’d like to give a big thank you to you all for giving us over 20k clicks and over 130k views on SideQuestVR! This is amazing! We have grown so much since the last month, and we couldn't have done it without you.
To help us out more, please leave a review on the app lab page!
Don't forget! To get the latest updates every Friday and even chat with the devs, join our discord!
Tutorials
Tutorials, tutorials, tutorials; either you love them or you hate them, but you got to have them! However, we've created them to be a somewhat challenge while you learn and hone your skills. Currently, there are two types of tutorial missions, we have a racecourse to help you better learn to fly your pod while under pressure, and we have a tutorial to help you aim your laser better.
These tutorials are completely optional, but give them a go! We think you'll have a lot of fun with them. Below are some screenshots to showcase what you could be playing soon!
New Levels
For the early access, we are planning to have a total of 7 environments with story missions, tutorials and your everyday job as an SSC employee. Each environment will have a job for you to complete, achievements to gain and even secret missions that unlock when you complete the main objective, who knows!
Let's get a sneak peek at some levels!
Merope
A beautiful and green environment to ease you into the world of Space Salvage. It is relaxing and gives a newly hired SSC employee the general gist of what their job involves.
Fly through and experience the surrounding environment, catch a glimpse of floating satellites and billboards to give you a better feel of what Space Salvage will involve.
Albali
When entering Albali, you should have a better handle of your pod and how to manoeuvre. Here is where things get a bit more tricky in the environment with the “Fast n loose” motel. Remember to check every nook and cranny for all the hidden pick-ups possible in this level. Fly through the dark and dingy motel to gather what you need for SSC and be careful…stay here for too long and something might come for you…
Combat
We have upped our game when it comes to combat. Hopefully you have reached the Scav pirate in the demo and as you have noticed, he is quite stationary and robotic with minimal movement but still packs quite a bit of damage.
However, for the early access, we have created AI drones that will zip past you while taking shots at you! Don't let those pesky little drones get away, and shoot them down! These little buggers have a lot more personality and can easily be destroyed, but be careful when there is a swarm of them. SSC will not pay for any damages due to your negligence.
What’s to come!
More levels are being created, each with its own unique trait; with more environmental objects so not every environment feels the same. VFX are being updated to fit more to the game’s style, and we can not wait to show you everything! So look out for next month’s dev blog!
If you want to give us more feedback, please feel free to leave a review in the app lab page, it would help us a lot!
DevBlog6
Space Salvage Blog #6 : Feedback – Next Steps
It’s our March update and as majority of you know, we have released our new update to the demo! We would like to start this off by saying a few thanks before we begin the dev blog.
Firstly, thank you to all who have played our new update! We have reached over 16k clicks and nearly 100k views on SideQuestVR! This is an amazing feat and we’d like to thank you all!
SidequestVR have even added us to their staff picks! We are so grateful for all of the support!
If you’ve played the demo, please leave us a review on the app lab page! It would help us out alot and your feedback is always wanted! If you haven’t, have a go and let us know what you think.
Click the image below to go to the app lab page
(You may need to scroll to the bottom and go to the “your review” section)
Do not forget! To get the latest updates every friday and even chat with the devs, join our discord!
Feedback
As you know, our update to the free demo was recently released and we’ve had amazing feedback from the community! We’d like to showcase some of the reviews we’ve gotten so far on the app lab page!
We’ve also been given feedback on our discord to help us improve the game. A few of you have mentioned how grabbing the controls sometimes doesn’t grab the right one; don’t worry, we are listening and we are working on a fix for this!
We will be reading all the feedback we receive and improving them in the next update!
Now here is where the fun begins and we will be talking about what the next moves are for Space Salvage.
Next Steps
The next update we release will be the beginning of our early access. As you all know, our game is not free, only the demo is. We just want to clearly state this so you all aren’t caught by surprise.
Now let’s talk about what this early access will have in store!
NEW Home UI System
Previously, we all showed you a tablet/handheld system which had physical buttons to allow you to navigate in the home environment. It allowed you to choose which missions, upgrades and to promote. However, we thought that the handheld was very limiting due to the physical buttons, new things couldn’t be easily added and it was difficult to teach the player how to use it. UI shouldn’t be like that, it should be something simple and easy to understand.
Due to this, we have revamped the home UI! Say hello to your “friendly” robot, provided by your favorite company Space Salvage Corporation! This is a touch screen which will allow you to manipulate through all the missions, shops and your stats!
Below are some concept designs on what your UI system could look like, including their exterior, the menu design and even a video about the implementation of the UI!
Missions
We have a lot of missions lined up for you in the early access! The demo was just a teaser to what we have! Of course, your main task as an SSC employee is to collect the flying cargo in space; however, no one said you were the only one in space.
Let’s start with tutorial missions. Now as gamers ourselves, we understand that sometimes, you don’t want to play a tutorial and just want to figure things out yourself; so we have made it that all tutorials are optional. However, we would recommend you try them as they may include some fun tidbits. An exampple of this is learning how to fly your pod. We’ve created a little race course for it! That’s all we’ll say for now as we don’t want to ruin it for you all, but please look out for the videos we’ll be posting on social media!
The missions we will be implementing will vary from calming, simple, collecting missions to high intensity destroying missions. There are alot of drones, enemy ships, turrets and all sorts out there trying to stop you from doing your job! However, you won’t be able to take any of them down until you buy your laser! So grab as many credits as possible and purchase the upgrade, it is highly recommended by SSC! A little teaser for you guys is that we might even have environmental factors obstructing your missions and just ruining your day. We want to make this game fun and challenging for you all, but we want to give everyone the option of what type of missions they want to play. We know that there are a few of you who just enjoy flying around and exploring the beautiful environments; whereas others want that challenge and intense moments.
Another type of mission you will encounter are story missions. These will unlock as you progress and increase your employee rank. We don’t want you to just aimlessly fly through space, we want to give you the option to have story missions and to get a better understanding of the type of world you’re in and your true mission.
We won’t ruin any of it for you so for now, here is a little peek at some of the environments you’ll be flying through.
Ranking System
Another important factor is the ranking system. We have touched a bit about this on our first dev blog and how it works, but to refresh your memory, you will need to complete a set of requirements before you are allowed to rank up; this can be accessed when you select shop -> promotion. Ranking up allows new things to be unlocked, such as upgrades, weapons and missions!
For this early access, we are hoping to let you rank up once, to give you the feel of how it works and working towards a goal.
What’s to come!
We are currently working on the early access, using all the feedback given to us as well as implementing the new features mentioned in the blog and more!
We are even working on bringing Space Salvage to other headsets, so please wishlist it on Steam so you get notified of it straight away.
We will keep you up to date on what’s happening from our monthly dev blogs, or if you want the updates straight away, follow our social media and join our discord!
If you want to give us more feedback, please feel free to leave a review in the app lab page, it would help us a lot!
DevBlog5
Space Salvage Blog #5 : Demo Update – Testing
A few days late to the party, but here is our ~February update on the development of Space Salvage!
First off we would like to thank you and celebrate with you for reaching the milestone of 10k downloads on Sidequest this month! We are deeply grateful for all your support and hope our update of the Free Demo will express just that.
We will be submitting our update for review to Oculus in the first week or march so keep an eye out on sidequest and applabs for a notification of new content. Of course, we will also give you a heads up as soon as it gets approved!
If you haven’t checked out our demo yet, here are the links where you can find us:
Have you joined our discord server? it’s the best way to get updates before anyone else and be in direct communication with fruity devs to exchange feedback or simply talk Space salvage! You can join here:
Testing
As mentioned previously we have been working hard on updating our Free Demo. Our goal is for it to be a better representation of what Space Salvage will have to offer for its players. To do that we followed up on the plethora of changes added since the last month with some rigorous quality assurance. We wouldn’t want to thank you with a buggy update, now would we? Here’s how we approached this task:
External QA :
We teamed up with Indium Play, and had them hack and smash at our demo in two separate sessions. Getting professional external QA hired for this FREE update was essential for us to prove our commitment to making a fantastic game and we really hope you feel so too when you give it a go! We also did lots of internal QA and went to York St. John University to hold a player testing session with some of their students which was a blast.
New content
Player Hands
Last month, we almost got entirely rid of our robot friend which was a placeholder for the player’s suit. The only missing piece were the hands. Well, they are no longer missing and have been custom rigged and animated by one of our awesome fruity dev, Amy. We are so excited for you to be all geared up in your SSC uniform!
Scav Combat
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.
Motel
Ever since going to EGX we have been asked if there will be opportunities to fly your pod through structure and various enclosed environments. Although our demo as it stands is quite small, we wanted to deliver, so we have an awesome building in the level now.
The “Fast n’ Loose” Motel chain will be sure to make re-appearances throughout Space Salvage. We are planning on adding more complex interior flying spaces for our official release, but have a bare bones taste of it for now. I must say I personally find it very fun to fly through the pipe structures under the building!
Achievements
Alongside all the above we really wanted to include some way of earning achievements in the end game, so the demo had to reflect that. The update will come along with 3 achievements for the demo level: one for completing the level, one for completing our in-game feedback form and another if you manage to collect all the hidden pickup by the time your fuel supply is depleted. We hope our casuals and completion-ists out there will enjoy these fun badges and are excited to see how many of you will get all 3 achievements!
What’s to come!
Our next step in development will be working on our early access build. Simultaneously we are also updating our home website and impatiently waiting for our Oculus stamp of approval on the Demo Update. In the coming month after the release, feedback from players will be most crucial for it to be appropriately implemented into the initial release build. However, if you have a brilliant bit of feedback for us in may, do not fret, we will always do our best to implement it, even if it might need to come along in a future patch or update. Thank you for being on board with us on this journey so far!