With gameplay inspired from the classic Asteroids, and movement inspired by Descent II and Freelancer, Quaternion is a freeform spaceship shooter allowing six degrees of freedom in 3D space. It also features an ever-increasing number of power-ups and enemy ship types.

Developed with C# and XNA using Agile Development and Pair Programming in seven weeks, the game has seen, and will continue to see, constant iteration and improvement.

Click here to download an installer and check it out!

Our humble little indie game wound up winning the Best Space Game category at GameSIG 2012. A bunch of excellent games were showcased, and we’re honored to have received an award. Along with two 500 GB hard drives, we’ve also won a tour of SpaceX. That should be fun!

Game development is a very rewarding experience. A special thanks to Dr. Michael Fahy and many others for helping to put together the first annual GameSIG.

The latest version of Quaternion is now online, featuring particle effects, two new power-ups, and a new enemy type, the Blinker.

Check it out either at the link to the side, or right here!

We’ve decided to make the time to enter the IEEE GameSIG 2012 competition with what we have developed so far.

Wish us luck! I look forward to seeing the games other people made.

Here’s the official video of our submission:

We’ve added a ton more particle effects, and a new type of bullet – the splitting bullet! Here’s a video of some testing:

Exciting times for Quaternion; we’ve finally added particle effects! Expect to see these pop-up everywhere: power-ups, engine trails, projectile trails.

Naturally, we had to add explosion effects immediately. Here’s a video:

Here’s our latest developer test video for the Alpha version of our game (a few revisions ahead of the one that is currently available for download.)

As you can see we’ve enabled the visibility of all ship front vectors as we were testing aiming AI. While the game already feels very fun to play (we love the freedom of motion in 3D space), we’re making many changes, including adding a Galaxy Map, quest system, skill trees, and inventory/currency. We also look forward to replacing the placeholder art and sound assets as the game engine solidifies. Stay tuned!

We’ve begun our second (12 week) sprint on Quaternion.

Changes planned for the next release include a Galaxy-map, quest-driven gameplay, currency, purchasable upgrades, leveling, branching skill trees (Subterfuge, Energy, and Science), and new various new abilities, for both the player and the enemy ships.

Included will also be significant code re-factoring and other optimizations, along with the addition of shader and animation effects as time allows. The camera system has recently been changed to a smoother one and looks great!

As noted in our Changelog:

• Fixed a rare bug where the power-up text continued to display when progressing to the next level.
• Fixed an issue where the controller continued to vibrate when the player lost the game.
• Added an option to invert the controls to pitch. To invert the controls for pitch, press P on the keyboard or Y on the controller.
• Changed controller functioning. The left stick controls propulsion and the right stick now controls rotation.

The Alpha version of the game has been finalized; click here to download and install it!

As noted in our Changelog, we were up late last night implementing a few more changes before our presentation tomorrow:

• Implemented Xbox 360 controller input! (Special thanks to Richard Hyde for letting us borrow a controller!)
• Added a message for the player leaving the boundaries of mission space, and disabling their weapons.
• Added a message upon a target lock being acquired on the player by a Homing Mine.
• Improved level completion transition graphics.
• Changed Pulsars to rotate more quickly as their health declines. This looks cool.
• Added Wasps, a new enemy type. They are like Drones, but have 50 health instead of 10, and shoot three bullets instead of one.