The Nebula (WIP, update 26th June 2015)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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What is new in this update:
-Ship combat
-One new location (a starbase, where resources can be bought and sold)
-Trading

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15954994/web/mygame/index.html

The year is 14,668 A.A.C. (After de colonization of Alpha Centaury), 134th year of the reign of Emperor Trajan V of the 8th Empire of Terra. Humanity has colonized large sections of the galaxy, with the Empire held together by a network of colossal Warp Gates allowing speeds hundreds of times greater than the usual warp jumps attainable by ship Navigators.

Humans represent the only citizens of the Empire, with other races considered as non-citizens or worse. Liberty is severely curtailed, with the freedom to alter one’s body or sex contrasting with a prohibition of any other form of genetic modification to enhance intelligence or telepathic abilities. This contrasts with earlier periods of expansion, in which heavy genetic manipulation divided the human race into a multitude or races and sub-races to better adapt to inhospitable planets.

Several civil wars against Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and genetically-altered telepathic humans lead to the downfall of the 1st and 3rd Empires. As a consequence, any being with telepathic, genetically, implant-enhanced intelligence above IQ 180 or A.I.'s are persecuted by the Inquisition. Political dissent of any form is not tolerated, something enforced by the ultra-powerful Commissariat. As a result, corruption has largely been eliminated, though at the expense of efficiency.

Aside from the Inquisition and Commissariat, the Empire is held together by the Imperial Navy, one of the largest known fleets in the galaxy. You are a promising young starship captain assigned to one particularly isolated border sector of the Empire, only connected to its main body through a single Warp Gate.

In this game you take the role of a starship captain in the Imperial Navy on a mission to investigate a recent threat. The game allows you great liberty to explore a galaxy made up of a multitude of star systems, each with their own planets, moons and asteroids around them.

You can attempt to pursue your mission as quickly as you want, or take the time to explore the various locations, so this is a bit more of a “free-roaming” non-linear game, quite different to other games around here I think. I tried to give a few hints towards the start of the game to give some sense of direction, but ultimately its up to people what to do.

All comments welcome!

13 Likes
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I like the idea, but its not telling me what makes it unique, other than its free roaming,

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@Nukeboom123 I think the thing that make it rather different is based around this idea of free-roaming, which I believe is quite different to many other games. I wanted to create a world in which the player was free to pursue his mission or just explore around, which I believe almost no other game in CoG or hosted games lets the player do.

Also, it has a sort of combat system that I think is not really common in other games (though there are only 4 of them in the story so far, and I am yet to build the spaceship combat part). I think both of these features make the game sort of different to others, but maybe I have not played so many.

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alright! this is exciting to see. x)

And also I’m pretty sure free roaming and good writing is enough.

When you ask about gender: “Its slightly more complicated than that” should probably be “It’s more complicated than that.” Though a classic “It’s complicated.” Wouldn’t be bad. I hope the increased customization isn’t a burden on you (I like it!) but in future edits you should also consider more indirect fun ways of introducing this. Like, instead of asking me,

“did you spend most of your time on physical or intellectual pursuits?”

You could open up the story w/ me coming off a mission. Then I choose if I talk my way through/punch my way through/run away, etc. (Or however’s better for you.)

Too much of the beginning starts as a survey. I’d say more, but I’ve got work x(. It’s good to see you continuing this. I look forward to seeing more!

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There’s a part near the begin where you have <i>Nebulae Research Division of the Admiralty</i> but it should be [i]Nebulae Research Division of the Admiralty[/i]

Later, you have the sentence “He tells you that it was not the best of his days, though the only cargo
that was uploaded to your ship about an hour ago was some spare
components for the nuclear core of your ship.”

Uploaded is a computer term. It should be “onloaded” instead.

Next you have the sentence “Navigators use powerful drugs to keep them await during each “jump”
though the strain this places on their brains typically limits the
maximum distance that can be travelled during one jump.”

I’m guessing “await” should be “awake”.

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Honestly it’s not the game for me due to its free roaming nature. I much prefer a straight story with lots of detail and less complicated choices. It allows me to immerse myself in the character without having to worry about paying attention to all those little details.

However this is a great game for people who like to explore all the options. :slight_smile:

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If i succed on the electronic test on abadoned ship and click on check the stat before engaging Silica Hunter it instead triggers elecronict skill failure.
also if i click on show stats after it hits me it Rerols the rolls

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@pyla8 thanks so much for the suggestions, I have modified according to what you said and will try to think of a better way to improve the character creation, I also get the feeling its a bit long and can do with some improvements. The idea is to make all the choices in the character creation relevant, though I am still in the process of figuring it all out (the game was originally written for a different platform where such options were difficult, I am still to grasp the full potential of this language). But, please let me know more of your thoughts when you have some time!

@fantom thanks also for pointing those out, its clear that I have still quite a number of misspellings and typos, much appreciated!

@Beezlebub yes, sorry for that, I wanted to do something that allowed players to explore things, though I also don’t want the players to get too lost, did you feel that you got lost quite easily?

@CaesarCzech thanks for pointing this issue out. I have spent the last hour trying to figure it out, and it seems that this is something intrinsic to the programming language, and I did not realize that it would be doing this. Essentially every time you go to stats and back, the entire script in each page is replayed again… apparently this is an issue in some other games, though they often do not use as many random numbers as mine. I think I have found a way around it, and will test it during the next couple of hours. In the meantime I suppose that I should ask people not to check stats directly after a skill test or during combat

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@CaesarCzech I managed to solve the issue with the electronics test, but not with the fight…

In the meantime, could I ask everybody not to check stats during fight scenes, as it will make the game behave oddly (it will re-roll everytime you go back to the game…)

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@adrao

wouldnt the problem be, that there are two scripts in fight ? one for you and one for enemy ?

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Well when I really payed attention it’s ok but on my first few playthroughs of things I tend to just rush right through it to analyze all of the options and what is and isn’t possible to do when developing your character.

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@CaesarCzech indeed you are right, but even if there is only one script that would still result in the refreshing of that random number… I have opened a separate thread on this to try to see if somebody else can help me as so far what I was trying did not work…

@Beezlebub well part of the reason why I developed the game this way was to ensure re-playability (and with the game being substantially different each time), though I suppose its difficult to get a feel of all the options in a couple of tries as I am precisely aiming at the feeling of the player thinking he has a universe of choice…

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@CaesarCzech I think I solved it! let me know if you have any further issues with this (I mean there might be some instances where I failed to find the calls for random variables, but I did a control+F throughout all chapters and I think I got them all). And, thanks again for pointing out this problem!

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I got badly lost.
I kinda felt stupid as I was just randomly doing things hoping to eventually figure something out.

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@faewkless did you get the feeling that it was too difficult trying to figure what to do?

is this a generalized feeling?

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yes sadly it is alteast thats my opinion

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I did get that feeling (I ended up planet hopping randomly).

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@CaesarCzech
@faewkless this had been commented on before and I thought I had included some hints of what to do, do you think that there is a need for more hints by any of the characters? Or, do you have any other suggestions on how I could give a better sense of direction, while allowing the player to still travel around if they want?

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Maybe some sort of journal or check list containing leads side missions if we have any and objects of interest e.g we found this its related to this planet
Or Person on planet 1 told us to talk or go to place on planet 2.

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@faewkless Ok, thanks for the feedback, I now included an option when you arrive at each new star system to ask for advice to the ship’s first mate. Somehow this should provide hints as to what to do, does this help?

@CaesarCzech