Hello everyone!

Finally, the Demo Day 32 demo has finally been finished, and will be available for everyone to play on Friday morning (1st May 2020). Additionally, I have prepared a walkthrough video explaining some of the mechanics of the game and what I'm intending on working on going forward.

But before we talk about the demo, some updates and changes.

Updates And Changes

Stars

• Previously, zooming the camera out all the way would cause the stars to start flickering in the background, giving a very distracting appearance. To help with this issue, as the player zooms out, stars will now start to disappear from view. It's not perfect, but it should alleviate the issue.

UI

• UI now scales properly. It might look a little big on larger resolutions and displays, but at least those playing at sub-1080p will now be able to actually read the various UI elements.
• Volume sliders now display percentages.
• The pause menu now contains a controls page.
• Waypoint markers now display distance from destination and are generally more readable than they previously were.
• The velocity arrow now displays at all zoom levels.
• Station pages now have exit buttons.
• Credits page on the main menu adjusted to make the spacing a little tighter.
• Added buttons on the main menu for the Itch.io and Twitch.tv pages.

Bug Fixes

• The was a bug in an earlier build where playing at framerates higher than 60FPS would cause the player to turn slower than normal. This has been corrected, and the player now turns at the same speed regardless of framerate.
• Thrust audio no longer plays when inside UI menus or the pause menu, and the volume has also been lowered.

Added An Easter Egg

If you've watched my stream, you'll know what this is.

The Demo

The demo itself isn't too long. You can travel from station to station picking up and delivering orders as you go. Other than that, fool around with the controls, look at the pretty planets, and take screenshots to share.

I added a README file, doesn't contain any new information you couldn't find on the main page, but it makes it easier to share which people who haven't found the Itch page.

Going Forward

Well first of all, I'm taking a week off.

But after that, I'll be prioritising the following:

• Additional inventory management
• Able to fail/abandon missions
• Implementing various status meters
• Add the ability to rest & repair at certain stations
• Different delivery or mission types
• NPC ships you can trade with
• Additional art and improvements to visuals and UI
• Changes to the star system generation

Now I need to be careful here. I last time I said I was going to "Add things", it turned into a feature creep nightmare. The difference this time is that a lot of these features already have hooks in a lot of the scripts, and I just need to start filling them in or implement them properly.

Again, the demo is out on Friday 1st May in the morning (UK time). Give it a go, give me some feedback. Have fun.

Expect the next post sometime in May.