Welcome to the devlog

Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to make a game.

I've played many, many games over the last 30-odd years. RPGs, point-and-click adventure games, RTS and FPS games (who knew there were so many acronyms in the computer game world), as well as MMORPGs.

So, it was of course difficult to decide what game to make.

I'm a systems designer, engineer and coder first, and an artist second. My art skills are limited, and my 3D art skills are non-existent and will stay that way forever.

When deciding what game to make, I had to be realistic and understand my limitations:

• I'm good at building deep gameplay systems.
• I'm very good at building out the world, story, and lore of a game.
• I'm not good at putting together 3D scenes in Unreal Engine.

It has taken me nearly 10 years to understand this about myself. I'm 38 in a week, and it's about time I put what I can do well to good use.

What is Starhaven?

Starhaven is a space game. There are many names for the genre I'm going for, but I'll go with open-world sandbox for now. That should tell you enough. If not, imagine Mount & Blade Warband but in space.

You pick a species. You configure your backstory briefly, and then off you go.

So, what can you do in Starhaven?

You could mine ore from the nearest asteroid field, load it into your freighter-class ship and then trundle it across the sector to sell for a profit at a space station that is under attack by pirates who are preventing that station's inhabitants from accessing their own asteroid field, raising the prices of ore.

Or, you could sell your mining rig, buy a fighter-class ship and outfit it with lances and a missile rig, fly to the same space station and pick up a contract to eliminate said pirates.

Or, you could hail said pirates and work with them to eliminate the space station's mining ships, build your own space station and refinery, use the pirates as your own personal bodyguards and then eliminate the aforementioned space station so you can keep the ore for yourself.

Be careful though, because those pirates could turn on you if they think you're weaker than them...

That's Starhaven. That's what I want to build. It sounds complicated, but weirdly this kind of open-ended sandbox sim doesn't intimidate me.

These are the kinds of systems that I like to build. And if I like to build these, then I'll stick with it. A game like Starhaven will take time to build. Years, perhaps. Although read on to learn how I'm going to build Starhaven...

Why pixel art?

I tried drawing vectors (smooth lines) in Procreate, and it did not look good for the amount of time I was willing to spend on each asset. I'm also not willing to commit a huge amount of my very limited time to learning how to draw properly in a vector style.

I've chosen an art style that works with my limited skill set. I'm not a good artist. I'm an OK artist. I'm a good artist when it comes to chunky 32x32 pixel art. Squares are much easier to work with than lines.

It's funny though, because in the few weeks that I've spent on Starhaven so far, I've learnt that you can still make a beautiful game by using a reduced palette and visual style.

I mean, look at this neat little Krynn in his uniform below.

Drawing something equally pleasing in vector art would take years for me. If I can look at something and go "yeah, that looks really nice", then it's more than good enough. I'm not even calling the artwork above good enough: I'm actually really happy with the way the art direction has gone on Starhaven so far.

How are you building it?

I'm glad you asked. I've built enough software over my career to know that hiding myself away in a cave for 2-4 years and working on this game in secret probably won't be a good idea for the game's success.

Eric Barone did this with Stardew Valley, but that was a different time. There were far fewer games being released on Steam back when Stardew Valley first released in 2016, and therefore new games probably made more of an impact when they were made public.

So, here's my plan:

• I'm going to build a beta version of Starhaven over the next 4 months and release it as a paid game in December 2026.
• The game will cost $12.99 during beta. Version 1 will cost $19.99.
• The beta version will not be released on Steam initially.
• You'll be able to purchase a beta key from this website.
• Starhaven will release for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.
• I likely won't go with a publisher in the traditional sense. I'm open to having a conversation though and being convinced that bringing a publisher onboard is a good idea.
• Starhaven will have mod support at some point.

I'm going to charge for the beta for two reasons:

• If someone is willing to pay for something, it means I've made something good enough for them, and that I should keep going.
• Once you've paid for the beta, you will get the full game at no additional cost when it is released.

I know that a game can still be fun if it only looks OK, as long as it has deep gameplay systems built into it. Look at Project Zomboid. It had 2D sprites when it was first released. It now has 3D sprites 15 years later. I'm going to work to that understanding.

I watch a lot of game development videos, and a few have stood out for me over the years. I will be taking pretty much 90% of what is in these videos as the guiding principles of Starhaven's development process and gameplay design:

• The Indie Stone's How Not to Make a Game.
• Jeff Vogel's Failing to Fail.
• Raph Koster talking about game systems.

How do I follow along?

Hop in the Discord and come say hi. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Bookmark this website and check in on it occasionally for new blog posts. The FAQ answers the questions I get asked most.

I'll be posting videos on the YouTube channel regularly. It would help immensely if you liked them.