Spiritus Astrum

I have found a free asset called “EasyDialogue” on the unity asset store.

This asset adds support for a node-based branching conversation system.

It is simple, but very extensible.

I tried several free assets and code from github, but none of them seemed to work properly, and the only alternatives were very expensive assets that seemed to be unnecessary for what I wanted.

EasyDialogue seems to do just what I need for free, which is ideal.

I have already implemented it into my project, and it works very well.

I still have some testing to do and some minor bugs to fix, but the possibilities for a node based system like this are extensive.

I could also use it for branching quests, etc, in the future.

I have made some improvements to the GUI system in the game so that users can find documents in the world that contain data, and this data can then be categorised and stored in the GUI.

This is a common feature in many games, and it was not too difficult to add to Spiritus Astrum’s existing quest system.

I also made some improvements to the existing quest system too while working on this.

The next objective is to improve the dialog system in the game. I really need to add better support for nested conversations.

I have been experimenting with some solutions of my own, but it seems that a node-based system (Similar to how visual scripting works) would work best.

I am currently looking into options to implement something like this in Spiritus Astrum.

I have been working on improving the story for my project. This will be one of my main goals for the future.

I will be adding more quests and objectives, as well as more art objects, etc, to the project to facilitate this.

I have already come up with a large number of different quest paths and objectives for players. I intend to give the player as many choices as I can, and to keep the world as open as possible.

Currently, I am planning to have several concurrent questslines for each possible “role” or “life path” in the game.

Players will, of course, be be able to keep playing after the main questline ends, freeing them up for either exploration or finding other quests to embark on.

The introduction scene is functionally done.

It is relatively simple, but I think that it looks quite good.

I still need to add the actually story elements (Text, etc) but the coding part of it is done.

I will also need to replace some of the art at some point, namely, for the players main capital ship, but it will be some time before I have that art done.

I have also fixed some bugs with the space combat system in the game.

The next goal is to work on the story for the game, and add more quests/missions, etc.

I have added the changes to the procedural content creator, and run some tests.

This also required changes to the story generator, to make sure that the system was not trying to, for example, spawn NPC’s in a city on a planet that had no cities.

The next goal is to create a simple introduction scene for the game.

This doesn’t need to be too complex, but there should be something there.

Once this is done, I can work on adding more, and longer quests/missions, and spend more time on the story and dialog, etc.

I have made some improvements to the subtitles to improve legibility, as well as other minor GUI improvements.

I have also added more placement options for certain types of NPC’s in the world.

The next major goal is to improve the procedural generation system so that I can create planets with different types of city, or no city at all.

Currently, there is a random algorithm to determine where, and what type, of cities appear, but I want to improve this to work on a planetary scale.

So, for example, some planets might only have ruined cities, some might have no cities at all, some might have either, etc, etc.

I have started uploading videos of SpiritusAstrum gameplay to youtube, the first is embedded below.

I intend to upload more videos in the future, as I continue to work on the project.

I have completed another test run of the game, and run into only minor issues, which have been fixed. The game is becoming a lot more stable with each run through.

The next goal is to finish testing the early part of the game, and then add more content, etc.

I have made more changes and improvements to the spawning system. There was still an issue where AI characters would be floating in the air above the ground, but this should be finally fixed now.

I have also fixed some issues with creating and placing large objects in the world, and some issues with gravity direction, etc.