Empire in the Sky

Like many aspiring game developers, I grew up in an era of Greenlight and Kickstarter.  I dreamt of finding support from the internet.  It never really materialized.  I had worked on several projects before, like Sauerbraten (Cube 2 Engine) and made little prototype games in Proce55ing.  The game debuted as an information page on IndieDB to 26000 views where it is ranked 7,792 of 73,043 (top 15%). https://www.indiedb.com/games/empire-in-the-sky 

This game represents thousands of hours of work, as I built the engine learning graphics programming from scratch in my spare time. (That's now available as open source https://github.com/LAGameStudio/apolune and is an encyclopedia of its form.)

I began the game in 2006 in Java.  I wrote it for a period of time using the ecere.org ("enhanced C") graphics language toolkit, when I was "getting serious" ... and then I bit the bullet and first wrote it in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition (known as MSVCEE2010).  Eventually, Microsoft called me to tell me to stop using it because it had a bug where they colluded C# rules with C++. They apologized.

I paid a voice actress in my area $200 to do some voice acting.

I eventually paid another voice actor $200 to do the paragraph for the trailer.

I had planned to use a peer-to-peer networking protocol called libVAST to make it into an MMORPG.  The goal: get $30/month in subscriptions, or maybe just $30 one time for an MMORPG experience. How ambitious.

Despite writing hundreds of thousands of lines of code, using dozens of libraries and snippets, learning from the masters, I ended up spending several months tracking down a single problematic stray comma in a file.

Well, I hope you enjoy it.

How to install and play:

Unzip into folder.  Run game executable.  Game will run full screen at detected resolution up to 4K.

Windowed mode: You have the option of using the shortcut and you can modify the shortcut to use common graphics resolutions.  Right click shortcut, edit the line, change to -1920x1080 for example for 1080p.

• Mouse is required.  
• Keyboard commands:  
  • Mouse to aim/shoot or use buttons.
  • Arrows or WASD .. aim and move
  • M .. for starmap  Once a target is set in the Starmap, press "H" for "hyperspace" ..
  • V .. radio
  • F9 .. options
• Debug keys: K / i / J / L / N / O / U / P / Y cause damage to your ship systems to test out various effects.  Use with caution as experiment only.  If you wait your ship will slowly repair.

About the game:

I released this "Trying to find support" trailer in the hopes to make it rain:

I also made these tutorials to show off the features.

YouTube building tutorials (long, you can skip through but there are details):

Building 101: Making Starships

Building 102: Making Space Bases

I found it on a hard drive and gave it a go.  I was surprised to find the game still works! Me playing it for a couple of hours last night:

Original website: https://lostastronaut.com/empire

Original presskit:

The "Lava Lamp" of Space Games

Ray Guns In The Retrosphere

Combining both new and old techniques, this 2.5D game is designed around a visual aesthetic akin to the early days of video games, while presenting new approaches to classic animation. Lost Astronaut's game engine is not an out-of-the-box engine, but is instead simply out-of-the-box! Custom developed for the project, the game's engine includes features from the heyday of technology, polished with high performance OpenGL shaders and 3D effects.

A Detailed, Deep and Progressive World

Designed to exploit scale, the player can seamlessly traverse space both inside and outside their spacecraft! Pick up individual chemicals discovered on asteroids or far-off moons, reverse engineer alien spacecraft parts collected during battles, search deep cave dungeons for artifacts to be sold for great profit! In "Empire", you can name each planet or star-system. Take action and see the consequences, exploring the deepest of craters with a hand-picked cast of characters on your team, and build a fleet to conquer alien civilizations who'd rather just vaporize you somewhere in deep space.

Lost Astronaut's Empire in the Sky presents a unique, detailed world where the player has absolute control over many of the unit design decisions, in a fun and creative way.
- H. Elwood, Lead Game Designer

Humor, Intrigue and Creativity

Explore a rich world created through painstaking efforts with an emphasis on humor, intrigue and creativity, while still keeping true to the well-worn grooves of yesteryear's successes. The game involves elements of squad warfare, fleet management, empire building, "technological design", strategy, and inventory-management a la roguelikes and RPGs. We are building a game that is beautifully animated in a "down-to-Earth" and warm way. Each pixel is accounted for, in this independent title that rehashes the classic games and focuses on innovative contemporary gaming. Expect the unexpected in a seriously entertaining space adventure like no other before!

Screen Shots

Click to view and download early development screenshots. All screen captures are released under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (but may be used by the media in articles pertaining to video games)