About The Game
Constellation Control is an original 4X space strategy game that runs in your web browser. You can play it for free right now! You don't need to register, buy, download, or install anything. Just click.
This project is a labor of love supported by players like you. The code is open-source. The game is moddable. You can help make it better.
Development Status
The current state of the game is best described as "firm alpha". It isn't feature complete, it has bugs, and is balanced like a giraffe on roller skates. Here's a list of what is in the game and what is not:
| Galaxy Generation | Done | Up to 1000 stars, each with up to 5 planets. 125 planet environments, 75 random background images, and all kinds of random goodies. |
|---|---|---|
| UI | Done | Dynamic map with pan and zoom from high-level strategic view to close-up tactical view. Fits nicely on an iPad Mini. |
| Civilizations | Done | Play with up to 100 other civilizations at once! 450 randomly selected alien race portraits, too. |
| Ships & Ship Designer | Done | Design and build ships for intercept, invasion, research, and colonization. |
| Fleets | Done | I may switch fleets to a stack-based UI instead of individual ships, which is easier on the UI and combat. |
| Ship Combat | 1st Draft | Done, but missing engagement tactics and weapon/armor interactions. Ship combat will probably get refactored. |
| Ground Combat | 1st Draft | Simple, but functional. Missing optional engagement tactics and followup options. 5 kinds of ground combat units. |
| Planetary Economy | In Flux | Technically it works, but i'm not happy with it and will probably refactor it yet again. |
| Space Monsters | Done | Can't have a good 4X space game without space amoebas! We've got 4 species, each with unique AI and breeding habits. More are coming... |
| Technology & Research | Done | This was easy, actually. |
| Tech Tree | 1st Draft | There are techs shimmed in for play testing but will probably get completely refactored. |
| Save/Load | Done | Autosaves to HTML5 localStorage or you can manually download files in easily hackable JSON format. This means you can email, trade, and tinker with saved games. |
| Victory System | Done | Technically done, but there is so much more to add. |
| Races & Race Picks | Partial | The groundwork is in for creating race picks and special abilities, but i won't nail these down until game features settle a bit. |
| Modding Support | Partial | Adding more hooks for content can be done easily if there is demand. |
| Diplomacy | Partial | Done: trading and treaties. To Do: meaningful alliances and federations, diplomatic AI. |
| Choose Your Own Adventure | Partial | Subsystem built. No content yet. |
| AI | Mostly Done | A lot of AI work has already been done. Civs will colonize, make trades, attack, defend, and try to win. There is even an AI debug HUD and a headless AI trainer that plays the game against itself as fast as possible without the GUI. |
| Anomalies | Partial | Functioning but needs more content. |
| Scenarios | Planned | Planned but not implemented until game features settle down. There's a ton of them. |
| Offline Play | Planned | Not hard to do if demand warrants it. There are some legal issues about distributing certain assets that i need to work out. |
| Espionage | Planned | Planned but won't be added until other features are in better shape. |
| Local Culture System | Planned | Not started. Not essential for gameplay. |
| Music / SFX | Not Started | Want to help? Recommend an artist? Email me. |
| Tech Images | Not Started | This is a huge amount of work that i will likely dodge by using icons. |
| Bombardment | TODO | Not too hard to add. I just need to knuckle down and get it done. |
| Governments | TODO | Not sure what these would actually do yet. |
| Hyperlanes | Undecided | These may make an appearance, but not decided yet. |
| Leaders | Not Planned | Maybe if there is outstanding demand, but i am not interested in this feature. |
Helping Out
Want to help? Here is what is needed. Email cc@leiavoia.net if you want to get involved.
- Play Testing. Just start playing the game and submit bug reports via the GitHub bug tracker. Please keep in mind that at this point in development things are still very messy. We're just looking for show-stopper bugs, not wishlist features. See the FAQ for more info.
- Donations. I'm putting hundreds of hours of labor and my own personal money into this project. Servers, bandwidth, and content licensing have hard costs. And then i just give it to you for free! If you appreciate the work that I am doing at least as much as you appreciate a drink from Starbucks, please consider making a financial contribution.
- Legal Fetch-Quests. Asking for creator permission is a boring but necessary step in being able to legally distribute art assets. I have a ton of race portraits and background images i would like to make part of the standard distribution, but i need assets that are either licensed-free or have explicit permission from the creator. I need help in tracking down all of the creators and getting that permission.
- Ship Graphics. I would like to build whole families of visual ship designs. This can be done by either directly drawing or modeling ships and flattening them down to a PNG file. If you love designing sci-fi spaceships, you can help!
- Music/SFX. The game currently has no sound at all. If you create music or sound effects, or can refer a person who would be a good fit for this game, please let me know.
- Fan Fiction. There is a whole "Choose Your Own Adventure" style event system built into the game that currently has no content. Learn more in the How To Play section on "Events". You could theoretically write an entire novel into the game in the form of game events with branching choices!
- Modding. Races, ship sets, planetary specials, technologies, and UI themes are all potentially moddable. If anyone expresses any specific interest in these, I can create data file loading functions to absorb whatever you come up with.