I posted Build 20190130 of Disputed Space. This build improves the main menu by fixing a bug where multiple items would get highlighted simultaneously by the mouse.

First, I want to thank everybody who supported Disputed Space and provided excellent feedback to help me improve Disputed Space. Thank you everybody!

I have been busy working on a new space game, called Allspace, which is available for free on Steam. Allspace is a 100 player networked multiplayer game.

Allspace is built on top of the tech I developed for Disputed Space, so it scales well and runs smooth. The gameplay is different, though. While Disputed Space was designed to feel like Descent, Allspace is designed to feel more like Freespace. And while Disputed Space was single player with optional 4 player local co-op mode, Allspace is purely online multiplayer. Allspace supports 100 players per game server instance. I developed a very light weight and highly performant networking solution from scratch specifically for Allspace to support 100 players and thousands of lasers.

Here is a YouTube video of Allspace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g32NtGQupM

Steam page for Allspace:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000860/Allspace/

Allspace is a solo deathmatch experience with 100 players dogfighting.

My main goal right now is to get feedback from people playing Allspace, and then use that feedback to improve Allspace.

I hope you enjoy Allspace, and I look forward to seeing everybody in game.

Thanks,
Shiloh

The DX12 support in Build 20180619 of Disputed Space was causing some strange new bugs for users when launching from Steam, so I temporarily removed DX12 support. This appears to have fixed the new bugs introduced in Build 20180619.

I posted Build 20180619 of Disputed Space. This build includes the following improvements:
1) Improved joystick support for certain Microsoft Sidewinder joysticks.
2) Added DirectX12 support.
3) Added some minor performance improvements and other bug fixes.

I posted Build 20180329 of Disputed Space. This build includes the following improvements:
1) Improved the way all of the player sounds (like lasers and other weapons) are handled. Previously, the player sounds would sometimes interrupt themselves, especially at high rates of fire. Now the player sounds are pooled to avoid that previous issue. Overall, player weapons sound a lot better now.
2) Added more dust particles to make it easier for players to see that they are moving.

I posted Build 20180204 of Disputed Space. This build increases the performance of the game, especially on older PC hardware. This should address the issue some users had reported on Level 6. Enjoy.

I posted Build 20171222 of Disputed Space. This build increases the number of simultaneous joysticks supported. Previously, each player could have up to 12 joysticks. Now that limit is 100 joysticks per player. Enjoy.

I posted Build 20171213 of Disputed Space. This build includes an all new Control Customization screen, which can be access from both the Main Menu and the Pause Menu. Players can now customize keyboard, mouse, game controller, and joystick configurations. Players can also manually manage device assignments on a per player basis (such as selecting which local player gets each joystick).

I removed the previous options for "Assign Joysticks" and "Control Scheme", because those are all controlled now in the Control Customization screen. Similarly, the mouse sensitivity setting has been moved into the Control Customization screen.

In addition to that, I also tweaked the power-ups to make them easier for players to pick up and made a few minor performance tweaks.

After nearly four years in development, Disputed Space is now officially moving from Early Access to Full Release on Steam! Disputed Space is a fast-paced arcade action game that plays like Descent or Overload, but in outer space instead of inside a mine. Players pilot a small fighter ship that can fly in any direction (including backwards) while blasting enemy ships with lasers and missiles.

I began working on Disputed Space back in January 2014. One of my absolute favorite games of all time was Decent (1995). In Decent, players could fly in any direction while aiming in any direction while strafing to avoid incoming lasers. With Disputed Space, I wanted to bring those arcade action style gameplay mechanics into outer space. The earliest prototypes began with being able to spherically strafe around a few asteroids. I continued adding features during 2014, such as more ships, some of the first layers of AI, and lots of lasers.

Then in October 2015, I submitted Disputed Space to Steam Greenlight. Disputed Space received useful feedback during the Greenlight process. Most importantly, a lot of players wisely suggested that Disputed Space needed to also include mouse/keyboard support. This was important, because I had originally designed Disputed Space around game controllers.

Throughout 2016, I implemented many of the procedural systems (like the runtime space scene generator) and worked extensively on performance improvements. For example, I spent 6 months perfecting the performance of the projectile systems in the game so I could scale the number of simultaneous lasers in each scene. I wanted to be able to deliver over 100 FPS on a modern gaming PC with literally thousands of lasers flying around. To achieve this, I rewrote my projectile systems repeatedly while investigating each new idea I had for tweaking more performance out those systems. I developed instancing pools, which are similar to object pools but use GPU instancing methods instead of using game objects for each projectile. The instancing pools in Disputed Space deliver about six times as much performance compared to a typical object pool.

In June 2017, I released Disputed Space on Steam Early Access. My main goal for Early Access was to get feedback that I could use to improve Disputed Space. I had some local play testers that I relied on for feedback, but they had become too used to my game after seeing it so many times during development. I really needed some fresh gamers to play Disputed Space and offer their best ideas for how I should improve the game.

I want to thank everybody for their feedback. Thank you for both the positive and negative feedback. I read every forum post, read every email, and watched every video in order to absorb all of the amazing feedback that all of you have shared regarding Disputed Space. I have tried to incorporate as many of those idea as I could as quickly as possible during Early Access.

I posted 59 different builds of Disputed Space to Steam between June 12, 2017 and December 7, 2017 in response to all of the valuable feedback I received. In some cases, I posted a new feature and then iterated the feature until it was right. For example, the Afterburner feature went through several iterations based on community feedback.

During Early Access, many features were added or improved, including:
• Added cockpit
• Improved HUD
• Added some inertia to ship movements
• Added additional control scheme (supports both Action and Flight Simulator)
• Improved target reticle (red or green dot in center)
• Added targeting system with lead indicator
• Added procedural mission objective system
• Added powerup system
• Improved damage feedback
• Added massive explosions
• Added damage visualizations
• Added Arcade Hard mode
• Improved Menus
• Added afterburner
• Implemented various AI tweaks
• Added more ships
• Added controls tutorial system
• Added player ejection/explosion/launch system
• Added scoring system
• Improved homing missiles
• Added framerate limiter
• Fixed many bugs

The current build of Disputed Space is much more enjoyable to play than the build I originally posted to Early Access back in June, and that is the direct result of all of the fantastic feedback. Thank you again for that feedback.

In addition to feedback about the game itself, I received feedback regarding the pricing. My original plan was going to be selling Disputed Space for US$4.99 during Early Access and then US$9.99 after the Full Release. After absorbing the feedback and analyzing player trends, I decided that the Full Release of Disputed Space will only be US$4.99.

My vision for Disputed Space was a game that played similar to the old Decent games, but in outer space instead of inside a mine. Disputed Space is designed to let players quickly drop into a massive space battle and strafe around quickly dodging lasers while blasting ships. It is not designed as a realistic space simulator. Some players love it, while other players wish I would have chosen different gameplay mechanics.

Primarily, some space sim fans have stated that they wish I would gut all of the arcade action gameplay mechanics and then replace those with typical flight simulator mechanics. For example, some players don’t like strafing to avoid incoming lasers. They would prefer a game with heavy ships that turn slowly and get hit instantly by extremely fast weapons. That would be a significantly different game from Disputed Space.

In the future, I may re-use the framework I developed for Disputed Space to build a game like that, but I am not going to convert Disputed Space into that style of a game. All of my design decisions for Disputed Space were based on my goal of building an epic space battle that plays like the old Decent games that I enjoyed playing.

Similarly, there have been requests to convert Disputed Space into a RTS or 4X game. Again, that is not the direction I was looking to go with this game. I have enjoyed playing those other genres, but Disputed Space is a FPS arcade action game, not a strategy game.

I am planning to continue releasing updates to Disputed Space, but not at the pace I was releasing updates during Early Access. These additional updates will include bug fixes and possibly some additional features.
In addition to some more updates to Disputed Space, I am really excited to build some new games. I have written notes about a bunch of different game ideas throughout the past few years, and I am planning to prototype some of those ideas and see what plays the best. I built an extensive framework for Disputed Space, and I will be able to re-use some of it when building new space games.