Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-playing Game Update – Demo Update and Status Report

Last month, Iron Tower Studio released a playable combat demo for their upcoming sci-fi Colony Ship RPG. And now that a lot of people had a chance to experience the demo, we get a fairly optimistic status report that predicts an early access release later this year. The update also shares some fresh screenshots and tells us what the ITS team is working on at the moment. Here are the text parts:

The combat demo:

Overall, it went spectacularly well (for a change). Of course, the beta test was encouraging but there’s a huge difference between handpicked battle-hardened veterans and the general public. It could have easily gone sideways but didn’t, which is encouraging.

To-date the demo’s been downloaded 3,754 times (no idea whether it’s good or bad, but surely it’s better than nothing), the average time played is 3 hours 2 min. We gained 4,359 wishlists in the last 30 days (and lost 227 – I assume they were disappointed with the demo), so our total is 23,261.

We spent the last 3 weeks processing the feedback and improving the overall design (added Recoil Control (a derived stat), close combat engagement (can’t do reaction shots at other combatants, cover bonus is halved), displayed initiative in combat as well as bonus APs granted by feats, full party weapons reload, etc). We’ve also added feat icons, more hairstyles and facial customization options (tattoos and scars), as well as the interface improvements.

The demo is now updated, so you can take it for a spin and see the current changes. We’ll continue improving the character & combat systems, and interface (and thus the demo), so stay tuned. In other news:

Quests:

We’ve started implementing quests and we expect all the Pit’s quests to be done in 2 months. Let’s say 3 months to be safe, which will give us plenty of time to finish the Armory (half-done) and the Hydroponics (only the first area of the Hydroponics will be available in Chapter 1, the other two areas will require heavy gear and skills) to launch the game on Early Access by the end of the year.

Here’s the very first (optional) quest you recieve. If you talk to Tanner in the demo, you know that he wants you to go to the Armory but it’s a dangerous trip and you might need a buddy, either to become a life-long traveling companion or to shield you from bullets and die a noble death so that you can live and prosper.

The first companion is Evans the Rifleman and he will gladly help you if you help him first.

Animations – much improved; we’re slowly working through the combat animations, then will start on non-combat animations, different poses for bar patrons and such, and creature animations.

Various models – working on more energy weapons, including shotguns (more like that concussion rifle in Dark Forces) and SMGs.

Creatures – four out of six creatures are done, so we’re right on schedule there.

Stealth – next on the list. Sneaking and generating noise are the easy part. The tricky part that determines if the system works or not is what happens when you make enough noise to attract the guards’ attention. It works on paper and screen mockups, hopefully it will work well in-game.