Games Xenosis: Alien Infection - A top down 2D story driven retro sci fi shooter [Fig]

Hi all, I thought it was time to introduce the game I have been working on, Xenosis.



You are a deep space salvage hunter, who has discovered the remains of the starship “Carpathian”, thought destroyed on a deep space mission nearly 50 years ago on the planet Epsilon Eridani. How did it get here? What happened to it?

You know that the data core housed in the ships AI will be worth a lifetime of credits to the right buyer, so you dock with the ship to retrieve it. You only hope that the ship is empty… surely nothing can be alive after so long?

Fight, Scavenge, Craft... do what you need to survive

Coming soon to Steam (PC, Mac & Linux), Xbox One, PS4 & Switch

Xenosis, a story driven Action / Exploration / Survival game with a top down 2D retro inspired style

- Story driven content. Learn the secrets of the Carpathian, its crew and what happened on its fated mission 50 years ago. A branching story line, rich with detailed characters provide the narrative of the complex and deep story. You can read more on this here

- Awesome retro pixel art. Utilising modern realtime 3D dynamic lighting and shadowing that bring 3D depth to a 2D game, not seen in a top down game before!

- Manage your resources. The Carpathians environment is harzardous, you will need to maintain a supply of oxygen and prevent your suit from damage and tears, otherwise your journey will end quickly. Battle not only enemies, but the hazards of the environment, extreme temperatures, radiation, toxins and the vacuum of space.

- Craft to survive. Scavenge what you can from ship and use it to craft supplies, ammo and upgrades for your weapons and environmental suit. Over 64 schematics to find and use at your disposal, with many more planned.

- Exciting and tense combat. With advanced enemy AI against you, use tactics to overcome your enemies. With multiple weapon types and deployable items at your disposal, you have unlimited tactical options.

- Take the stealthy approach. Sometimes all out gunfights aren’t the way, use stealth with the dynamic light and shadow system to bypass obstacles and enemies.

- A whole starship to explore. This isn't some lifeless procedurally generated ship, it's a hand crafted starship with multiple themed decks to explore and hidden secrets to discover, the game oozes attention to detail.

- 3D positional hi-def audio. Using the latest in audio design techniques, you will get maximum immersion in your adventure through the Carpathian

- Keyboard, Mouse & Controller. Native support for keyboard and mouse, along with all popular controllers (Xbox 360, Xbox One, Dualshock 3 & 4) with many other 3rd party controllers supported too

- Localised in many languages. The game was designed and built with localisation of all text and graphics from the start, and many languages are going to be included.

- Steam Goodies. Steam achievements and trading cards will be supported on release

- 60FPS! Everyone wants 60 FPS right? Heck, it runs at over 200 on my laptop…



I would say that I'm about 40% of the way through the games development now. The gameplay mechanics, combat, crafting and AI are all pretty much feature complete. Audio design, and art is about 50% of the way there as is the UI, which needs quite a bit of development work.

The story and character are pretty much fleshed out, I just need to continue to write the various log files, emails, research papers etc that you can discover aorund the ship, they probably total several hundred, so I have some work to do there!

Localisation will be done around the game release, once all the primary assets are complete in English. The game will initially ship in English, and then I will send the text files to the translators and roll out language packs as soon as they are complete. If anyone is interested in helping me localise ready for launch in your language, please get in touch with me.

I am already setup and registered with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo and already on the journey to bring the game to Xbox One and PS4, working closely with them to prepare my code for the platforms. I will not however be looking to launch on those platforms until the Steam release is complete and launched.

All in all, the game has been in fulltime development now for about 6 months, and I suspect I have about another 7 months to go before its ready at my current pace.

Edit: 13/03/2018 - Now restarted work on the game after Jump Gunners, another 12 months to go.

Support Xenosis on Fig

I am running a Fig campaign to help support the game through to final development.I have a bunch of things that need some investment prior to that, including freelance artist costs, software license costs, localisation, ESRB ratings and QA process for Xbox One and PS4 release.

If you help support our Fig Campaign, that would be totally awesome of you! You will get the steam keys, and depending on your backer level, potentially console keys too, plus access to early alpha / beta and developer forums. There is even a chance to be in the game as a character!

Support Xenosis on Fig





Just in case you are interested in the person behind the game, my name is James and I am a solo fulltime developer. I spent 20 years in the IT industry in corporate & project management for large international companies. I'm an avid gamer, having cut my teeth on the Atari back in the day, and spent my formative years playing through the 8bit / 16bit era, with my favourite without a doubt being the Amiga. Its always been a passion of mine to want to develop games, but thought I would never get the opportunity, so about 2 years ago my wife convinced me to teach myself how to code in my spare time.

Fast forward a bit and with the support of my wife, I quit my job in September 2016 and now I work at home as a fulltime indie dev. Plus I now have the added bonus of teaching my 10yr old son to code too, and he avidly helps me playtest along the development cycle, which is just awesome!

Xenosis is my second major release and i'm pouring my heart and soul into it. I pride myself on having created everything myself... art, coding, story and most of the sounds, by hand. Its a labour of love for me and I really hope you enjoy playing it, just as much as I did making it.

Cheers, J

 

If you lovely guys and gals do like what you see here, a vote on greenlight would be really appreciated

 

Looks good!

 

ok...i searched for the play button.... Yes it looks very Nice! Good Work. .... will play it xD

 

Thank you both, much appreciated!

 

Your game has the right Light/Darkness like in the Old Alien Movies. That is so Awsome and then with Crafting... if it has a Nice Enemy AI then it is Perfect. So i Hope u can show us a bit more from the Gameplay ( Player Vs Enemys ).

 

Love the atmosphere, and I'm very aligned with the theme. The world needs more xenomorphs!

 

Thanks for the kind words

As for showing the enemies, I guess I am going to have to figure out how to do that without providing major plot spoilers, as its so tied into the story of the game, and how it unfolds. The problem is that of course potential customers will want to see what combat looks like, so I guess I had better figure that one out!

 

This looks like one to keep an eye on, very atmospheric. Hope it all works out for you, all the best.

 

Well done so far James. I really like the atmosphere in the videos - largely enhanced by the audio. Great sfx so far!
I wish you luck and hope valves greenlight decisions don't mess up your release plans.

My 9yr old son also helps play test our games, and we also do alpha/beta testing every once in a while for other developers.

Concern - Do you know the name has already been used for a commercial video game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenomorph_(video_game)
Might want to look into that - if you haven't already, to avoid any conflicts with copyright and TM.

 

Thanks very much for the kind comments

@theANMATOR2b Isnt it cool when your kids share the same love and passion for games, my son loves it. He recently just made his first game in unity, and i'm super proud of him As for the game, thanks for the heads up, I was aware of that one already, but I am in the process of changing the name due to the amount of confusion its causing with the Aliens franchise!

Just a quick update, here is some concept art I thought I would share. We are working on the story art and these are the ideas for the Carpathian and some of the horrors that dwell within.





Let me know what you think!

Also, I know i'm like a broken record, but your votes on Greenlight really help

 

Hey everyone, I thought I would update you all with a developer video of the game. This is the first video like this I have ever made, so I apologise if I come across waffly or the technical aspects of the video are not the best!!

I wanted to give an overview of the gameplay, stealth mechanics, lighting, crafting, AI and a little of the early stages of combat.

I hope you find the video interesting, and it should give much more of a feel of what the game is like to play.

Please let me know any feedback, comments or suggestions on how I can improve things like this in the future, its all a learning curve!!

 

Realy good Job! i can only say again... I want to Play it, so good looks it. The Video is very good made. ( btw its not to Dark )

 

Thanks very much! I am really glad the video came out ok, I was worried that it was too dark, but I really need to figure out how to stop FRAPS from making it stutter, as the game plays buttery smooth.

 

i use "oCam" its free and for me good. Try it. maybe it helps

 

I'll look into that now, thanks!

 

I enjoyed watching that very much. Good job!

 

Hi all, just a small update today to let you know what I have been working on this week.



So, A bunch of weapons are now in the game and fully functional, and I thought I would give an overview of them, and talk about the upgrade system.

At present there are a bunch of base weapons that fall into the following classes:

Pistol - Standard sidearm, fast to fire, low recoil and accuracy and low damage.
Shotgun - Close range, slow speed and low accuracy, but good damage.
Assault Rifle, Fast firing, low accuracy and medium damage.
Sniper Rifle, Very slow firing, extremely accurate, high damage.
Pulse Rifle, Very slow firing, extremely accurate, pierces targets, high damage.
Flamer, continuous fire, close range, medium damage.

Each weapon has a bunch of modification slots that you can use to fit various weapon mods. Some of them are a single upgrade such as laser sights, others will allow you to upgrade parts of the weapon to new tiers.

The upgrades you can craft come in 3 levels, basic, standard and advanced. The following can be upgraded on each weapon:

Rate of Fire - How fast the weapon can fire
Recoil - How much stamina is used per shot
Accuracy - How much deviation the bullet has
Range - The effective range of the shot
Damage - The amount of damage inflicted
Impact Force - The amount of physics force that the bullet applies to its target
Clip Size - How many bullets the gun can hold before reloading
Reload Speed - How fast the gun can be reloaded

You are also able to craft ammunition types, such as armor piercing, biotech, toxin etc. each having a unique added effect to the target.

This means that there is plenty of variety to be had with the weapons in Xenosis, but you will find that you will have to pick and choose which weapons you concentrate on upgrading as your resources will be limited.

Anywho, short and sweet for this update, but again as always, please spread the word and share as there is a long way to go to reach our goal

 

Maybe a Melee / very Short Range Weapon? A Pipe or something

 

Melee is already in the game, but i'm working on some collectable weapons too, as as the moment you just have punch

 

So, time for another update, this time on perspective and performance.

Basically, I realised that I could get better performance from my game by using the deferred rendering path, but of course you cant do this if you are using an orthographic camera. So I decided to do some testing to see if swapping to a perspective camera would boost the performance of the game, seeing as I am using lots of per pixel dynamic lights with shadows.

Interesting results to be had, for example in one part of the scene I tried swapping between cameras and I see these results.

Orthographic, Forward Rendering:


Perspective, Deferred Rendering:


As you can see, the performance benefits are definately real. I had to do some work on the input controls after swapping to perspective, plus it buggered a few camera scripts, and I had to give the walls textures, as previously you could'nt see the sides of them, I was only using them to block light, but to be honest, I think its made the game have far more depth. I made a short video showing the difference when the camera mode is changed.

I think it looks better, and performs better too, so all round a winner!

 

It looks much better! Good decision

 

Oh my good god... So I've spent the last month or so trying to get the lighting and shaders to look right, but I've been struggling as it just doesnt look as good as I know it should do... Ive been tweaking so much stuff trying to balance it correctly but I wasnt getting anywhere and just resigned myself to the fact that its looking as good as its ever going to now.

Then whilst having a coffee and browsing the forums, I come across a post on @PhilippG thread on Biosignature about lighting, and specifically Linear vs Gamma... I almost dropped my coffee... I just realised I had forgotten to change the color mode from Gamma to Linear. Once click later and the game is transformed... I'm such a dolt... I cant believe I forgot to set that when I setup the project!

Doh!

Suddenly all my colors, lights and glowing shaders "popped" and look so much better. I cant believe I wasted so much time tweaking code, and forgot to look in the simplest of places

Thanks PhilippG for inadvertantly saving my game

 

Most time it is the simplest way to fix something i´ve many times the same problem. Kepp your good work Going. (can´t wait for a test version )

 

You're welcome James, keep going!

 

Hey all, It was about time that I had a build up for people to play, so I have put together a PC version that you can download and play now.

This is still pre-alpha, so there may be some bugs or other funky stuff, but on the whole it seems very stable and should give you a good feel for the game and its mechanics.

Please, if you have any questions, comments, feedback or want to report a bug, please contact me via twitter @EpicNerdRage or email helpme@nerdrage.co.uk

So without further ado, please download and enjoy

Download the pre-alpha

Controls:

Move - WASD / Left Stick
Aim - Right Mouse Button / Right Stick
Fire - Left Mouse Button / Left Trigger
Reload - R / X (xbox) / Square (playstation)
Sprint - Left Shift / Left Bumper
Action - E / A (xbox) / X (playstation)
Cancel - Q / B (xbox) / Circle (playstation)
Inventory - I / Y (xbox) / Triangle (playstation)
Items - Tab / Left Bumper
Flashlight - Z / Dpad Up
Change Weapon - Mouse Wheel / Dpad L/R
Pause - Esc / Start

 

I'd love to see side by side comparisons of the linear / gamma switch. Although - I request here since it is related to one of your previous posts.

 

I've changed all the lighting parameters now and updated a lot of stuff, so it would be hard to go back, but if you look at the developer overview I video here:

and compare it to the playable demo, you should see a big difference.

Basically, the lighting was very "muddy" is the best I can call it, the throw range on the lights was much reduced, and therefore I needed to boost intesity and range of all lights, at the cost of performance. Also, I couldnt get my glowing sprites to actually really glow, despite using bloom... it just made a major difference.

Plus, because the screen is now evenly lit, across the light and dark areas, the game looks way more balanced in terms of light and dark areas, and makes it much easier to see whats going on, whilst still maintaining contrast.

 

Bump! How is development going? Hope to read some fresh update soon!

 

Hey man, apologies for the lack of updates here, I've been buried in art and AI code, and a lot has been added to the game now. As soon as I finish debugging a particularly annoying piece of AI logic, I will put together another update along with a new video

 

That's great! I'm also just working on AI and plan writing a blog post with some insights. Will you also cover AI more in detail? What technique are you using?

 

@NerdRageStudios impressive work for a single man, i can't say more then that cause i can't simply find the words that shows what i feel,

i really hope this game gets what it deserves. once u release it.

 

Hey! that's really kind of you, thank you so much

If I can just make unity not crash when I try to build the damn game at the moment, I'll be sooner to release !

 

So, its time to update this after finishing and releasing Jump Gunners

Work on Xenosis continues in earnest again, and we are now running a Fig Campaign to fund the remaining development of the game. We have done a lot of work behind the scenes and the game has come on dramatically, so please take a look at the Fig Page to see all the new shiny additions and progress.