Astronautical Adventurer was as a project I started in the fall, and have continued work on since its original inception. The original idea was to design a deep space mining game that kept the player actively engaged, instead of the passive mining seen in many MMOs.
My first thought was to make the asteroids scaled drastically different sizes, so that feeling was more impressive. I got the rocks to break apart so that they could crash into other rocks creating chain effect. and all was going very well. Unfortunately after that I began adding more stuff with no strong concept of game play. The issue was I had fun mechanics but no fun game to go along with it. I tired several things before first submitting the game as an odd "sandbox escort mission", and none of them, including that idea worked.
I revisited the project when I began work on a RPG for an assignment. To start I got rid of several of the broken aspects of the game like "sandbox" and "escort" and replaced it with a simple destroy and progress mechanic. I added in persistent progression of the player through experienced based leveling and a shop which allowed you to purchase other improvements. The new straightforward gameplay was an easier way to engage players, and it solved a lot of my earlier issues.
The current iteration of Astronautical Adventurer is coming along nicely. I have some more issues to resolve concerning player control, and the enemy AI will be getting a long overdue improvement. I am also planning to take a shot at missions and see if I can vary the play experience a bit more.
I will continue to post progress as I take these next steps.