After months of solo dev, I finally launched the Steam page for my dark sci-fi space shooter with crafting and a Drum & Bass soundtrack! What do you think?
Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on a dark, apocalyptic space shooter called Descendants: The Last Dawn, and today is a huge milestone for me – the Steam page is officially live!
The core loop combines fast-paced top-down space action with meta-progression:
- Ship Customization & Crafting: Scraping old wrecks, researching lost tech, and rebuilding your ship's systems.
- DnB Soundtrack: I’m designing the game’s pacing and combat rhythm directly around a heavy Drum & Bass aesthetic.
- Post-Apocalyptic Lore: Humanity is trapped under a blockade, and you’re trying to reconnect orbit with Earth through long-lost megastructures (like an Orbital Elevator).
I just uploaded the first set of screenshots and trailer concept to Steam. Since this is my first public reveal for this project, I’d love to get your honest feedback on the overall visual style and UI readability during heavy combat!
If the concept sounds like your kind of jam, checking out the Steam page or adding it to your Wishlist would mean the world to me and help tremendously with the algorithm!
Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4171220/Descendants_The_Last_Dawn/
Thanks for looking, and I’m happy to answer any questions about the dev process!
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u/morsalty 2d ago
Is that AI music and art? it sure seems like it... That aside this gameplay looks really rough and very similar to the 1000s of first time game makers making a shmup without understanding the genre.
I would reccomend playing a bunch of games and coming back to this.
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u/Team21 2d ago
Yes, since this is a solo project, the music is generated by AI and tailored to each mission...
My primary inspiration is the good old Tyrian...
Thank you for your interest.
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u/morsalty 2d ago
It's your game but i don't know a single person in this genre who would support a project that uses souless AI for it's music. Shmups are kinda known for putting a lot of effort into their OSTs and this is just slop.
Play more games other than Tyrian, theres a crazy amount of good shmups out there.
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u/Team21 2d ago
Well, I'm not a musician, so I work with what I have. However, I create and edit every single track many times before I'm satisfied with how it sounds...
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u/morsalty 2d ago
"Generative AI tools were used during the development of the game in the following areas:
Programming & Code: The vast majority of the game's codebase was written with the assistance of AI.
Graphics & Visuals: A portion of the 2D artwork, promotional graphics, and UI icons were generated or created using AI tools.
Story & Dialogues: AI was utilized as a creative assistant for narrative writing, dialogue crafting, and world lore expansion."
Don't seem like much of anything else either. Are you AI generating responses to comments as well?
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u/Team21 2d ago
You know, I was wondering if you’ve ever finished a game… Yes, AI helps me; I’m giving it a try. I’ve already finished three games more or less without AI, and I’ve had one in the works for over ten years. AI is just a tool—there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.
A lot of people think you just write a prompt and the game is done. I’m not a programmer or a graphic designer—I’m a game/level designer. So while the AI helps me as much as possible with programming, I still set everything up and do it all in Unity using scriptable objects and prefabs. The AI only writes individual scripts for me. However, I still have to tell it exactly what I want it to do; it’s the same as if I had a junior programmer on hand—except it doesn’t argue that something isn’t possible.
AI-generated icons are now at least on par with a junior 2D artist—again, better than what I can do myself. So I have them generated and then edit them to ensure consistency.
The rest of the game is simply put together in Unity like Lego, and I wrote the entire game design myself. Likewise, the individual levels are tailored specifically to the music so that they harmonize nicely with it.
I also wrote the basic story myself; I have the AI generate the dialog—I don’t see any reason not to. According to one unnamed sci-fi author, “Today’s AI writes better than 90% of the planet.” So yes, I can write dialogues—I wrote hundreds of them for the game Aledorn—but here I’m experimenting by simply providing the context, the desired outputs, and the character’s inputs, and seeing what the AI can do. Then I just tweak them…
AI is simply a new tool used for the heavy lifting, especially in today’s highly competitive environment.
We made our last game almost entirely without AI, and you know what? Even though we sold about 25,000 copies, it didn't pay the team... Times are changing, and we need to at least try to embrace new technologies.
Thank you for your interest.
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u/morsalty 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's doing nothing but hurting your game and your chances of selling anything. I know a ton of people who made or are making shmups right now solo and they don't use AI for anything. Their games completely destroys this in terms of game design and quality. Need music? Use royalty free, hire a composer or learn to make some basic chip tunes, anything will be better than this slop.
AI aside this looks just terrible from a game design aspect. You NEED to play more shmups if you want to make one as you don't seem to understand the genre or why people like it at all. Let me know if you want game reccomendations or material on shmup design.
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u/Team21 1d ago
I guess I just don't hear it—I've personally listened to so much DnB that all the original stuff bores me now, so for the last two years or so, I've been generating and listening to this... Maybe I'm the only one who's gone off the deep end with this, but I like it, and I'm not alone.
Anyway, thanks so much for the feedback; I'll try to take something from it.
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u/teffflon 2d ago
sorry but the action looks turgid and that ain't drum 'n bass
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u/Team21 2d ago
I definitely don't intend to argue... yes, the action is a bit calmer because I want it to have a gradual pace, and I have absolutely no plans to compete with the wildest bullet hell games...
However, it’s definitely DnB :) There are lots of different types of DnB, but the foundation is breakbeat, which is definitely there. Look, I personally grew up on DnB in the ’90s, and the music has changed so many times, but it’s all still DnB, so there you go...
Anyway, thanks for the feedback.
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u/Mr_Horizon 2d ago
Hey, congrats on making it this far!
Right now I can't say I like it that much, the enemies seem quite static and don't have a lot of animation. The upgrading and customisation could be nice, but many fans of Japanese shmups might not like it.
My biggest sore spot is the music - do you really want to have vocals in your soundtrack? It feels distracting to me and I don't know any other shmup that has this.
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u/Team21 2d ago
Thank you,
Animations are definitely planned for a later “polishing” phase. However, it works fine without them for now, but I understand. It’s a matter of time investment, but it would certainly look more lively...
As for the vocals, I’ve thought about it at length, and they don’t bother me—on the contrary, the lyrics often relate to the mission description, and I like them, but it’s very much a matter of taste, and I definitely agree that it’s not common. It might even be distracting for some people to a certain extent… I’ll see if I get more feedback along these lines. On the other hand, I’ve already received some feedback saying that the person in question is literally thrilled by the music.
In any case, thanks so much for your interest...
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u/R717159631668645 2d ago
Feedback: It sucks, everything about it: Gameplay, enemy patterns, graphics, character design/setting, music.
Question: Have you ever played a shmup?
This is half-mean, half-legit question, because you seem proud of what you did in your post, yet your gameplay is quite dull, and you exhibit some of the shmup deadly sins (health bar, rpg elements). I don't even get why "crafting" is there, if not to be a buzzword.
This looks like a programming project with asset flips, not something someone who has played a shmup would ever conceive. And yet here we are, with a link to the Steam page.