Solar 2
Available on PC: Steam | GamersGate | Demo
And on Xbox 360: Xbox LIVE Indie Games
FREE Solar 2 Soundtrack and Wallpapers
Media: Solar 2 on IndieDB | Announce Trailer | Release Trailer
Accolades:
Freeplay Awards – Winner: Best Audio – Finalist: Best Game, Best Design, Best Writing.
DreamBuildPlay 2011 Challenge – 2nd Place.
PAX10 – Selected for the PAX10 Indie Game Showcase at PAX Prime 2011.
IndieCade Festival 2011 – Finalist.
IndiePub Independent Propeller Awards – SemiFinalist.
Description:
In most games you see stars in the background, you shoot asteroids or you live on planets. But in Solar 2 you ARE these objects! Enter a universe where you must prove yourself to the resident god-like figure by doing its many bizarre and varied tasks. Or just ignore it and see how big you can grow!
Solar 2 is an open-world, sandbox game set in an infinite abstract universe. Play constructively: grow your system, nurture life on your planets and attack enemy life in huge space battles. Play destructively: crash into other objects and cause chaos, use your orbiting objects like wrecking balls, steal planets from other systems.
Features:
- Dynamic abstract sandbox universe. Changes and evolves as you do.
- Non-linear missions and open-world gameplay.
- No boundaries. Drift forever in ambient space bliss.
- Full of weird eccentric humor and stuff.
- Extensive custom sound track.
Solar 1:
Solar was originally released in March 2009 on Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It’s quite the old game now. It was a prototype of the full version of the game, now called Solar 2 (so I don’t get a naming conflict with the prototype). Solar 2 is my vision for how the game was always meant to be and I hope you enjoy it!
The original Solar is available only on Xbox LIVE Indie Games. The core gameplay remains largely unchanged between Solar and Solar 2 (why change what works so well?), although Solar 1 structures the gameplay and content differently. Worth checking out if you want to see how far the game has evolved!
Development:
Solar 2 was developed by a one man team! Just me, Jay Watts, doing most of the work. That includes all concept and design, all programming, all ingame graphics and animations, business, publishing and all those other many odd-jobs I had to do.
I can’t do audio though, which is why all of the music and sounds in Solar and Solar 2 were outsourced to JP Neufeld with Matt Wiesen of Symphony of Specters. I really love the music in Solar, but then again I should!
Right when I was preparing marketing assets, I realized I needed something really awesome to show off the game, and I wasn’t a good enough artist to do it. The awesome splash screen image you see of Solar 2 was done by Kamikaye.
Special Thanks, in no particular order:
- Nick Gravelyn, for his “EasyStorage” XNA code that saved me lots of time.
- Shawn Hargreaves, for his blog, which is an invaluable XNA resource.
- Cygon, for the fantastic XNA WiX installer used for PC versions of Solar 2.
- CN Ops for doing Alpha testing. You know who you are!
- All my friends who did Beta testing, thanks for the feedback!
Solar 1 took me 4 months to make, Solar 2 took me 10 months. They were both developed in C# with Microsoft XNA Game Studio using Visual Studio C# Express. No 3rd party engines were used. Graphics were done with Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop.
209 Responses to Solar 2
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I think my viewpoint on Solar 2 can best be summed up as “YEEEEE!!!” The Indie game was a great idea and a fantastic seed for something intergalactically epic, so I’ve got high hopes for Solar 2.
Baught me some Solar 2, and lemme tell you, this game is cash. I’ve spent way too long making a galaxy death machine, rolling around blowing the piss outa everything. Worlds of fun.
Only problem I’m having is I cant make a multi-star system. Im probably just doing something wrong, it is 5am after all!
Ya just keep collecting asteroids on a plent until you have enough mass to mass a star and that star will join yours
Yeah you have to get a planet in your system to turn into a star by absorbing asteroids.
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esta chido solar xd
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I’d buy it definatly if it where on ps3
, ill try to convince my dad to get it on the pc though i doubt ill be sucessful XD, but you never know.
Reply
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Slug says:
January 6, 2011 at 9:11 am
i did however manage to get one of my friends who owns an xbox to buy it and i completed it for him lol. i really liked the first game and would like to see it on the ps3. But i am glad that your bringing it to pc.
I want this so badly for iPhone :p
Seconded.
me to
This is one of the few games that I’ve actually been actively tracking since I heard about it, reeeeeeally want to play this game as soon as it’s released!
just to say : solar on xbox indie games is a very very good game. looking forward to purchase solar 2.
Pingback: Another Nifty Indie Game – Solar 2 | VonGeekenstein
Excellent little game, loved the demo enough to buy it and talk about it on my little blog. Hope to see more.
Awesome… I loved the first Solar. How long until we can expect this to be out on XBLIG? I’d rather play it on my console if possible.
A few days, not long.
Downloaded the demo today on Steam. Result: Great game! Bought it immediately.
My only criticism:
1. The .NET Framework installer also launches when the .NET Framework is already installed (prompts to repair/uninstall the framework). This might confuse less tech-savvy users. And it’s a very likely scenario, too: Windows 7 comes will all versions of .NET pre-installed.
2. Your progress in the demo isn’t saved for the full version. I totally understand, that you don’t allow loading in the demo, but it should be possible to carry the progress made in the demo over to the full version.
PS. I really loved the tutorial-characters nagging about this just being a demo (“twiddle twiddle”). Keep up the good work!
1. That’s actually a problem with Steam. Originally I was checking whether .NET 4 was already installed with the Steam installer but it wasn’t working all the time, sometimes it would say .NET 4 was installed when it wasn’t, so it wouldn’t show the installer and the game wouldn’t work. So to avoid this serious issue, I didn’t do that check through the Steam installer and just made it come up all the time. More annoying to more people, but at least there’s no silent, unexplained fails!
2. Man, you’re completely right. I should of made the demo restriction unable to load, not unable to save. Oh well, if it’s any consolation, you can’t build a big system in the demo anyway, shouldn’t take long to build it again in the full version!
I bought this at steam after playing the demo for about 45 minutes.
After playing the game for about 2 hours, I kind of feel let down. It’s certainly not horrible, and the music is awesome, and it was entertaining for a while, but its not really a game that has a ton of replays in it. The idea that something you spent a while putting together comes crashing down in seconds and you start over gets a little tiresome after a bit.
I am not saying this game sucks by any means, but its a bit disposable, and I feel a little dumb for paying 9 bucks at Steam for it. It fits more under the play it for a weekend or so and move on–something around 2.99.
Keep in mind that the full version has a lot of missions and stuff, where as the demo is just “free-play” mode.
Sounds like you need to wait until a sale! That’s what Steam is famous for, and it’s perfect for people like you who are a little unsure about the value they’ll get out of it.
No, as I posted above I said I bought it – I said I felt a little dumb for jumping and paying 9 bucks before I realized the game wasn’t all it implied or at least I thought it was going to be.
Like I said, it’s not bad, just wish I would have not spent the money after I played the full version I bought at Steam. I think its good for a time passing thing, like if you were waiting in an airport or something. An iPhone app would be perfect. But as a 9 dollar game for PC I felt it was not something I really wanted.
Just buyer’s remorse. I think you’ll probably go on to make something great, but this wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.
Oh, well I’m sorry to hear that. Who knows, maybe give it time and you might try again and find you enjoy it.
I am thinking about an iPhone/mobile app. I just need to make sure the Steam version is perfect first.
I have some similar feeling but not as bad. I don’t regret having spent the money but I thought it would have some more between blackhole and big crunch. I was hoping for a bit scale.
Something like this: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Earth%27s_Location_in_the_Universe_%28JPEG%29.jpg
and this
www.dgeneste.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/800px-Star-sizes1.jpg
Really? Is 9 dollars really too much to pay for a short, simple game that still provides 2 hours of excellent entertainment? You could buy a cheap dinner for that much which would only last 20 minutes!
what you need is to make it free as solar 1 on minijuegos.com
I just bought the game on Steam but frankly, the cancer joke on the demo? A bit crass, almost made me not buy it.
Yeah, that was certainly not intended and I do apologize to anyone I offended. I removed it right away, and it will be live along with other fixes in a couple days.
No!! Don’t remove it! It’s very funny…. If some people don’t like it, you don’t care about it. You can’t say “yes” to all suggestion with no humor.!!
I bought your game on Steam, and i like it very much. Very relaxing.. Really good God-game.
If you search any composer for the futur, i propose myself, lol!!!
You can check my work here: www.myspace.com/norsklh
A French Fan.
Great potential for real sandboxing.. open a console in game and let us mess around with classes and object values! Especially max planets values.
It’s okay for it to break the game, but give us the option “Unsupported Dev Console” or something. Lots of numbers we can play with here!
Also, make the star’s size scale with their mass. I’d like to have a Cephei VV type star covering half my screen
Also maybe a confirmation to take the next stage of star. Like if i dont want to morph to large star just yet but i accidently swallow one last planet that put me over the edge.
Just picked up the demo for Solar 2 on my xbox. Love it.if i had the money for the points I would buy it as i have Solar 1 already. Both rated 5-stars aswell cause more people need to play these games. Id also buy the steam version if i owned a pc. Which leads me into agreement with above posters and how i’d love to see solar on a Iphone.
Just bought the indie version of solar 2 and I wonder why it’s not in the arcade game category. this game is seriously better than most arcade games and more money value in my eyes.
Sweet game! Really an unexpected gem, thanks for making this!!
Very relaxing and an addictive game systeme, very Nice graphics too and i m really impressed by your gravitation code simulation. I’had like many others tryers of the demo bought your game (sorry for my bad english, im french folks) immediately.
my réflexion after 10 hours of play is : why dont increase the number of planets allowed In your system as your number of star is growing ?
Anyway fantastic work
Thanks
I Occupate myself translating this Game into French…I’ll transmit this when it will be OK ^^
really something version bought pingback
for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.