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Double Fine launch Spacebase DF-9 on Steam Early Access

Shining Sunshine said:
Ah cool. They left behind their blood stains though. Need to implement mops.
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And for those we need fibers.
And for those we need plants or animals to weave them from.
Which gets us back to growing plants for food processing! So much stuff they still need to add ;)
 
Okay, so I tweeted Tim Schafer if this would come to PS4/Vita. This was his response: "Not working on that now, but never say never! :)" At least it wasn't a no!
 
EdReedFan20 said:
Okay, so I tweeted Tim Schafer if this would come to PS4/Vita. This was his response: "Not working on that now, but never say never! :)" At least it wasn't a no!
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It needs a loooot of work before they can consider a console release anyway. They def. should focus on making it a good game first.
 
I really love the direction that Double Fine are taking their studio. More unique, innovative, niche titles like these, please.
 
Toma said:
It needs a loooot of work before they can consider a console release anyway. They def. should focus on making it a good game first.
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Agreed. Love that this game is getting made, hope it turns out as good as it should be. If it even touches on how deep Dwarf Fortress is that would be phenomenal..
 
Succinct Verbosity said:
This looks like Theme Hospital in space. Is it?!
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I wrote lengthy impressions on the last thread page if you feel like reading them. Theme Hospital would be a fair comparison I think (Dwarf Fortress is closer), with the difference that Spacebase is currently more a tech demo than a content rich game.
 
notoriousKTR said:
To be realistic, nothing is going to touch DF's depth.
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Well,"touching" it is ... possible. I'd say Gnomoria did a very good job at replicating the basic DF structure even though its nowhere near the DF depth levels. But still. I consider it a good start.
 
Toma said:
And for those we need fibers.
And for those we need plants or animals to weave them from.
Which gets us back to growing plants for food processing! So much stuff they still need to add ;)
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I'm all for this, though the implications are interesting--if they have to build mops from scratch, where are the oxygen recyclers coming from? "What do you mean, we have to build a machine shop and mine the minerals for the recyclers in EIGHT MINUTES?"
 
chrominance said:
I'm all for this, though the implications are interesting--if they have to build mops from scratch, where are the oxygen recyclers coming from? "What do you mean, we have to build a machine shop and mine the minerals for the recyclers in EIGHT MINUTES?"
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That would make for a great beginning in a write up playthrough, though.
 
It looks more like it's trying to be Maia than Dwarf Fortress.

Which kind of feels like theyr'e trying to go off the litlte buzz Maia had when the Kickstarter happened, honestly
 
Dragonzord said:
It looks more like it's trying to be Maia than Dwarf Fortress.

Which kind of feels like theyr'e trying to go off the litlte buzz Maia had when the Kickstarter happened, honestly
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Not really. I played the Maia alpha and Spacebase and I cant really see them taking much from Maia to be honest. Building buildings worked completely different in Maia as well. I really got the impression that they took the DF formula and tried to give it their own "twist", so it would work with a more modern UI and mouse cursor.

That being said, Maia and Spacebase are very, very poor on features still, so both projects could turn out to be... football managers in the end :p
 
Dragonzord said:
It looks more like it's trying to be Maia than Dwarf Fortress.

Which kind of feels like theyr'e trying to go off the litlte buzz Maia had when the Kickstarter happened, honestly
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That seems like a weird assumption to make. JP had the idea for this game roughly six months before the Maia Kickstarter went public and the game was in prototype during Amnesia Fortnight basically simultaneously with that Kickstarter, at which point it would have been difficult to have been based on it in anything other than the most glancing way; but also I was on the prototype team and I don't recall that game ever coming up.
 
Chris Remo said:
That seems like a weird assumption to make. JP had the idea for this game roughly six months before the Maia Kickstarter went public and the game was in prototype during Amnesia Fortnight basically simultaneously with that Kickstarter, at which point it would have been difficult to have been based on it in anything other than the most glancing way; but also I was on the prototype team and I don't recall that game ever coming up.
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Dont worry, that comment also doesnt make any sense if you actually played both concepts. I assume he just went by setting and screenshots, and even then I dont quite get where he got that idea from.
 
Chris Remo said:
That seems like a weird assumption to make. JP had the idea for this game roughly six months before the Maia Kickstarter went public and the game was in prototype during Amnesia Fortnight basically simultaneously with that Kickstarter, at which point it would have been difficult to have been based on it in anything other than the most glancing way; but also I was on the prototype team and I don't recall that game ever coming up.
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what about Startopia? Have you guys played it? What did you think were some of its strengths and weaknesses you could build on and improve?

edit: for instance, I think Space Face is a marvelous evolution of the old emoticons with a few words representing each inhabitant's personality and current mood
 
Toma said:
Dont worry, that comment also doesnt make any sense if you actually played both concepts. I assume he just went by setting and screenshots, and even then I dont quite get where he got that idea from.
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I played the Maia alpha. I've seen screens and the description myself. You said earlier that there were some similarities to Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress in space. Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress in space are big influences on Maia. I don't think it's that big of an assumption to make.

Hell, people are asking about Startopia in relation to this game, and they asked Simon to play Startopia during the last few hours of the kickstarter.
 
gumby_trucker said:
what about Startopia? Have you guys played it? What did you think were some of its strengths and weaknesses you could build on and improve?

edit: for instance, I think Space Face is a marvelous evolution of the old emoticons with a few words representing each inhabitant's personality and current mood
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I haven't, because I'm terrible, but I know JP has. You could ask over on the blog and I'll prompt him to give an answer if he gets a chance: http://www.spacebasedf9.com/ask

Dragonzord said:
I played the Maia alpha. I've seen screens and the description myself. You said earlier that there were some similarities to Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress in space. Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress in space are big influences on Maia. I don't think it's that big of an assumption to make.

Hell, people are asking about Startopia in relation to this game, and they asked Simon to play Startopia during the last few hours of the kickstarter.
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It's obviously totally fine and interesting to observe similarities, but I think it's a pretty big leap to go from that to assuming we were opportunistically capitalizing on someone else's Kickstarter.
 
Love the game concept so far!

Here is some hopefully constructive feedback on mostly the usability aspect.

-it's not immediately obvious how to zone rooms. I knew i had to build an airlock room, which i was attempting to do via airlock doors and a space suit holder thing. Of course, it wouldn't let me place the spacesuit holder unless it was zoned. A simple tooltip telling you to click a room to zone it would have saved approximately 8 of my humanoid friends from dying 8 minutes after arriving from a 35,000 year journey.

- I feel like i should be able to press the mouse against the borders of my monitor to adjust the camera rather than relying entirely on wasd or click & drag.

- backing out of menus is a tad cumbersome. As my fingers mostly rest around the wasd keys, hitting backspace is a bit of a pain. Personally i would prefer being able to hit escape, which is i think how XCOM does it. If you are in a menu, tap escape twice to get up the pause screen. On a related note, sometimes the x key is to back out of a menu, and sometimes it is the backspace key. Seems a tad arbitrary.

- Hotkeys to be able to quickly shift between game speed would be nice. I feel like other games (the sims, rollercoaster tycoon etc.) have trained me to use numbers 1-4 for the speed settings.

-This is more of a bug than a design choice, but sometimes if i back out of a construction menu the game doesn't unpause when I press the space bar.

- I wish i could plan construction of say, a door, without having to wait for the walls to be built

-If i'm fast-forwarding, would be great if the game slowed down to normal speed if i'm attacked or there is a fire.

Cheers
 
[ and ] adjust time scale I believe.

Mouse against borders seems like it would be more annoying than useful in practice but maybe that's incorrect? There is so much UI right at the edges of the screen...
 
Jake said:
[ and ] adjust time scale I believe.

Mouse against borders seems like it would be more annoying than useful in practice but maybe that's incorrect? There is so much UI right at the edges of the screen...
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Good to know.

Good point, i hadn't considered that second part. My desire to press against the borders of the screen with my cursor is most definitely learned behavior rather than innate though, i can say that much. It is purely a result of hours of RTS/Management games.

There is value in familiarity though, i would think. Maybe? i'm clearly not a ui designer!
 
Dragonzord said:
I played the Maia alpha. I've seen screens and the description myself. You said earlier that there were some similarities to Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress in space. Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress in space are big influences on Maia. I don't think it's that big of an assumption to make.
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Right now, this feels much more like The Sims than Theme Hospital or Dwarf Fortress though. Haven't played Maia yet but if I remember correctly that one was trying to be much more like Dungeon Keeper or Startopia.
 
Sloane said:
Right now, this feels much more like The Sims than Theme Hospital or Dwarf Fortress though. Haven't played Maia yet but if I remember correctly that one was trying to be much more like Dungeon Keeper or Startopia.
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Definitely Dungeon Keeper. The creator didn't play Startopia until near the end of the Kickstarter.
 
Does anyone else dislike the initial 'launch' countdown? It just feels a bit out of sync when you have other space-ships warping in like it's nothing.
 
bonesmccoy said:
Does anyone else dislike the initial 'launch' countdown? It just feels a bit out of sync when you have other space-ships warping in like it's nothing.
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I pitched the launch sequence and imagined that in the hundreds of thousands of years and billions of miles since you launched the Base Seed, you ended up in a sector and era where warp gates and hyperdrives had become commonplace.
 
Jake said:
I pitched the launch sequence and imagined that in the hundreds of thousands of years and billions of miles since you launched the Base Seed, you ended up in a sector and era where warp gates and hyperdrives had become commonplace.
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Oh, I like that bit of texture actually. Are there any visual queues that I missed in the starting sequence?
 
Jake said:
I pitched the launch sequence and imagined that in the hundreds of thousands of years and billions of miles since you launched the Base Seed, you ended up in a sector and era where warp gates and hyperdrives had become commonplace.
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Meant to say this earlier, but I love the launch countdown timer. Great little touch.
 
1c out now said:
Spacewalking citizens traveling underneath the base now appear smaller. We’re still working on a final visual for this, but it’s somewhat clearer what’s happening now.

Hover the mouse over a blog post on SpacebaseDF9.com and press “v” to vent that post into space. (Chrome/Firefox only)

New savegame file format. No impact on gameplay.

Fixed: Black screen or misaligned rendering on some 15” or higher Retina Macbooks.

Fixed: Miscellaneous crashes.
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Alpha 2 at some point in november introducing hunger and food:
For Alpha 2, the most signficant new things will be Food and Hunger. Citizens will get hungry, and you’ll have some options for how to keep starvation at bay. Food Replicators satisfy hunger in a basic way, but citizens are most happy eating prepared meals in Pubs. But where does this food come from? It’s grown, in Garden Zones by citizens assigned to Botanist duty.
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Patch notes:

Citizens can eat food to satiate their hunger. Food can come from Food Replicators, crops in Garden Zones, or Cooked Meals.

Citizens become hungry and starve to death if they go too long without eating.

Food Replicators can be built in any zone, and consume a small amount of Matter when used.

Citizens assigned to Botanist duty will plant seeds in Hydroponic Cultures, tend the crops that grow, harvest the crops and carry them to Refrigerators in Pub Zones. Botanist skill determines efficacy of upkeep and crop yield.

Bartenders will take raw food from a Refrigerator and use a Stove to prepare a Cooked Meal, then serve it to customers waiting at tables.

Diner satisfaction is based on their affinity for the dish and the skill of the cook.

Killbots will now appear in derelicts and boarding ships. Killbots show no mercy.

Tooltips now show health and morale, with color-coded icons.

The Stats tab of the inspector now shows a citizen’s Inventory and any objects that are in a container.

Many small fixes and improvements to Demolish tool. It should now be possible (if a bit time-consuming) to fully deconstruct a derelict.

When Matter is expended or gained, the HUD counter value and color change over time.

Citizens remove their Duty-specific gear when they’re not on duty.

Objects can now be marked for demolition via a button in the inspector.

Redesigned Duty tab of citizen inspector. Display now shows their star rating for each duty instead of a number.

Word bubbles that appear when citizens chat now properly reflects the conversation flow.

New icons for zones and inspector stats tab.

Broken objects now spark to indicate the fire risk they pose.

Bartenders now stand behind their bar while they serve drinks. Citizens walk up to the bar to order a drink.

Citizens post to Spaceface about drinking. Randomly generated drink examples: Smashy Gargle Blaster, Red Scumm, Sticky Frobnabulator.

Balance: Duty failure logic changed. Technicians cause fires far less frequently.

Balance: Duty experience gain rate is now more balanced across the different duties. Citizens who spend time doing something should gain experience and become better at a reasonable rate.

Balance: Bed condition no longer degrades. Don’t worry, we’ll figure out other, more legitimate ways to make beds catch fire in a future update.

Balance: Citizen morale is more stable. Fewer things cause it to dip up and down drastically, though lots of citizens dying still makes people (understandably) bummed.

Balance: New derelicts won’t show up if you haven’t been exploring the ones already out there.

Balance: Citizens won’t post as much on Spaceface about unmet needs; they’ll only post about their most pressing need.

Fixed: Various bugs relating to citizens/raiders/monsters fighting in vacuum.

Fixed: Different portraits now appear in the docking/immigration request dialog.

Fixed: Spaceface display didn’t show most recent update.

Fixed: The user is not reimbursed when they lose planned objects during a re-zoning.

Fixed: < and > no longer let you select enemy / hidden characters.
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gumby_trucker said:
Have you guys played Startopia? What did you think were some of its strengths and weaknesses you could build on and improve?

edit: for instance, I think Space Face is a marvelous evolution of the old emoticons with a few words representing each inhabitant's personality and current mood
Click to expand...

Chris Remo said:
I haven't, because I'm terrible, but I know JP has. You could ask over on the blog and I'll prompt him to give an answer if he gets a chance: http://www.spacebasedf9.com/ask
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Anybody in this thread with a Tumblr account willing to post my above question at the provided link? Anonymous questions have been disabled (probably due to spamming)
 
Spacebase DF9 recoups investment in two weeks!

Here's a bit:

Spacebase required around $400k to develop, so it would have been unwise for Indie Fund to go it alone. A $400k game in a stable of $50k-$150k games would make for an imbalanced portfolio, and would mean more risk than we were comfortable with.

So we asked some folks we know if they’d be interested in joining this experiment. Indie Fund ended up putting $75k into this project, and Humble Bundle, Hemisphere Games, make all, AppAbove Games, Adam Saltsman, The Behemoth, Morgan Webb, and Rob Reid put in the rest.

Spacebase DF-9 went into open alpha last month and recouped the entire $400k investment two weeks from that date. 85% of the revenue came in via Steam Early Access, and the other 15% via direct sales by Double Fine.
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Congrats!

(Someone should probably make a thread)
 
Congrats.

Spacebase DF-9 Recoups Investment In Two Weeks

Hi everyone! Earlier this year, we decided to experiment with funding larger projects than we normally do. A typical project for us has been in the range of $50k – $150k. We’ve also funded a few projects for smaller amounts, but never a project the size of Spacebase DF-9.

Spacebase required around $400k to develop, so it would have been unwise for Indie Fund to go it alone. A $400k game in a stable of $50k-$150k games would make for an imbalanced portfolio, and would mean more risk than we were comfortable with.

So we asked some folks we know if they’d be interested in joining this experiment. Indie Fund ended up putting $75k into this project, and Humble Bundle, Hemisphere Games, make all, AppAbove Games, Adam Saltsman, The Behemoth, Morgan Webb, and Rob Reid put in the rest.

Spacebase DF-9 went into open alpha last month and recouped the entire $400k investment two weeks from that date. 85% of the revenue came in via Steam Early Access, and the other 15% via direct sales by Double Fine.

This is an important milestone for us because the success of this experiment opens the door for us to support more projects of this magnitude in the future. To be clear, this won’t affect the number of smaller projects we fund. Our bottleneck has always been finding promising projects to invest in, not lack of funds.

It also provides an encouraging data point about bringing together larger groups of people to support larger projects, and we are mulling over what this might mean for the future of Indie Fund.

Anyway, huge congratulations to Double Fine, JP, and the rest of the Spacebase team for a great lauch! We wish you continued success.

You can get in on the alpha now, either directly from Double Fine or on Steam.
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Didn't expect that from Morgan Webb.
 
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