Someone requested a video of Stellar Salvager here it is:

I'm pretty happy with my game this year, I think it is a bit better than my previous years attempt, "Orc Party". The last few projects I've been dabbling with have all been top down 2D affairs and I wanted to do something a bit different. I've been messing about with Blender recently and I'm not very good so I went with something I felt was simple from a 3D modelling point of view Space.

So I chose Shadows & Ruins for the two theme choices.

The shadows game play involves hiding and manoeuvring your spaceship behind asteroids and into their shadows to avoid the heat of the sun, so the shadows cool your ship down and allow you a place to plan your next move. The ruins theme is the wrecked ships and ruined asteroid base at the end of the map. Salvage crates are dotted around the wrecked ships by the asteroids and each crate can contain armour to replenish your ships hull/health, salvage to increase your salvage score or a dissipator to increase your cooling rate. The closer you get to the asteroid base the higher the amount of salvage in a crate. At any point you can turn around and head away from the sun to leave the map, your "score" is your closest distance to the sun and your salvage acquired.

I'm regretting not actually implementing shadow mapping in the game! It was on my list to do, but after I added the god rays effect, I felt that there was enough graphics for shadows and I needed to concentrate on the actual game play. Whilst the shadows theme wasn't graphics related, I think shadow mapping would have made the game easier and hinted better the theme was there in the game play.

For the ruins, I ran out of time. There are some wrecked spaceships but they are just hastily modified versions of the main ship, they just look like odd floating shapes, I had hoped to implement a few designs and place some debris fields around them to show off the physics and enhance the feel. No time though. The ruined asteroid base again was taking me too long. I like the feel of it but it just needed more adding to it, its also only at the end of the map so people may not even see it. (I added a cheat mode by the way. Press L to turn it on, no more heating!)

I had no sounds last year, the sounds on their own felt out of place at first. But I started adding them in to the game so there was something there, I don't think I'm going to win any awards for sounds but I certainly feel they start to come together when combined with each other and the other elements of the game, I particularly like the collision sounds. Graphics wise, lighting is rubbish on the backs of the asteroids, which is predominantly what the player will see of them, never mind. The sun looks great though in my opinion, it did not take long to add in the god rays effect and the two layered scrolling texture brings it to life. (I hope.)

Game play wise, I think the speed of the ship feels about right, but the cooling period is too long, I last minute decided to have cooling function only when the ship is behind asteroids, this makes the game harder and requires patience. I would speed this up next time. The view can also be troublesome, it has a habit of entering asteroids, or asteroids can get in between the ship and camera requiring the camera to be changed. Not ideal. I had hoped to add some collision to the camera and move it around the asteroids, but no time... I had also hoped to add an alternative control mode, a camera relative system, always rotating and moving the ship relative to the camera.

Missing features! I had hoped to include an upgrade system, increasing manoeuvring, armour, cooling and repairs as well as enemy units, such as auto turrets amongst the debris and minefields to try and more structure to the maps.

The above all feels quite negative but I'm pretty happy with what I have made, the time constrain pushes me to finish a game rather than fiddle with features, so having a personal project be this complete feels good! Cant wait for the results or next years event!