We finally have the answer to the question a lot of you have been asking us- when can I play Star Renegades? Well the answer is Star Renegades will be releasing on PC September 8th!

Check out our brand new trailer to see even more of the game in action.



For those of you wondering about the release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, we’re still working towards a release this year and will have more news for you soon!

Head over to the Steam forum and fire away!

Thanks again for following the development of Star Renegades. We can’t wait to get it in your hands. Remember to add it to your wishlist if you haven’t already!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/651670/Star_Renegades/

Last time we checked in with you we were sharing the details on the Timeline Battle System.

Now we’re super excited to show you the latest trailer for the game, which is fully animated. It delves into the character of Wynn Syphex, whose battle against The Imperium holds a very deep and personal meaning. This trailer was inspired by Star Renegades’ Adversary system, which generates enemies and bosses that evolve through your adventure, and are unique to your story. We hope you love the trailer as much as we do!




We’ve still got lots more to show as we near the release of the game, so stay tuned for more. And as ever thanks so much for following the development of Star Renegades, we can’t wait to get it your hands!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/651670/Star_Renegades/

Our Creative Director Peter gives an overview of our brand new Timeline Battle System, something we've been iterating on for awhile. We took classic JRPG turn-based combat and layered a very modern twist on it. Let us know what you think in the comments!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CejxKlv4P5U

As for overall development, we did end up taking a bit of a productivity hit due to the pandemic but we've been working hard and we're still on track for our release later this summer. We'll have a more news in our upcoming Dev Log post once we hit our internal BETA (real soon!)

Thanks, we hope everyone is keeping safe!

J5T-1N here- the rebellion's most trusted companion. I’ll be filling you all in on the updates since the team has been knee deep in development getting this game done! Soooo… first thing on the agenda- they’re back from PAX East (and none of them got sick this time!). I’ll be showing you some snippets of the brand new pre-beta demo this time. Pre-beta you ask? Yes! That means we’re all well on the road to beta. Hurrah!

The PAX East demo walks you through the story of Wynn and I fending off a mysterious hostile invasion for the nth time (since ya know.. this is the nature of roguelites and all). Then [redacted] happens and Wynn then sets out to join the rebellion- a rising force that wants to overthrow this force called the Imperium.

Quite a bit of new features we added:

• Camping mechanic
  
• Night/Day cycles
  
• World map tactics
  
• Deeper combat strategies
  
• Chimera boss (undefeated this PAX)

When you exhaust your rebel power (energy to perform tasks like reclaiming areas), you must camp to replenish the livelihood of your squad. You have available action gems that you can use up by playing action cards to increase your squad’s relationship levels. As you level up their relationships, you can unlock perks, new combo powers, and possibly.. Progeny! The day and night cycles go hand in hand with camping. At the start of a new day, the final boss meter counts down the number of days left before their arrival.



In the event of breaching an Imperium blockade, some areas may be unavailable to breach because the terminal controls several artillery cannons to fire at whoever enters the area. If you explore the map, you may find extra blueprints, passcodes, EMP bombs, or call airstrikes that can damage the enemy units in a targeted area.



Almost died for this passcode ...which turned out to be "1234"

We have added more damage types to add another layer of strategic decision-making. Your squad and enemy units may be susceptible to certain types of attacks or more resistant. Additionally, different types of damage may enrage a unit- making their attack power stronger every time they take damage from it. So, this all boils down to whether or not you should go ahead with enraging them for their next deadly snipe, but build up enough interrupt damage to delay that snipe on the timeline so that you can get an extra hit in from a squad mate to kill them. Every decision counts!



A new boss was added for this demo- The Chimera. And yeah- he is as tough as he looks. Born from Imperium cybergenetic permutations, The Chimera can return heavy fire, fiercely impale his enemies multiple times per round, and has a deafening roar that debuffs your whole team. This PAX East, many brave challengers have been slain by the unbending Chimera. Sad day. But we'll (probably) get ‘em next time, rebels!



The launch window is August 2020! *cheers* we are excited to show you what we’ve done and I promise the wait is worth it! In the meantime, we do share some sneak peeks of what we’ve been working on recently, but only on our Discord server here.

Thank you for your patience, rebels! Don’t forget to stay hydrated and also sanitize your hands.

Your trusted advisor,
J5T-1N

Hey Rebels,

HAPPY 2020! It’s been a minute. We’ve been hunkering down to tackle the alpha milestone for Star Renegades. We added more characters, backgrounds, and fleshed out the camping mechanic. Right now, our team is focusing on TWO major fronts for alpha:

1. Making sure the core game loop is fun as heck
2. Making more art in 2DX goodness and mission content population

Lots of work is still under construction, but here’s a suuuuuuper rough BTS (does not represent final art) of the camping mechanic layout.



Your squad will have available action gems (top left) that will deplete itself when you use cards that cost a certain amount of actions to use. For example, Wynn can choose to share a nice warm meal with Nodo if she wishes. In doing so, it will use up one available action gem and Nodo will gain affection points that will go towards levelling up their companionship (as well as a full belly of good food). When you level up the camaraderie between characters to the next level, there are relationship perks that can give extra bonus stats, new traits, new combo powers, or even new progeny!

And yes. You can pet this good boie.


Thanks for tuning in folks! I know we’ve been quiet lately... On a serious note, we would like to take a moment to remember our beloved teammate Christian. Some of you may have met him at Gamescom over the years. He may have talked your ear off about Halcyon 6 or Star Renegades with his contagious smile and warm energy. Sadly, Christian passed away last December. It has not been the same without him. Our team is absolutely shaken by this tremendous loss. Star Renegades has become a very special game for us as it is the last game Christian has worked on. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts.



Thank you all for your support and kindness over the years. It means a lot to our team to be able to share our journey with you all.

With <3

Your Friends at Massive Damage

Heeeyy Rebels!

Just a quick little recap on our time at Gamescom- if you’ve had time to tune in, you may have realized that we announced our new 2DX look for Star Renegades! We’ve also updated our Steam page description with more 2DX screenshots and GIFs for your eyes o_o

To recap- we revealed our new 2DX artstyle for Star Renegades at Gamescom with a trailer and a demo at the Indie Arena Booth. Our demo was a bit different this time around compared to last year’s demo.

We created a more tutorial-esque demo to show what the beginning of the game may look like in the final game. I say tutorial-esque because it is not a true tutorial with constant skill prompts and hand-holding. We did have hints but took our hands off the reins a bit to let our players choose what skills to use based on their deduction of what was happening in combat (this did lead to a lot of people dying though lol). There was definitely room for error and punishment for errors!



We added new energy systems such as ammo, rage, heat, energy, etc. to combat for an extra layer of complexity. Players would have to take into the account of reloading at proper times and harnessing enough energy resources to execute certain skills. Bosses would enter an exhausted/recover state after executing a deadly attack, which made them more susceptible to extra damage. Funnn!



Lastly (some of you may already know this), we implemented a free exploration map to replace that node-based travel system. We felt that this free exploration mechanic really hit us in the feels with replicating that classic JRPG world exploration nostalgia.

Oh- and we gave out J5T-1N keychains for folks who tried the demo. We still have tons left, so don’t worry if you haven’t picked yours up yet!



Gamescom was much smoother this time around thanks to Raw Fury! Last year, we were lugging suitcases with 40 t-shirts, 2000 postcards, various electronics, and 3 laptops from Canada. This year, it only took Softcookie 5 minutes to get through customs and security. Ahhhh. A happy tear was shed. So- Thank you, Raw Fury Family <3 <3


We survived!! Remind us to take a before and after photo next time.. 5 show days is a loooooong time and we definitely looked more tired than the first day!

Sooo that’s a wrap for a quick recap! Thanks for tuning in, Rebels! ːsteamhappyː


Softcookie + MDI Team

+ Links +
Discord
Twitter
Facebook
Homepage

HEY HI HELLO FOLKS <3

THE DAY HAS COME. WE CAN * F I N A L L Y * ANNOUNCE THE THING. FINALLY.

F
I
N
A
L
L
Y

If you're a part of our Discord community you maaay have gotten an early peek at this major announcement already ;) sooooo here it is below!ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fe0gqTU3Bg

YUP- we have changed our 2D art style to 2DX (X for XXXXXXXTREME). This is why we’ve been so quiet- not to mention we have been re-juggling the UI visuals again to also match this hi-def 2DX aesthetic look, so Softcookie put on her UI art hat again (but still wearing CM socks of course).

By the way, we are at Gamescom showing off this 2DX demo! It highlights the beginning tutorial of the FINAL game- so if you’re here at Gamescom (August 20-24), make sure to swing by Booth 021G at the Indie Arena Booth in Hall 10.2! We’ll be giving out J5T-1N keychains <3

Now that we have the guts of combat mechanics planned out, we wanted to start shifting our focus to other systems like camaraderie/camping, evolving adversary, and narrative/lore. So this new demo takes you on a journey into the lives of our rebels and gives you a glimpse about who they are and what sort of role they play in this grand universe.

If you enjoyed our trailer above, I hope you enjoy this extra GIF below! This scene is from our demo itself.



This whole 2D - 2DX thing started last year (2018) when we decided that we wanted to take pixel art to the next level and create a truly stand out artstyle. We started with some experiments and when we had our first concept test - we instantly fell in love with it.

Here’s a screenshot for proof:



Here’s Peter also realizing that we may have screwed ourselves over (in terms of workload!)



BUT HEEEY- we’re totally in love with this look. And we hope you are too!

Oh and ICYMI from the last announcement, Star Renegades is confirmed to launch on PC and Xbox platforms next year. Don’t worry, we’re still working to get it on other platforms as well. We’ll confirm those as soon as we are able ;)

Thanks for tuning in <3

Softcookie + MDI

+ Links +
Discord
Twitter
Facebook
Homepage

Hiiii folks *waves*

It’s Softcookie here ːsteamhappyː and YES we are definitely still alive and kickin here. We just have been in quiet mode working on our new demo which will then be a part of the final game. Soooo here’s a quick recap of some of the things that went on in the past few months (that can also be found on our socials).

BITSUMMIT
We were accepted to show Star Renegades at Bitsummit in Kyoto! Bitsummit (June 1-2) is Japan’s leading indie game festival showcasing over 100 indie games from around the world. It was our first time bringing Star Renegades to show in Asia, but definitely WON’T be our last becauseeeee… we took home an editor’s choice award by 4Gamer.net! Thank you so much~
Also... ramen. We had absurd amounts of ramen and it was amazing.



E3
Soon after Bitsummit, we made our way back to LA for E3! We showcased Star Renegades inside the Xbox Live Experience at the Microsoft Theatre- right beside Phoenix Point (our lovely booth neighbours). If you were watching the Xbox Keynote, you may have seen Keanu Reeves. You ALSO may have seen Star Renegades as part of the Xbox Game Pass line up among many other unique indie titles. This means that we are confirmed for PC, Steam, and Xbox platforms at launch and we’ll confirm for other platforms as soon as we can! <3



TECHNICAL ARTIST
We have a newwwww technical artist! His name is Matt and he will be helping Bryan out with sprinkling his magic on the visual effects. Now our combat animations will look even spicier and sparklier than ever before. All these new visual effects will be revealed in our Gamescom demo.

MUSIC
Our composer Steve London pumped out even more NEW awesome tracks for combat and camping scenes! We posted a clip of it on our Twitter for screenshot saturday. If you look closely, you can see a familiar furry four-legged friendo laying down by Wynn. And the answer is YES you can pet this doggo.



GAMESCOM
We will be back at Gamescom again this year! Mega thanks to Indie Arena Booth for having us <3 Right now, our team is working on a brand new demo just for Gamescom. So the chance to beat Thorus the World-Throttler is gone...but I’m sure they’ll be back within the next few rebellion cycles. This is a roguelite RPG with an evolving adversary system afterall ;) nobody really stays dead forever.. (that's how it works riiiight??)



In previous builds, we felt that not only did our demo play too long, but the learning curve (since it threw you right into the heart of the game instead of the tutorial) was a bit higher than average. So this time around, we’ll be adding tooltips and re-designed the UI (again) to make it more intuitive and friendlier to pick up.

You’ll be seeing quick recap blurbs here and there since we’re zoning in around the final stretch for Gamescom prep.

By the waaay.. who from here is going to Gamescom?! If you catch me (Softcookie) around, make sure to ask for some J5T-1N stickers and keychains!

Thanks for your patience and tuning in as always, Rebels!

See ya soon.

Softcookie and Team

LINKS
Discord
Twitter
DevLog 5

Hiya Rebels,

As promised, here's another devlog coming atcha~ Just wanted to let you know that you can play Star Renegades if you are going to PAX East this month! We will be there at Booth #13073 as part of the Indie Megabooth. Come find us for limited merch, pins, and tasty milk candies!

Sooo before all that happens, I just wanted to give you all an update on what we’ve been mainly working on:

• New enemies
  
• New Combat UI
  
• Free Exploration Map Mode

So you might recognize this little fella here from the last announcement. We mentioned that we opened up character design decisions to our Discord community and they came up with the following ideas:

• l a s e r
  
• sonic blast rawr
  
• bad breath
  
• guard chameleon doggo

Aaaand here were some of the ideas we animated! We loved your ideas so much that we definitely will be dropping more characters in the channel to hear what you think they should do!


In our previous demos, we used blinking blips in the health/shield bars to denote how much damage would be done to units. We thought that it was simple and players could visually see exactly how much damage is being done to their squad. However, for those who are absolutely OBSESSED with numbers and data sheets, we’ve decided to change the health and shield bars to meters with numbers that will tell you exactly how much health/armour/shields you have left instead of approximating it based on how many health blips are left. We felt that this gives the player agency to be extremely accurate with their calculations (so if your squad wipes, that is 100% your fault :P no pressure)


Old Combat HUD


New Combat HUD


I would say this has been the biggest change to our demo so far. We went from a node-based travel system to a free exploration map. Before Bryan (our pixel art machine) would be hand drawing all of these big maps. To avoid bottlenecking his process, we switched to using a layered tile map for our engine so that our team could generate maps and populate it with events ourselves.


Layer on~ layer off~ layer on~ layer off

We felt that node-based travel created too much friction if a player wanted to backtrack to get take a different path and we felt that it broke game immersion at times. We wanted to create an explorable world which gave our players a sense of agency in the universe.


Timeline of our world map process (that glow up)

We also removed the time counter for Imperium reinforcements arrival and simplified it with “turns taken” to perform actions. This should make things more clear for players deciding whether or not to take a certain action while deciphering where the enemy might be traveling to next.


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! New Free Movement map travel!

We’re still playing around with making our maps a proper size so that there isn’t TOO much barren space, yet balancing it with enough event tasks and objects so that there is a clear path for you to venture around. It’s all a work in progress but this will be quite close to the build we will be bringing to PAX East.. sooo if you’re going- please do drop by our booth to say hi or poke your fave streamer to check us out.


Thanks for tuning innn!

Softcookie + Massive Damage Team


P.S. We have also posted this devlog on our site if you'd like to see GIFs in their less-compressed glory: http://massdmg.com/2019/03/star-renegades-dev-log-4/

Hiya Rebels!

We promised that we had some exciting news in store for you all and well-
we can finally let you all know thaaat..

We have partnered up with the amazing folks at Raw Fury to publish Star Renegades! ːsteamhappyː



Have you ever felt magic before? That magnetic feeling you get when you first meet someone who absolutely LOVES the same stuff you do and then the more you talk you realize how you’re pretty much the same person and it’s kinda crazy how you managed to bump into each other in a sea full of people? WELL, that’s what we felt when we met the warm and passion-driven folks at Raw Fury! Not to mention- our names sound totally badass next to each other- RAW FURY x MASSIVE DAMAGE ?! UHH HELL YEAH! (btw we totally thought this was a sign from the universe that it was meant to be)

So yeahhh~ what does this all mean for Star Renegades?! Welll- since we have increased scope and budget for developing the game now- we have changed the release date from 2019 to early 2020. That way- we will be able to create all the things we have dreamed of for Star Renegades.

We just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who has supported us so far on this journey. We also have more *EXCITING* upcoming news to share, but that won’t be until later on in the month- and announced most likely on our Twitter!

BY THE WAY… a snippet of what we've been working on..and what I'll be talking about in the next devlog 😉
Hint: it rhymes with shmree shmexploration



Meanwhile, if you join our Discord community, you may find our dev team lurking about and occasionally dropping a few work-in-progress GIFs here and there as well as asking for YOUR input on character design- like this alien doggo here. He is the goodest boi and some of his skills have been ideated by our awesome community peeps. <3



Other than that, we have been working on the demo for our next show and are about to wrap things up soon! So- that means I'll finally be able to finish that devlog highlighting some major changes to our map exploration world.



Thank you so much for your patience. Aaaand thanks for tuning in! <3

Softcookie + Massive Damage Team