Roadmap (Last updated 24 September 2014)

Developer Update (24 September 2014)

Developer Update (16 September 2014)

Developer Update (13 July 2014)

Developer Update (17 June 2014)

Developer Update (9 June 2014)

Developer Update (1 May 2014)

Developer Update (17 April 2014)

Scout/Grenadier class changes being worked on along with stats and skills.



Bridge and Alien Deck bosses being worked on (art got a lot behind schedule - sorry about that!)



Brainien encounter being reworked.



Enemy AI upgrade - this dovetails with the ??? difficulty.



Overwhelming sentiment regarding ship destruction is don't do that, so I won't.



Missions are still on the back burner.



99% probability Steam Marines will enter beta at the end of April/early May and I will start porting the game to the Unity 3D engine. This will allow Linux builds, possible mobile builds, and structural reworking so I can implement other major systems or content in the future.

Developer Update (27 February 2014)

Scout and Grenadier class changes. Scouts already seem to be the favored class, and Grenadiers with Frozen weapons are very strong, but they need some tweaks to their talents.



New Stats and Skills. Hacking was sort of taken over by the new Engineer class, but I'd still like to expand both areas of marine progression.

Auto-turrets, much like the Support class talent, need to be implemented particularly in the Armory Deck.



The Bridge Deck is not yet fully implemented. There are still unique items, encounters, and more planned.



The Alien Deck is not implemented at all yet (although you can see the basic tileset in the images directory). This is intended as the final deck; whereas you can choose deck order after the Command, the Alien Deck is always intended to be last.



The Brainien boss is not fully implemented, and the Bridge and Alien Deck bosses are not implemented at all.

Exposed data for mod support.



A perk system for all marine classes.



Rolled random event system and space weather into one aggregate system.



UI changes to make common information more accessible, and ease in new players.

[www.steammarines.com]

What's this Roadmap for?

[www.SteamMarines.com]

Major Features

New class, "Engineer." Tech specialist and close quarters combatant.



Alien Deck. Get invaded? Invade right back. Fight those aliens on their own turf.



Space weather. Corrode armor every turn. Meteor strikes. Obscuring gas.



Deck integrity. Decks can be lost. The whole ship can be lost. Try to stop that.



Missions accessible from the Ship Overview screen. Impacts ship integrity.



Random encounter system, similar to how survivors are recruited.



More varied and deep AI. Retreat, reinforcements, and more independent thinking.

Concepts and Concerns

Timeline

Closing Remarks

Full release is here! Steam Marines is out of Early Access and is being sold as a full game. Thank you to everyone who made this possible!Full release is coming. UI/UX changes will be pushed in the next major build along with bug fixes, new items, talent/stat/skill tweaks and other changes. Full release means Steam Marines will be out of Early Access and the full game I've envisioned.That does not mean I will ignore Steam Marines for the foreseeable future. Bugfixes and other support is of course to be expected. I sincerely thank anyone and everyone who supported me, financially and otherwise, and provided feedback and suggestions during the development period. It's been a strange two and a half years :)We're in Beta! My focus on the path toward release is primarily UI/UX, bug crushing, and overall player experience. I still intend on adding new content: items, weapon/armor mods, changing talents/stats/skills/perks, but the meat is all there for release.Thanks to everyone who supported me this far through Early Access, and especially the people who were kind enough to offer feedback and report those pesky bugs! >:DLinux port is pretty much done unless I get a slew of OS-specific bug reports. Huzzah! Next step is Alien Deck and beta.Plugging away at the Alien Deck and the Linux port! Aiming to get the next major build out in a month or so. Enemy upgrades, boss encounters, and difficulty balances (including Brutal) upcoming.After that will be beta and polish - expect a heavy focus on UI/UX in beta and less focus on gameplay changes and major systems. Will also be looking at Steam Trading Cards and possibly Achievements.So with v0.8.7a the five decks of the steampunk spaceship are now implemented with bosses (there needs to be further tweaking but it's essentially all there.) Next on the list is the Alien Deck, new enemy mechanics, and marine talent/stat/skills reworking.Then onward to beta!I must apologize for the art delay which has in turn slowed down project progress. It's all this guy's fault:Small update regarding what's being actively worked on and what's been chopped or reworked:Of the original 22 weeks I slated for the original roadmap, only 8 weeks remain. What is still on the list (or chopping block) for the next two months?I still want enemies flinging other enemies, killing their way to marines, and other assorted nastiness. Actually the new Gunship boss exhibits some of those traits!Older players (in open alpha) might remember that this was implemented but removed for detracting from the core gameplay. They were basically random secondary and tertiary objectives like keeping the entire squad alive, knocking enemies into space, or finding secrets and awarded experience based upon completion. I'm still trying to find a good way to bring them back into Steam Marines.A way to trigger a random scripted event may be preferable. In this way the player can opt to take on a challenge for a specified reward rather than get randomized objectives at the start of each level. Feel free to throw ideas at my face!Deck Integrity was also in older builds and acted as a "hunger clock." This was (again) removed because I felt it clashed with the core gameplay. It operated by removing a random amount of integrity every turn and when a deck integrity reached 0 the deck was lost, including marines on it. Deck integrity was also reduced when walls were destroyed.That probably would have worked out except the player only has one squad of marines ever so the onus was to save integrity whenever possible. Right now I'm considering a more staggered approach where the deck bosses are actively trying to destroy the deck they're found on and, if not killed within a certain number of turns, succeed. This would result in the deck being lost and impact the resources (items, weapons, armor, unit spawns, survivor spawns, et cetera) that could be found although the squad could proceed.E.g. Player fails to kill the Revenant fast enough on the Engineering Deck. Player can proceed but Engineer survivors can no longer be recruited and scopes and armor kits no longer spawn. Score is affected negatively. Maybe too many lost decks means no chance at New Game Plus?As usual, feel free to throw ideas at my face!This is still coming, but I'm waiting for the Alien Deck to hit a live build first so I can balance everything all at once.Steam Marines will most likely enter beta. I've been getting gameplay results (thanks to everyone sending those in!) and it's really clear that most people play on Normal and don't get past the Medical Deck. What this means is that I'll be focusing more on the early/core game as opposed to overarching/NGP content.Beta doesn't mean feature freeze for me. I intend on supporting Steam Marines past release as well. But it does mean I don't want to be adding major systems between beta and release. The goal will be on bugfixing, tying up loose ends, and polishing.I did not clear my own roadmap as fast as I would have liked. Part of that is of course due to the nature of software, but also because I added stuff that as I went along seemed more important, such as:-------------------------------------------------------------This is intended to give a general overview of the directionis headed in. While I would dearly love to lay out every detail and promise that 100% of those will be implemented, that's simply unrealistic. Development of software, and particularly games, is a more organic process. Some things you think would work really well might turn out terrible. And if you tunnel vision your design you may miss out on some really great choices.is quite playable and replayable in its current state. I do have concerns about how "samey" the first deck is especially if players haven't made it very far. My hope is that the random encounter system will help alleviate that. I may also trim the Command Deck from 5 levels to 2-3 and use those to buffer the Alien Deck when it's implemented.Modding is something that keeps old games fresh and exciting. Unfortunately I did not setup to be highly modular in that way. Curious players may have noticed a "mods" directory in the guts of the game. While I don't think I can expose the resources to have modders fully rewrite enemy AI or implement whole new classes, I can expose resources like sprites, music, sound, dialogue strings, base unit stats, randomizer ranges, and data of that nature. To be frank this is not a terribly high priority for me right now but it's on my radar.The roadmap image lacks a timeline - a fairly important feature! I can tell you that I want a full release by April 2014. That gives me slightlyto put all this together. It's why I did not include modding, deeper marine classes (on top of a new class), and some other major features I would have liked to.That time also has to account for polishing existing content, bug fixing, balancing, et cetera. It's quite ambitious. I won't be that upset if it all gets implemented but polishing takes longer than anticipated.Luckily for the lot of you,is still in malleable shape. You can influence what direction it ultimately takes. Please leave questions, comments, and general feedback on what you like, don't like, or would prefer to see me emphasize on the roadmap!Thanks for reading!