Development of BDS2 has begun!

We have struck ground on building a new 3D engine to add game play elements to BDS. So far we have focused on space ship modeling, rendering, simulating accurate satellite orbits, and creating accurate solar system simulations. We are using the latest WebGL2 technology to share the development process by posting rendering demos here on the main project site!

Live Demos

Check out the BDS2 nebula shader editor demo (WASD + Arrow controls) here.

Check out the BDS2 ship material demo (WASD + Arrow controls) here.

Check out the BDS2 WGS84 satellite demo here.

Check out the BDS2 space ship navigation demo *UPDATED 2022* here.

Check out the BDS2 procedural water FFT demo here.

Check out the BDS2 procedural water ray tracing demo here.

What is Beyond Dying Skies?

You have crash-landed on an alien planet in search of the next habitable world for humanity. Pollution, global warming, and socioeconomic issues are leading to the destruction of Earth. The government has hired you to save humanity from the brink of extinction by finding new worlds in outer space that are suitable to sustain human life. However your survival is now at stake as you fight against the elements trying to repair your spacecraft so you can return home!

Beyond Dying Skies is a free and open source (FOSS), 3D FPS-RPG game in active development primarily for the GNU/Linux operating system. It supports the GNU/Clang C++ toolchain and builds for Linux and Windows operating systems. It contains voxel, survival elements fused with a technologically enhanced futuristic setting. The game focuses on exploration of randomly generated worlds along with crafting items to enhance the ability of your character. The game is not merely survival, crafting sandbox, or RPG but a hybrid of all three. The game focuses on skillful movement similar to old school FPS shooters from the early 1990s, a progressive RPG like leveling system, and permadeath like mechanics similar to old school RPGs.

The FPS-RPG element needs to be emphasized. This isn't a game with a ton of art/music/developer man hours but a simplistic, efficiency focused fusion of a few good ideas. This game is tiny only 20MB! The idea originally was inspired from the glut of survival games on the market (none being fully FOSS by the way). Those games felt grindy and heavily focused on attaining "wealth" i.e game hours invested in the game to make any progress. This quickly became unsustainable and I quickly lost interest. I later asked the question why isn't this concept an RPG with jet packs, grappling hooks and an obsessive focus on blowing things up? Why not give the player some skillful movement like we had back in the 1990s? What could a single player game look like in 2018? Why does every game need to be multiplayer to be interesting? These questions motivated me to explore what is possible and what is reality.

Check out this week's development blog here.

Check out the updated crafting recipe tables here.

12 November 2022

Beyond Dying Skies 2 Space Simulation Tech Demo Released!

• Launched BDS2 space simulation web assembly demo
• Features include ship interiors, cockpit control, planet orbits, space stations, and black holes!

27 March 2020

Build 0.1.328 Released!

• Added web assembly support using Emscripten
• Launched BDS web assembly demo

6 August 2018

Build 0.1.316 Released!

• Added CMAKE support
• Added MSVC support
• Added MGL git submodules

26 July 2018

Build 0.1.313-315 Released!

• MGL improvements

19 July 2018

Build 0.1.309-312 Released!

• First pass at standardizing the makefile
• Fixed minor bug fixes

13 July 2018

Build 0.1.304-308 Released!

• Added CHANGElog.md to the project
• Changed physics spatial database to octree from grid
• Removed bundled GLEW library and set makefile to link with system GLEW
• Optimized ray and grid traversals in MGL and updated function signatures for compatibility

6 July 2018

Build 0.1.297-304 Released!

• Optimized application launch code
• Fixed ray bug on physics entities
• Reworked stats and stat attributes
• Refactors to minimize particle bloat
• Fixed UI hover bug
• Window opens after loading game to minimize boring load times

1 July 2018

Build 0.1.285-297 Released!

• Added dynamic linking to MGL lib in default build
• Added precompiled headers to build
• Greatly increased robustness of makefiles
• Removed all warnings and errors on clang-6++ and g++
• Fixed double jump bugs
• Hunting down bugs and undefined behavior

27 June 2018

Build 0.1.280-284 Released!

• Fixed compilation on clang-3.5
• Fixed compilation on clang-6
• Ran UBSAN on code and fixed undefined behavior

25 June 2018

Build 0.1.276-279 Released!

• Created new game mode: Creative
• Created ability to select game type from title menu
• Title menu allows creating new games, loading games and deleting games from GUI

24 June 2018

Build 0.1.273-275 Released!

• Added game menu at title screen
• Added new game and load game options in title menu
• Fixed drone pathing bug and title screen saving bug

21 June 2018

Build 0.1.271-272 Released!

• Added support for DVORAK keyboards
• Allow remapping key controls within game
• Persist key mappings between game execution

Development update video released! Check it out on our YouTube channel!

18 June 2018

Build 0.1.269-270 Released!

• Added desktop icon and desktop file

10 June 2018

Build 0.1.259-268 Released!

• Minor bug fixes

8 June 2018

Build 0.1.258 Released!

• Gamma corrected all colors
• Added new light sources and fixed shader bugs resulting in deeper shadows

7 June 2018

Build 0.1.246-257 Released!

• Face rendering optimization to increase render speed
• Dropped support for instance rendering (MGL_INST_RENDER)
• GCC 6 and clang-3.5 fixes
• Added pause menu with return to game, return to title, and quit options
• Recoil frame rate bug fix
• Better error handling, win32 messagebox alert
• Added new shot and thruster sound
• freetype-config upgraded to pkg-config
• Flushed out dynamic abilities and energy costs

30 May 2018

Build 0.1.245 Released!

• Fixed mouse cursor bug on some systems
• Adjusted strength of default beam weapon

Development update video released! Check it out on our YouTube channel!

29 May 2018

Build 0.1.244 Released!

• Added focus sound on focus
• Added critical hits
• Fixed fatal crash when looking in vertical direction

28 May 2018

Build 0.1.243 Released!

• Equipping skill items now affects stat attributes
• Portals have been pregenerated to improve portal performance
• Drops now trigger sodium block explosions

25 May 2018

Build 0.1.242 Released!

• Skill items now display primary and secondary stat points
• Skill item stat points randomness is affected by player level
• Refactored world block atlas to generate better looking portal worlds
• Added iridium block type

24 May 2018

Build 0.1.241 Released!

• Chests now spawn in all world types
• Opening a chest with a key grants a random item
• Hardcore and normal modes added

21 May 2018

Build 0.1.240 Released!

• Stat points are now allocatable
• Health and energy now scale with player level
• UI and text refactor
• Explosion bug fixes and drone damage nerf

17 May 2018

Build 0.1.236 Released!

• New skill type: Speed Boots
• Drones now fire missiles at player level 5
• Drones now explode on terrain impact if offline after level 10
• Drones now tunnel through terrain after player level 15
• Right clicking now tracks physics objects as well as terrain blocks
• Added focus UI element which shows player focus when right clicking
• Fixed missile bugs and tweaked explosive damage system

15 May 2018

Build 0.1.235 Released!

• Drones now explode on terrain impact if offline after level 5
• Drones now tunnel through terrain after player level 10
• Added chests static instances and key items
• Added ray tracing scanner to identify player focus
• Major static instance and ray tracking refactor
• Added debug text to test ray tracing scanner
• Drops, explosives, and missiles now react to being hit with an energy weapon
• Asteroids no longer drop blocks on impact

11 May 2018

Build 0.1.234 Released!

• New skill type: Portal Beam
• Portal Beam allows access to three new fractal world types
• Added UI overlay decorations

Development update video released! Check it out on our YouTube channel!

10 May 2018

Want to build the game from source code on Linux? Check out our latest YouTube video!

8 May 2018

Build 0.1.228-233 Released!

• New weapon type: Auto Beam
• Added recoil to weapons
• Fixed mandelbulb random distribution
• README clarifications

7 May 2018

Build 0.1.227 Released!

• Added breathing sounds when oxygen is low
• Fixed damage stream display bug

5 May 2018

Build 0.1.226 Released!

• Oxygen system with UI elements
• Added carbonate anions, calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate to item system
• Added recipes for crafting oxygen
• Consuming oxygen item adds oxygen to tank
• Health, energy, and oxygen now persist between saves
• Block drop count increased to 50 simultaneous drops
• Added walk animation to player gun when walking
• Added streaming text when taking damage or missing shots

4 May 2018

Build 0.1.222-225 Released!

• Added level up alert system
• Lowered ore spawn rate
• Fixed building using clang++
• Added frustum culling to static instances and particles
• Fixed grid bugs resulting in memory corruption

1 May 2018

Build 0.1.221 Released!

• Explosions now drop multiple blocks instead of just one
• Level up UI alert added
• Player stat attributes added to UI
• Player stat attributes scale with player level
• Drone spawn count increases with player level
• Reduced efficiency of starter beam weapon
• Fall damage now scales with player velocity
• Stat points now persist between saves
• Block drops now grant experience points
• Crafting and using consumables now grant experience points
• Fixed experience bar rendering artifact
• Cooldown reduction applied to skills
• Damage multiplier applied to offensive attacks
• Drone health is randomly adjusted based on player level
• Added player dash ability on LSHIFT key

30 April 2018

Build 0.1.220 Released!

• Added copy/paste terrain editor tool using Ether as currency
• LSHIFT now applies crafting/decay in 4x multiples. Default behavior is now 1x
• Fixed drone spawning bug where drone event instantly ends

29 April 2018

Build 0.1.219 Released!

• Added colored tooltip item descriptions
• Drones now respawn if stuck inside terrain geometry
• Drones now despawn if player dies
• Bug fixed where drones fly inside terrain geometry
• Drones now explode on death
• Drones now track player position
• Drones now play a flying sound and a sound when attacking the player
• New background track added
• The number of simultaneous missile explosion sounds have been increased to 10
• Consuming food now decays into [H+] and [Cl-] and boosts health only
• Added ability to craft batteries that can be consumed to boost energy
• Pausing the game now closes inventory screen
• All nonmetal blocks now decay into Ether

25 April 2018

Build 0.1.218 Released!

• Added mandelbulb portals using F key (Temporary)
• Synchronized drone damage response with all weapon systems
• Charge beam now does more damage than single beam
• Added ability to eat vegetables
• Eating vegetables overcharges health and energy systems

23 April 2018

Explore randomly generated fractal worlds in our latest YouTube video, Mandelbulb Monday 1!

20 April 2018

Build 0.1.217 Released! Check it out on our YouTube channel!

Various new recipes and bug fixes have been added to the game. A comprehensive list is detailed below:

• New weapon type: Scatter Beam
• Single beam cost reduced by 50%
• New blue crystal shards recipes allow converting ionic items to the non-ionic form
• New green crystal shard recipes allow "upping" block type to a higher block level
• Modified item decay production counts to avoid duping items
• Fixed drone AI pathing bug resulting in memory corruption
• Added ability to damage drones with energy weapons