Space Dust Studios

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Tag: space dust racing (page 2 of 2)

Space Dust Racing – First Look – Early Gameplay Footage

7 players, 5 locations & 2 months dev…

It has been crazy busy at Space Dust Central! We hit our first major milestone at the beginning of the month, and have been working hard toward our complete vertical slice. In keeping with our plan of open ongoing Space Dust Racing development, here’s some early gameplay footage.

This play-test footage from the 28th of June was recorded directly from the game with 7 players over 5 different locations (online multiplayer). Glen also recorded our Google Hangout audio stream which I overlaid on the footage. While it is still early days (just 2 months of dedicated development!), we’re really happy with how fun it is to play already. And it is totally fitting our end goal of couch racing chaos!

Screenshot 002 - 15 July 2014

We plan to have a larger general update shortly, though I’ve included a recent screenshot above as we’ve moved on since the footage was taken. As always, please post comments and we look forward to showing you more soon!

Interview: “Veteran Developers Gone Rogue” – Team Space Dust

Xsolla Blog

Recently our friends at Xsolla interviewed us about our studio background, company vision, and where we’re headed for the future. Full interview with Michael below.


“Our generation grew up with couch multiplayer. Crash Team Racing, Mario Kart, Micro Machines and Mashed were some of our favourites,” – says Michael Davies, Lead Gameplay Developer of Space Dust Studios.

Conveying a very relatable message, Michael shows that inspiration can come from many different forms, even sprouting from a nostalgic aspect that was once part of our lives.

Lead Gameplay Developer, Michael Davies is 2nd from the left

Lead Gameplay Developer, Michael Davies is 2nd from the left

We at Xsolla had the chance to recently interview Space Dust Studios Lead Gameplay Developer, Michael Davies, and see what he and his team have been excitedly producing including coverage of their newest unreleased game, Space Dust Racing. Below we’ll move right into the interview question and answer session with Michael.

– What is your gaming background and how did you come to release a game?

We’re a team of five senior developers based in Melbourne Australia, who have worked together on and off over the last decade at a mix of AAA studios, most recently Visceral Games (Electronic Arts). The formation of Space Dust Studios was a mix of luck, timing and crisis management. Visceral Games Australia closed in late 2011, leaving many of us looking for work at other local studios or heading overseas.

After a year or two of hopping around at other studios, we realised a few things. For starters, there was a distinct lack of PC and console development happening in Melbourne, yet this was where we all wanted to work and live. Secondly, working with different teams made us realise that our experience and rapport with each other was an incredibly valuable asset. Finally, were all in a good financial position to take a risk, plus there were some amazing game engines for PC/console coming out that looked very promising. So we bit the bullet, and started our own studio.

– How did the idea of Space Dust Racing come about?

Our generation grew up with couch multiplayer. Crash Team Racing, Mario Kart, Micro Machines and Mashed were some of our favourites. Yet everywhere we looked, we saw games pushing online multiplayer, perhaps because it’s still a relatively new possibility in the grand timeline of gaming, and it’s certainly more convenient in many ways.

But Nathan found himself regularly digging out his PSX to play kart racing classics with his kids, and I was still hosting regular co-op Mashed nights with my friends, despite being well into my 30s. We did some research to see if any recent titles filled a similar gap, but most of them focused on split-screen or online multiplayer.

We decided to go all out and make a top-down party racer for a huge number of local players. We love science fiction, so we decided to go with a “brutal cute” art style that would appeal to both family gamers and core gamers.

sdr-with-characters

– Did you consider how you were going to monetize when you conceived the game?

We did, absolutely. Space Dust Racing is a couch party game which involves fast-paced rounds and (probably) lots of shouting. Because of this, we wanted to keep the transaction model simple for individual players, who are most likely going to be mashing buttons to make the game start as quickly as possible, so we decided to go with an upfront premium business model. The host simply pays for the game, and the controller application is free for other players.

We’re also planning to add some downloadable content based on community feedback to give gamers some extra bang for their buck, but this will follow the same host-only purchase model. Couch co-op is great for monetizing, as guests are essentially getting a free demo of the game, and if they like it they can buy it for themselves, then host their own gaming nights, and the process repeats with their friends.

– How do payments affect how you add content to your game?

If we were making a freemium game, we’d actually be in a better position for generating content. Microtransactions are great not only because they provide a more steady stream of income, but because they also tell you what players are interested in, and what’s not working in your game. We won’t have that luxury, which is why we’re pushing hard to grow a Space Dust Racing community early, for example through our developer blog at http://blog.spaceduststudios.com. We want to get feedback while we can still do something about it.

– What sorts of payment systems do you use and what really works best for you?

We’re currently building the vertical slice for PC but we haven’t locked down our final target platforms, so I can’t say for sure. What I do know is that as developers we’re looking for an all-in-one payment solution that handles everything from analytics, reporting, easy game integration, and acceptance of all major regional currencies through to 24/7 customer support.

SpaceDustStudios01_1920x1080

Beautiful in-game artwork developed by the Space Dust team. Get hyped!

– Do you have any other projects coming up?

We do indeed! Bubbling away in the background is a concept for a more hardcore-oriented sci-fi airborne arena shooter, and we have some free HD concept art available for this at our website http://www.spaceduststudios.com. I’d love to provide more details but we’re not quite ready to push this baby out of the nest yet.

– What have you learned from your Space Dust Racing?

Our first project has taught us a lot already. You need to be organised and highly efficient as a small independent game studio, because time is scarce when you’re the content creators and the business managers!

– What advice do you have for any other developers who are interested in putting out games?

We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to game engines these days, so just pick one – it doesn’t matter which one – and learn it inside out. Get involved in as many online game dev communities as you can find, and don’t be afraid to share your ideas and ask questions, as this is the best way to learn. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to make an MMORPG for your first title. Instead, start with very simple projects like Guess The Number, Tic Tac Toe or Hangman, then work your way up to more ambitious concepts like 2D shooters or puzzle games. Leave 3D and online till last, as they’re the hardest to get right.

Conceptual 3D Mesh images of various in-game weapons giving us a small taste of what’s to come

Conceptual 3D Mesh images of various in-game weapons giving us a small taste of what’s to come

The hardcore sci-fi airborne arena shooter in pre-production will have an official announcement soon with more details to come. Keep updated on their production and news updates at http://www.spaceduststudios.com/ and make sure to stick around on our blog to read more insightful articles into the mind of game developers in this generation!


To leave a comment, head on over to the Xsolla article:
http://blog.xsolla.com/2014/06/23/interview-veteran-developers-gone-rogue-team-space-dust/

Development Update – June 2014

Space Dust Central has been super busy since our last blog post. The transition from Unity to UE4 is complete, models are being made, concepts scribbled, tech developed and gameplay implemented… and Beans has just continued being awesome.

Networking nirvana!

Just a few days ago, Michael stood up online multiplayer for Space Dust Racing. We’re able to create and join online matches, which all came together surprisingly painlessly thanks to the mature networking support in Unreal Engine. Despite our core gameplay focusing around couch co-op, we can already see the value in having an online multiplayer build so early in the development process. We can playtest remotely, and with Skype running in the background we’re finding this is great for brainstorming ideas while we race around the track.

My my… is that a shark missile!?

Yes indeed… mounted on a giant spring no less! Grigor and Pops have been building and animating our first batch of weapon models (there are more in the works). Obviously these are the raw mesh without texture, but it gives a good indication of where things are headed! Included is an orthographic projection of the Turret Gun in the top right, continuing on from the last blog post about art process.

Weapons

Our first batch of weapon models

“Clawtopia”

The setting for our first level is Herman’s home planet…

“Eons ago, Herman’s distant relatives (simple hermit crabs) were abducted from the “Hermit Hut” pet-store by aliens with a penchant for interstellar marine biology. On the return journey they crash landed on a tropical planet we now know as “Clawtopia”. The hermit crabs survived, and surrounded by the futuristic (and slightly oozy) wreckage, they quickly evolved into the highly advanced crustaceans that you see today. Herman is their champion.”

Below are some of the initial concept sketches – we wanted to get a cool contrast between tropical island and spacecraft wreckage, and also multiple terrain types within the one level. The actual track shape is different from what you see here – these images just show thematic direction.

Clawtopia concepts

Initial thematic concepts for Herman’s home planet

Sarge and Tank (a love story)

Continuing on from our last post, you can see the original tank concept sketch, and below it the final raw 3D model. A few things changed along the way – like the tracks have been fattened up considerably, and the side of the cockpit altered so you can really see Pops’ cool character animations.

On the right are concept paint-overs showing the skins we’ve decided to go with. Grigor is continuing work on the build of Sarge and his tank, so hopefully will have some images of the final product in the next post.

Sarges tank

Sarge and his tank – concept, model and paint-over

That’s it for this post! Thanks again for stopping by to check out the development of Space Dust Racing.

As always, if you’ve any comments or questions or thoughts, please post below! 🙂

Intro-DUST-ions? No, that’s definitely not working.

Hello and welcome to the Space Dust Studios game developer blog! I’m Michael Davies, Director & Lead Gameplay Developer, and perhaps the best place for me to start is by introducing who we are and the purpose of our dev blog.

Space Dust Studios team photo

Meet the Space Dust team. Left to right: Nathan, whats-his-face, Grigor, Glen, Stephen.

Space Dust Studios is made up of five senior game developers who have been working together over the last decade at a variety of ‘AAA’ game studios. We’re a mix of artists, musicians and programmers who were fortunate enough to work together on popular gaming franchises such as Battlefield, Need For Speed, Dead Space, Tomb Raider, Burnout and Silent Hill. We’ve developed for virtually every gaming platform since the original Xbox and PlayStation, and constantly refer to ourselves as veterans, despite being in our 30s.

In 2013 we made the decision to go independent as a game developer studio. The aussie gaming scene was having a rough time with many studios closing or making huge cutbacks, and we were directly caught up in the turmoil. A lot of great talent was heading overseas to greener pastures, but we didn’t want to uproot ourselves for our careers one more time. We saw there was an opportunity to take control over our situation by starting our own studio.

Our plan is to build ‘AAA indie’ original IP for the world stage, luring back top talent from overseas in the process. It sounded a lot less like marketing hyperbole when we were talking about it over coffee.

Space Dust Studios logo

Our fancy pants logo.

We’ve spent the last year getting our company and projects up and running, and have completed pre-production on two original IPs. We can’t talk about the second title yet as we’re still negotiating with potential investors, but the first title will be the focus of this development blog, from inception through to final release.

Space Dust Racing is (and here’s the elevator pitch!) top-down galactic party racing mayhem. It’s our love letter to couch co-op party racers such as Micro Machines, Mashed, Circuit Breakers, Crash Team Racing and Mario Kart. But we’re not just rehashing the same old experience, we’re making something… bigger. In fact it’s so big, we’re having to build custom tech that’s never been done before in a game (as far as we know). We’re looking forward to talking about that some more in future posts, unless we can’t get it working, in which case we’ll be deathly silent on the matter.

Film Victoria logo

We’re getting started on the PC prototype and vertical slice now, thanks to the generous support of Film Victoria’s “Screen Development – Games” program. We’ve decided to make this a transparent process (hence this blog) for a few key reasons:

1) We want the community to get involved. We want to show you all the cool stuff we’re building, and get your feedback and suggestions while we can still act on them. Good ideas come from everywhere, and we’d be fools to ignore them! We encourage you to leave comments on these posts, and to email us your thoughts directly at info@spaceduststudios.com.

2) We want to share some of our hard-earned insight into making games. We’ve been part of some spectacular failures, and have learned the hard way how to do things “less wrong”. If you’re a game developer, hopefully some of that experience will transfer across and you can avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve fallen into on prior projects.

The five of us will be talking about various aspects of the development process in this game dev blog. We’ll try and cover everything that’s going on internally, from creative decisions through to gameplay, art style, technical notes, business stuff, workflow processes, and office gossip. Hopefully we’ll all learn something, and at the very least I will enjoy the catharsis. You don’t know me. None of you do!

What area of game development should we talk about first? Let us know in the comments!

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