‘Void Destroyer’: Space Is Big And So Is This Game
Space, the final frontier, the deep black, the cosmos, that big black pudding in the sky. Whatever you choose to call it, space has and will continue to fascinate and inspire the imaginations of millions of people. Games in particular have proven interesting testing grounds for the “what if’s” of space travel. Simulations of no-gravity environments or, if you’re getting really specific, very minute gravity environments as your ship is enacted upon by the universe. This can all be coded, but there is always the tricky problem of scale. Do you want to create an RTS a la Sins of a Solar Empire? Or maybe a dog-fighting simulator like the many Star Wars games. Or, if you’re that special kind of bureaucratic crazy, you play EVE and like to rule the galaxy through an iron-monopoly controlling fist. Void Destroyer answers these questions with: why bother choosing?
What began as a feverish hobby has turned into a fully fledged project in 2009 for developer Paul Zakrzewski. Void Destroyer has its roots in the RTS genre, but Void Destroyer goes deeper than that, —literally. The game allows you to move from the static RTS format to a dynamic simulator where you control ships as though you were within the command ship itself. In Commander mode, players are able to issue commands to the ship your avatar inhabits, hopping ships at will. Turn aft, you will say with great clarity of voice, and, lo and behold, your ship will turn bloody aft. Your cannons pivot at your command, and like the general who is the story’s protagonist, your command is absolute.
But, it can go even deeper than that.
If you want even more direct control over your ship, you can pilot it directly; boosting thrusters and afterburners to your heart’s content. The Newtonian physics which the game is coded in allows real-ish results in a zero-gravity environment. So, that’s the game, but why should you pay attention to it? Well, right now Void Destroyer is on Kickstarter and Greenlight, and there is a demo available on the official website . Zakrzewski has made it clear that this project is his baby, and he will be adding features to it as he gets the funding to do so. Multiplayer? You got it. FPS space-marine combat? Have fun! More ships? Yes please!
Finally, to add the icing on the coded cake, Zakrzewski has stated that the game will be fully moddable. By avoiding as much hard-code as possible, Void Destroyer allow the modding of its interface, cutscenes, ships, to the colour of the HUD. From what we are seeing, Void Destroyer is a smorgasbord of sci-fi space simulation. And it looks delicious.
Visit Void Destroyer’s official website, their Kickstarter campaign, and check it out on Steam Greenlight.
