Binary Helix is proud to announce our first title, Dangerous. We’re a tiny two-man indie studio, and we’ve been developing the game for a couple years. We plan to submit the game later this month to Apple. It will be released for iOS, Android, PC, Mac, web, etc. It will run from an iPhone 3GS class device on up.
In short, the single-player game is a cross between EVE Online, X3, and Mass Effect.
realistically sized ships, space stations, planets, stars
warp around solar systems, use stargates to visit other systems
physics modeling of weapons: lasers, turrets, missiles
comprehensive in-game tutorial
gain experience for fighting and trading
an open and living universe with 33 solar systems connected via stargates
over 600 ships acting autonomously: transporting, taxiing, mining, patrolling, fighting, etc.
over 20 ship models with specific ship bonuses which you can buy and fly: all ships are useful from the fast interceptor to the electronic warfare ship to the slower missile battleship
over 60 equipment modules with three tech levels
can store ships and items at any station
wingmen you can recruit and who will fight alongside you in battle and complement your ship’s abilities
corporate pilots who will autonomously fly trade routes for you
epic storyline missions
side missions: improve your standings with other corporations by doing jobs for them
dynamic missions: ships in the world can break down or ask for assistance when pirates attack, or they can be pirates trying to lure you into a trap
interact with characters via a sophisticated dialogue engine
mine or trade goods
professionally composed soundtrack and hand-painted artwork
fly your craft manually and turn off inertial dampeners for Newtonian flight
or use extensive autopilots: orbit, follow, keep-at-distance, transit to/from station, dock, warp
unique following mechanic lets you follow ships through warp and stargates
gain favor with other corporations by doing missions for them to gain access to ships and other bonuses
extensive use of cinematic camera modes
And more.
Thanks for a great engine, Unity, and an awesome community!
Looks pretty good for just 2 people working on it. Is the ship control twitch based or is it more like EVE where you click in space or select orbit or range?
That sounds brilliant (obviously, as it sounds very much like the game I’ve been working on for the past 12 months)
On my iPhone at the moment so I can’t check your preview out well, but will do asap.
Congrats on getting it done in any case and I’ll obviously get one.
And obviously, I hope you left some things open so that my game doesn’t become superflous.
Sorry, the preview is to the music. We do have a web version that we added a cloud save option that we might be able to make available for previews/beta tests later. Would love to see what your game’s about. There can never be too many Elite descendants if you ask me.
[quote=“angel_m, post:7, topic: 457257, username:angel_m”]
Fantastic work.
Only the game title (Dangerous) seems a little vague - generic and not very explanatory.
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The name originally alluded to one’s rating (a la Elite), but it has since turned into a specific plot use. And we considered adding the tagline of “Dangerous: Null Space”, but with the switch in the plot, it made more sense to just name it “Dangerous”.
Actually, if you watch our first video (see some of the history at TA: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=49226), we did have a third-person shooter element. But as the depth of the space game grew, we decided to back burner the shooter element. We do want to add it back in an update where you can fight on planets and stations, and also take over ships by fighting from the inside.
Shame. But you got a definite buyer here in any case. Very interested to see what you did with the concept. Sounds like we had similar original ideas but focus on different parts - as my game will primarily focus on the part where you walk around on planets and space stations or aboard your ship while yours completely scratched that from the sound of it. Very interesting. Would love to know more about the process behind your decisions and definately look forward to playing your game!
I’m sure I’ll learn a lot of interesting things and get some ideas while playing it!
It definitely seems like we took branching courses, and after seeing the videos of your on-foot game, it looks fantastic! Doubly amazing that you did it all yourself. If you’ve ever played Evochron, that series was also done by one guy in his spare time. And in actuality, our on-foot portions will likely not be quite as extensive and focus a bit more on monster AI and exotic powers. One of the big influences for me was Monster Hunter, and I’d like to imbue our creatures with the same sort of believable behavior and AI. I don’t know if you plan on adding anything like it, but I also like how Mass Effect gave you various powers in addition to the run-and-gun gameplay. And we fully plan to continue development of the on-foot portion after release and provide it as an update of some kind.
For space, what I’m particularly proud of was our ability to have the living universe work on iPhone 3GS class devices on up. Our combat mechanics were heavily inspired by EVE Online and Elite/Evochron. So you can play a purely tactical and very deep game with the autopilots or partake in manual flight much like Elite/Evochron/Galaxy on Fire. In addition, there are elements of X3 in that you can control up to five corporate pilots and ships that fly specific trade routes or will mine on your behalf. And we plan to keep building that aspect up as well so you will be able to control stations and manufacturing plants, etc. The beauty of digital distribution like the Apple app store and Steam is that you can keep updating your content which can help build the player base over time.
Anyway, it’s great to see how many divergent ideas there are on doing Elite + first/third-person shooter.
