A dying star is nothing to joke about. While we’re sitting here safe and sound in front of our computers, the supernova in the Mido sector is heating up huge parts of the galaxy. According to latest forecasts and predictions, its impending explosion on August 30th, 2012 will not only set the GOF universe ablaze but also light the App Store aflame with a deep and compelling sci-fi gaming experience at the very highest stage. If you take a look at the calendar, you’ll see that it’s just six more weeks until Galaxy on Fire 2 – Supernova for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch will be available for purchase. This means that we’ve just got three more dev diaries ahead of us before it’s all done and Supernova is out! Since we’ll dedicate the next blog to the official trailer and reserve the blog after that for your direct questions to our developers, we’d like to use today’s dev diary to introduce some of the designs and concepts to you, which got sorted out at one stage of the development or another.[full] We thought that it might be quite interesting for you to see what additional designs our graphics department has come up with for certain assets and which reasons let to them being cancelled and others being used. So here we go!
An early concept and the final rendering of the Terran carrier in Fishlabs' upcoming sci-fi epic GOF2 - Supernova
One of the most impressive sights in Supernova is without doubt the Terran Carrier. It’s almost as big as a station and contains enough space to carry dozens of drop ships or fighters. In an early incarnation, it was designed with a slim body and a number of distant landing platforms on each side. Though this design looked pretty cool, we ultimately decided to discard it because it turned out to be not very functional for such a ship. Due to its limited line of fire on the one hand and restricted airfield on the other, such a carrier would actually not be that effective in battle at all. So our art director took up his pen once more and came up with a new design inspired by the air craft carriers of the US Navy. As you can see above, the steel-clad colossus that finally found its way into the game looks really awesome as well… and has enough space to carry a whole fleet of ships from one star system to another!
Galaxy on Fire 2 - Supernova for iPhone and iPad by Fishlabs (3D Sci-Fi Action Shooter)
The Mido mining plant is another imposing structure in Galaxy on Fire 2 – Supernova. Located adjacent to a huge asteroid field, this floating blast furnace of gigantic proportions is used by Midorian industrialists to smelt valuable ores and minerals and extract their even more valuable essences. A lot of the early designs of the mining plant were based on Midorian freighters because we really liked the idea of a bunch of modified cargo ships going from system to system and exploiting whatever resources they’d find on their trek through the galaxy. In the end, however, we neglected this idea and chose a design that resembles a space station more than a space ship because that way it looks even better and more impressive in the game.
For a number of reasons mentioned below, neither the unnamed Vossk ship nor the Dark Angel made it into Supernova's exclusive fleet of Most Wanted Ships.
We first introduced the so-called most wanted ships a couple of weeks ago in our fifth dev diary for GOF2 – Supernova called “For a Handful of Credits”. However, we didn’t tell you back then that the four ships that ended up in the game – the Bloodstar, the Blue Fyre, the Amboss and the Gator Custom – were not the only vessels that had a chance of making onto the screens of your iPhone and iPads. At an earlier stage of development, the unnamed Vossk ship on the left and the Dark Angel on the right were still in the race as well. The Vossk ship had originally been designed because our developers thought that there were not enough Vossk ships in the game. But when they heard that the Vossk Empire had already started production on a new gunship anyway, they cancelled the ship in question and added the Bloodstar to the game instead. Especially since the new gunship is rumoured to look quite similar to the unnamed vessel shown above, it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense to make them both a part of the Supernova add-on. The Dark Angel on the other hand was an early contender for the spot that was later on given to the Gator Custom. According to our art director, the Dark Angel had ultimately been dismissed because it looked a bit too ordinary and unspectacular to be one of the most exclusive ships in the Galaxy on Fire universe.
Unfortunately, neither the Missile Turret nor the Plasma-Flamer found their way into the next GOF2 expansion pack. But we've still came up with a lot of cool weapons anyway, such as Cluster Missiles, Sentry Guns and Leech Beams!
As you’d most likely imagine, there have not only been a number of dismissals in the stations and ships departments of the upcoming Supernova add-on but also in its armory. While the missile turret seemed to be a pretty neat addition at first, a number of problems with GOF2’s particle system lead to it being sorted out anyway. According to our lead developer it would have taken too much time to fix these issues and hence there won’t be a missile turret in Supernova. But who knows, probably it will still find its way into a future installment of the GOF series. The same is also valid for the plasma flamer depicted on the upper right. Even though its appearance in Supernova had been cancelled for creative reasons rather than technical problems, there’s still a chance that it’ll make a comeback in one of our upcoming titles.
Galaxy on Fire 2 - Supernova is scheduled to be released simultaneously in SD, HD and Full HD in Q3 of 2012.
So much for that. We hope you enjoyed today’s developer diary for Galaxy on Fire 2 – Supernova and had some fun finding out what concepts and assets didn’t end up in the game instead of reading about the ones that actually made it. As always, we’d love to read your feedback in the comments as well as welcome you among our Facebook fans at www.facebook.com/galaxyonfire.
Time flies when you’re having fun! Or should we rather say “time floats…” cause we’re talking about a space action game here? One way or another, the launch of Supernova, the extensive new story add-on for our popular sci-fi shooter Galaxy on Fire 2, is getting closer and closer. Scheduled to be released simultaneously in SD (for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod 4G and iPad), HD (for iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the new iPad) and Full HD (for Mac) on August 30th of 2012, the upcoming expansion pack will add tons of new content to Galaxy on Fire 2, including new ships, systems, missions, characters, gameplay modes and… WEAPONS! Yeah right, in Supernova you will of course be able to mount all kinds of powerful new lasers, blasters, missiles, turrets and other guns and explosives to your ship. And today we’d like to introduce some of these deathly devices to you in the course of our 9th developer diary for GOF2 – Supernova.[full] If you’re more of a pacifist, who would rather go down in flames than fire back at the trigger-happy squad of space pirates that approaches him, you’d better skip this article entirely and come back in two weeks when we’ll (probably) be dealing with a less militant topic. But if you savour to give the scum of the universe some serious hell and if you relish to feast your eyes on the burning remnants of destroyed enemy vessels, you’ll surely have a lot of fun with the things we’re gonna show you in the following paragraphs.
Dear listeners, may I ask for your attention, please?