This is what SE:SS is not, and will never be:
- 3D: Yeah, it's set in space, which is three-dimensional. Yes, it uses a 3D engine for display. But the game is about flying between stars and making decisions - none of that would be improved by adding 3D graphics.
- Multiplayer: The game is about your ship exploring the Serpens Sector. What would multiple explorers add? You would be neither competing nor cooperating very much. Most importantly, making a game multiplayer pretty much triples its development time. Not worth it.
- A game about combat: There's combat in the game, both between ships and on the ground, but it's intentionally not fleshed out, because I do not want it to take over the game. There are lots of games about space combat, from the visceral to the tactical, like the excellent FTL.
It will also never:
- Require fast reflexes: You get as much time as you want to make decisions.
- Let you switch ships, or have a fleet of ships: The overhead of managing multiple ships with different shapes and capabilities isn't worth it.
- Have a central plot that you can "win": There are lots of plots, and you can make big differences, but there isn't a point at which the game says "OK, you've won SE:SS now". It's not that kind of game.
- Be about ponies. Sorry. Maybe next game. Nothing wrong with games about ponies, but it would constitute something of a major shift in theme.
Next time (hopefully soon) I'm going to write a bit about what SE:SS is, and what kind of things you can do...
