GameMaker · GML · In development

Solvane: The Iron Reach

An infinite procedurally generated galaxy you mine, build in, defend, and fly through in a ship you configured yourself.

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Key art: the player ship flanked by two smaller ships, passing an enormous orbital structure against a starfield.

What it is

Top-down, infinite, procedurally generated. You fly out from your base, scan asteroids to see what they're actually worth before you spend time on them, break the ones that pay, and haul the ore home.

Home is a factory you lay out yourself. Solar arrays make power, conduits move it, and processing turns raw ore into the parts you need. Drones get built to repair the base and help defend it. Turrets cover the approaches, because the galaxy eventually notices you're out there.

Weapons are built rather than bought, so a loadout is a decision instead of a menu. The short version: Factorio and tower defense, in space, in pixel art.

An infinite galaxy generated as you fly, with planets and moons on drawn orbital paths
Asteroid mining that tells you the yield before you commit to the rock
Base building with power generation, conduits, processing and storage
Turrets and constructed drones that repair and defend what you've built
Ship and weapon configuration from parts you manufacture

Developer: CosmoConifer
Engine: GameMaker Studio, GML
Platform: PC
Started: 2016
Status: In development
Release: 2027

Screenshots

A base under construction: solar arrays, conduits running to turrets, asteroids and drifting wrecks nearby. — A base under construction. Solar arrays generate power, conduits feed it to turrets covering the approach. The bars along the bottom are warp drive, health and energy.

The ship mining a rock asteroid, with a readout showing hit points, scrap yield, crystal yield and experience. — Targeting a rock asteroid. Each one reports what it's worth before you spend time on it.

A banded gas giant with orbital paths drawn across the starfield, a moon below, and the player ship between them. — Planets and moons on drawn orbital paths, with a minimap tracking what's around you.

Combat: the player ship firing on a red enemy, projectiles trailing across the starfield. — Combat. Weapons are built from parts rather than picked off a list.

Where it came from

Star Trek was on almost permanently in the house I grew up in, and for most of my childhood the plan was to be an astronaut. That didn't happen. Building the galaxy myself turned out to be the version of it I could reach from a desk, so in 2016 I opened GameMaker and started.

It wasn't called Solvane then. It was called Starim, and after that Solar Pilgrimage, AstRogue, Cosmic Ruins and — once I'd finally got sick of renaming things — Space Game Project. I still have most of those builds. The oldest one is dated 18 November 2016.

Nine years, six names — the archive

The early weeks were easy, which is the trap. Ships moved, asteroids broke apart, things exploded. The moment I started building systems that had to talk to each other, the actual size of game development turned up all at once.

Nine years in, the thing I'd point to isn't a feature. It's that I've walked away from this project for months at a time and always come back to it.

The parts that took longest are the ones a screenshot can't show: a chunk system I wrote three times before it held together, save formats, and finding out what nine months away does to a codebase you thought you understood.

Follow along

The Steam page is live and the game is aiming at 2027. Wishlisting is the single most useful thing you can do for a game this size: it tells Steam the game is worth showing to people, and it means you hear from them the day it launches rather than from me.

Wishlist on Steam hello@cosmoconifer.com Press kit