About Star Dancer

In mid January 2015 I decided I wanted to write a game again.  I'd been learning java for android and had some spare time and had a burst of inspiration.  

Initially I was going to make an on the rails shooter but chose not to after realising the touch interface on a mobile was going to be difficult to make fun to play with.

Instead I chose to write a strategy game that is more inline with the types of games I enjoy.  

Many years ago I used to play a WW2 ground combat game called Combat Mission. It was turn based real time - wego - rather than iguogo. I had also written a similar space combat game in 2008 which I enjoyed making. So I thought I'd combine the ideas.  

During January and early February I wrote the initial design, including budget, components required, and so on.  Everything was accounted for - database structures, code, graphics, media, assets etc.  

I actually went a bit overboard initially and wanted to have pilot chatter (I was very inspired by movies such as the original Star Wars) and a host of other features.  Both budget, time and the fact that it was a one man job meant that I had to be more restrained in what I produced.  

My budget was under $6,000 AUD for the whole project and it is still under budget.   The 3d engine used was jpct-ae - a light weight java open gl library that handles a lot of the opengl stuff under the hood.  The rest of the code is mine. The graphics and music all purchased and commissioned.

During late May early June my health declined and I ended up in hospital (I was working full time as well as working on this in my spare time).  I am still under watch in a semi hospital environment and am hoping one day to get my life back to some sense of normalcy.  

I had hoped to release this game in mid November.  We will see how things go. The world seems different than before my illness but I cannot place my finger on what it is yet.

from Matt

Here's a picture of me - the developer in my backyard.

Full game (v0.82)

Lite Version

And a how to play video (no audio yet) - basic gameplay

Battle Replay

Battles are shown as a pre calculated replay.  The battle can be paused and resumed with the button in the top right corner.  The central button at the top changes whether or not the team colours are used to display the ships. Darker colors indicate higher damage.  The green button on the top right allows a screenshot to be captured.  The slider at the bottom of the screen can be used to adjust playback position.

The icons at the top are health icons.  They transition from green through yellow, orange, red to 'gone' when a ship is damaged.  If the fleet is destroyed it will have no ships. The battle is over either when the time runs out (about 2 minutes) or when a fleet is destroyed.  I am yet to see two fleets completely wipe each other out!

Pressing the back button on your device will take you back to the menus.

Campaign Map and Battles

On the campaign map you are able to attack any enemy planet (other color than your own) by touching their planet.  When doing so the battle will calculate (takes a few seconds) and then send a replay to your opponent.  You are then able to watch the battle in full 3d and see how it went.

Sometimes a planet will have no planet ring - this is either because the player is unable to be attacked temporarily or has no player assigned yet.

If you successfully attack a player and win the battle then their planet changes colour and becomes one of your own.

The object of the game is to take and capture all the planets in the system.  The Full version has 10 planets, the light version has 6.

After a battle your ships may be damaged.  If you have less than 4 ships remaining then you will briefly be protected (special conventions of interstellar warfare prohibit attacking vulnerable enemies!).  However you can still launch an attack with less than 4 ships.  Ships will rebuild over time - which is calculated on the remote server.  

Damaged ships are shown in orange, fully functional ships are shown in green.

Research Strategy

In Star Dancer research is a key component to securing victory for your faction.

Research is divided into 4 focused areas.

These are:

Speed, Firepower, Defense and Economy.

By choosing one of these areas to devote time to researching your faction's fleets will improve over time.  This is all calculated on the remote server and continues researching whether you have the game open or not.

You can only select one focus area at a time but this can be changed as and when desired.

Economy 

Researching Economy will decrease the time taken to rebuild ships in your fleet.  The percentage boost to economy indicates the percentage reduction in build time for each ship. 

The benefit of researching economy is that your own fleet will rebuild faster than an opponent with less time spent on researching economy.  This many mean the difference between launching an attack against a full strength or weakened opponent. The maximum value for economic research is not as high as for the other focus areas.

Defense

Defense research increases the base armour or damage that each of your ships can take before being destroyed.  This research increases at a fairly rapid rate to a maximum value - it will reach its maximum value within a couple of days usually.  Having tougher ships makes them more likely to win a direct shoot out with enemy of similar type.

Firepower

Researching firepower increases the damage performed by your ships' weapons.  This research increases at a rapid rate as well and usually within a couple of days is at maximum value or close to it.  This focus area especially helps ships that already have high firepower values.

Speed

Researching speed improves your ships acceleration and velocity values.  By improving a ship's acceleration they are more likely to be able to get into a good position in the battle better and are harder for enemies to target.  It also means that your ships will be able to target slower enemy more easily.