In Progress Power Rangers in Space: The Psycho Empire

[zexika]

Development Update (Almost 1 Year In!)


Hey Chrono Crash friends,

Some of you know me well. A few years ago, I got very familiar with the OpenBOR engine and was quietly working on a Resident Evil project around the same time as Chris Monvel. I saw the passion he put into it and after about 6 months of development I decided to quietly break away from the project. I was working in a corporate environment and so I was focused on my professional development at the time. However, I've had some more free time in the recent year so I decided to start up a new project and after keeping this one completely under wraps for almost a full year, I’m finally ready to open the thread and let you all in on the project!

Power Rangers in Space: The Psycho Empire is a full-scale beat ’em up built from the ground up in OpenBOR. I’ve been grinding through it in private the whole time, hitting every roadblock you can imagine (engine quirks, asset shortages, life stuff, you name it), but I've learned a lot and have overcome them throughout the development process. The core game is already feeling solid. I want to be very clear, I do not do things halfway. This is not going to be some slapped together project with a few levels and dry characters. This is going to be an enterprise-level, professionally developed game that pushes all of my skillsets to the limits. Furthermore, this game will not be monetized. It will be completely free, and at no cost!

Right now the build has:

• Three fully playable levels (with more stages actively being built).
• All six Space Rangers (Andros, Carlos, Ashley, TJ, Cassie, Zhane) plus Karone as the 7th Ranger — the Purple Space Ranger with very unstable powers. All characters are already selectable and fully functional.
• Unlockable cameo characters in the pipeline, including the Masked Rider (transformable into Super Gold and Super Blue).
• Every single In Space Zord. Yes, you heard that right. They’re being custom-made; all are done except for the Mega Voyager which is currently being finished.
• The full Psycho Ranger set and every major monster form. That means all 5 original Psychos, including Silver and Green! And you cannot have an empire without an Empress.
• Serval monsters including Ecliptor (all forms), Astronema, Dark Specter, Tankenstein, Vacsacker, Voltage Hog, and more.
• Several game modes will be unlockable and playable.

The core game story will feature everything you are familiar with from the show, and the Psycho Empire will be an expansion that begins after concluding the primary story arc. Art, animations, and sound design are all getting that classic late-90s Sentai love while still feeling fresh. I’ve got big plans for the story mode—and I’m happy to say a proper trailer is dropping within the next few weeks! From here on out I’ll be posting regular dev updates, screenshots, and progress reports right in this thread so you can follow along in real time. If you’re a Power Rangers fan, an OpenBOR player, or just love big colorful beat ’em ups, drop a reply and let me know what you’re most excited to see.

For those of you who want to follow some of the art being used in the game, you can check out my DeviantArt page.

Questions, hype, suggestions? All welcome, AMA. Let’s make this the definitive In Space experience the community deserves!

 

[kimono]

Good evening Zexika, and I'm delighted that you've embarked on an OpenBor project.
Do you have any in-game screenshots and a gameplay video to share so we can get an idea
of the direction you've chosen to represent this serie?

 

[zexika]

Hello there! I absolutely will be releasing a teaser trailer in the future. I've got quite a bit of content I'm in the middle of adding on the backend. Originally, I digitized a lot of the character graphics, but I am switching over to 3D rendering for a lot of of my sprite work so it's going to push back and delay things for longer than I'd like. To give you an idea of what to expect, I am rendering everything in UHD before downscaling.

 

[kimono]

Very nice character models: do you have an animation of one of them?
Well done on this quality work

 

[NED]

Ingame screens ?

 

[O Ilusionista]

The idea seems interesting, but I have a few questions:
- The project seems too big for a first project. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to start with something smaller?

- I wanted to see real images of the game. Because you mentioned that you were working with digitized images and that you migrated to renders, but the images on your DeviantArt seem to be AI-generated, as I can see common AI problems like crooked eyes and missing fingernails.