Gameplay general

The philosophy behind Oberon is simple, create a game that is simple to play but requires you to think.

The problem I have with most MMORPG games these days is the lack of variety and complexity. I don't want to spend hours/weeks/months grinding up skill and experience charts, I don't want to spend my time mashing keys and most of all, I want a game that launches quickly.

Some other things I wanted to address. In creating the game as a Windows form, I created a game that can easily run in the background while doing other things, including playing other games. I also chose to code the game in a manner that is less resource intense so that it will run on any computer able to support Microsoft .Net 4.0 or higher.

I also wanted to create a game that was somewhat modern in the user controls. My target platform is Windows 7, desktop with a mouse and keyboard. My development computer is a Toshiba laptop and I also test using a Win 8.1 touchscreen. As I get closer to a final release I will switch my main dev computer to a touchscreen computer to perfect some of the touch screen capabilities. The style of computer panels lends itself well to touchscreen monitors and I find the interaction with a touch screen interesting.

Another important feature I wanted was the ability to run more than one game client at a time. It is possible, through the use of in-game controls, to patch multiple accounts together. This makes it possible to setup a multi-monitor or multi-device environment to give a player the ability to view more of the game at a time or have more control through multiple devices. Imagine your main computer screen has the current combat screen, the secondary monitor has the main terminal output giving you the blow by blow status of combat, then a laptop next to you has all the main ship computer systems. You are effectively running the same instance of your spaceship across three devices. Better yet, you could invite friends to remotely control parts of your ship you grant them access to control. More on this aspect of gameplay can be read in the multiplayer section.