First entry, first devlog. Let’s start by introducing the game and where it’s at 🙂

What is Uncharted Sectors?

Uncharted Sectors is a sci-fi grand strategy game driven by an intelligent storyteller, in which you establish your domain in an unexplored and dangerous part of space.

Using a deep economic system, you will be able to extract, process, and trade resources and goods, giving your people (and yourself) a better life and a bigger purse, and becoming a power to be reckoned with. Your fleets will plow through the stars, but their usefulness will lie more in exploration and trading than in plunder and conquest.

The sector is a dangerous place, though, and the storyteller will make sure to remind you of it. Thus, together with your help as the player, you will craft an interesting story filled with engaging challenges from beginning to end.

The state of the project

We’re a few months in, and all the technical groundwork is done to have a game that is:

• Easily moddable thanks to being data-driven (which means that anybody can modify the text/CSV files that contain the necessary data to play) and using Lua for a big part (a very easy-to-learn programming language that executes in a safe manner—so no way for malicious people to access players’ computers!).
• Allowing me to write very fast and bug-resistant code for the core mechanics thanks to the Rust programming language.
• Properly integrated with Steam, with testing frameworks, proper logging, and all the tools I need to develop something scalable and resilient.
• And, last but not least, a game that won’t require people to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of graphics cards to play, while still being pleasant to look at, thanks to Godot’s highly efficient engine.

Furthermore, before this past month’s worth of work, the game already had:

• A fully functioning time and event simulation system, which can be paused and sped up at will.
• A star map displaying hexes representing parsecs, which themselves contain star systems.
• Fleets that can move from system to system in the appropriate amount of time when time is not paused.
• A fully functional map generator that uses an open-source library I made in previous years to generate highly realistic star systems.
• A fully functional market system that processes supply and demand and moves goods and money accordingly.
• A system that allows shop buildings to buy goods from producers, which are then put on shelves for pops to purchase.

Now that you’re up to speed, allow me to tell you about the progress made this month.

The economy comes to life

Core systems-wise, the big work this month was on the economy.

Factories now actually consume their inputs and produce their expected outputs properly. They place buy and sell orders and even pay their workers. Since every part of this is set by the game’s data, one just has to edit a CSV file to change the amount or type of goods needed or produced, or even multiply all salaries (if only life were this simple!).

And you’re not limited to setting fixed goods either. You can set types of goods. For example, if you configure a building to accept “heating sources” as an input, the player (or the AI) will be able to choose coal, oil, or electricity to fulfill the need, depending on what goods they have most of or want to create demand for.

I’ve also added a smart system for pops to determine what they want to buy to meet their needs, adjusted by market availability and various desirability criteria (e.g., poor pops will prefer cheap goods, while rich pops will want high-quality ones). Again, this is fully editable via the game’s data.

It uses the same “goods type” system as buildings, so when a pop needs “food” as a broad category, it can pick any good that fits the bill—preventing them from rebelling just because they crave cherries that are only available on the other side of the sector (how do they even know what cherries are, anyway?).

Another benefit is that pops will develop a preference for custom goods that you, the player, can design, produce, and export to the rest of the sector… But that’s a discussion for another day!

Quest for the feel

The next big task will be the game’s overall aesthetics.

Decades ago, before I started working in software engineering, I was a graphic designer. I know how important a game’s visual aspects are for its usability and the experience it provides, and thankfully, I know how to (try to) make it look good. I also get help in that field—and so many others—from my lovely wife (yay, teamwork!).

My inspirations for the game’s universe are Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, Dune, and Foundation. The main “quest” of the game revolves around the player being banished from the Emperor’s court and having to start anew in a frontier sector on the fringes of known space—so dangerous and seemingly unappealing that the Empire doesn’t even try to claim it as its own.

The Empire itself is a decadent entity. Full of its past glories, it has become complacent. It is slowly forgetting essential technologies, its control is loosening, and its elites are too busy playing court games and reveling in their own vanity.

I want the game’s aesthetics to reflect that. This “imperial decadence” will be conveyed through old, rugged golds, dirtied purple velvets, and pompous yet elegant designs. At the same time, the Uncharted Sector itself represents a new beginning, bringing a frontier spirit of hopefulness. It will embody a 90s sci-fi RPG vibe, with inked drawings, cassettepunk aesthetics, and morally ambiguous yet bombastic characters.

And that’s what will probably keep me occupied in the coming days.

The Logo Conundrum

To wrap things up, I’d like to share some of the research we’ve done on the logo. I’m not entirely convinced about the “final” result yet, but it’s serviceable for now. It works well enough for the Steam capsule—though the colors could (and should) still be tweaked.

Here’s a look at the journey we took to get to the current version, with the Steam capsule test in the bottom left:

Honestly, I was leaning toward the thinner design, but it gets pretty hard to read at smaller sizes. I’d gladly welcome feedback if you have any, don’t hesitate to contact me via the Contact form or one of the game’s social media accounts.

As Uncharted Sectors continues to grow, I’ll be sharing more insights about its systems, story, and style. In the meantime, whether you’re into economic simulations, narrative strategy, or just like seeing indie projects take shape, you’re more than welcome to subscribe to the newsletter to follow out journey more closely and claim your seat for the beta 🙂

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Luc Toupense
Developer of Uncharted Sectors