Fascinated by Science Fiction Worlds created by Ridley Scott (Alien, Prometheus), James Cameron (Aliens), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey) and games like Homeworld, I wanted to create a game, where the player is able to design an entire spaceship – not with an external level editor, but where the level editor is an important part WITHIN the game. When you build a base in an RTS like Starcraft, you also – in a way- create a “level” for your opponent to conquer.

Impressed by huge shipyards and shipbuilding I wondered how this might look and work in future societies. I am certain that those worlds, even in wartime, enormously expensive warships that sometimes take years to build will not be thoughtlessly destroyed. A lot of thought and effort would be put into plans how to best capture those ships by boarding and disabling the crew. How much more profit can you make when you only risk the lives of a few marines and probably get millions worth of equipment in a quick operation?

I started to develop a prototype using GameMaker, becoming more and more convinced of its capabilities, I stayed with it do create the entire game. The Design part feels a bit like building a base in Dungeon Keeper or Evil Genius, the Combat Part will play like commanding infantry in Starcraft, and the Business Part is a lot like creating trade routes in games like Dawn of Discovery or The Patrician.

You can try the verly early alpha containing the Ship Design and some of the Crew Management by downloading it from my website. I still have a lot to do, and your feedback and support will help me finish this game. Ship Design still needs a lot of testing and tweaking and is at about 80%, Crew Management is only 40% done and Elements like Shipyard (which is the Economy Simulation) and Galaxy Map are yet to be made. I need your support to finish the first two elements and add the Shipyard, to build and sell ships and the Galaxy Map to set up trade routes. If you like all of this so far, please help to finance the funding goal of Level 1. You can take part in the Crowdfunding Projects at IndieGogo and Pling, or help me directly by pre-ordering the game.

My career started off with 3D Animation for advertising, then Character Animation for the Game Company Jowood (Neighbours from Hell). I the early 2000s I created the Lasertag game company LazerCombat that is currently run by my brother Stefan. I had no programming experience prior to starting this project except a little scripting in Adobe Director and Flash, but I quickly learned to use the excellent tool GameMaker for my plans. I make this game because I am dying to play it – so you can be sure I will finish this project.

If you haven´t got the money at the moment, but still would like to help turn this game into reality, don´t worry – you can still help A LOT by sharing this content on facebook, tweating it or calling your friends on the phone in the middle of the night to tell them about this awesome game!