Stellar Swing (Steam remaster)

[rena]

Hi :). I'm working on a remaster of our old game Stellar Swing, which raocow played a few years ago, for Steam. It's basically going to be a complete remaster, with new graphics, sounds, levels and content. Here's a preview video of the latest build:


I've also started writing a gamedev blog about it if anybody's interested:
gamedev blog 1 - retrospective
gamedev blog 2 - ui and polish

And finally, here's our new steam store page, wishlists appreciated :P


Maybe I'll post more updates here if anybody shows any interest. I'm aiming for an early July release but it depends on whether I can get all the stuff I want in (here's the trello if you're interested).

[Ditocoaf]

Oh dang, I remember really enjoying this before. I'm glad I happened to look at the shoutbox tonight, I never do that. Wishlisted!

[rena]

<3

[Piesonscreations]

The UI is looking clean!
I do have to ask, is the 3 star rating gone for levels?

[CrappyBlueLuigi]

aaaaaaa i loved raocow's lp of this and the game itself, i remember downloading it shortly after the lp started and playing it myself before raocow finished it, stellar swing is lovely

i wishlisted it on steam too!

[rena]

<3

The UI is looking clean!
I do have to ask, is the 3 star rating gone for levels?

yeah it is, I got rid of the energy loss mechanic (maybe I'll find something to replace it) so the only relevant one was time. I might add the time thing back on its own.

[Piesonscreations]

yeah it is, I got rid of the energy loss mechanic (maybe I'll find something to replace it) so the only relevant one was time. I might add the time thing back on its own.

Truly, the best way to go about it is to add the option to do tricks while mid-air. Tony Hawk's Stellar Swing.

[CrappyBlueLuigi]

<3

The UI is looking clean!
I do have to ask, is the 3 star rating gone for levels?

yeah it is, I got rid of the energy loss mechanic (maybe I'll find something to replace it) so the only relevant one was time. I might add the time thing back on its own.

oh, is the energy mechanic an energy loss thing? i only ever seemed to get the star for energy whenever i hit the crystal at high speeds so i assumed it was more of a "how much energy did you successfully mine out of this crystal" mechanic based on how hard you hit it, based on how fast you were going when you hit it. there might still be something interesting there giving the player a speed indicator and ranking them on it :0

[rena]

<3

The UI is looking clean!
I do have to ask, is the 3 star rating gone for levels?

yeah it is, I got rid of the energy loss mechanic (maybe I'll find something to replace it) so the only relevant one was time. I might add the time thing back on its own.

oh, is the energy mechanic an energy loss thing? i only ever seemed to get the star for energy whenever i hit the crystal at high speeds so i assumed it was more of a "how much energy did you successfully mine out of this crystal" mechanic based on how hard you hit it, based on how fast you were going when you hit it. there might still be something interesting there giving the player a speed indicator and ranking them on it :0

haha i guess that's why i'm getting rid of it. basically you start with a certain amount of speed and can either gain speed by falling/boosts, or lose speed if you turn too hard (which is the unintuitive part). the energy star meant that you'd hit the end object with a speed > our preset target speed. basically it's like a skill thing if you play really smoothly you'd get the star.

[Piesonscreations]

haha i guess that's why i'm getting rid of it. basically you start with a certain amount of speed and can either gain speed by falling/boosts, or lose speed if you turn too hard (which is the unintuitive part). the energy star meant that you'd hit the end object with a speed > our preset target speed. basically it's like a skill thing if you play really smoothly you'd get the star.

I always took it as a star you got for moving the most efficiently through the level (ie. moving as little as possible)

[rena]

haha i guess that's why i'm getting rid of it. basically you start with a certain amount of speed and can either gain speed by falling/boosts, or lose speed if you turn too hard (which is the unintuitive part). the energy star meant that you'd hit the end object with a speed > our preset target speed. basically it's like a skill thing if you play really smoothly you'd get the star.

I always took it as a star you got for moving the most efficiently through the level (ie. moving as little as possible)

yeah that's basically what it boiled down to

[raekuul]

Well, was it unintuitive because it was called "energy" or because it wasn't called "efficiency"? I kind of like the idea of effort golf.

[rena]

Well, was it unintuitive because it was called "energy" or because it wasn't called "efficiency"? I kind of like the idea of effort golf.

yeah it was fun to try and do tbh but I never liked it being the main way to play the game to get a good rating

i think i'm gonna look at alternate mechanics once i get some more work done on the levels, since they're a more core part of the experience :P

[rena]

it's coming along nicely for a release in the next month or two. there's 45 levels now (10 in each world except the last which has the original 5, although I want to bump that one up to 10 too with something special for the end.) and we have some misc stuff to finish like story, steam achievements, and unlocks.

i might need a beta tester with a mac at some point since I have no idea if the mac build works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just putting it out there in case anyone volunteers.

[bartekolo]

Hi!
Recently I found my old Samsung Galaxy S4 (which barely works lmao) and have found Stellar Swing on it.
After replaying it in its entirety I have found out that its nowhere to be acquired on the interwebs.
I presume this remaster project is abandoned? Or is there hope for it being completed?
I really like the concept and the gameplay was really fun, so I'd love to see and play a new version!

[rena]

Hi!
Recently I found my old Samsung Galaxy S4 (which barely works lmao) and have found Stellar Swing on it.
After replaying it in its entirety I have found out that its nowhere to be acquired on the interwebs.
I presume this remaster project is abandoned? Or is there hope for it being completed?
I really like the concept and the gameplay was really fun, so I'd love to see and play a new version!

hell of an account revival 9 yrs later

thanks for the kind words, unfortunately it is pretty abandoned since I'm just too busy nowadays and have lost interest for now

the original version is still available on PC at https://pillowdrift.com/ but I think the Android version long since became incompatible with the Google store and probably modern phones too

the remaster I was working on is GitHub and is mostly done tbh but there was just an annoying amount of polish and level fixes that I never had time/interest to finish. it's tempting to just scrap some of the intended features and finish it off minimally to get it uploaded on Steam so it's at least available. I could always make a build and upload it somewhere (or there's also probably still beta codes for the steam version if you're interested).

anyway, thanks again for the kind comments

[bartekolo]

hell of an account revival 9 yrs later

Yeah, I missed out on being a part of this community tbh, because when I found raocow I was 15, my english was still rather bad (not a native english speaker, haha), and I somewhat remember that I was just scared I'm not gonna fit in here, since everyone seemed to my dumb young self

Ah!
So, it's https://pillowdrift.talkhaus.com/ now!
Explains why it looked like to me that the webpage for pillowdrift is gone!

I think the Android version long since became incompatible with the Google store and probably modern phones too

Yeah, when I put the apk on my newer phone, most of the assets don't show up. Not even the drones lol.

One last question: Is the soundtrack available somewhere? My hazy memory tells me that there used to be a Bandcamp page for the OST (or I might've mandela effect'd that on myself), however I cannot find any official releases. That was always my favourite part of the game (especially world 4 theme) and even though I have already extracted the .oggs from the game, I'd love to be able to share this OST with my friends :)

[rena]

Ah!
So, it's https://pillowdrift.talkhaus.com/ now!
Explains why it looked like to me that the webpage for pillowdrift is gone!

Oh oops I dunno if that was intentional, it probably just happened when I set up talkhaus sites, the main URL still redirects to it though.

One last question: Is the soundtrack available somewhere? My hazy memory tells me that there used to be a Bandcamp page for the OST (or I might've mandela effect'd that on myself), however I cannot find any official releases. That was always my favourite part of the game (especially world 4 theme) and even though I have already extracted the .oggs from the game, I'd love to be able to share this OST with my friends :)

hmm I dunno what happened to that but I vaguely remember that too, I could probably put it somewhere but I think the music is in the GitHub anyway so if that has a license (I dunno if it does) it probably covers the music anyway and you could share it yourself. the music was made by a friend originally but I don't think they make music anymore or have a bandcamp/SoundCloud themselves

I'll send you a steam key if you're interested in trying it, I was pretty happy with what we did with it, for the parts that are finished anyway. it's just that the last 90% (which comes after the first 90%) of any project is polish and it never got done