Those of you who are familiar with Galactic Civilizations, Ashes of the Singularity, Sins of a Solar Empire or any of our other games knows the power of visual progress.
I suspect there are a few of you who would have wished that Galactic Civilizations III v1.0 had waited until we had done Crusade and released that at version 1.0. Of course, strategy games are a very tricky thing because they tend to be about "the feature" whereas an RPG like Star Control is about the story and immersion.
With that in mind, i wanted to share with you guys some images of the planet exploration part of Star Control so that you can see how it's progress...
THE TARGET

This is what we wanted the surface of a desert planet to look like.

Very early on...


Closer...May 2018 (E3 build)

Closer...now shadows and sky starting to get right.

Closer...Sky is still a bit off. props are a bit too jumbled. June 2018.

and here is where we are now (though this is near sunset so it's a bit darker).
The thing to remember: These are procedurally generated worlds (the mockup had placed everything).
Where will we be by September 20? We'll see.