Greetings, Explorers!
Today we’re taking a closer look at the current focus for Echoes of Empire, and what that means for the game. In September, Gala Games was able to take a hands-on look at the game in action, and to provide the team with fantastic feedback on the player experience and how it felt to interact with the game. Based on that invaluable feedback, the consensus was that some changes needed to be made to the core movement mechanics.
Another product of the internal testing and feedback cycle was the determination that developing in a modular fashion would best move the game forward, and help us continue to prepare for future testing cycles. The first of these modules focuses on movement in the game, and the user experience in relation to moving throughout the sectors. Early in development , movement was fairly basic and you moved between targets and homebase but not much else, but as the game has grown more complex, and further features are being added, that method no longer fits our vision of allowing a player to truly strategize and to explore the cosmos freely. Included in the movement module will be features such as map zoom and rotation, celestial objects and UI/UX.
As you can see in the screenshot above, there have been significant changes, and the current method allows for direct interaction, and to experience POI’s, and a deeper exploration of the game environment. Rather than a simple scenario where you were just moved to the end destination, you can instead view celestial objects, anomalies, and other kinds of points of interest around you as you travel. You can actively decide to continue on toward the original destination that caught your eye, or divert to complete quests or investigate something you encountered incidentally. You could always send out probes to uncover information about a celestial body or an enemy base but now there is a range of actions you can do as you free roam throughout space.
The change to this type of movement in game has opened the door for much more depth and interactivity, and really allows us to give the player agency over their actions in game. It provides the opportunity to add further content, especially with quests, POI’s and other types of random encounters that would not have been possible before. We are incredibly excited to see players experience the game hands-on, and to listen to the community’s feedback as we work to make Echoes of Empire an engaging and enjoyable experience.
