ionAXXIA Roadmap

vision

Take the easy-going space combat of Star Control and update it. Loads of diverse ships which you can customise. Ultimately, perhaps a complete 'design your own space ship' game where the player can spend resources to design their own weapons and abilities. Tactical game about resource collection and management framing this combat. Possibly extend it to an awesome adventure like SC2. Oh, and find some way to bring the arcade control to touch screens.

prototype

A top down 2D space shooter on tablet and PC.
Design your own ship from components.
Create core systems for components, ships, weaponry, and AI.
- Database driven components allowing for future expansion to user-created weapons and abilities
- Objective system ahead of procedural level creation.
- Modifier system for implementing customisable, data-driven effects and abilities.
Rudimentary enemies and environmental features.

iteration 1 (build 0.4)

A simple 'arena shooter' with a high-score challenge. Implement core gameplay and control schemes, and make available for public feedback. Structure around simple 'unlock and increase difficulty' system.

Simplify resource system into basic cash mechanic ahead of final game design. Can be adapted into star-system based budget management.
Develop unique touch-screen controls that enable a console-like game on phones and tablets.
Ensure everyone from general screen tappers to hard-core gamers can play via 5 control schemes and balancing.

Refine and perfect and refine again the touch controls!
Implement a few levels and enemies.
Provide full tutorials. Refine to make them accessible.
Simple component unlock system suggestive of future structure.
Difficulty level and ramping difficulty, easing in players while offering a real challenge.
Release! Steam and Android as they allow for public Betas/Early Access.

iteration 2 (build 0.6)

Add replayability through introduction of star systems and procedural levels. Inspired by the original Star Control's tactical campaign maps and Megalomania's budgeting. For each star system played, players create a garage of three ship designs, using those three ships on each level.

Each ship costs monies to build, and each star system has a budget of monies, with the player having to manage the whole star system on that budget.

Procedural level creation, with varied environments and objectives.
Procedural star systems.
Upgradable components system with collectible materials.
Several more enemy types and environment features.
Possibly 'Galactic Map' for selecting difficulty progression.

Estimated time to complete : < 5 years

iteration 3 (build 0.8)

Flesh out the game with content.

At least 9 items of each component for 500,000 combinations.
- Extending to 12 of each component would yield 3,000,000 combinations.
More enemies and environment features.

Estimated time to complete : < 5 years

Version 1

Complete game with hundreds of hours of playability. Varied levels and enemies coupled with a rich upgrade system and procedural challenges provide rewarding drop-in and prolonged play.

Estimated time to complete : < 15 years

fixes and improvements

Technical changes to be implemented for fixing problems or improving the underlying systems to make the game more efficient or effective. This additional workload will be interspersed with the above roadmap development, thereby extending time to completion.

Port to iOS.
Port to UWP.
Language translations.
Engine systems, so increased momentum from impacts and effects has proper fall off.
(Boost using intertialess drive wrongly maintains increased speed unless tight turns performed)
Update weapon mounts so secondary components don't affect primary turrets.
(Equipping centrally mounted secondary like Shield moves primary turret)
Change to full sprite system. Current system uses fixed-size sprites. The new system will allow more detailed, larger ships.
Procedural sun and lens flare system, so the background sun can vary position.
Reintegrate warp and bloom image effects to improve the pretties.
Add weapon fire previsuals for visual clues on when weapons will fire.
Procedural enemy creation.
Video sharing.
Complex weapons. Things like orbiting drones and point defence lasers. The core systems are in place but they need some work to perfect.
Object pooling - improves efficiency. Added in v0.5.239
Update to more recent Unity version. Currently using 5.6.1f1.

known issues

Engine boost maintains excess speed after intended duration on intertialess drives.
Secondary weapons change the layout of the primaries.
Sometimes building a new ship using controller stops the thrust button working. Remap to fix.
Steam leaderboards show your previous score when first clicked. Click the leaderboard again to see your latest score.