Tag: Guide to the Galaxy

May 17, 2022

Guide to the Galaxy – A Bounty Hunter Always Gets Their Mark

Bounty Hunters: Hired guns employed by crime lords, politicians, and law enforcement to pursue, and often neutralize, civilians for money. They’re relentless, selfish, and come equipped with a full arsenal of weapons thanks to the galaxy spanning Bounty Hunters Guild that nearly all hunters work for. During your voyage, you’re more than likely to encounter at least a few bounty hunters along the way and unlike other enemies, simply surviving them may not be enough. In fact, if you fail to repay your debt in time, you too might end up with a target on your back.

Bounty Hunters are unique amongst our other enemy encounters in that they are governed by several unique systems. For starters, thanks to a more standardized loadout provided by the Bounty Hunters Guild, all bounty hunters have access to laser cannons, ion blasters, and concussive and ion missile launchers. Which weapons each hunter uses will depend on their personal preference, still making them unpredictable, and will often force you to adapt to their new tactics. Fortunately, unlike pirates, they only use one weapon type at a time, but that doesn’t mean they are pushovers, as a standard bounty hunter ship is more maneuverable than a pirate ship.

This leads into their next unique system: bounty levels. Every client will have a bounty level ranging from “low” to “medium” to “high”, however, since it’s impossible to vet every client, many clients will have “unknown” bounty levels. If you successfully complete a mission without encountering a single bounty hunter, then there’s a chance that that client didn’t have a bounty on them at all. You might be wondering why you would need to worry about different bounty levels. After all, a bounty hunter is a bounty hunter, right? Well, due to the Bounty Hunters Guild’s ranking system, their hunters can only target bounties that match their rank. This means that less experienced, novice, hunters can go after those with low bounties while more veteran hunters are only allowed to hunt higher ranked bounties. Since these more elite hunters tend to be better pilots, the bounty level of the client you take can result in tougher fights, where you’re not likely to kill the hunter in the end. But that’s not a problem for an ace pilot such as yourself. All you need to do is survive until your space jump charges and then you’ve escaped.

But, not so fast. While it’s true you can end an encounter by jumping out of the area, these guys aren’t called bounty hunters for nothing. They’ll effortlessly track you across the sector showing up for a rematch in space during the same mission or, worst of all, interrupt your stay on a planet or merchant ship while you’re trying to repair. They won’t stop until you either deliver your client (in which case, the hunter is just the client’s problem again) or you destroy the hunter once and for all. This makes longer and more profitable missions a much higher risk that you’ll need to calculate for when choosing a client.

Like pirates, bounty hunters are commonly found in pirate territories, as they are havens for criminals and outlaws. In contrast to pirates though, bounty hunters are rarer in UGS territories and more prevalent in Imperial territories. This is because bounty hunting is strictly outlawed in the UGS while the Empire not only allows bounty hunting, but actively supports the Bounty Hunters Guild and their mysterious guild masters. Through the crew journal, you can learn the history of why the guild is allowed to exist within the Empire, as well as the guild’s influence on the narrative and politics of The Chaser’s Voyage galaxy.

Also like pirates, we have six bounty hunter archetypes that will communicate and taunt you during battle. These archetypes include the rank and prestige obsessed Guild hunters, the misguided Hero hunters who believe they are fighting for justice, the greedy and money hungry Gambler hunters, the cold and calculating Robot hunters, the sadistic Death hunters, and the Ruthless hunters who are in the game for the sheer sport and business of it.

You can check out our Twitter to watch a showcase of our talented voice actors, as well as seeing a bounty hunter in action.

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May 10, 2022

Guide to the Galaxy – The Pirates of Sector 99

Lurking in the deepest and darkest depths of space are the ever roaming marauders of the stars, the plunderers of planets, the laser-blaster wielding buccaneers. I’m talking, of course, about pirates. During your voyage across the vast, open space of Sector 99, you’re more than likely to encounter a number of pirate ships that will ambush you, whether you’re cruising in the clear, fighting against the heat of a nearby star, or even navigating through a debris field.

All pirate ships are equipped with three primary weapons and have shields and engines comparable to the Chaser, making them a a constant threat to traveling ships. Their weapons can be any combination of laser cannons, ion blasters, concussion missile launchers, and ion missile launchers. Surviving each combination will require different strategies along with some quick thinking. Lasers and concussion missiles can be stopped more easily by shields, but can shred through your armor and knock out any of your systems’ components, requiring you to repair them mid-flight. Ion blasts and Ion missiles, on the other hand, will chew through your shields and also have a chance to reboot systems, which will drain all power from them and you will need to manually put power back into the drained system. Part of becoming an ace pilot will be knowing when to put power into your weapons to activate your missile defenses, divert power into your shields, boost your engines to outrun them, or risk focusing on the auxiliary systems to make faster repairs.

What’s important to remember is that pirate ships work off the same power system as the Chaser. They have a limited amount of power that they need to distribute to their weapons, shields, engines, and auxiliary systems. While trying to run away and avoid them is always an option, you can also power up your weapons to have Tai deal some damage to them. You may break their weapons, giving yourself the edge in combat until they are repaired. You can also knock out their engines, which can give you time to crank your own engines up to full speed and get away. Be careful though, if they fix their systems fast enough, they can catch up to you.

As I said a couple of weeks ago in the Guide to the Galaxy – The Grand Galactic War and Factions, the frequency that you can encounter pirates will be partially based on which territory you’re in. They’re obviously more common in pirate territories, but due to policies the UGS and Empire have set, they are quite common in UGS territories and rarer in Imperial territories. However, the type of client you are carrying will also determine how frequently you might encounter pirates. Since pirates are after treasure and other goodies to plunder, they often target merchants and supply officers who hire you to transport their valuable cargo. You’ll also find that pirates have a strange hatred of those who claim royalty. No one is quite sure why.

Luckily, the kind of shady nature in which your clients hire you means sometimes your clients have connections. In some circumstances, your client can ask one of your crew mates to let them talk to the attacking pirates. It’s a big risk, since you need to power your auxiliary system to level 3 in order to communicate with others (meaning you’ll most likely have to draw power away from your other systems) and it’s a not a guarantee to work. But if your client can convince the pirates to leave you be, it’s a quick way to help you avoid a fight.

As your adventures transporting clients from planet to planet continue, you’ll start recognizing your typical pirate archetypes and start accumulating entries in your crew journal containing more and more history of piracy in the galaxy and, more importantly, your relationship with one of the five pirate lords of Sector 99, the dreaded Pirate Lady known as Styx.

These pirate archetypes include the classical pirate buccaneers, the mob and business obsessed underworld pirates, the ruthlessly posh privateers, the conniving, lying treacherous pirates, the Draugmeer worshiping cultists, and the sorrowful reluctant pirates who wish there was another way. You can find a showcase of the fantastic voice performances for our bunch of pirates on our Twitter.

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April 26, 2022

Guide to the Galaxy – The Grand Galactic War and Factions

War! The galaxy is in the midst of turmoil as the ceasefire between the Union of Galactic Systems and the Grand Xaltiam Empire comes to an end. Conflict is everywhere. There are heroes on both sides.

This week, I’d like to talk about a major piece of lore in The Chaser’s Voyage that will directly affect how you play and what clients you will choose, but first, here’s a little bit of backstory. Seven years before you take off on the Chaser to pay back your debt, the two galactic super powers signed a ceasefire that would have been the first step towards ending a centuries long war. Those factions are the Union of Galactic Systems, commonly referred to as the UGS, and the Grand Xaltiam Empire, or just the Empire. Along with this ceasefire came an unprecedented cooperation between the two sides as they aided each other in dealing with common issues, like the rise of piracy amongst the galaxy. Then, three years into the ceasefire, the Battle of Yeppa happened. It was the first major conflict between the UGS and the Empire since the ceasefire and though many attribute the conflict to a misunderstanding, it rattled any further talks of peace. By the time you’re ready to start your voyage, what was known as the Galactic Ceasefire had come to an end and war continued as normal, only this time, it was spilling into the borders of Sector 99.

Over the course of your adventure, you will feel the effects of the escalating conflict, such as finding some clients that will need your help on behalf of one of the factions or other clients who are trying desperately to escape them. Having an aligned client offers new challenges. While occasionally you might encounter a UGS or Imperial fleet, they normally will fly in the background and can even offer you a place to get some repairs should you need them. A fleet that detects one of their enemies aboard your ship however, will instead try to block you off, forcing you to make an exciting dash through the fleet as you evade laser fire, avoid crashing into the massive battleships, and contend with the fighters they’ve sent out to slow you down. Needless to say, they provide a challenge that can end your adventure very quickly.

But that’s not all, individual battleships can also be sent on solo missions to pursue you. In these scenarios, the battleship will be free to use their ultimate weapon, the particle disruptor cannon. You’re not likely to survive a hit from one of their blasts, but luckily, they emit a targeting beam that can be picked up by your sensors. You can use this while you learn to pick up on the cues to avoid these devastating attacks. Of course, space isn’t always accommodating to your sensors and a surprise hail or radiation storm can remove this as one of your options. What’s key is that you move outside their firing range, which should be easy with the Chaser’s engines at their maximum level. I say should be, because these battleships will also be sending fighters to try and slow you down. You’ll be in trouble if they catch you in difficult to maneuver in terrain, such as asteroid fields.

While there are other challenges that come with picking up an aligned client, there are some benefits too. In addition to acquiring a new enemy for a trip, you also acquire new friends. While enemy fleets will try to impede your path, friendly fleets will still offer you repairs, only this time they’ll do it for free. So you better take advantage of their generosity as much as possible, since it can be a huge money saver.

As the days progress, you’ll start encountering battles between the Empire and UGS, whether you’re aligned with either of them or not. These scenarios can be chaotic as you’re surrounded by fighters battling it out and battleships constantly firing and blowing up. It will take nerves of steel to weave you’re way through the conflict safely and if you happen to have a client who is an enemy to one of the factions, you will also be targeted. Luckily, if that same client is also an ally to the other side, you can call for aid and they’ll send some escorts to protect you.

Something else to keep in mind regarding the factions are the territories you’ll be jumping through. Sector 99 is known as a contested sector, meaning it’s a part of space that is being fought over by both sides. Due to different policies laid out by each faction, different territories have different odds of encountering certain challenges and obstacles. For instance, the UGS has more of a free trade policy, which is great for merchants, but also allows pirates to thrive. Meanwhile, the Empire has more restricted routes, meaning you’ll be less likely to encounter any hard to navigate terrain. Instead, you’ll find more minefields, which is how the Empire controls their trade routes. Also, due to a deal with the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, bounty hunters are more free to operate in Imperial space as opposed to in UGS space, where bounty hunting is outlawed. You also won’t find any fleets roaming around in their enemy’s territories. That means no imperial fleets in UGS territory and visa versa, though you can still find yourself being pursued by a single battleship. You also won’t be able to land at any space ports in imperial territory while transporting enemies of the Empire and the same goes for the UGS.

In addition to the Imperial and UGS territories, there are two others. The first is the neutral territory belonging to people who aren’t controlled by either side. These territories have either made arrangements to stay out of the conflict with the UGS and Empire or are being actively fought over. It may seem safer, but in reality, it’s a wild card. The second remaining territory belongs to the hidden third enemy of the galaxy: the pirates!

Some places in the sector are so hostile, that neither the UGS nor the Empire have or even want to conquer them. They are often havens for outlaws, due to the high amount of asteroid fields, uncharted stars, strange stellar weather phenomenons, and more. Pirate territory offers reduced chances of encounters with either faction, but (obviously) has more pirates and bounty hunters to shake off. Not to mention, less safe havens for repairs like space ports and merchant fleets, though they are still possible to find, if you’re lucky.

Ultimately, a lot of your major decision making will be happening when you choose a client. While money and time is certainly a factor, not paying attention to each client’s backstory or what territories they’ll have you traveling through is a certain way to have your voyage end prematurely. So remember, fly smart and fly safe.

April 19, 2022

Guide to the Galaxy – The People of Sector 99

Last week, we talked about the planets of the sector you’ll be traversing during your time playing The Chaser’s Voyage. This week, I’ll be showing off the different denizens of the sector that will make up your potential clients. One of the best parts of making a sci-fi/fantasy setting is creating all sorts of fun and interesting new sapient species, so we were really excited to not only show off some alien creatures, but also to write some history for them. Like most of our art, we gave our artist a lot of freedom when it came to the designs, only offering our input to make some refinements (adjustments that fit better into the larger lore we had in mind) or just some designs we really wanted to have in. From there, we wrote backstories to fit the designs, doing our best to avoid any typical alien tropes that one might see in a lot of sci-fi settings. We particularly wanted to avoid any kind of histories that would imply that everyone of a particular species shared a belief, mindset, or personality type.

Humans

Of course, humans exist and are quite common. We even have all our your crew mate characters be human. We did this because while encountering and befriending aliens is fun, we wanted to ensure that the vast diversity of humans was also represented in our game (and even then we were unfortunately limited since we only have four crew mates). In a lot of sci-fi/sci-fantasy stories I’ve encountered, humans are always very common either through massive colonization, a focus on places like Earth, or their commonness was not really explored at all. We wanted to explain this commonality in a different way. When thinking of the human backstory, I was inspired by an episode of Power Rangers (of all things) where they hand waved extra-terrestrial humans by simply saying “humans exist elsewhere too.” As far as I know, that was never explained in the context of the series, but I liked the idea. So, we decided that humans would be a kind of galactic mystery, where despite what evolutionary science might say, humans came about independently on vastly different planets, all over the galaxy, thus explaining how common they are.

As for the other species, well, I don’t want to spoil too much since you’ll be able to find out more about them in the crew journal, once we implement it. So, I’ll give you just a little preview of them here.

Chlik

The chlik are an imp-like people from the swampy planet of Yazou. Thousands of years ago they colonized planets that would would later be collectively known as the Deadworlds.

Faeian

The faeians are elf-like humanoids from the forest planet, Tethalon. One of the insignias that you can equip in the game, The Angel of the Radiant Moon, is actually tied directly to faeian culture as part of their most common religion.

Fear-Eaters

These goblin-like creatures were part of the warrior caste in the religious theocracy on the planet Temekko. Since the fall of that theocracy, fear-eaters are way more common throughout the sector.

Gnathus

The gnathus are a fish like species, though they’re more like amphibians, living both on land and underwater. When it came to making different varieties of gnathus we wanted a mix of colors reminiscent to real world fish, with some being explicitly more tropical and others being more arctic. They originated on the icy world of Balitore, though because of their advanced colonization methods, their coloration changed to adapt to new environments.

Gryphinian

Gryphinians are avian people from the mountain world of Ai’lika. Like gnathus, we wanted the variety of colors for this species to resemble the birds we have on earth.

Ka’koi

The ka’koi are a lizard-like species from the industrial world of Agasta. They’re kind of our example of how a species could be designed in such a way to fit a character archetype, but you could still easily apply those traits to fit different kinds of characters. Ka’koi’s eyes, for example, are described as being perfect for hunting, but we say in-game that characterizing them as bounty hunters and warriors is a stereotype and that plenty of ka’koi have gone on to use their innate abilities for medical work, racing, and farming, among other pursuits.

Kingii

Our other lizard inspired species, the kingii, is the first species on this list to not originate within Sector 99 (besides humans). They are from Klik-Sss in Sector 22.

Maloodans

The mysterious maloodans are from the wasteland world known as Dusta. This species was an interesting challenge to write for because they were designed with a mask, but since you could encounter so many of them I had to come up with a reason for why they would all wear masks. What I came up with is that it’s a breathing apparatus featuring some of their cultural designs. Had we more opportunities to explore other maloodan characters, I think it would have been neat to have more variety in their masks. Oh well, there’s always the sequel.

Mayvian

The mayvians are spider people that are the descendants of those who survived a major cataclysm that happened on their home world of Old Serata. I wanted to take this opportunity to show that in this galaxy, those big origin myths that might be the backstory for an entire saga can just be fun information to anyone else.

Nygothan

The nygothans are another species from outside the sector, like the kingii. Their people’s history is seeped in some of our deep lore, so instead I’ll share some of the thoughts we had developing them. While the other species were designed to be gender neutral in their presentation, the nygothan design we chose was more feminine. So, we used it as kind of an opportunity to riff on the, frankly, annoying trope of the all female alien species. They only look all female due to our biases in our perspective. Their species just has very different, culturally contextualized, ways of presenting gender (kinda like us humans do.)

Paju

The poor paju come from the forest world Quitos, but mass colonization eventually forced them to all migrate off world. Their sad backstory was directly inspired by those sad little eyes.

Sin-Eater

Sin-eaters were the lowest caste on Temekko and used their special ability to make people forget specific memories. Then, they would have to atone for those sins themselves. Luckily, most sin-eaters live less traumatic lives now.

Todean

While I’m not entirely sure, I think I was inspired by some of the jokes in Portal 2 when making the backstory for the mantis-like Todean people. They have strong cultural ties to genetic modifications. I think I want it to be ambiguous whether or not the mantis form is how this species naturally looked before they adopted genetic mutations, because that’s much funnier.

Xanapor

Finally, there’s the xanapor. When we saw this design, we loved how weird it was. In fact, I think we specifically wanted something really out there. So naturally, we had come up with a backstory just as weird and mysterious as they are.

These are the species of people you can find as clients, but throughout our crew journal we mention several more species. Usually they are just from outside the sector. All of the art featured here was done by our client artist Santi Leigh Biondolillo.

April 12, 2022

Guide to the Galaxy – Planets of Sector 99

Now that we’ve met your crew, lets find out more about the galaxy you’ll be flying through in The Chaser’s Voyage. All of the action takes place in a small section of the galactic map called Sector 99. To the wider galaxy, it’s known as the last bit of territory before one enters The Frontier (an unexplored and enticing section of space), which makes it coveted by all sorts of galactic powers, such as the UGS, the Empire, and even gangs of pirates. Your adventure always starts on your home planet of Azedo (a small backwater farming planet), but from there the worlds you can visit open up as over 260 planets become possible destinations requested by your clients. While your stays on each planet will only be brief, your Crew Journal will give you little hints at the much bigger world you just happen to be visiting.

One of the most difficult things of operating on an indie game budget (or really any kind of game budget) is that it’s not often possible to make the world you’re exploring as vast and deep as you’d want it to be. Since The Chaser’s Voyage’s inception, we knew the player would be hopping from planet to planet. Of course, it’s immersion breaking and boring to always just be heading towards some unnamed “planet”. How’s this universe supposed to feel lived in if you know nothing about it. So, we decided to name our client planets, making one for each combination of several factors, such as land to water ratio, primary biome (borrowing the ever classic single biome trope), population density, and civilization type. So pretty soon, we were able to visit places like the sparsely populated shanty towns of the snowy world of Porons or one of the massive factories that sprawl along the wastelands of Neraka or even the modern cities of the jungle world, Shirenko.

We felt like this made each planet have it’s own identity. After enough time playing, planets like these would becomes as familiar to the player as some of the crew or key figures mentioned in the Crew Journal. With this kind of identity also came a desire to make the planet feel more alive. We didn’t want to always just show static images when the player was landing and taking off, so we added in some simple weather events. On Korri for instance, it could be snowing when you visit it, while on a jungle or forest world, it might be raining. Some buildings also have smoke effects to help make them a little less static. Background ships were added as well, to give the feeling that you are in a space port town, with ships landing and taking off every day.

Ambient sound effects were also crucial. We made sure they were subtle, so as to not be intrusive, but if you listen carefully you can hear the winds blowing across a desert planet or the moving of machines on an industrial world. Finally, with each planet becoming more alive and characterized, we gave them small snippets of backstory that fills out your journal whenever you visit a planet for the first time. They are little comments left by your crew reflecting some of their thoughts, observations, or even the history of the planet. We sadly can’t let the players freely explore all these worlds, but we wanted to give the impression that you are just one part of this larger galaxy that is full of adventures and stories to tell. Ironically, I think it helps grounds the story we are telling.

The art for the landscapes of each planet as well as the different kinds of buildings we use was done by Felix Yuniar.