Low Earth Orbit Adventures Demo UPDATED

Hi everyone,

Steam NextFest is over and hundreds of people have picked up the demo for my little slice-of-orbit game over the week. It's already done 3x as many wishlists as Cell Sword did in a year, so pretty cool if your interested in stuff like that! I'm still processing the feedback.

Maybe I have picked an impossible task - a "pick up and play" Newtonian space game. 99% of players will bounce off a Newtonian space game no matter how good the controls are simply because 3D space with no up or down is a confusing thing! And that's OK. LEO Adventures is not for everyone.

And watching people this last week play the game I think while I have gotten more right than wrong there is still room for improvement. Most of the feedback was positive but generally I feel further work is required in the following areas:

• Tutorials. I have made a bunch of bite-sized super simple tutorials but they are still too wordy. I thought the "why" was as important as the "how" but I realise now the tutorials are not the place for the "why".

• Camera. LEO Adventures is just as much about manoeuvring the camera as it is about controlling the spacecraft. I need to communicate this much better to players.

• Dynamic thruster inputs. I honestly think a killer feature of LEO Adventures is the dynamic thruster selection system I have implemented. It means that no matter what direction your spacecraft is facing, the thrusters line up with your keyboard or gamepad. However, there is a learning curve.

• Keyboard mapping. Every space game is different and everyone has a different suggestion of what the default keyboard mapping should be. I am listening and I am willing to make changes but I have to synthesise a lot of different suggestions into a future path.

So here is a big update for the demo! Still just one mission (I'm debating whether to add more content to the demo or keep it for the full game) but lots of quality-of-life updates and bug fixes.

Of most interest to returning players - there was a nasty bug with the forward thruster that pushed the spacecraft slightly askew that has now been fixes. It was driving me crazy too.

Additionally, I have streamlined the stabilisers and the dynamic inputs to hopefully make it clearer and easier how to control the spacecraft. I have also added roll thrusters and a new lateral thruster tutorial. Full changelog below.

Thanks to everyone that sent me feedback, the game is already much better!

Luke

Add

• Add static thruster selector (gamepad/keyboard buttons will always trigger same thruster no matter which way spacecraft is facing)

• Add thruster selector toggle so players can choose between dynamic or static

• Add lateral thruster tutorial

• Add roll thrusters to FLEOT

• New "New Game" screen with new Thruster Input Selector

Changes

• Change thrusters so multiple thrusters can now fire at same time

• Change dynamic thruster selector so only activates when thrusters are not firing

• Rework stabilisers so they are less effective but feel much more floaty and spacey

• Buff main thruster to 140%

• Swap camera and stabiliser toggles on gamepads

• Improve stabiliser thruster visuals

• Improve speed of garage spray painting

• Update gamepad and keyboard presets to make new defaults

• Make target screen smarter about displaying many possible targets

• Remove some confusing camera modes

• Merge rotational and velocity stabilisers into one stabiliser

• Remove redundant stabiliser toggle on gamepad

• Clean up remap screens

• Update credits

Fix

• Fix really annoying forward and retro thruster misalignment bug

• Remove debug fullscreen toggle button

• Make spray paint much more accurate in garage

• Tidy up credits