If you’re new around here don’t buy the game, it’s unsupported and a mess in its current form, we’re working hard to put it right.

Since thought a little more about the last post here when we mentioned that it’s too distracting to code and write blogs at the same time. I’m not happy with it that, I’m just not sure it’s true.

To stay focused this time, we’re splitting development into manageable chunks called sprints.

In the opening stages, a sprint will focus on adding a bunch of related gameplay elements - we implement only what’s planned and not a line of code or graphical detail more than needed. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility to incorporate some blogging about said elements at the end of a sprint.

It might even be useful to help clear ones head in preparation for planning the following sprint.

The truth is that writing to you is enjoyable and a major part of the journey, but is Steam the place for such posts? Especially when there’s a game client up that isn’t currently supported - we don’t want to market that, I wish there was a fat pause button on Steam but there’s not. So it might be best to leave up a ‘this is currently f**ked’ post and come back here when we have something concrete and playable.

Phoenix, flames, all the jazz.

The news everyone is waiting for here is ‘the new game client is here’ and as mentioned it’ll be a little while before we see that.

But there is plenty to talk about along the way, and when the cogs of the machine are oiled and we’re moving with gusto, it’ll be time to scour the comments and forums for your opinions (good and bad) and that can’t be done unless you have something to talk about.

Maybe the answer lie somewhere in-between, I don’t know - has anyone ever tried to resurrect a game from the dead?

Anyway, the last update was a bit lame, so I come to you with PROOF this time, proof of life if you like.

We’ve relaunched the blog, filled it with all the various short stories that John Harper, our resident scribe, has written over the years. There is hours of lore to read already and i’m hoping John will come back and help put even more together.

Like you I’ve got to build his trust too, I’ll keep you posted on that.

There’s also an entry on the progress of development so far on the server components. Along with another article musing about the parts of the game we plan to pull into the new game client, and we talk a bit about the parts that don’t quite work. We also get a sneak peak at the game client just to prove there is actually some activity happening there.

I’ll try and keep the posts shorter this time around, 500 words or under - I know I can waffle on a bit.

That’s better, this is a better way to end the year - apologies dished up, a shiny new blog and a renewed sense of focus. Next year we’re going to KICK ASS.

Work is still going on here on the server side of things, still writing tests and implementing base functionality. We have to set expectations here, this is going to take a long time. If you're new DON'T BUY THE GAME - the projects in a weird state and i'm not even sure it's playable right now.

Some might say a mistake was made showing up empty handed 6 months ago and I would agree with that. The majority of dev is really boring to talk about and it's going to be less about the showmanship this time around.

It’s not really worth coming to you with regular updates on this because it’s simply too distracting to code, write updates and interact with the community at the same time. The guy (me) who had his head in the code was previously also trying to run things and write comms, not a wonder I had a breakdown really.

So this time its fun game first, flash graphics, details and suggestions later.

Don't get me wrong, I care about community feedback, ironically there’s distance now because I care too much about what you think. But mentally and financially, this game sent me off the rails once and I can't let that happen again. I could go toe-to-toe with the community, armed with fiscal reports and proof of this and that, but it’s a waste of time and energy and at the end of it all, I would still owe you a game.

The good news is, the project has been running a long time and this all feels very easy to put together now (if not a bit time consuming,) the major lessons have been learnt. Still some challenges but we have what we need for victory.

Lot's of exciting new ideas and there's a lot we can pull from the original client(s,) think fleets hiding in asteroid clusters and that 'living sector' feel, but on a much grander scale. We have to start out small, a core game that is fun to play with multiplayer from the start (if you want that, it'll be subtle) and we'll roll in features in a much more planned fashion with planning sessions held with some external scrutiny.

Minus getting all the assets made, this does effectively mean starting again - but I promise you it will be worth it.

So for some real updates:

- Going to be sticking with Unity3D for the game client after all, we have bunch of assets all ready for that game engine - the game client can be turned around quickly because of that. We should take that win.

- The ship models and other game assets are intact, what we need now is time to assemble the assets into a game. I’ll own that as my penance (even if it takes another 5 years,) but we expect to bring on a dev or two in the new year to assist.

- We planned to make it free, maybe we'll just make it super cheap instead. We want to avoid getting hung up on business management but it's inevitable and we have someone to handle that now. When we get back to a release cycle, we'll need to pay for development somehow - i'll fund that out of pocket for the time being. Plus a multiplayer free game has some pretty big considerations.

I’m hoping there will be something to show Q2/Q3 in the coming year, but it’s going to look like block wars for quite a while yet, and when we update steam it’ll need to be with something that exceeds what is currently on show.

Note that we won't be supporting the current game client, we're currently rewriting to fix some game design issues which will make it easier to control and play. We're also making it a multiplayer game from the start.

Massively appreciated the messages of support, also appreciate that there’s many of you feeling annoyed - trust me we're working hard to put it right. Enjoy your holiday season, I’ll personally be coding like a madman for the duration.

You’ll be hearing from us again in the New Year.

We've catalogued the games assets and we're in good shape.

We have most of the components we need to rescue the project and the opportunity now to learn from the previous failures and adapt. We appreciate the project was abandoned and trust is low, so until we've made things right - we'll shortly be making the game free on Steam.

There will be some challenges - multiplayer will need to be baked in from the start and it was incredibly difficult to tame those free moving ships into something that was actually purposeful and strategical.

Then there's the fact that the Shallow Space project is huge.

There is so much lore it's hard to put it into words (excuse the pun!)

Detailed specs of each system, each faction, how they operate / co-operate. Much of it was on the old website which sadly got shuttered, We're excited to come across this treasure trove and are even much excited to get that stuff back online.

Then there are the assets.

We're by no means complete there - i'd say we were about 65-70% of the way, but we have enough of them to recreate Shallow Space as a more fun game using more modern tech.

But hold on; one doesn't just make a free multiplayer game.

So why would we bother with it? Because multiplayer is important, but not to everyone. But something like Shallow Space could really shine if we could have hundreds of players working together (or against each other) somehow competing for control of space or resources. We need to lay that groundwork from the start.

The current alpha shows a bit of the intention with having multiple zones with background traffic, we're just going to scale that up quite a bit to accommodate multiplayer and make those environments richer with localized events, random encounters and plenty of opportunity to team up with your mates for big-ass fleet battles or go at it alone if you prefer.

OK ... so yeah that sounds good - but how?

Technical speak: In the background we'll run a number cruncher as a highly efficient micro-service based platform that is designed to scale when Players join and be the brains of the universe, we'll call this the backend which is the hard part of the project. Now that sounds complex, but in our 3.5 year absence we have gathered experience developing such systems.

This backend is the part we're currently working on and it's coming along nicely. We're using test driven development to ensure it's as stable as possible. We have working integration, so we're able to push out updates quickly and safely, as we develop them.

All that jargon is important, because it means more time delivering the goods and what we deliver will work better with far fewer crashes. This was a major failing of the project previously.

Good news, but the game client also needs to benefit from this streamline integration also.

The current alpha is running in Unity3D, but we're not really doing that much with it and it's a pain to work into a pipeline. We want something with a lighter footprint, so we're experimenting with porting the game to GoDot - it's a tiny game engine that's efficient and free.

Shallow Space has been going for a long time and if you look back at the Youtube videos we spent a lot of time playing with the art of space battle and working out what looks right, some might say too much time.

It's so easy to get distracted with details, we've got to make a game out of this and we've got to be ruthless to get there. Expect some changes; some loss of detail, some improved controls - it's all in the name of making it more fun, and feel more like a game. We obviously want some opinions on that so we're aiming to get something out ASAP, i'd say within 6 months.

The project is huge and the bulk of the work lies in the backend, we're making good progress but we're still at the start of it. The game client should come together quickly (once we've gotten used to GoDot) and we don't have to wait for artwork because we have enough of it already - massive time saver, then we'll start seeing Steam updates on the client again.

But when will that be?

Shallow Space has always been a labour of love, born from a love of the genre. We're not going to get stressed about delivering it again, better to enjoy the journey and the positive community spirit the project has always seemed to attract. We'll get back on our feet first, make the game free and get it into a state we can play together and then look at how we'll get the funds to finish it.

We're amazed and grateful to read the comments of support, it's very encouraging and really makes us work harder. It's been a productive couple of months of cataloguing assets, planning and coding and we'll have something to show for that soon, in the meantime, look forward to some of that lore reappearing on the web.

Thanks to everyone, we'll be in touch regularly with updates!

I must have sat down to write this post a thousand times …

So the project had a number of failings.

We had limited resources, driving the project took up a lot of that. There was a lot of stuff in the background that just wasn’t implemented or managed properly. Updates were rushed, manual and error prone because we had no tests or continuous integration and there were some game design issues.

More bad luck, we had a publisher lined up but it fell through (Brexit,) our devs found other projects, some arguments with ex-teammates spilled into public and bad reviews started to bury the game because hands up, we forgot to actually make it fun!

Even more bad luck. A large bunch of keys appeared on a certain grey market site and sales dried up overnight. Business drove into the ground hard; personally - I was burnt-out and broke, and I had to heal quickly and then go and get a job.

I couldn’t heal while trying to explain to a bunch of people why I failed. I stepped back for the sake of my mental health.

I had to close Steam, block it from my life for a while and I apologise for that, after four long years I was burnt out …

Why couldn’t I just tell you all of that later on?

Well it's hard to stand up in front of the 15-25K people who were good enough to support you and tell them you had failed to put together the game you always dreamt of. But it was harder still to come back to it and pick at the remains.

What have I been doing all these years? Becoming better at what I do, learning how to do software development properly (and lurking on Steam of course.)

I finally got over myself and found Shallow Space still here, frozen in time.

So why am I telling you this now?

Because i'm going to finish Shallow Space.

The team is coming back together.

We know what went wrong, we know not to do it again and we’ve spend the last 4 years writing software for other people and have learnt a thing or two. We still have all the source code - 3 iterations of that engine, we still have the knowledge from that.

We’ve been heavily inspired by Hello games with No Mans Sky. They launched with such appalling reception and they just kept going and going - making that game right.

We need to do that here.

We’ve been working on Shallow Space for a month or so now. But it’s all backend mechanics, written neatly learning from all the lessons since the project began. Right now it’s just a load of lines of text running down a screen but progress is swift and the project is robust.

That backend is going to take a while to develop, and after that we need to make the client. But we have most of the artwork ready for that, with a well-formed plan we can put it together in a reasonable time.

Is it wise to try and reignite this old flame?

This is about finishing what we’ve started. If a handful of the 25K people who bought this game already say to us ‘I enjoyed that’ then it will be worth it.

Looking at Steam there’s still not much around for open-world style fleet management games and we have some cool ideas and some legacy to resolve. I have to hope that if we do manage to deliver to the good folk that supported us, we might still be able to make something from this yet.

It’s been an interesting year for the project, feedback fairly early on in the release caused us to slam on the brakes and have a real think about the direction in which the project was going. We had two choices; do what is normally done and continue down that path and release the game hoping to learn the lessons in the sequel, or do the honest thing taking it back to the start and work in the stuff you really wanted to see.

We chose the honest path meaning progress this year has been somewhat of a forward-sideways step rather than a direct lunge forward. Even so mechanically things are shaping up well, once we have matured and stabilised the code base the rest of the route to completion is a case of joining the dots, it’s high level stuff that will come together quickly once the remaining assets arrive and the story is finalised.

How quickly I hear you ask? Well it’s difficult to say.

There aren’t any rulebooks on the creation of this type of game, well actually we suppose there are; we could take another game and clone it, but that doesn’t really advance the genre. Besides it's been said before, the reason we are here is to explore the RTS – take it apart, assess each piece, put it back together incorporating elements from other genres if they fit.

We’re three years into the project now (one year on Steam,) we are clear now on exactly what the finished product will look like and it’s very exciting but it’s safe to say that our chosen path means that we face some pretty serious challenges in the coming year.

These challenges directly hinge on the unilateral changes that Steam continue to make.

These changes might be for the good of the customer and we are behind them, what's more we remain grateful for being offered the opportunity to trade on Steam. But had we known a year ago the changes that would be made we would likely not have released on Steams Early Access and instead continued down a pre-order/beta route but there is no going back now.

We work hard to ensure that you guys are kept informed and release regular updates, but that might not be enough to keep our heads above water anymore.

The real killer is this ‘rolling aggregate score’ they’ve introduced which has lead to a change in Players reviewing habits. What we’re seeing is that when people have positive things to say they’ll often post on the forums but when people have feedback or issues they often leave a negative review. This is worrying because negative reviews can easily kill a project dead – especially if the aggregate score falls into ‘Mixed’ which happens when a project has 70% (or below) positive reviews – this is simply brutal.

What’s more we have zero control over them, even if we capitulate to what is effectively blackmail and fix the issues by then the Player has refunded and moved on.

Then there’s the issue of grey market sales, the refunds themselves, games websites being closed to indies (probably a blessing in disguise judging from the way games are reviewed these days,) social media reach being intentionally borked - all these little things are eating away at the money we need to finish this thing.

So what does this uncertainty mean for Shallow Space?

Firstly don’t worry; personally, I haven’t spent 3 years of my life on a project only to roll it up when the going gets tough. No f**king way!

Take a look around on Steam for similar projects to ours – open RTS games set in space and you won’t find many (if any at all) and the ones you do find have been rushed to completion. This is because they are extremely unlikely to get funding from investors or the crowd because they are not a safe bet.

But this project is different.

We have proven ourselves to be dedicated, we have something tangible and the most important thing: We have made some money. That effectively makes it a dead cert in the eyes of many an investor. The game is undeniably good looking so potentially we could Kickstart it and even if it failed it’s a nice little publicity push.

Needless to say, more money means more developers and artists.

These are hostile times for any indie project and every bone in our bodies is screaming out to rush this thing to completion. But games take time to make – if anything we need to slow it right down, take bigger steps forward taking time to make sure the new inclusions are more stable.

We need to get a business plan together and start canvassing for investment because the games completion shouldn’t rely so much on Steam profits, especially as it becomes an increasingly hostile place to do business and the cash reserves dwindle.

So admittedly it’s a struggle, but without these struggles we would become complacent and above all the woes progress remains strong. But don’t take our word for it, go back through the previous news, and take a look at the YouTube gameplay videos from 6 months ago. You’ve all bought into a project that is progressive and moving forwards.

This will be a good year.

We can expect 3 times the number of ships presently in the game; the asset factory is churning in the background making it so. The author has fleshed out the main storyline and sidequests and will soon start working on lines for voice acting.

We’re working on the Zone/Map switching so that it is seamless, resource collecting, construction and working on that planetary map but implementation-wise this is all superficial stuff reliant on the foundations we’ve already built that improve every week.

The hard work is done now, all that remains is to tidy up and continue to build on those foundations. We foresee struggles but fortunately we are now stood at the top of the hill looking down. We must be a little more careful in todays landscape and spend more time building the business and not just the game but there is little doubt that 2017 is the year we’ve been working towards.

Wishing all of our Players and followers a happy new year and the biggest thanks from the team for all your support in 2016!

It’s been an interesting year for the project, feedback fairly early on in the release caused us to slam on the brakes and have a real think about the direction in which the project was going. We had two choices; do what is normally done and continue down that path and release the game hoping to learn the lessons in the sequel, or do the honest thing taking it back to the start and work in the stuff you really wanted to see.

We chose the honest path meaning progress this year has been somewhat of a forward-sideways step rather than a direct lunge forward. Even so mechanically things are shaping up well, once we have matured and stabilised the code base the rest of the route to completion is a case of joining the dots, it’s high level stuff that will come together quickly once the remaining assets arrive and the story is finalised.

How quickly I hear you ask? Well it’s difficult to say.

There aren’t any rulebooks on the creation of this type of game, well actually we suppose there are; we could take another game and clone it, but that doesn’t really advance the genre. Besides it's been said before, the reason we are here is to explore the RTS – take it apart, assess each piece, put it back together incorporating elements from other genres if they fit.

We’re three years into the project now (one year on Steam,) we are clear now on exactly what the finished product will look like and it’s very exciting but it’s safe to say that our chosen path means that we face some pretty serious challenges in the coming year.

These challenges directly hinge on the unilateral changes that Steam continue to make.

These changes might be for the good of the customer and we are behind them, what's more we remain grateful for being offered the opportunity to trade on Steam. But had we known a year ago the changes that would be made we would likely not have released on Steams Early Access and instead continued down a pre-order/beta route but there is no going back now.

We work hard to ensure that you guys are kept informed and release regular updates, but that might not be enough to keep our heads above water anymore.

The real killer is this ‘rolling aggregate score’ they’ve introduced which has lead to a change in Players reviewing habits. What we’re seeing is that when people have positive things to say they’ll often post on the forums but when people have feedback or issues they often leave a negative review. This is worrying because negative reviews can easily kill a project dead – especially if the aggregate score falls into ‘Mixed’ which happens when a project has 70% (or below) positive reviews – this is simply brutal.

What’s more we have zero control over them, even if we capitulate to what is effectively blackmail and fix the issues by then the Player has refunded and moved on.

Then there’s the issue of grey market sales, the refunds themselves, games websites being closed to indies (probably a blessing in disguise judging from the way games are reviewed these days,) social media reach being intentionally borked - all these little things are eating away at the money we need to finish this thing.

So what does this uncertainty mean for Shallow Space?

Firstly don’t worry; personally, I haven’t spent 3 years of my life on a project only to roll it up when the going gets tough. No f**king way!

Take a look around on Steam for similar projects to ours – open RTS games set in space and you won’t find many (if any at all) and the ones you do find have been rushed to completion. This is because they are extremely unlikely to get funding from investors or the crowd because they are not a safe bet.

But this project is different.

We have proven ourselves to be dedicated, we have something tangible and the most important thing: We have made some money. That effectively makes it a dead cert in the eyes of many an investor. The game is undeniably good looking so potentially we could Kickstart it and even if it failed it’s a nice little publicity push.

Needless to say, more money means more developers and artists.

These are hostile times for any indie project and every bone in our bodies is screaming out to rush this thing to completion. But games take time to make – if anything we need to slow it right down, take bigger steps forward taking time to make sure the new inclusions are more stable.

We need to get a business plan together and start canvassing for investment because the games completion shouldn’t rely so much on Steam profits, especially as it becomes an increasingly hostile place to do business and the cash reserves dwindle.

So admittedly it’s a struggle, but without these struggles we would become complacent and above all the woes progress remains strong. But don’t take our word for it, go back through the previous news, and take a look at the YouTube gameplay videos from 6 months ago. You’ve all bought into a project that is progressive and moving forwards.

This will be a good year.

We can expect 3 times the number of ships presently in the game; the asset factory is churning in the background making it so. The author has fleshed out the main storyline and sidequests and will soon start working on lines for voice acting.

We’re working on the Zone/Map switching so that it is seamless, resource collecting, construction and working on that planetary map but implementation-wise this is all superficial stuff reliant on the foundations we’ve already built that improve every week.

The hard work is done now, all that remains is to tidy up and continue to build on those foundations. We foresee struggles but fortunately we are now stood at the top of the hill looking down. We must be a little more careful in todays landscape and spend more time building the business and not just the game but there is little doubt that 2017 is the year we’ve been working towards.

Wishing all of our Players and followers a happy new year and the biggest thanks from the team for all your support in 2016!

Just a quick note to add that we have a round of fixes and tweaks coming in for updates that have been released in the last few days - details below.

Some great feedback coming back, special thanks to SnottyGremlin for his clear and constructive criticism, very useful to hear from new Players!

As always, we really appreciate the support and we hope you have a great festive period!


- Added option to disable 'Film Grain' in graphic options
- Fixes to crash caused by clicking 'End Deployment' with no units deployed
- Fixes to camera drift when Joystick plugged in
- Fixes to scrolling using mousewheel affecting camera zoom
- Fixed crash saving game with containers
- Fixed crash refreshing inventory window
- Fixes various to stability
- Tweaked default camera panning speed
- Tweaked targetboxes to make them more visible
- Tweaked Ship Builder UI button to close on click if already open


- Fixes to combined Inventory window
- Fixes to Save/Load
- Fixes to missions/objectives not being cleaned up on game exit
- Fixes to tutorial being show in Quick Battle mode
- Fixes to rare crash on mission 'All Good Things'
- Fixed issue with time controls animating incorrectly on game restart
- Fixed issue with Player ship fleet panel not spawning correctly on load game
- Fixed issue with 'ghost ship' on load game

Just a quick note to add that we have a round of fixes and tweaks coming in for updates that have been released in the last few days - details below.

Some great feedback coming back, special thanks to SnottyGremlin for his clear and constructive criticism, very useful to hear from new Players!

As always, we really appreciate the support and we hope you have a great festive period!


- Added option to disable 'Film Grain' in graphic options
- Fixes to crash caused by clicking 'End Deployment' with no units deployed
- Fixes to camera drift when Joystick plugged in
- Fixes to scrolling using mousewheel affecting camera zoom
- Fixed crash saving game with containers
- Fixed crash refreshing inventory window
- Fixes various to stability
- Tweaked default camera panning speed
- Tweaked targetboxes to make them more visible
- Tweaked Ship Builder UI button to close on click if already open


- Fixes to combined Inventory window
- Fixes to Save/Load
- Fixes to missions/objectives not being cleaned up on game exit
- Fixes to tutorial being show in Quick Battle mode
- Fixes to rare crash on mission 'All Good Things'
- Fixed issue with time controls animating incorrectly on game restart
- Fixed issue with Player ship fleet panel not spawning correctly on load game
- Fixed issue with 'ghost ship' on load game

http://shallow.space/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Update6.1.jpg

As promised, we are pleased to announce Update 6.1 boasting a fully interactive tutorial!

By interactive we mean that it offers up a set of instructions and the tutorial continues once you have completed them. We figured it would be a better way to learn than an instructional video.

It's comprehensive and will take you through camera controls, group creation and fleet movement, inventory management and ship configuration and mission/objective management and basic combat drills. Expect the tutorial to grow as the game grows, with the impending station building and resource collection mechanics to be injected imminently.

We also have a few minor fixes from an incremental patch released a few days ago listed below.

We are simply bursting with excitement right now and if you're not then you should be, with the UI refresh and the tutorial framework out the way - quick stop to update the game media and then it's time for one almighty meat injection!

As always we massively appreciate the supportive comments and if you've just joined us welcome, take a flick through some of the previous news and strap yourself in, because things are about to get REAL interesting round here.


- Fixed destroyed enemy causing crash in sandbox
- Fixed close button doesn't work in Dialogue window
- Fixed context menu not appearing for modular stations
- Fixed incorrect ship reference in Dialogue window subtitle

http://shallow.space/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Update6.1.jpg

As promised, we are pleased to announce Update 6.1 boasting a fully interactive tutorial!

By interactive we mean that it offers up a set of instructions and the tutorial continues once you have completed them. We figured it would be a better way to learn than an instructional video.

It's comprehensive and will take you through camera controls, group creation and fleet movement, inventory management and ship configuration and mission/objective management and basic combat drills. Expect the tutorial to grow as the game grows, with the impending station building and resource collection mechanics to be injected imminently.

We also have a few minor fixes from an incremental patch released a few days ago listed below.

We are simply bursting with excitement right now and if you're not then you should be, with the UI refresh and the tutorial framework out the way - quick stop to update the game media and then it's time for one almighty meat injection!

As always we massively appreciate the supportive comments and if you've just joined us welcome, take a flick through some of the previous news and strap yourself in, because things are about to get REAL interesting round here.


- Fixed destroyed enemy causing crash in sandbox
- Fixed close button doesn't work in Dialogue window
- Fixed context menu not appearing for modular stations
- Fixed incorrect ship reference in Dialogue window subtitle