The Indie Game Magazine July 2015 | Issue 51 | Page 10

can favor extra launch systems and a warp
drive that can power up in a flash, leaving
enemies with nothing but a tall tale about
some space ghost haunting the cosmos.
Furthering their commitment to customization, the ship can actually be monitored and
controlled using an entirely text-based system.
While the team doesn’t anticipate many
players taking an interest in this playstyle,
they didn’t see a reason to omit the option
for those who may be curious to test out
running a complete ship diagnostic via text
commands. Players can do everything from
monitoring which equipment results in the
most significant battery drain on-board, to
surveying the current efficiency status of all
modules, in addition to noting which are in
need of repair.
While most of the game will take place from
inside the ship, with players not actually looking outside any windows to view space itself,
Objects in Space won’t be entirely confined
to a few select screens showing off the ship’s
computers. As Flat Earth Games Co-founder
Leigh Harris puts it, “When you’re docked at a

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space station you go to the airlock screen and
exit your ship, and will find yourself aboard
whatever station you’re at. You can then tap
left/right to go between areas of the station
(bar, mechanic, admin, police, etc) and people
are represented there as silhouettes, some
of which have a neon outline indicating that
you can interact with them. This prompts a
dialogue screen which acts in a similar way
to text messaging.” The game won’t feature
any voice acting, but will include appropriate
sound effects and a soundtrack to flesh out
the audio experience.
Communication on-board the ship plays out in
a somewhat similar fashion as well. The major
difference is that it takes place exclusively via
the Comms room. “Whether you’re chatting
to a passenger (who is sequestered in their
quarters), in direct communication with a
nearby ship [which ranges from negotiating
trades to being threatened by pirates], or
talking to a nearby space station requesting
docking permits etc, it’ll happen with a text
message style interface and a pixel-art representation of the person you’re talking to,”
explains Harris. Beyond directly conversing

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with the various inhabitants of the cluster,
there are also two other primary ways of
taking in information and learning about the
world(s) surrounding the player.
As Harris revealed, “In addition to those,
there are also emails between people (there’s
a mini-OS which handles your inbox) and there
are news feeds.” The news feeds in particular
are one of the most intriguing aspects of the
project, from a story perspective. This is because the team is trying to convey them in a
way that, to my knowledge, has never been
attempted before in a video game. Detailing
the concept, Harris went on to say that “The
news feeds are based on whichever system
you’re in, the idea being that when an event
occurs (dictated by Rohan and myself), the
writers will each write a news story on it
from the perspective of a different media
outlet. So if a bomb goes off in Leo (a central system), one writer might describe it as
a horrific attack if they’re writing from the
perspective of a pundit, while another who
is writing from the perspective of Parssus (an
outlying dictatorship system that has a beef
with Leo), their slant on it will be markedly