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.

Steam's widget didn't load. Open the store page.

Wishlist on Steam Press kit Ask about the game

Key art: the player's ship trades fire with three raiders outside a base wall, with a Solvane overhead and a planet in the corner.

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

Captured in game from the current build. The press kit has more of them at full size.

A working base: belts carry ore through extractors into a smelter, conduits lit, shield walls on the right. — A working base. Belts carry ore through the extractors and into the smelter.

A Warden raid on a base: turrets, drones and a shield bubble defending the core. — A Warden raid. They come for the base as it grows, whether you're home or not.

The ship mining a rock asteroid with its beam, a readout beside the rock showing hit points, scrap yield, crystal yield and experience. — Mining a rock asteroid. The readout tells you what it's worth before you spend time on it.

The ship touching down on a grassland world. — Touching down on a grassland world. Planets can be landed on and explored on foot.

The Clockwork, a boss whose core hides behind three turning rings. — The Clockwork, one of the bosses. Its core hides behind three turning rings.

A Solvane, one of the ancient alien structures, with the player ship passing. — A Solvane, one of the ancient alien structures. Following them is the only lead on the way home.

Where it came from

In 2016 I opened GameMaker and started building a space game.

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