Launch Day - Space's Aces!

Today's the big day! Development on Space's Aces stopped exactly one month ago. We all finished our job on the project, and all that was left to do was settle down after finally finishing up and prepare to release the game, which is finally out today. So hey, thanks for being  here. I'm Connor (@KookaNova) by the way, the programmer and game designer for this project. I'd like to tell you a little bit about our takeaways from this project.

What was our goal in creating this project? Well, we wanted an arena style fighter let-like experience where you can track and shoot down targets while also evading enemy attacks. We ended up taking that idea, and sticking it in space. One of my big reasons for wanting to make this game in particular is that there are a lot of spaceship games out there, but for some reason, many of them lock you on an axis. They define up, and keep you on a track. I wanted to create something where there is no set up, and you can travel in any direction to get to your target.
One of our main goals of this game what to make a good looking game with Unity's Universal Render Pipeline. Thanks to the shader graph, vfx graph, the post-processing and general lighting of Unity, we feel that we achieved something pretty stellar in visuals. Personally, I worked really hard to hand craft some really nice cockpits for the two ships I worked on, as well as creating a unique silhouette for each.
Most of all, through this project, we wanted to learn to entire development process from beginning to end. We wanted to create a playable game that can be easily available to anyone, anywhere, and we wanted it to be something that we could be proud to have made.

We accomplished everything we set out to accomplish; however, there were some areas that we wanted to expand, some bugs we wanted to squash, and some designs we wanted to polish that we were never able to get to due to some ownership issues with the school we developed. With that in mind, here are a few shortcomings:
- One level: we had 3 planned for development, but factors prevented us from getting to them. We each had jobs and school during the development of this, somethings had  to be cut.
- Multiplayer: we had online multiplayer during development, but it was cut due to ownership issues with the school. We didn't want to pay for concurrent users if we didn't technically own the property. For a multiplayer version, follow #AcePerinova by KookaNova on Twitter and YouTube.
- Gamemode: we developed the base system for adding game modes, but it was all done with multiplayer in mind.
- AI: AI is decent, but sometimes they run into walls. The game was made for multiplayer, so the AI was a late addition and lacks proper obstacle detection.
- Some polish missing: though we tried to make this game look as good as possible, we were unaware of some techniques at the beginning of development that would have lead to a better end product. We didn't at the time know about trim sheets and the proper use of tiling textures, for example. As well, we had no idea how far we could take polycounts. It wasn't until the last month of development that we talked to some really awesome people that we learned how far we could take some things. By then, it was too late to fix everything, but we did apply our new knowledge in some areas. Follow #AcePerinova by KookaNova on Twitter and YouTube for a realization of this game with that knowledge, and for a version of this game made with Unity's High Definition Render Pipeline.

With all that in mind, we feel we created something pretty cool in a limited time. We actually won an award for this project. Ben Shurts and Tyler Hales are some of the nicest people I've ever met, and they had no problem taking this idea I came of with and helping me produce into what it is. Our cohort at Utah Valley University is made up of some of the most creative and driven people I feel like I will ever know, and we all helped each other push forward and create the best projects that have ever come out of our program.

Thank you so much for reading and playing!
Fly on, aces.
- Connor Cox @KookaNova