Helixteus 3

Helixteus 3 is a 2D space conquest/resource management game with incremental mechanics. You start with only one planet, construct buildings to produce resources that will allow you to conquer other procedurally generated planets, systems, galaxies, and eventually entire universes.

Play the game on itch.io

Wishlist the game on Steam

Community

All active discussion is happening on our Discord server. Come and say hi!

Quick start for contributors

• Clone this Git repository.
• Download the Godot game engine.
• Open Godot, select Import from the projects list.
• Navigate to the location that you cloned the project, and import the /project.godot file.

Having problems with importing Helixteus 3 into Godot? Feel free to ask for help in an issue, or the #development channel of our Discord server.

Contributing

This project is community-driven, which means that anyone is able to help with the development of it. Here are some ways that you can contribute:

• Localization
• Graphics
• Audio
• Code
• Bug reports

Localization

Want to add your language to the game, or improve existing translations? Localization is managed through this spreadsheet, so feel free to edit it if you have any changes that you want to make.

Graphics

Does something in the game look a little ugly? All of the sprites/textures are stored within the /Graphics directory. Simply replace any image file for whatever graphic you want to change. Consider maintaining the image dimensions to ensure that the graphic is aligned properly within the game.

Audio

Are you a music producer, or sound designer? All of the game's music is stored in /Audio, while the sound effects are in /Audio/SFX. There is currently not an easy way to automatically add music into the game, so you can just drop audio files into these directories to be added in at a later date. Note: Music should be in .ogg or .mp3 format, and SFX should be in .wav format.

Development

Helixteus 3 is built using the Godot game engine. The biggest benefit of this is that it allows for the game to be easily cross-platform and portable. Refer to the Quick start for contributors section above for information on how to import the game into the game engine to test your code.

Code

All of the game logic is written in GDScript, which is very easy to learn (inspired by Python). You will find all of this code in /Scripts. Refactoring the code to look nicer is a great way to start with contributing code. Beautiful code is more likely to attract future contributors. If you are familar with GDScript's built-in functions, then consider finding some inefficient algorithms to improve. New features are also welcome, but try to coordinate with other developers before you start working on anything big.

Please test your code for bugs before you commit any changes!

Shaders

This game also uses shaders to add visual effects. Godot uses a custom shader language, though it is very similar to GLSL. All of these shaders are in the /Shaders directory. If you are a GLSL wizard, then feel free to improve any existing shaders, or add new ones!

Bug reports

Found something that should probably not be happening? Please make a detailed issue which contains any logs, and information on how to reproduce the unintended behavior. You may also make a report in the #bug-reports channel of our Discord server.

Support

All contributions and kind words are very appreciated! This game will always be available for free on itch.io (only Steam version is paid). If you want to financially support the development, you can buy the game on either Steam or itch.io, or directly donate to avoid all the platform fees/taxes.