This series features interviews with the developers of intriguing new indie games. In this installment, we present a mini-interview with the developer of “eXoSpace Combat Engineer,” a spaceship-building shooter developed by Fantastimaker and released for PC and Linux on September 22.
This shooter lets you freely assemble spaceships to tackle missions. At the end of each mission, a powerful boss awaits, unleashing a barrage of fire. The game features over 600 spaceship designs and more than 200 parts. As of this writing, Japanese language support is not available.
“eXoSpace Combat Engineer” is available for 1,700 yen.
――First, please introduce yourself. What’s your favorite game?
Bas: Hello. I’m Bas, a solo indie developer from the Netherlands.
I love games across a wide range of genres, but my current favorite is *RimWorld*. This game is characterized by “emergent gameplay,” where wonderfully crazy developments occur naturally, giving rise to all sorts of stories.
My favorite playstyle is the “stripped-down” scenario in Hardcore mode. In this grueling setting, I usually die within a few days, but during that brief time I’m alive, a series of events unfolds—from attacks by hordes of crazed squirrels to the discovery of ancient, vicious aliens sleeping in cryosleep capsules.
――Could you tell us about the game’s key features? Also, how did you come up with the idea?
Bas: I’ve been making games about building spaceships for literally decades, but until now, they never made it past the prototype stage. What I realized from that is that I truly love “building spaceships” itself!
“eXoSpace Combat Engineer” is designed as a game dedicated exclusively to building spaceships. Designing your own ship is both relatively fast-paced and deeply engaging, and the gameplay incorporates clear objectives along with progression and growth elements. This is exactly what I felt was missing in traditional spaceship-building games.In previous titles, the process of designing spaceships was often difficult and tedious, or there simply weren’t enough opportunities to put the ships you’d worked so hard to build to good use. With this game, I set out to solve precisely those issues.
――Were there any games that influenced the development of this title?
Bas: My main source of inspiration was definitely *Reassembly*. It’s a bit of an older title, but it’s still a fantastic game even today. I took the spaceship design concept from that game as a foundation and fused it with the unpredictable encounters found in *FTL: Faster Than Light* and the combat mechanics of *Nova Drift*.
――Please share one episode that left the deepest impression on you during the development of this game.
Bas: What left the deepest impression on me was the long journey of continuously exploring the game’s “outer game loop” (the overall gameplay).The “inner game loop” (the moment-to-moment gameplay) of building and fighting with spaceships was actually a lot of fun right from the very early stages of development. However, when it came to the “outer” part that ties everything together, we ended up reworking the system from scratch time and time again.
We started with a single-screen roguelike, moved on to strategy and mission-based roguelikes, and finally arrived at the current “mission-based progressive progression system.” This turned out to be a real success.
――What kind of user feedback have you received since release? Please share any particularly memorable comments.
The feedback since the beta release has been truly wonderful. Not only did the popular YouTuber Splattercat post a very entertaining gameplay video, but the game has also received a “Very Positive” rating on Steam (87% at the time of this interview). A few players even reported that “this game helped them get through a difficult time,” which made me genuinely happy.
What stood out to me most, however, was the high quality of feedback from the players in our official Discord community. It’s been incredibly helpful in making the game even better.
――Taking user feedback into account, could you tell us about your plans for future updates?
Bas: We try not to release information prematurely until we’re certain it can actually be implemented in the game. However, we will definitely be adding new factions, bosses, and spaceship parts. Furthermore, since the “outer game loop” mentioned earlier isn’t quite complete yet, we’ll continue to refine this system to make it even better.
――Could you tell us about the status of Japanese language support for this game? Is volunteer translation possible?
Bas: From the early stages of development, we’ve designed the system with localization in mind.While there is still some text—such as part descriptions—that hasn’t been fully localized yet, and it’s certainly not perfect, the majority of the in-game text supports Japanese fonts and the replacement of translation data. In fact, a “Japanese Localization Mod” is available on the Steam Workshop, allowing players to fully enjoy the game.
In the future, we hope to implement official localization in multiple languages, including Japanese, but to do so, we first need to stabilize the in-game text. That said, we’re definitely moving forward with an official Japanese localization, so please stay tuned!
――Is it okay to stream or monetize this game?
Absolutely! We’d love it. This game features “Streamer Mode,” designed to help prevent copyright infringement claims on YouTube. We’d be delighted if you’d make use of this feature.
――Finally, please share a message for our Japanese readers.
Bas: I’d love for more people in Japan to play this game, and I hope to release an official Japanese localization in the future. Please be sure to check out *eXoSpace Combat Engineer*!
――Thank you very much.
◆ About “Spotlight on Indie Mini-Q&A”
This series features email interviews with indie developers shortly after their game’s release. To ensure regular updates, we’ve standardized the questions, with the goal of sharing the perspectives of as many developers as possible. Please also enjoy our archive of over 1,000 other interview articles.
