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Space Pirates from Tomorrow is the second Xbox LIVE Indie Game we've worked on, and since we're going to release testing very very soon now is an oppertune time to introduce the release version of the game. We won't be revealing any spoilers, because the game is entirely dynamic. Everything in the game depends on you and your actions. While there are some specific mission actions, the context in which they take place changes so no two missions are identical - even though there's no theoretical limit on the number of missions you can do! DrMistry takes you for a wander around the Sector - a group of 9,000 loosely affiliated star systems.
The basic idea of Space Pirates from Tomorrow is to make the best of what you've got. Your great uncle has just passed away and bequeathed you a space ship and 1,000 credits, which you've just taken delivery of in your home star system. There are lots of activities which you can participate in as you journey around the sector, most of which will make you money and earn you reputation if you do things right. Do things wrong, and you'll get shot by either the eponymous space pirates or by the police. Sometimes they'll just shoot you anyway. They are pirates, after all!
A lot of the game takes place in space stations, just like this one. From here you can trade commodities, upgrade your ship and look for work. This is all done via your on-board computer. The station sits in a nice, powerful shield so that it's a real safe haven away from pirates. You can also use your computer when you're in space, to check market prices and make sure you're on top of all your work and missions...but you don't have the protection of the space station shield, so you'll need to keep an eye (or ear) open.
Here's a typical on-board screen - the trader market. Here you can buy and sell as much as you can afford and can fit in your ship. Prices vary depending on the technological level of each system, so low-tech agricultural worlds sell cheap food, and pay top dollar for high-tech electronics and weaponary. Every screen has a full control summary at the bottom, and the first time you play the game you'll be taken through a tutorial for the computer system, as well as an interactive tutorial for space flight and combat. Flight and combat is, obviously, more action-packed than looking a screen of prices. There are plenty of beings out there who would love to blow up your ship and sell your earlobes, and you need to get them before they get you! To make life a little easier, your ship is equipped with a hostile direction finder (meaning it tells you where attacking ships are, not that the arrow it's self is hostile - or at least I didn't intend it to be!).
Here we can see the hostile finder arrow - pointing right at one of the rotten buggers. In-game, the enemy ship's callsign flashes so they're easy to differentiate from other, legit trading ships. The scanner, in the middle of the screen, shows you what's going on all around you. Of course, you have a rear-view camera too (on the BACK button) and you can even mount a laser back there to shoot off anyone tailing you.
Combat plays a large part in the game, and it's great fun to spend a bit of time in each system getting a bagfull of kills. Killing hostiles boosts your bank balance, your ranking AND your legal status. You can also shoot down pirates who are attacking other ships without the police getting on your back over it, and great fun can be had chasing dog-fights and killing everyone involved.
When you do destroy a ship, some of their cargo might be released in to space. You can bag that swag by just flying into it. You can then go to the station and sell it, or save it for another system to get a better price. Every thrid kill also yields a special power-up crate. There are 3 types of power-up: A laser boost (which doubles the number of rounds fired, so a single laser acts like a double, and a double like a quad), a missile re-stock, and a single-use short-range cargo teleport. You can suck up crates by the dozen with that little beauty. You can also buy a permanent, re-usable and more flexible teleport from the shipyard. Collecting powerups is the breakfast of champions!
There're the three powerup types shown onscreen. You can hold 4 powerups at a time, and deploy any one you choose using the DPad and B button. You can save an absolute fortune on missiles by stocking up on these before going to a busy or violent system, or before going on any of the heavy-duty missions. As a good friend of ours said during playtesting, "F*&%ing BLAMMO!"
So, you got your trading, your fighting, what else is there? Well, in a tip-of-the-hat to the game which really inspired SPFT, we've included asteroid mining. You can buy packs of mining droids from shipyards, and deploy them in space to dig out and package raw materials into cargo crates, which you then collect in free space as ususal. There are some quiet systems around which have high asteroid densities, so if you pick the right system you can make a pretty good packet of cash from 4 droids. Here goes one now!
Off he goes to his chosen asteroid. He should chuck out somewhere between 7 and 20 crates. There's lovely for you!
Missions. Ah yes missions. We had great fun working on the missions, because testing them means playing the game in "full on" mode. You can choose from 3 basic missions from your on-board computer. These are Sanctioned Retirement (i.e. go shoot someone), taxi (take someone to another system) and courier (take some crates to another system). If you do a few of these missions, and do them well, then someone will get in contact with you, offering more work. If you accept their offer, you can participate in the more advanced missions:
1) Find-and-kill : Go to another system, kill someone (and possibly some escort ships too)
2) Pick up and drop off: Go to another system, bag some goods from the space station, and take them to a third system
3) Kidnap (teleport upgrade required): Fly to another system, kidnap someone using your teleport, and drop them off at the contact's home system
4) Heist (teleport upgrade required): Fly to another system, steal another ship's cargo and take it to the contact.
5) Battle Royale (cloaking device upgrade required): Fly to a system and kill everyone in it within 10 minutes. EVERYONE will be targetting you, so you need a cloak to have any chance whatsoever.
You can really get moving around the sector doing these missions. Every job offered is optional - if you don't fancy making 50 hyperspace jumps just to get to the starting system for a mission, well then reject it. You'll always get more. There are 6,000 systems spread over a cluster that is around 1,200 lightyears across. Even if you only spend 5 minutes in a system refuelling and making enough cash to keep going, it'll take you 500 hours of gameplay. Not bad for 240 MS Points! Add in missions, combat, trading and mining, and you get true, infinite replay value. First man to take the cash counter back round to zero wins a pie.
Here's a nice job on offer - go bag some jerk and his goons for a few grand. This was a one-jump wonder, but as your ranking increases the missions get longer. Longest one I've done was about 15 hyperspace jumps. It was triffic. No-one was left alive. The number of pirates who'll attack you also increases with your ranking, so make sure your combat skills are up to scratch!
There you have the barest basics of Space Pirates. It's the fruition of almost a year's work, on and off (this is actually the third total rewrite of the game) and we've been on it solidly, 14 or 15 hours a day, for the last 4 months. We hope you like it. I'll be posting a more technical look at the game at some point over the next few days, revealing some of the sneaky things we did in the game to pack so much in to about 50 meg.
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@mort8088 I can't go on Bebo without feeling slightly creepy - that's what you get for being in your mid 30s!
