Month: April 2021

DevSlog

Modability

Produno

My background in gamedev comes from modding games, which i’ve been doing for the past decade. With over half a million unique downloads the most popular modification being A World of Ice and Fire for Mount and Blade Warband. I could only dream for SpaceSlog to reach a similar amount of popularity. I do of course realise there are many factors as to why the mod was and still is so popular. Having been set within the Game of Thrones world being one of them and being created for an already well established game another.

But i didn’t write this post to talk about mods in other games. I wrote this post to talk specifically about mod support in SpaceSlog.

JSON

I decided to use JSON to hold all external data which is then imported into internal data structures on initial game load. All of the games data is contained in a folder aptly named DATA and can be accessed and changed by anyone brave enough to do so. You can also copy any data here and paste it into your own MODULES folder. Once this mod has been ticked in the ingame mod menu, you will be prompted to restart the game where all these files will be added to that internal data structure we previously mentioned.

Below you can see the current ingame module menu. I still need to add a few things here – an image preview the modder can add plus the ability to adjust mod load order. This will allow the player to decide which mods should or can overwrite other mods if they contain objects with the same ID’s.

Modification select menu

I wont go into the specifics on how modding actually works in this post. That will be for another time but here is a quick example of an item in SpaceSlog and how it looks like in the JSON file. It’s also worth noting that everything here can still change dramatically, though i think i have the basic architecture down for this now.

    "CryoPod": {
        "object_class": "Furniture",
        "object_name": "Cryo Pod",
        "description": "Freezes creatures in time, allowing them to rest for as long as this item has power.",
        "movement_cost": 0,
        "deterioration_rate": 10,
        "flammability": 40,
        "market_value": 200,
        "comfort": 1,
        "material_types": {
        	"primary_mats": ["Titanium", "Gold"],
        	"primary_mats_amount": 3,
        	"secondary_mats": ["Silicon"],
        	"secondary_mats_amount": 2,
        },
        "engineering_skill_required": 3,
        "work_to_build": 1,
        "work_to_uninstall": 1,
        "rotatable": true,
        "draw_width": 1,
        "draw_height": 2,
        "width": 1,
        "height": 2,
        "health": {
            "max_health": 100,
        },
        "graphics": {
            "graphics_class": "GraphicsMultiple",
            "shader_type": "ColourMask",
            "textures": {
                "texture_path": "Textures/Entities/Building/Furniture/CryoPod",
            },
        },
        "component_nodes": {
        	"PowerReceiver": {
        		"power_required": 50,
        	},
        	"Light": {
            	        "light_map_path": null,
        	},
        },
    },

You can see above there are lots of options for the modder to change, including being able to add any pre-built components to any object in the game. I hope to eventually allow the possibility to create new components too. This could mean endless possibilities for mod creation.

Conclusion

Mod support is something i am very passionate about and i have spent a lot of extra time to ensure good mod compatibility for SpaceSlog. I cannot wait to get the game out there and see what weird and wonderful things people can come up with. I expect to see strange new worlds and unthinkable alien races among other things! If you want to discuss further or have ideas for mod support, then please either head on over to our Forums or join our Discord.

Information

Welcome to SpaceSlog

Produno

SpaceSlog is a sci-fi spaceship colony building sim with an emphasis on ship building, crew interaction, story development and exploration. Inspired by titles such as Rimworld, Starship Theory and X-COM.

It is also a passion project I have been working on for a couple of years now, from design phase to where we are now, and also the first game being developed by Produno Games Studios. Below you can read a little as to why I have decided to create SpaceSlog. Please note everything on this page is a work in progress, this game is still in early development.

Two spaceships in space


I have always enjoyed games such as the original X-COM. I remember playing that game for hours in my bedroom on the PS1 (much to my parents annoyance) but always wishing there was more, or different things I could achieve within the game, though honestly I feel like this with most games I play. As computers have became more powerful the type of game I have always wanted to play has become much more viable and slowly those games have started to surface. One of which being Rimworld created by Tynan Sylvester. I backed Rimworld as soon as it went to Kickstarter and I was very excited to see what it would become. Whilst that game is excellent and Tynan has done an awesome job creating it, there was still something missing. At least for me it was still not that perfect game I wanted, although it came pretty close! I then discovered Starship Theory. I waited a while before trying it out then decided to jump in and give it a go. Whilst the ideas were brilliant, I did not think the execution was great and again I was left wanting more.

Merging Rimworld and Starship Theory whilst including a few small changes, could get us pretty close to the kind of game I have wanted to play. There are several other games that come close, such as Star Command, Space Haven, FTL plus many more I have tried in the past but none of them seem to capture that game I have been waiting for. So in comes SpaceSlog, the game I have waited so long for someone else to create. The true love child of Rimworld, Starship Theory, X-COM and all those other great games I have loved in the past. Other inspirations have come from TV shows such as Firefly, Stargate Universe, The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica.

As always this has now turned into a game I really want to create, rather than just play. I want to explore how different characters will interact and react towards each other when stuck in a tin can for months on end, possibly on the brink of survival. How this will effect the mental stability of your crew and the ideas of seeing different alien life for the first time. These crew members should be few and each loss should be felt by the player.

Crew Selection Menu
An early example of the crew selection menu

Spacewalks should be scary as should interactions with other ships, whom could be hostile, harbour human eating pirates or different kinds of alien life. Different characters will have different personalities or traits depending on their background, maybe you come across a low gravity planet you want to explore, should you send those that have grown up in high gravity or low gravity atmospheres? Should you send an irate trigger happy crew member on a diplomatic mission to another alien race or keep them cooped up on the ship with the risk of them losing themselves? These are the kind of questions I want the player to have to ask themselves.

My background in gamedev has come from modding games, which I have been doing for over the last decade. With this in mind I have created SpaceSlog from the ground up with mod support at the forefront. Everything will be moddable from adding new items or alien races, to adding all sorts of different components to any of those items.

If this sounds like a game you would love to play then feel free to join our Discord or our Forums where you can show your support or help discuss game ideas and give suggestions.