What is the best part that you like in EVERSPACE 2? And what is the best part in EVERSPACE? If you would like to play a game, which one do you prefer the most EVERSPACE or EVERSPACE 2? And why?
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What advice would you give to someone that's new to Everspace? What do I need to know before I play?
Was it easier designing the game for the second time since the groundwork is already laid. What were the challenges the team faced while developing the Sequel.
What are your inspirations for the Everspace universe and what can we expect from the sequel that isn't in the original game?
Well, since there's only a small sliver of a completed project for EVERSPACE 2 just yet, I'd have to say the tutorial is my favorite part of the game so far. You're thrown through a large interior space (a first for the series) filled with mysterious overtones and alien wildlife to set the stage for what's to come. Also, you get a friggin' grapple feature on your ship that lets you throw stuff around using the in-game physics.
EVERSPACE shines in its replayability, much like many roguelikes do. As such, the game becomes more as you put more time into it. I think it was around my 6th hour playing the game where the systems clicked and the experience exploded into so much more than I ever expected it could. It's a challenging game, and so the rewards are satisfying as well. Ultimately, I think the best part of EVERSPACE is Hardcore Mode, as this gives the penultimate permadeath experience with added handicaps along the ride. But it's only for those who have a thorough understanding of the core mechanics; I would NEVER recommend diving into Hardcore Mode first!
As of right now, I personally prefer EVERSPACE, but that's because it's a completed game that I know I could sink hundreds of more hours in, while EVERSPACE 2 is kind of locked at about 10-15 hours of content in its current alpha phase. But when EVERSPACE 2 reaches full version status, I'm confident I'll have a new favorite.
Be persistent. EVERSPACE will chew you up and spit you out, but it teaches you everything you need to know right out of the gate. This is NOT a space sim, but rather an arcade-y styled shooter. As such, you have lateral thrust movement capabilities, granting impressive 6DoF mobility when you need it most. Hovering and strafing can be your most trusted ally.
Take advantage of the controls we give you.
Very good point, and very cool old school refernce to some Star Fox! Thanks!
Alright, so I spoke with Michael about this one and had a healthy response to our inspiration to our work, which I'm quoting below. It's a meaty quote.
As far as expectations for the sequel that wasn't in EVERSPACE, there will be A LOT. For starters, we completely changed the genre of the game (which is no small feat for an IP) from an arcade shooting roguelike to a looter shooter open world RPG, which is a decent portion why you'll see a lot that wasn't in the original game. Our player ships are built from modules, which means there will be a lot of variety (and customization) from EVERSPACE 2. A new grapple mechanic allows the use of objects as tools and weapons using the in-game physics engine. Reputation systems are tracked and rewarded. Job boards now populate certain stations. Massive interior spaces. Handcrafted environments. Planet-side locations.
There's more, but we haven't revealed it yet since we're still in alpha. But if this excites you, I hope you'll stick around to see what we've got cooking!
Taking your team's current skills and abilities into account, what older game would you want to remake and play again?
How long has this game been in the works? I've always been curious about how long its takes to make a game.
At this time it's been in development for a little more than two years. At full release in 2022 it'll be a little more than four years. I guess we're kind of at the halfway point?
We test as a group very consistently. Internal testing is vital to ensure the systems are operating in their intended capacity. Obviously we also use the alpha as a means to testing as well, because a community with fresh eyes can spot what feels good and what doesn't since they haven't been pounding away at the project on a near-daily basis for an expansive period of time. 🤪
We know our vision is good, and we're focused on ensuring we make many of the desired systems work in an intentional way through testing. And we also see powerful concepts and strengthening suggestions emerge from the community as well, so it was a no-brainer for us to develop with early access builds too.
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So, this was one of the first questions that was asked, and it's taken a while for us to answer. The fact of the matter is, we've been avoiding the question because we couldn't come up with a decent high-level answer, but we also didn't want to open a can of worms by talking in great detail about our game proposal session with our team at the end of the production of ES1. You heard that correctly: After EVERSPACE was made, the ROCKFISH team got together to pitch game proposals of varying genres and styles to publishers to see where we wanted to take ourselves. Now I'm not going to tell you specifically what the proposals were, because you never know what could happen with those ideas in the future, but also because my colleagues deserve the respect of their creative ideas.
There were a total of eight other concepts that hit the table before EVERSPACE 2. Two of those concepts were furthered, and even had established invested time and resources in them (fully funded out of our own pockets). Publishers really liked both of these concepts. A polished prototype made with UE4 of one of them stood its ground really well, so one publisher actually came up with a P&L estimate for it, while the other title's rock-solid pitch deck featuring a lot of high-detailed concept art and an interesting genre-mix excited many potential partners, too. However, the mid-range 7 digit development budgets for each project were too high for a recently rebooted studio back then, so we couldn't bring any of the projects to fruition.
Before I was on the team, the studio had the highest average rating for their portfolio in 2008, including the world's best mobile game Rally Master Pro and third best Snowboard Hero as well as the critically-acclaimed Galaxy on Fire 3D (2005) and Galaxy on Fire 2 (2009). WHOA. In addition to this, the studio was very successful in other genres like fantasy RPG (Blades & Magic) and even a fighting game (Gladiator) in bringing a console experience to mobile phones. So it's not like this crew can only do space shooters. It came down to the competition being much more fierce on PC and console as well as the unparalleled popularity of the GoF 1&2 back then on mobile (with some 30 million players around the globe), that we finally thrived on PC and console within the space shooter sub-genre.
So, let's loop this all back around. We did the game idea session after ES1 because we couldn't get a publisher, and we couldn't get a publisher because space games are a sub-genre with a lot of competition (which is fair). However, we're glad that none of our ideas or even the concept prototype made it. Because if they did, we wouldn't be working on EVERSPACE 2 now.
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Game isn't done nor optimized so, this is seriously difficult to answer. Um...hmm.
EVERSPACE is approximately 12 Gigabytes, and I know we are expanding on everything from this game into our whole new genre of EVERSPACE 2. So - this is a completely wild guess here - probably somewhere between 20 and 30 Gigabytes? Could be more, could be less!
Would using a larger flat-screen TV make any difference on the consumption for the GPU or CPU of the PC in game????
RFG_Michael
Registered Developer
Actually, with all those highly detailed handcrafted locations and baked GI solutions, its much bigger game world, and more story content, I think we'll rather end up around 50 Gigs.
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RFG_Michael
Registered Developer
I’ve been checking out some of the concept art from the press kit and looks like there’s some sort of big space city which looks amazing. Are there plans to have other big structures in addition to space stations and this space city? Something like a Dyson sphere/Alderson disk around a star that captures its energy? Or a massive orbital weapon used by aliens. Or an Orbital Ring/Space Elevator as a means of travel
What are some of the ways that we as the community can do to help make your life and the development process easier? Is there anything you would like us to stop doing, or start doing more often?
RFG_Michael
Registered Developer
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