AstraX 0.7 Alpha out now!

This game is alive and well! 

AstraX 0.7 is another huge update in the making. Because of a general playtest interest I decided to release a few playable, but buggy alphas before the bigger release. 

Some of the highlights in 0.7 Alpha 2 are:

• saving and loading of games, user profiles and application data
• changing screen resolutions, a much requested feature
• a loading screen
• customizable UI base colors
• buttons for reporting bugs and sending feedback
• world generation can now be modified when creating a new game

Note that Alpha 1 was not functional and has been removed from the downloads!

 Some features that I am still working on for 0.7:

• Customizable user avatars (dressup style)
• Saving discovery progress
• Global navigation markers 
• Spacecraft modules with multiple customizable colors
• Overhaul of both StarMap and GalaxyMap (maybe)

A lot of infrastructure this time. There is still a lot to do, but it's going to be worth the wait. Please look forward to the future, as these technical features allow me to do more amazing things!

Thanks a lot to all playtesters who checked the game out so far! I have something prepared for you in the future.

Changelog below!

Changelog

Note: Your spacecraft files from earlier versions (0.5 & 0.6) are still compatible with this version!

0.7 Alpha 2

• Fix modal and text areas competing for keyboard focus, leaving the user unable to edit text
• Fix item count not showing up when mining a resource 
• Fix planet orbits not being rendered in Star Map  
• Fix color picker in spacecraft editor changing the default font colors  
• Fix user profile saved with absolute path causing weird behavior when creating new games  
• Fix galaxy not being saved properly

0.7 Alpha 1

• Flows for Loading & Saving a game

• Flows for Creating & editing user profile

• Added a Loading Screen

• Games & screenshots are now saved in the user profile

• There is now a database per game, for saving map data, player and spacecraft

• Mechanism for loading / saving solar systems and player from and to disk

• Added a bunch of internal infrastructure just to make the above happen

• Satellites are now visually moving to docking modules

• All modals/prompts are now exitable via ESC key

• Added feedback buttons to the main menu

• The World Generation Panel when creating a game now has an effect and connects to the generator

• More flexible name generator with many more names of gods, creatures of myth and legends from various cultures

• Generator now works with tags, which allows for higher statistical control (e.g. it's possible to spawn any habitable planet in an orbit if it is tagged as such)

• Changed algorithm for generating galaxy regions

• Support for different screen resolutions that are adjustable in the video settings (Thanks Otter!)

• Load & save application settings

• Users can now change logging level by taking a look at logging.properties in the game root

• Added better layering of Planet textures

• Added jump drive functionality with unlimited use (for now) 

• Added picking a user profile from the main menu, instead of having to navigate to the settings

• Returning from game menu to main menu now works

• Partial implementation for UI color customization (reason why GUI color changed in this version!)

• UI sounds are now part of the UI skin

• GalaxyMap now correctly shows name of the solar system and region when clicking on it

• Better HUD Gauges that display resource icon & for the rocket fuel gauge there is a needle showing current fuel consumption now

• Made more in-game text translatable

• Made control buttons larger

• Application-wide message growls & dialog boxes

• Removed trader map markers in GalaxyMap due to changes to the map data - an alternative is in the works

• Fix Spacecraft receiving input from inside the game main menu

• Fix Spacecraft controls freezing randomly (Thanks Jeffro!)