When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears

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• Patch Notes·4 Sept 2026Official

  Sept. Update and Devlog: Level Design, Better Portraits, and Dungeons in Space

  Hello out there! I've been busy this month working on level, quest, and character design. I've also made a lot of art improvements, squashed some bugs, and wired in a few fun surprises too! Here's a look at some of the things I've been working on for the full game this month, and some funny bigger picture thoughts on level design:Level Design: Erioran SpaceMy main level and quest design work this month has been creating levels and quests for the Eriorans, a fierce race of bird-like aliens who use heat beams to overheat and destroy enemy ships. Here's what Eriorans look like:And here's a ground view from their homeworld, Erior:Erior was once a lush jungle world, but their climate slowly began to change. Erior became increasingly arid, and is now mostly desert. This drove the Eriorans to develop more advanced technology and explore nearby star systems looking for more hospitable climates. Eriroans keep small trees both to honor the memory of their world as it once was and as a symbol of their mastery of their harsh environment.Erioran space is currently divided against itself. The Erioran hegemony was conquered by the Republic a hundred years before the events of the game, but the Eriorans rebelleed during the Civil Wars. Parts of Erioran space remain aligned with the Republic, but others are in open revolt, and the player will need to navigate that situation in the game.There are also some other, weirder problems lurking in Erioran space... I won't spoil anything, but here's a teaser:Art ImprovementsAs I mentioned last month, I've also been working on higher resolution art both for portraits and in some other areas of the game. I've now created larger portraits for all my existing faces and made plenty more as well. Here's a gallery showing off some new aliens and a few of the improved faces as well:I'm still pretty slow at pixel art, so these took a while, but I'm pretty pleased with them. In any event, almost all of the game art is now drawn on the same scale, and ...
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• Patch Notes·3 Aug 2026Official

  August Update and Devlog: Ships, Crew, and Planetary Exploration

  Hello out there! I've been very busy this month making lots and lots of new ships, adding new text-adventure-style planetary exploration events along with a new crew system, and making lots of improvements to the user interface. I also pushed a new demo build showing off some of the user interface progress and adding three planetary exploration events to the demo area. If you tried out the new demo build, let me know what you think over on the community thread!Now, here's a look at that I've been doing this month:"Shipmates Have Ye Shipped in That Ship?"The big project this month was using all the ship parts I made last month to make lots and lots of new ships! Check them out below ( with several variations of the starting ship, the falcon, included for scale):One thing I personally find very frustrating in space games is when the game doesn't allow you to fly many of the ships you interact with in the game. So a major design goal for When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears is for the player to be able to fly all of the ships in the game if possible. The demo currently has 9 flyable ship types in it, and this month I added about 20 new ships, so there are now 30 different ships in the game in all. All the ships shown above (except the little mini fighters shown in grey and green) are currently flyable in the full game, and I'm working on finding a fun way to make the mini-fighters flyable too.But, one downside of letting the player fly just about anything was that it made the ships harder to balance. For example, instead of testing new ships against a small group of player pilotable ships, I've had to test each ship against all the other ones to make sure that ships of roughly the same class/size are all at a roughly similar power level. Adding to the complexity, because players can heavily modify the ships, I've also had to test modified versions of the ships as well. It's all good fun, though, because it gives me an excuse to play around with all the ships I've bui...
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• Announcements·27 Jul 2026Official

  Demo v1.40

  Development has been speeding along behind the scenes over the last two months, and it's time for a new demo build!This build has a ton of improvements to existing systems, including some new demo content to show off some brand new planetary exploration events! Existing saves should work fine, although Lucius will pop up to ask you a few questions the first time you load an old save. If you want the full experience I'd strongly recommend re-starting the demo from the beginning to make sure you see all the new stuff!Highlights of the new features in this build:-- Added three new text-based planetary exploration events, allowing you to explore an enemy base, a research facility that was attacked by pirates, and a world with a hostile ammonia-based atmosphere.-- Added a crew system, so you can bring certain important characters along with you as crew. The player and each crew member have RPG-style statistics and backgrounds that will influence dialog and planetary exploration events. You can see your current crew in the crew viewer on the pause screen.-- Added an inventory viewer to the pause screen so you can see what modules you have and look at their statistics more easily.-- Added a sector map with areas of control to the pause screen so when you're in folded space you can see a larger area than the mini map shows, and also get a sense of which sectors the pirates still control:-- When you destroy an enemy ship, their ship parts/modules now appear as collectible items floating in space instead of being automatically added to your inventory. Fly close to them and a tractor beam will automatically pull them into your ship's hold, but be careful not to shoot them! -- Many improvements to the ship yard including: an option to sell unwanted modules, a consolidated ship switcher that shows ships you own and ships you could fix/buy in the same list, and a button to strip all modules off of a specific ship.-- The heat system is redesigned so that ships now show a colored o...
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• Patch Notes·2 Jul 2026Official

  July Update and Devlog: Modules, Maps, and Tractor Beams

  Hello out there! I've been very busy this month making lots and lots of new ship modules, improving the user interface, and adding a new loot collection mechanic. Before I jump into the devlog, I wanted to thank the many people who stopped by to play the demo and check out When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears during Next Fest. I hope you all enjoyed the demo, but even if you didn't (maybe especially if you didn't?) please stop by the community thread and leave some feedback on the demo! Now, here's a behind the scenes sneak peek at this month's development on the full game:Modules, Modules, ModulesThis month has mostly been about making more weapons, engines, and other equipment modules. I added dozens of modules including heat beams, a cutting laser, M.I.R.V. missiles, a cloaking device, a repair arm, and lots more! The total number of modules in the full game is now over 60, about a threefold increase from the 20 or so modules in the demo. I also added a new inventory screen so you can more easily have a look at your modules and their statistics:Maps and New UIRelated, I've massively improved the pause screen and heads-up display (HUD), including adding a large map to the pause screen showing lines of control for all the competing factions in the sector: Believe it or not, that map required a surprising amount of development work. Designing the map so it would show each area of control without internal seams, and would dynamically update during play (as systems change hands) was harder than I initially thought. I initially tried to work out an algorithm from scratch by bisecting the map into a bunch of pieces to tesselate the map space, but it didn't really look right, and performance was not so good. Eventually I realized I was barking up the wrong tree and did some more research, which led me to a kind of visualization called a Voronoi diagram. Just knowing the correct name for the concept was a big step forward and let me easily find some algorithms people ha...
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• Patch Notes·7 Jun 2026Official

  June Update: Next Fest and Devlog on Fighters

  Hello again! Steam Next Fest starts next week, the demo has stabilized, and I'm hard at work on the full game behind the scenes. I'm planning to do monthly dev logs moving forward so you all can see what I'm up to as I work towards finishing the full game!Next FestSteam Next Fest starts on June 15th, and this game is participating! Next Fest is a great opportunity to see cool demos of hundreds of upcoming games. If you haven't tried out the demo of When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears, Next Fest is a great time to see what the game has to offer. Devlog -- Capital Ships and FightersNow that the demo is in a more stable state, I've been busily working on features for the full game release. I've created 20 new modules for players to mount on their ships, including automated turrets, fighter bays, and asteroid throwers. I've also been building some larger ship frames to showcase the new modules, including a few carriers that can launch different types of fighters. I've currently got three different types of fighters working: mass driver fighters that have shields but do less damage, laser fighters that do heavy damage and aim fast, and missile fighters that do devastating damage, but have very limited ammo. Check out a sneak peek:The fighters presented a few interesting design puzzles from both a balance and a performance perspective. On the balance side, fighters need to be small and fragile, but they also need to feel satisfying to use and be effective in combat. After spending a fair amount time trying different stat lines, a key step was tuning the fighters to have relatively limited health and ammunition, but to have them return to the mother ship when damaged or out of ammunition for repair and restock. Adding a return and relaunch step increased the fighter's longevity (making them more useful), but also acted as a bit of a brake on how quickly the fighters can dish out punishment to other ships. It also was more interactive for the player as players now need t...
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