Fractured Space Interview

The slower speed and more intense strategy is part of the sense of scale. Battlestar Galactica doesn't move fast - but has multiple systems to react to attacks. It's the same with Star Destroyers. These great ships of sci-fi all moves relatively slowly in normal space but carry multiple systems. As a result, we wanted our movement to be slow to imply the sense of scale but our combat to be frantic to establish the ferocity of these giant capital ships. This combination was also important to us to build a deep, interesting multiplayer game.

Fractured Space is an ongoing project – we intend to keep adding ships, manufacturers, new modes, new maps, crew and new systems to expand the gameplay. On top of that we want to run special events, new tournaments – generally keep the community happy and engaged while we keep expanding the game. Ultimately though, we want to keep polishing the game itself because that’s what will keep people coming back and keep Fractured Space alive.

Funnily enough Hats was the first thing the community asked for – so never say never ☺

We have two modes currently and we have discussed many others. In the short term we want to expand the experience within conquest by providing variations to how to play it (through changing the map sectors used). Longer term we want to provide different modes for different team sizes, special clan and tournament modes as well as special case event modes. The short answer is we don’t want to stop adding to Fractured Space.

We currently are aiming to reach 32-34 ships over the next few months and have planned for all of the ones we need to add plus a few more. After that - long term - we want to fill out the tech trees for our three manufacturers (another 20-30 ships) as well as add new manufacturers including eventually alien ones. Ships is another level of content we intend to keep expanding on.

As for favourites – it changes with the landscape and that changes each time we release a new ship. Recently, I was enjoying the Raven and the Disruptor. But over the last few weeks I’ve been enjoying the new ships – mainly the Gladiator and the Interceptor.

It would be hard to fit into the gameplay space – maybe we will find a way ☺.

Eventually we want to expand the Proving Grounds into a PvE experience although the first version of that is likely to be co-operative first and then perhaps eventually single player missions. But this is a way off just yet.

We run an agile sprint which determines what we develop each month. Usually we are trying to get in all the features we have listed in the backlog (it’s a long list) but sometimes new things come in and take precedence but if that happens it’s because that feature is important to us, the community or more likely both.

I am not sure I’d define it as an issue – but one of the biggest challenges has been changing to open development. A lot of us were used to traditional game development and being completely open was strange at first. Having been doing it for over a year now, I don’t think we’d ever go back.

I think at the core of our game is the game we always wanted to make and I don’t think that vision has changed much over the last year. However, I also think it’s true that without the feedback and support of our community the game would not be as good as it is. From advice on map layout to weapons balancing and beyond, our community have invested a lot of time in the game and a lot of thought. In terms of the quality of our game, the community have been invaluable.

It’s funny – we were making zombie games just before the rush of zombie games and we started making space games before the rush of space games. We are used to the marketplace changing. As to leaving Early Access – I think the important thing is the experience you offer and nothing quite does what we do. I think there’s plenty of room for a lot of space games as long as they are offering something different. And that’s what we aim to do.

We made a game that people can get very good at. To be honest, I am very proud of that even if that means we lose a little. ☺