First of all, it's very much inspired by Dyson (which was evidently renamed Eufloria). Dyson is (was?) a slow, relaxing RTS that boiled the genre down to some essential elements. Your troops are your spending resources. You can spend troops to either add static defenses or increase troop production. Certain locations in the game were more valuable than others for production. These are really basic elements that combine into tactically interesting choices. Elegant complexity from simple parts. An ideal of game design!
In Aurora, I'm trying to strip down the genre even more. Defensive upgrades are gone. All locations produce troops of the same strength before upgrades. Combat is a simple matter of mutual annihilation. I'm also trying to see if I can make it work without an exploration element, i.e. all enemies in Aurora are visible from the start. It may be impossible to include this and still keep it a game of strategy rather than memorization and mouse dexterity. We'll see.
I wanted to recapture the feeling of moving large bodies of troops across the field of battle. In Dyson, your troops moved from point to point in an orderly line. I like seeing my soldiers clashing in a wider battle, or moving out to intercept the enemy. Aurora encloses the battlefield, but your troops can move anywhere within that space.
The visual style is far from complete, but I'm trying to use abstract space-imagery. Troop production buildings look like suns. Troops look like tiny stars: points of light floating on a black background. I'd like everything to move smoothly, even gracefully, until the climactic moment of destruction. I'm also trying to add a synchronized-music aspect to the game, where the soundtrack and game actions compromise just enough to sync up in an entertaining way. Hopefully it will make music out of the game's events.
Right now I'm adding in the first bits of AI. The game will be playable after that. Hooray alpha!
Here's what it looks like right now. No laughing.
