Wing Commander Flat Universe

Thank you for your kind words! Your acknoledgement is our best motivation... as I said in the past.
And stay tuned there are more surprises to come.

 

Hey guys

I know we've been a little quite this last few months but it was for good reason.

We are happy to announce that we have just released the first playable version of the game!

Yes it is still in alpha but we think it is already lots of fun.

Here are some screenshots to get you into the mood...



We have also prepared some manuals which include both keyboard and gamepad / joystick reference cards and blueprints ala Wing Commander 1 like this one:



Hopefully within the weekend we will also have prepared a Quickstart Guide.

So and without any further delay head to http://flatuniverse.solsector.net and grab your copy!
All the manuals are located at the "Destiny's Way" section of the site

P.S. Don't forget to check the updates in our website where you can find some of the ships that we are preparing (you can thank Klavs for his hard work of course!) at the "Flight Deck" section.

 

Been looking forward to playing this for a while; will definitely be checking it out first opportunity I get.

 

Thanks for the interest Capi. We have been following your RPG project. Amazing work. Unfortunately time constrains have not allowed us to play a game yet however your work is a must-have even if one just reads it as a guide for the WC Universe!

 

I've tried it out and it's lots of fun.

Spoiler

Those turrets are quite tough.

 

So...this may just be me, but how do you actually start the game? When I fire it up, I'm presented with two options - "Visit Daedelus Station" and "Quit". Granted, I had about 30 seconds to fire up the program last night before I had to go to bed, so I don't know if it's more obvious than it looked...

 

The rooms are 360 degrees, so rotate around until you see a door, then 'go to flight control' from there, look for a computer console overlooking the flight deck, and then you can go down to the flight deck and click on your foghter as it comes up the elevator.

 

Klavs beat me to it!

Yeah you actually click "Visit Daedalus Station" and follow the instructions Klavs wrote. I hope by Monday I will have the quickstart guide ready to make it a little easier for every one!

Have fun

 

Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying that. It was the "Visit Daedalus Station" that threw me off...for some reason I thought that option would direct me to the website...

 

So...how do you get out of the game once you're on Daedelus? I've figured out that you just go "Return to Base" once you've got the mines cleared. Finished mission 1 last night for the first time.

 

Hi Capi,

You open the terminal interface and the first button on the left it gets to a screen with 2 options. One is "transfer" and the other is "resign". The "resign" button is what you are looking for.

All this is temporary and in the course of the development it will change. We want to add a decent looking Airlock for exiting the game!!!

TIP: If you get bored of the terminal start sequence (you know the black screen with the text) you can click at the far right button to bypass it.

 

Okay...so it's the same terminal I use to select a ship? I get lost pretty easily in the rooms sometimes. Took me forever how to figure out how to select a ship.

My only real gripe with the game at the moment - I'm on a Byzantine, ultra low-end box (Athlon II 2.9 GHz dual-core, 2 GB memory, nVidia 630a equivalent onboard) so rotating around the rooms is choppy and that terminal start sequence is interminably slow...this with the graphics set on "Good".

 

One of our to mid-term goals is to optimize the performance issues. Unfortunately this is much harder than it sounds.

We are not a huge company with dozens of computers of varying specs lying around to test and so the procedure is slow and with lots trial and error. Moreover we are pretty inexperienced as far as game production is concerned and so it is very easy to get carried away (as it did actually).

Thank god we have feedback from people like you and so we can make the adjustments both gameplay and performance wise.

 

That is why I think it is a good idea that you release alpha and beta versions of WCFU, so we can let you know about any issues.

 

Of course it is a good idea. But its not simple alpha and beta versions.

We have a versioning system with milestones. Between these milestones we will upload regular updates (hopefully monthly) so that we can fine-tune through your feedback and suggestions all those things.

For instance we are currently at version 0.5. We have planned to release the multiplayer part in version 1.0. In the mean time we will upload various releases (0.5.5, 0.6 etc) that will allow us to solve some problems and introduce new features. Hopefully by version 1.0 and with your help we will have a tuned flight model and all minor bugs resolved.

The same way version 1.5 will introduce a complete AI system and version 2.0 (if we manage to pull it through that point) a full campaign system and the main campaign. Between these milestones you'll get to test each system one update at a time.

So the more response we get from you the better game we will end up delivering.

 

Can you believe that it has never crossed my mind! But what disturbs me the most, is the fact that it hasn't! Neither me nor my brother. I guess we are loosing our savvy characters.

 

For those who are watching closely our progress you might have noticed that our project is also registered to the indiedb, internet database of the indi games. For the next 8 days, fans will be voting for the Indie of the Year 2014.

for a better Universe !
for a better Flat Universe !!
for a better Wing Commander Flat Universe !!!
on this weeks elections...
VOTE for WCFU

Everyone is going to be there. You?
http://www.indiedb.com/games/wing-commander-flat-universe

 

I managed to sneak into the production storage and steal a few pictures from the upcoming update of WCFU. The in game graphics are showing off our home base Daedalus and home system Destiny. You may have a look at them but I urge you not tell anything to my brother, he's gonna kill me!



And don't forget... 5 Days To Go