ionAXXIA leaving Early Access December 3rd. New trailer.
I'm describing it as a Big Brained Shooter as thinking is a significant part of winning. Meeting some resistance from players expecting a typical gung-ho bullet-chucker. Only parallel I can think of is 'Dark Souls' combat versus button masher ARPGs. Would REALLY appreciate testers to balance the new game experience and help me guide users into a different play style. Can provide steamkeys if you hit me up.
Megaspam clone of my Steam update!...
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What started as a shell of an arena shooter has now evolved into a rich, “Big Brained” tactical space shooter. A lot of (unexpected!) time went into iterating the core engine to enable the kinds of features that make ionAXXIA different to other shooters, plus bug-removal has been a priority in a triumphant stand against the horrific modern trend of releasing broken games. Here’s a summary of what the game contains at launch…
Tactical space combat
Combat equipment has a bunch of new toys like surface-mounted auto-turrets, and energy sapper mines that gain extra punch when attached to objects.
Challenge based game loop
Complete challenges to unlock new items. Develop a sense of achievement and progression as you become a better, smarter space-pilot.
Refined procedural scenarios
Levels now offer more variety of encounters, providing options to complete challenges by choosing which mission for which level.
Alien remnants
An addition I’m pretty excited by, some aliens will leave a persistent feature when they die. The Globbluck Mk1 leaves an acid cloud-comet that inflicts serious damage, while the Cybosh CN4’s engine detonation leaves a wake in space-time, a ‘teleport’ wormhole. Levels with many of these vessels create an increasingly complex arena. The addition of more aliens to ionAXXIA will mean more arena transformation possibilities.
Multiple rock types
Hazards (for you or your enemy!) include exploding rocks, fire-trail rocks, magnetic rocks, and the scary, black, ultra-dense rocks that inflict massive collision damage. If you’re fortunate, you may come across a health-rock or a tactically advantageous energy-rock.
Thirteen pesky aliens
At launch, 12 different enemies with diverse abilities – health rippers, snares, “launch fighters”, teleportation, point-defence cannons – oppose you, creating a rock-paper-scissors type match-up, while our precious argon is stored in powerful starbases seemingly designed to withstand any assault...
Ensmartened alien AI
Aliens have very different combat attitudes. Some rush in. Others keep their distance. Others will hit the gas and just keep going, attacking in fly-by encounters. Adds another consideration to your ship designs.
Eighty-one ship components
For millions of different customised ships. 17 different designs each with their own size and weapon mounts; weapons have added variety depending on the ship they are attached to.
12 different hull materials to keep the inside of the ship inside. 12 engine types, with different qualities of speed, acceleration, and manoeuvrability. 12 generators to power the weapons. 16 primary weapons, from beam weapons to missiles to guns to turrets, to plasma-clouds, to offensive satellites and big-arse bombs. And 12 secondary functions, from boosters and bubble-shields to tractor beams and grapplers.
Limitless upgrades
Collect precious resources to upgrade your gear, with no level caps! Just keep making that laser beam longer, that knockback bigger, and that fire-rate faster.
Strategy game
My favourite feature of the original Star Control, the strategy game adds more pressure and more options for smart thinking. Often you'll have to use a less-than-ideal ship match-up to stop enemy movements, requiring clever combat. This strategy mode received a lot of work to provide interesting encounters with procedural algorithms being developed to generate different scenarios. One level might see you equipped with an armada to take down a new alien outpost. Another might see two sides struggling in a barren system, fighting over scarce resources. And then another, a desperate bid to hold back an attacking fleet to give you time to build up a counter-attack.
Cloud Saves paused
Disabled for launch as I focus on the PC version. The other ports will come afterwards and cloud saves re-enabled.
Please note your progress will be reset!
You will be restarted to experience the game proper as a new user, and of course all feedback of the early game, particularly balance and economy, is vital to get it ‘just right’.
A huge thanks to everyone who shared opinions and feedback. I hope ionAXXIA lives up to your expectations! And still let me know if something is off. Early game balance, when new players are having to learn to think and play differently to their preconceptions, is vital to get right and I can’t do that without people telling me what I’m getting wrong. Because after hundreds and hundreds of hours (really, thousands of hours) of play testing myself, I’m kinda removed from the new-player experience!
Enjoy!
