Dark Feathers is a small indie sci-fi 2D dogfighting game made by me (FloatWave)
betatesters wanted!
Do you want to be part of the betatest? Just write me email! jmfloatwave@gmail.com
The premise of this project is to make an action-filled space fighting game with high replayability. And to achieve that I need people that would be willing to tell me what parts are fun, what parts could be fun and what parts are not fun. People like you! :)
About the project
The gameplay of the game can be classified as Shoot 'em up in the style of old Sopwith with the ability to slow time.
Heaviest influence comes from FTL: Faster Than Light and Dogfight. I was 8yo when I played Dogfight and told myself something like, "If I learn to program, I'll make a sci-fi reskin of this game." I am more than happy that I can make this childhood idea into reality. FTL is my most favorite game and is precisely the type of sci-fi game I genuinely love. Space, RNG, and retro style is just too good combination. I can't achieve the beautiful artwork of Justin Ma, but I tried anyway :) Homage to FTL is in DFs' DNA!
When you search for a 2D interceptor fighting game, you will be flooded with tons of side-scrolling bullet-hell shooters (like old R-Type), that's also one of the reasons I chose to try a less explored type of subgenre. Right now there are only Luftrausers, Jet Lancer, which I like but I would aim at less frenzied gameplay than those dogfighting games.
It is my long time passion project, I do on the side. There were many long periods of no development, but in the end, I always come back to it. It went through quite a journey, it is a good example of failing the "start with something small" motto. It began as my first small full game and ended up being my first full game. Not that, it is actually a big game, more that, it is far beyond a small experiment brought to finish. Feature creep combined with beginner skills is terrible. Luckily, throughout the years I met a bunch of great people who gave me invaluable insight and I'm very grateful to you all.
The game successfully passed Alpha stage (v0.1-0.9.9) within 2016 and got into Beta stage in early 2017. Beta updates were bigger and named:
v1.1 Enemy update (18.3.2017), v1.2 Hangar update (7.5.2017), v1.3 Weapon update (28.1.2018). After that project was put to sleep, because of student duties.
In April of 2020 began small revival with work on v1.4 DF Laboratory a small sandbox to experiment and tune the gameplay experience.