In this post: Introducing Super Hero Life IV and Nightships, as well as discussing the next updates for Super Hero Life II, III, and Mortal Metal.
Today is the first Nightcycle Weekly Update! I’m hoping that through using these I can better connect the majority of the community as to what we’re working on, the future of various games, and to let you know where you can learn more! These posts will be weekly, however, they might not always happen on the same day of the week, it really depends on my schedule and how busy I am on the weekends.
Full-Time Game Development
By the end of this July, I’ll have completed my final class for college! I will be graduating from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Liberal Studies with a focus on Sciences & Humanities and a Minor in Game Design with a focus on Game Art. Originally I attended the university to get a major in Game Design, but it would have required a 5th year in college, and I felt I was ready to become a full-time indie game developer! I’m currently working 60 hours a week to bring you all some awesome games. Let’s take a look at what those games are!
Super Hero Life IV
Many of you will be excited to hear that we are working on Super Hero Life IV (SHL4), here are some of the cool things to expect from it!
- Custom powers!
- A much more powerful character editor than the previous entries!
- Advanced combat which isn’t just spam-clicking!
- Multiple unique maps!
- Mechs!
It will also use a new character style called LP3 standing for Low-Poly 3 (as this is our third attempt making a low-poly character). Here’s a demo we’ve released!
The characters will be customized in two major ways, firstly they can swap out and recolor outfit segments as shown in red below. The green dots are places they can attach various items ranging from jetpacks, to emblems, to lasers, and more! We hope to also give the player more customization options than in previous games, allowing them to change height, add tattoos/scars to their characters, and change the eye color (this includes making them glow!).
On top of that when in previous games there was a specific secret identity mode and a super identity mode, now it’s just modes! This means you can make alternate versions of your character’s outfit and switch quickly between them! You want your superhero to wear cargo shorts? Go for it! Does their secret identity wear a cape for some reason? Cool! The divide is gone, you can now make any character you please in any mode.
On top of that, we’ve also begun working on the new city map! It will be one of the many players that can play in.
The game will no longer have a roleplay/combat separation, instead, it will be a roleplaying game first. If you want to combat someone, all you have to do is send them an invitation (assuming they have invites on) and you can battle them then and there! Certain areas will automatically enable combat mode, for people who wish for a more chaotic experience.
So when is the game coming out? We have no specific release date yet, however unlike previous games this one will have an early access period as we build it up. The first thing to release will be version 0.1.0, a basic map / avatar demo to test out how people are enjoying the map and character design/movement of LP3. Once that’s polished we’ll move on to version 0.2.0, which introduces the character customization mechanics that will elevate it above all previous SHL games. Finally, version 0.3.0 will add combat and custom super powers! There are 6 releases planned currently after that, however version 0.3.0 will be the point where we release the game as paid access. It will release at version 1.0.0 to all players for free. Current goal is to get through 0.2.0 by the end of the summer, with 0.3.0 being completed as well if we’re lucky!
Nightships
Nightships is the first new game of mine since Mortal Metal came out in 2019. In this open galaxy space simulation MMO, you must design your own spaceship. What you do in your vessel is up to you. Players can disable and rob other ships, collect bounties, deliver cargo, join empires, and even blow up planets!
There are many things that we feel will help this game overcome the curse that all space games face on Roblox. Among them are:
- A procedurally generated galaxy with spherical planets you can land on!
- Custom spaceships with custom interiors, and when we say custom we mean full customization, you’ll be able to shape almost every aspect of the ship, decorating rooms, shaping the hull, adding rockets and turrets, all to create the awesome ship of your dreams!
- Strategic ship combat: among other things you can outfit your ship with drones, fighter squadrons (automated or with player pilots), railguns, lasers, and more!
- Massive vessel size differences. Your ship can be as small as a sailboat, or it can be twice as big as the largest currently existing cruise ships!
This doesn’t even scratch on things like planet colonies, super weapons, cosmic horrors, player combat, disabling and breaching into other people’s ships to steal their cargo, NPCs, faction warfare, and even being able to store ships inside other ships! There are so many areas of this game which we’re excited to bring to life.
So far we have gotten the ship customization tool to the point where you can make many awesome ships.
We’ve also gotten to the point where you can fly your custom ship around a procedurally generated galaxy. Here’s an actual in-game screenshot of this!
Did we mention that you can fly it from inside the ship as well?
We’re currently very excited about this game. It is currently gearing up for version 0.3.0 (ship flight in a galaxy). The exact version which will release as paid access (free release at 1.0.0) is still to be determined. Earlier we felt 0.2.0, a less detailed flight demo, would be a good release version, but we really want to get this game polished before people play it so we’re holding off a bit longer until we can get more of the core gameplay in. We hope to have 0.3.0 wrapped up in the next few weeks to release to official Nightcycle Studios testers.
One final thing, it has an awesome theme composed by BSlick! Nightships Theme Music - YouTube
Super Hero Life II
We’ve got a few updates planned for Super Hero Life II (SHL2) this summer! The two biggest ones being:
- An Aura gamepass that allows your character to produce a glow around their entire body in various different styles!
- Private servers!
The release of these has a lot to do with the production of Super Hero Life IV (SHL4) and Nightships (NS), as the aura technology is being developed for SHL4 and would be imported into SHL2 when completed. Super Hero Life II is considered mostly complete, once SHL4 comes out the goal is for the majority of the audience there to relocate to SHL4.
Super Hero Life III
Super Hero Life III (SHL3) won’t get nearly as much attention as SHL2, but it will still get a few updates:
- More roleplay props including wheelchairs
- Aura gamepass like the one for SHL2
This game is considered mostly finished, with our focus being on making SHL4 better rather than trying to salvage III. We feel we’ve learned a lot from it and want to make the game better from the ground up
Mortal Metal
Mortal Metal is currently undergoing a transformation into an RP focused game. This year we’re hoping to:
- Add more RP props
- A gamepass where you can become some of the larger robots
- Some more RP emotes
- Vehicles
As this game isn’t played as much as the others though, these updates may get delayed to a later time as needed.
More Information
Like all the cool stuff posted here? Under all our major games as well as the Nightcycle Studios group page we have social media linked. We post quite often to our Twitter (@Nightcycle_LLC), as well as to the Discord! There you can find design documents for Nightships and SHL4, as well as a ton of awesome community members to hype with!