Drovoid is now available in alpha! And there is a free demo!!
Don't forget to watch the tutorials.
The free demo lets you create ships up to level 3, which is were basic automation is available. It is a sandbox demo: right from the start you will have enough resources to build complex ships. I did not include any music, to keep the download small, and please keep in mind the sound effects are neither final nor complete -- this will be improved in future releases! Testing the demo is highly recommended before buying the alpha, to verify that the game runs smoothly on your setup.
A well defended mining outpost. All miners use a Driver module to automatically track a selected asteroid.
The alpha includes the game, the server for multiplayer, musics and content up to level 5 with advanced automation. You can play either in sandbox or in survival mode (default mode). Needless to say, if you get the alpha you'll have access to all future updates of the game (the game has an auto-update system). To learn more about what's next, visit the Drovoid website.
The main goal of the game in survival mode is to progress up to level 5. To gain a level, build a ship with a gate module (SpawnX where X is the next level number). As you advance in the game, increasingly powerful enemies will attack. So be ready! There are many tactics: study your enemy carefully to find their weaknesses. Some weapons are better on armor, some are better on shields, so plan accordingly. If you get killed don't be afraid to start afresh, once you have built a set of ships progression through the game is faster.
I spent the last two months chasing bugs and improving the game experience. The way the universe is generated has been revised, there is now a checkpoint save system so that you can restart from the last gained level in case you are defeated. I made countless little improvements to the minimap, the navigation system, game balance, the scripting engine and the AIs. There are still a few issues, but if anything happens simply restart and load the last saved game: the game autosaves constantly and it is rare to loose any progression.
The minimap, each dot is a ship.The current view is the white rectangle. Attacked ships blink in red.
It is a great pleasure to release the game! I hope you will enjoy it. This is in alpha but is largely playable. The balance needs fine tuning and more content will be added, of course.
I am looking forward to discover the ships that you will create! If you have a great design, please share it on the Drovoid forum. Feedback, ideas, encouragements, and suggestions are all welcome!
Let me end this post on a tip: the Driver module (level 3) can replace a RemoteControl: select the ship (left click), then right click on a target and the Driver will orient all thrusters and weapons towards this target.
Quite useful! Later in the game other modules can automatically set the target of a Driver.
Error is maybe on my side, but my antivirus (Avast) is reporting demo installer as virus positive. Anyone have same problem ?
Hi - (I am the author) I am running eset nod32 and it does not produce any positive hit. (And of course, I did not include a virus!). I'll try Avast asap.
Thanks and sorry for inconvinience.
Np, thanks for pointing it out!
I added the file on IndieDB (initially I wanted to avoid having the files in two places, but this is better to avoid this problem).
Hope you'll enjoy the game!
Ok, just tried Avast and I also get a warning. I found some info here: Basicsimple.info
What happens is that because this is a new file on a new domain it has no reputation associated with it, so Avast considers it as potentially dangerous (!).
Also, on Windows 8 a similar system pops up a warning. I'll upload to IndieDB as well, hopefully this will remove the issue.
Any chance on supporting Mac OSX?
Hi - unfortunately not for now, main reason being that I develop the game alone so development resources are limited. Also, I am unsure whether this would be easily possible: the core engine should be fine but the rest uses C#. That being said, I'd love to have an OSX and Linux port in the long run.
Hope you'll be able to try the game!