StarAir - Update 6/30/18

Hey! StarAir officially resumed development this week so I kicked things in overdrive by heavily overhauling all sorts of things and outlining future plans for the project! Here’s everything I have for now!

Saving Data

StarAir now has a very basic saving/loading option. I’ll be expanding this more to allow the saving of stats across various modes and to save episodic data. But it works, and all of your progress is saved! It’ll even leave you right at the wave you were last from, although in the final game, saving will only possible through in-game checkpoints.

Overhauled RPG Mechanics: Introducing the Module Upgrader

I’ve gone through the effort of completely overhauling the RPG mechanics, something I’ve wanted to do for awhile as I felt that the basic RPG system wasn’t enough. Introducing the Module Upgrader!

The Module Upgrader is based off of the skill trees of many games like Deus Ex, Prey, and System Shock, with an emphasis on expressive playstyles! Maybe you want to equip the StarAir with stat upgrades to tank heavy hits? Perhaps you want to focus on upgrading your ship with unique, game-changing abilities and dish out tons of damage! Or, perhaps both! Or even neither! StarAir will be designed to accommodate several playstyles and I implore anyone trying to try to beat the game with their own unique skills! You’ll only get a limited amount of module points, so you can’t max everything!

Let’s explore the two module sets you can focus on:

OS UPGRADES

Here’s where you’ll find all of the passive and active abilities for the StarAir. You can select the modules you want in any order from the bottom to top, so feel free to prioritize certain abilities over others! There are four active abilities and 8 passive abilities, with the active abilities being huge game changers and the passives shaking up and encouraging focused, technical gameplay! Most of the abilities here may be completely changed by the time the later episodes come out in the event that people don’t find them good or viable in their own way, and are still in development!

SYSTEM UPGRADES

Max’s basic stat upgrades can be unlocked here! They can all range from an extra boost to HP, Damage, AP (Armor), or unlock his Ultimate abilities (powerful, screen-clearing abilities that have to be built with a meter). The upgrades here aren’t as exciting as the OS Upgrades but will be incredibly useful to those not familiar with the genre and want to play through without constantly dying! Because that sucks. Even if you’re a shmup player, how StarAir currently handles health/armor (no invulnerability frames atm although I might add some in between armor/health) will be rough so completely neglecting System Upgrades could prove to be a challenge! But if you’re up for it, why not?

INTRODUCING ARMOR (AP) POINTS

https://i.imgur.com/3MS09lC.gifv

Currently, Max’s HP does not regenerate. Your only hope of restoring heath is leveling up, saving at a checkpoint, or using healing items (yet to be implemented). To accommodate for this, there’s now a new stat, Armor Points (AP), which is basically a secondary regenerative health. When you take damage, you’ll lose your AP. If you get hit with your shields down (having no AP and needing to wait for it to regenerate), you’ll lose your non-regenerative HP. Your Armor is shown on both the game’s HUD on the right and as a circle bar next to the StarAir!

Like your other stats, you can also increase your maximum AP through the System Upgrades too!

ANNOUNCING STARAIR -STAGE DIAGNOSTICS-

Here’s our next goal for the StarAir project! We’re aiming to release a early version of the game including a prologue episode, StarAir Episode 0: Riding on Shooting StarAir, and the very first version of StarAir: Arcade! Unlike the final game, this version will be completely free and will be updated alongside with the current version of the game!

This version, STARAIR -STAGE DIAGNOSTICS-, will hopefully come sometime in 2018! Stay tuned for more details.

WHAT’S NEXT

Some shifts in development have occurred and at the moment, StarAir is a 2-person project between and my friend Hu-san, although this may change in the future as there’s some aspects of the game that we might need help for! We’ll see how that goes for us.

I’ll be doing more consistent work on StarAir throughout the summer, however! I’m gonna make sure that the game’s final mechanics work and a focus can be made on creating the actual content of the game’s story mode, as well as the Arcade Mode.

Until then, see ya!