Development continues on Beyond the Chiron Gate. As well as working on the game itself I’ve made an official “coming soon” page on with some information and screenshots. This page will turn into the game’s home page when it’s released.
Music
I’ve licensed two packs of music assets for the game: Phobos and Deimos by Wiktoria Zac. I don’t have the budget to commission bespoke music (the cover art was my one splurge), but these music packs are pretty much exactly the style I’d want if I did.
I’ve divided the tracks into two playlists, exploration and danger. The game will play the exploration playlist at first, then switch to the danger playlist when either your ship is badly damaged or one of your explorers is dead. I’ve also set one track as the “Chiron Base theme” for when you’re home. Naturally, the settings menu has an option to turn the music off.
I had been considering adding interface sounds, but nothing I tried sounded right and with the music turned on the game didn’t sound like it was lacking anything, so I’ve decided to leave it at just music.
Life, But Not As We Know It
No longer is life in the Chiron Gate universe limited to plain old carbon-based chemistry. Hot rocky planets can have silicon-based life, and hydrocarbon-based life can exist on cold icy worlds. You might even find exotic plasma-based life in the hot depths of certain gas giants.
Alien Fossils
I’ve also added some more traces that life forms can leave, some of which are specific to extinct life. The dust covering a planet’s surface might be all that remains of an ancient ecosystem. Extinct ecosystems no longer have as much to explore (besides the reason they went extinct), so living ecosystems now feel more distinct from extinct ones, are more exciting, and are more valuable in terms of data gain.
Fates of the Ancients
What became of the technologically advanced aliens whose derelict starships you find all over the universe? I’ve added several new reasons why technologically advanced civilisations might have gone extinct–or in some cases, not exactly extinct, but departed or transformed.
Endgame
I’m currently in the process of writing a long chain of events to act as the conclusion of the game, when you finally find the Gatebuilders’ home planet. This will replace the two ending events that were included in the playtest version, which some playtesters correctly said were underwhelming. I’m not going to post any details or screenshots of this–you’ll have to play beat the game to find out–but I think it will be a fittingly epic conclusion to the game.
Release plans
The game’s new home page doesn’t have an official release date, only “coming soon”. I had been aiming for a December 2021 release, but I’ve been finding work slow-going this month (creatively blocked, other things taking up time, still living through a global pandemic etc.) so we may now be looking at an early 2022 release date. Thank you all for your patience, and I’ll continue to keep you updated.