Project: NOVA (ikonic)

PROJECT: NOVA

The Sun is dying out and, with it, Earth's hope for survival. You are sent on a mission to an unidentified alien power source - measured to be nigh-infinite but extremely unstable - in an attempt to siphon as much energy as you can before it inevitably detonates.

Only, this energy source is drawing in fusion material from nearby dead stars that are accelerating at a dangerous pace towards it...

How long will you hold out? How much energy will you send back to Earth in an attempt to stave off its eventual end?

Gameplay

Project: NOVA is an idle tower-defense game whereby you are in charge of an energy station built upon an unstable energy source. You will go through two phases: one during which you can purchase upgrades to your offensive and defensive systems, and one where enemies come crashing towards you and all you can do is hope you survive.

Each turn, you store energy to send back to Earth. Try and hold out for as many waves as you can!

Context

Project: NOVA was built as a post-graduate assignment for the MSc Computer Games Programming at Goldsmiths University of London. It was made by myself over 6 or so days (90 hours of hard crunch) and let me tell you - I had an immense amount of fun creating it.

Built with Unity, an engine I have started learning only 3 months ago, this is my 3rd project of the year (you can find my other works on my itch.io page, although they are not as good, obviously). I am sightly more confident now in my capabilities as a Gameplay Programmer, which should show in the way I orchestrate animations, music and effects on screen in a much more cinematic and coherent manner.

I've always been a fan of sci-fi - although perhaps not as much as I realize - and throughout this project I had so many ideas of things I wanted to implement but just didn't have the time to do. It might evolve in the future? But that's doubtful, as the code went very sideways as the deadline for delivery approached.

Why 2D?

As someone who has 0 confidence in their digital 3D modelling talent/capabilities, I cannot express how amazing it is to work in 2D. Litterally, any shape can suddenly become the most complex object because it doesn't need perspective and depth. Instead of getting stuck on things I didn't like the look of, I got to focus on gameplay mechanics and that is what I do best (as of now, at least).

And, for some reason space games work really well in 2D?  Maybe it's the Asteroids of Space Invader effect. Who knows.

Inspiration

The biggest sources of inspiration for Project: NOVA are Vampire Survivors, a game which I take a lot of the system ideas from (sort of), as well as Stellaris (for the space theme) and why not splash in a bit of Loop Hero for good measure.

I wish I had had more time to implement true rogue-like/lite mechanics to the game, perhaps more upgrades to make it less deterministic, an incentive to storing energy between runs, but I am still quite happy about how it turned out.

I wasn't even going for this earlier in the development cycle, but I find that the musical theme (linked below) really created that isolation effect of space - and by introducing a sort of story with "end of humanity" vibes, I did occasionally get chills when the end-game screen came up. I hope you, the player, go through the same emotions as I did!

Mentions

Honnestly, the music is such a big part of this game, I'm so glad I found all of it on Pixabay for free use. Here are the artists for you to go check out!

I also used some of Kenney's assets (https://kenney.nl/), mainly for the orbs and one of the weapons. The stary background is from Azyrit (also from Pixabay).