Meet my current project: eXo PAX, a 3S4X game: Simple Space Strategy involving eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation and lots of eXtermination ;D Born from my love of space strategy games and the lack thereof on Android devices. Currently working towards an alpha version for testing purposes.
Explore a huge galaxy. Expand quickly to grab your share. Exploit the star systems to build a large fleet. Exterminate your foes to dominate the galaxy!
eXo PAX focuses on what makes 4X games fun: the joy of exploration, expansion and conquest, without tedious micromanagement. A game of eXo PAX can last many hours, yet it’s easy to hop in and out for a quick game as well, making it very suitable for playing on-the-go on mobile devices.
eXo PAX is currently in development for Android-powered smartphones & tablets and Windows computers. Im working towards an alpha release for testing purposes. You can find more information about its development on my blog, where I post regular updates (as well as here).
Game website: http://www.grunngames.com/exo-pax/
Planned features:
- wide range of procedurally generated galaxies to play in, ranging from tiny circular galaxies containing only two empires – for a quick game – to huge galaxies containing hundreds of stars and many other empires to discover
- choose from 10 difficulty levels and play in a (relatively) stable, pacifistic galaxy or a chaotic warzone
- customize your own empire by choosing a name, color, ship style, ship size, and other characteristics
- speed up time to get to the action quickly or slow down time if things get too hectic
- no trial and error – you can only save the game state when exiting (remniscent of the roguelike genre)
- gain inspiration points (through combat or other ways) and use these to improve your empire through research or to activate potentially game-changing special abilities
About its development:
I’m building this using Java and the LibGDX and LWJGL libraries. I created the graphics using Paint.net and InkScape. So far development progresses quite well, although I had a few instances in which I suffered from feature-creep (me adding new cool feature after feature) making things unmanageably complex and forcing me to do a complete refactoring and feature-stripping. Developing in Java using LibGDX has generally been a real joy however 8)
Latest updates:
- [fixed] dominion chart not showing when exploration mode is active
- [added] news ticker events now also show a map notification
- [fixed] dominion chart sometimes not showing all empires in exploration mode
- [added] empires now have names, which are shown on the star map and in some news ticker events
- [added] the player can enter a name for the player’s empire
- [added] some stats are shown on the empire overview (# of stars, ships controlled, ship support cost)
- [fixed] saving and loading games on android
Some screenshots of the current alpha version:
The main menu:
[url=http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-mainmenu.jpg]
http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-mainmenu.jpg
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Creating an empire:
[url=http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-empire-selection.jpg]
http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-empire-selection.jpg
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Discovered a couple of new stars:
[url=http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-exploration.jpg]
http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-exploration.jpg
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Galaxies can become quite large (this is a tiny part of one):
[url=http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-overview.jpg]
http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-overview.jpg
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Combat between four empires:
http://www.grunngames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/exopax-combat.jpg
