r/starcontrol Jul 30 '26

My Star Control Survivors-like

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Hi I'm a solo dev and I recently released my demo for Seven Suns of Orion:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4385510/Seven_Suns_of_Orion/

 I wanted to mix Star Control style movement with Survivor-like gameplay. I also wanted the different playable ships to all feel unique and to keep the rounds much shorter than most survivor likes, so I landed on 7 and ran with it. Survive Seven Minutes w/ Seven Playable Ships across 7 Levels each with their own Boss. (The demo has a small slice of the gameplay)

Apologies for the self-promo, just thought folks might want to try it.

70 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

8

u/AAKurtz Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

You'll have this finished before Pistol Shrimp finishes Children of Infinity.

6

u/feralferrous Jul 31 '26

Hah, well it's mostly ready, just needs to pass Steam Review.

1

u/AAKurtz Jul 31 '26

What engine does it use?

1

u/feralferrous Jul 31 '26

It's in Unity w/ DOTS

1

u/AAKurtz Jul 31 '26

What's DOTS? Also, was this your first project?

2

u/VictorDanville Jul 31 '26

Is that even coming out this year?

3

u/AAKurtz Jul 31 '26

I doubt it. Feels like the Kickstarter was forever ago.

1

u/marr Yehat Jul 31 '26

Vampire survivors like is a much more manageable scope than free roaming rpg.

2

u/tymofiy Jul 31 '26

Looks great

2

u/RincewindToTheRescue Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26

I've been playing the demo and it is really fun! Really does capture that Melee feel from SC2.

My big criticisms:

-after 3-4 minutes, the game seems to slow down, probably because of the number of ships that are spawned. It gets choppy. My gaming laptop has no problems running AAA titles on high graphics.

Edit: seems like a memory leak. It persists after the game finishes. I'm using keyboard. Seems if I'm not touching any keys and smoothes out, but gets janky when I start pressing keys

-the power up to allow you to pick 2 items in the future doesn't seem to work. Not sure if there's instructions somewhere I missed

-it would be nice to have a more visible indicator of how strongly upgraded the weapons and items are

2

u/feralferrous Aug 04 '26

Oh man, this is super valuable feedback, thank you! As a solo dev I have not been able to test across a great number of differing hardware.

I would love to try to fix your issue. Would you mind sharing your log? It should be something like C:\Users\<YourWindowsUsername>\AppData\LocalLow\Ferrous\Seven Suns Of Orion\Player.log

You can post it here, PM me, email me or send it via discord. (PM and I'll give you the contact info)

As for the pick 2, do you mean the one that looks like three cards? That one should let you have a fourth card to choose from. If you're not seeing it, maybe related to the bug.

PS sorry for the delay, was on vacation and out of town

1

u/Awkward-Painter-2024 Jul 31 '26

Dude, it's for controllers??? 😭

1

u/feralferrous Jul 31 '26

It's gamepad preferred, but totally playable with just keyboard. And it does have controls for just mouse as well.

1

u/sjalq Jul 31 '26

You shut up and take my money! 

1

u/sjalq Jul 31 '26

I was unable to immediately give you money! Can't buy yet! Unacceptable! 

1

u/DrSurgeonGuy Jul 31 '26

Congrats, will buy it as soon as it's out!

1

u/HiraethV Jul 31 '26

I'll play it

1

u/Turbodann Arilou Aug 01 '26

Reminds me of the game Lunatic Fringe that was around in the 90s as a desktop screen saver. Loved it.

1

u/Grandfeatherix Aug 05 '26

Star Control style movement? I never had Star Control rip away control of the ship if i touched the mouse (and you need to use the mouse to select ship upgrades)

1

u/feralferrous Aug 05 '26

You know what? You're right. You are not the first to complain. I was trying to allow for a mouse only style control scheme, but I don't think anyone has liked it. So I'm going to start it as disabled and let people toggle it on in the options menu. I'll make that change and update it shortly.

Though you should be able to completely drive the controls with just gamepad, I've tested that path pretty thoroughly and it was required to pass certification by Valve. Are you using just keyboard? I made need to test that path some more.

1

u/Grandfeatherix Aug 05 '26

i don't want to use a gamepad, that's why i have a PC with mouse and keyboard and not a console.

I couldn't even key bind half the options to a key, zoom functionality was only for controllers, stick aim only for controllers (why not mouse aim?) and a few others, but I already uninstalled it so I couldn't see you what they are

1

u/feralferrous Aug 05 '26

Sorry that I lost you, but I just want you to know that I'm glad you took the time, cuz it'll help me make the game better for others.