Happy Holidays from We Make Small Games!

Making Games Is An Art

Feeling The Beat

Gameplay, Release Date and Feature Updates

The year is winding down and while the crisp December air might be chilly - we’ve been working hard to keep warm by focusing on several key aspects of That Tiny Spaceship. Since our last update in September we’ve finalized planning on what gameplay elements will comprise the 5 levels for the final game, tweaked the physics model used for ship movement to make the flow of gameplay faster, completed a draft version of Original Soundtrack and have a number of other things planned that hopefully will surprise players when we launch in 2019.I've poked both Luca Bicano (Art Lead) and DJ NekoArc (Music) to talk to them about what inspired their contributions to That Tiny Spaceship and what working on the game has been like.“[the OST] was done up over the course of a few weeks, taking inspiration from my work with synthwave, drum & bass, and trance and my enjoyment of 80s-00s music I wanted to give a more modern retro feel to the soundtrack”. - DJ NekoArcRight now, the draft version of That Tiny Spaceship’s soundtrack includes 8 energetic synthwave tracks - each of which brings their own distinct sound and emotion while complimenting the vibrant and clean look that we’re going for with That Tiny Spaceship’s aesthetic.If you want to sample part of what awaits in the final game, part of Neko’s OST was used in the fall ‘retrofitted’ trailer:Which you can check out here.Gameplay in That Tiny Spaceship has been designed to feel tense but not overwhelming. Dangerous but not requiring the skill that some well-known bullet hell games can demand. I wanted to design a short, arcade-like space shooter that evokes the feeling of older coin-op arcade titles like Midway’s Defender without emulating the games of the 1980s directly. That Tiny Spaceship should draw upon the fundamentals that helped establish the shmup genre while having its own unique feel to movement thanks to the physics-based movement system that we've chosen.Each of the 4 main stages in That Tiny Spaceship’s Arcade Mode will introduce you to a mechanic unique to that level. You can see an example of this in the ‘Retrofitted’ trailer with the warning labels at the edge of the screen - all of these mechanics will culminate in a final 5th level that will test your mastery of the mechanics with difficulty ramped up!With planning for all of the levels completed, I’ve been working hard to ensure that the specific mechanics work as intended. I want them to keep players moving, thinking and aware that no area of the screen is particularly safe.Here’s a sneak peek at the second level’s unique mechanic taken, can you guess what it is?Folks watching our release date on our Steam Page might have noticed that the date has shifted from Summer 2018 to Fall 2018 and now to Q1 2019. Since game development isn’t an exact science sometimes things take longer than we anticipate. Since announcement back in May we’ve added an additional level and quite a few things to the game’s design/presentation that will lead to an improved experience when everything is done.As we update TTS’ Steam Page we will continue to put our best estimate for a release date as things progress.See you in 2019!