i've kept working on it and it's now nearly a game i can give out of my hands for playtesting :)

i'm not sure yet about the source, but i'll have a demo for playtesting by october.

i'l. probably switch a lot of the graphics (mainly the buildings and the GUI) for a release but the LPC art got me really far!

i want to make it open source but i also want it to be:

  1) instantly compelling to play (if you know the genre)
  2) easy enought to contribute to

1) is 90% there and 2) i haven't started yet.

for 2) i'll have to cleanup the setup and how contributors can add/change art or tune the economy. it's fairly easy to add buildings and how those and the units interact (JSON files). i'll have to write up some documentation about how this works (even if it's just a list of pointers to config files) and then set aside time to "deal with" potential contributers.

right now, my todo list for 1) is down to 3 pages. if everyone loves the free demo :) which i have promised myself to release in october, i'll start dealing with 2).

i get that people are less interested in contributing when there contributions go into someones private repository. that's why i'm not asking for contributions... yet. and btw: thanks for the interest :)

It's a release! Alpha 1 out for windows & linux http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/

downloads are here: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/download.html

It's a functional base-building game with early and mid-game. The current (unstated) goal of the sandbox map is to build multiple functioning colonies.

I'm currently looking for more artwork in LPC style (but scifi-ish, obviously):

• monster sprites
•   a bigger, more sci-fi flying monster; current one is tiny and looks like a bat
•   sand worm monster. Mostly underground with digging trail, appear & fight animations
• distinctive, self-explanatory, prettier buildings. That's certainly possible with what's already there in LPC.
•   optional: animation when the building is producing/working
• alien relict buildings (i think that can be done with LPC)
• new "science bot" which walks around alien relicts and scans them
• new "carrierbot" (current one is just a white default unit model)
•    optional: visualize the carried resource
• maybe completely redo the GUI or at least replace parts
•    fugly parts of current GUI to be replaced: option screen, build menu, building info tab

The units are 32x32; the buildings are built with tiled (see "buildings.tmx". I just export that as png and cut out the buildings.)

The late-game goal is to build science stations to investigate all relicts on the surface. Once all relicts are fully understood, the real nature of player's colonies will be revealed and the final protocol starts.

Thanks for reading

I did a new release 1.1-alpha: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/download.html

it has the fix for the linux users (libudev.so.0) and there's now less clutter after you unzip the file (nicer packaging).

It should be farily easy to make a macos package but i dont' have testers for that https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/How-to-package-and-distrib...

i fixed some low hanging fruits and released it as alpha 1.2.

you can grab the new version here: http://aussenposten.gamejs.org/download.html

changes
  * add shadows to buildings and units (sipmle effect but looks a ton nicer imo)
  * more storage space (stacks are now 8 high)
  * play sounds only for visible events (less sound cacophony)
  * fix teleport worker picking up from teleport and immediatly dropping at the very same teleport
  * refactor asset preload (dropping a few unneeded while i was at it)
  * cleanup fetch/store worker AI