Alpha - Development - Test

🚧 This game is in heavy development, calling it alpha is being generous.

📢 I'm releasing the game to get early feedback (mostly from other developers) on some of the core mechanics in the game.

If you want to leave feedback find me as gerbendev on the PBBG Discord or use the Reddit topic.

Join the 💬 Project SpaceGame Discord server for easy communication!

Table of contents

Warnings

While in this dev-alpha stage..

  • There is no guarantee of saving your account, the entire database will be thrown away before we get to an actual alpha test
  • A lot of pages contain dummy data or are merely used to mimic the UI

Changelog

  • May 14th, 2026: Added standalone Navigation Screen, to test UI..
  • Nov 22nd, 2025: Implemented hashed passwords and cleared all the databases. ⚠️ All accounts need to be re-registered.
  • Nov 22nd, 2025 Updated the Planet page. It now allows Incorporation and the building of new buildings. (Still the 2 previous buildings only). Introduced a new Your bases page for an overview of your incorporated planets.
  • Nov 16th, 2025: The Solar Panels (Fuel Cell) building now uses "Operations" to add time-based fabrication.
  • Nov 11th, 2025: Added Fuel Cell and Fuel Cell Casing buildings to do something with the ores you collect. These buildings are available on any Planet page. You can use a Fuel Cell from your cargo to add 10 energy to your ship.

Premise of the game

Project "SpaceGame" [working title] is a persistent browser based game (PBBG) set in a space environment. It's got 3 of the 4X elements.

The game has 3 main game loops:

  • Explore: Space travel, quests, and discovery (through scanning)
  • Exploit (Planet Tycoon): Build and manage your own planet base, with factories to generate resources and build items
  • Expand (Economy, trading): Buy and sell resources, trade with players or planets

These can be done separately or all together. It will contain a mix of active and idle gameplay. Allowing for players with different play styles to continuously play, or just check in sometimes.

What to test

The main focus for this initial playtest is to test whether the Explore game loop of "navigating your ship, scanning a sector, recharging energy" is fun and engaging.

The Explore loop is 'active gameplay', there are no idle mechanics yet. Those will be added to Exploit / Planet Builder loops and pages.

At the moment there's no Quests yet, even though the premise says it should be.

  • Is the idea of the coordinates and sectors understandable?
  • Did you run into a lot of "Nothing scannable found". How did that feel?
  • You probably ran out of energy and had to recharge. Any thoughts on that system?
  • Did you learn about an Asteroids density? Did you find different percentages and noticed the extra energy it required?
  • You can hop 10 times, or hop, scan and mine. How did you like to play?
  • What do you think of the current values; 100 energy for ship, 10 energy per hop, energy values for mining, 24 hours for a re-scan?
  • Hypothetically, if you upgrade Scanner, Energy Boosters and Engine and all of these increase what you get for the current values, do you think that's good enough? Or will it feel too grindy?
  • Nov 22nd Now that the creation of Fuel Cells is possible, how does that affect your energy management and gameplay strategy?

How to play

Alternative title: What works and what doesn't..

Your ship

You as a user have a ship, everything you do in the game is done through your ship.

  • When you sign up you get a ship, this ship has Components and Modules
  • Your ship also has some stats, none of them work or matter apart from the Energy meter

Components

  • Components are mostly meant for flair, they're systems that are hardcoded to ships
    • Transponder - not implemented
    • Landing lights - not implemented
    • Cargo Bay - needs to be open to Mine, needs to be closed before flying (chance of triggering erratic flying)
    • Solar Panels - needs to be open to Charge
  • Components can be toggled (on or off) and some have the ability for an auto state (This will ignore all the open/closed checks and assume your ship does the right thing).

Modules

  • Modules can be bought and increase certain stats on your ship
    • Cargo Bay Module - increases cargo space
    • Mining Laser - any level is required for mining, level doesn't affect anything yet
    • Engines - not implemented
    • Energy Boosters - not implemented
    • Scanner - required for scanning in Sector. The higher the level the bigger the chance of finding good resources
  • Modules can be bought from within the spaceship, cost no money and will override any previous module of the same type
  • You can upgrade your Scanner, but make sure to test Scanner lvl 1, as this is what the initial gameplay will look like, when you join

Activities and Operations

  • Your ship also shows you Activities and has Operations
  • Activities depends on what's available in the sector (See Exploring)
  • Operations are done as part of the ship
    • Fix hull - not implemented
    • Reboost shield - not implemented
    • Recharge energy - starts the charging process, requires Solar Panels to be open
    • Scan sector - scans the current sector for resources, requires a Scanner module

Exploring

In the Explore loop you need to navigate to a new sector and scan for resources.

  • Navigating a single hop costs 10 energy
  • Warp jumps or multi-hop is not implemented (yet) [and maybe won't be implemented at all, within a galaxy]
  • At the moment there's only one galaxy, and it's mimicking the Milky Way [eventually there will be many galaxies with custom names]
  • A sector can have a Star, Planets and Space Stations.
    • Star - not implemented
    • Planets - not implemented, UI-onlyPartially implemented, you can Incorporate and Build Buildings
    • Space Stations - not implemented, UI-only
  • After navigating to a new sector you can scan for resources
    • This requires a Scanner module (any level)
    • This can only be done once every 24 hours
    • Re-scanning means all scannable resources will be replaced by the new scan
    • If you bought a higher level scanner, you can scan immediately and don't have to wait 24 hours
    • You can from the Sector page, or use the Scan Sector operation from your ship's page
  • A sector can be scanned for Asteroids, Pirate Ships and Derelict Ships
    • Asteroids - can be mined for resources
    • Pirate Ships - not implemented
    • Derelict Ships - not implemented, UI-only

Cargo

  • The cargo system is partially implemented
  • Your ship has an innate cargo space of 150 units
  • You can increase your cargo space by buying Cargo Bay modules
  • Mining resources will add them to your cargo, if there's enough space
  • If your cargo bay is full, you'll need to Drop resources
  • You can't do anything with the resources yetYou can use iron, silver and copper to create Fuel Cells.