One year ago on January eighth, the first build of this game was created. This initial version (0.0.0) was incredibly basic and mostly a proof of concept. Consisting of a small planet like object about a kilometer across and a white cylinder taking the place of the rocket. The only two mechanics where a basic gravity system and a rocket movement script.

As you can see this initial version was incredibly basic and did not have much. But even with this simplicity there was already glitches. The skybox that was one of the initial features was broken and would be patched in the first ever update.

0.0.1 was the first update and added a instruction slide that would show on start up as well as a splash screen showing our logo. It also, as previously mentioned, fixed the broken sky box

The first major update was 0.1.0. This update added the moon, a new rocket texture, and a speed and altitude readout. This patch also tweaked the balancing on some things and helped with performance.

The next update (0.1.1) sought to fix a rather irritating problem. The camera was locked in place and to look around you would have to turn the whole rocket. Unfortunately this update would need to be patched as the new camera control system would break the game.

Due to the problems from 0.1.1 a hot fix was quickly released. This update (0.1.2) removed the camera controls added by 0.1.1 but kept the gravity changes and the general rebalancing.

Next came the biggest update so far. 0.2.0 Added and changed many things. The planet and moon received new higher detail models and textures, they were also scaled up to 200 times the original size. This update also added a main menu, pause menu, and some keyboard shortcuts. Also added was a basic atmosphere system with drag and a new lighting system. Lastly the most important part of this update was the complete overhaul of the gravity system to be more realistic.

And finally the most recent update was 0.2.1. This update removed drag (it was being problematic and will be removed anyway when 0.4 comes) and also rebalanced the rocket thrust values.

So, where do we go from here? What's our roadmap?

The next update on the table is 0.3.0, this update will bring our game engine (Unity) up to date on the last four years of updates for it. This update will also completely redo the code in preparation for 0.4 and finally, it will redo the textures and models to be vastly more detailed while also giving a complete overhaul to the graphical system and adding post processing. This update can be expected some time in the spring this year at the latest.

After that comes 0.4.0 and the transition from Pre-Alpha to Alpha. This update will add the very important voxel system and a mining/building system. It will also overhaul the rocket and its related systems. This update is expected somewhere between late summer and early fall this year.

The first update of Alpha (0.5.0) will address one of the biggest technical problems this game faces (floating point accuracy errors) and add the new voxel atmosphere system. It will also re implement drag. This update will likely come sometime around late winter 2020 to spring 2021.

As you can see this game has come far, but compared to where we hope to take it, these early steps will seem inconsequential.

Thank you for all your support.

-Dev Team Lead, Andrew Simon.