Space Exploration: Serpens Sector

Before Airships: Conquer the Skies, I spent several years working on another project, Space Exploration: Serpens Sector. This was a game about exploration and crew management heavily inspired by the first Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. I put a lot of work into it, but the result wasn't really satisfying because I had neglected to create a good core game design. So I built up a complex UI and complex encounters too early, and each change became a lot of work. Eventually, I rebooted the development and started on a new, simpler prototype that concentrated on the core mechanics.

Then Airships came along, a "side project" that pretty much instantly got more traction and interest than SE:SS. Within a few months, it became my main project. I was tired of going around and around with SE:SS and wanted something else. SE:SS was never exactly cancelled, just put way on the back-burner. This was four years ago.

The other day I re-downloaded the source of the first SE:SS version and got it up and running, and I found myself pleasantly surprised. Yes, the core mechanics are probably ultimately not satisfying. Yes, it's overcomplicated in places. But it runs, it's perfectly pleasant to use, and there's quite a bit of nice content. The pre-rendered graphics look kind of dated, but in a way that can plausibly pass as charming rather than hideous.

So why not release it as is?

If you've been following me for a long time, you know that before Airships, I was working on another project called Space Exploration: Serpens Sector. It was a space RPG that started out as a clone of the original Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, and ended up being something like Sunless Sea in space with less florid writing and a bigger focus on crew management.

As mentioned before, I do not have a release date or a regular update schedule, hence the recent silence. And on the topic of refusal, here is a list that the game is not, and will never be. In any kind of project, you should not only list the goals, but also list the things you specifically don't want to achieve. This lets you define the shape of your project, and to avoid mission creep.