BrightStar: Nexus

BrightStar: Nexus is a modern interpretation of two of the most ancient board games known to man, Checkers and Go, blending rules and concepts of both games while being played on a polar board to create a new unique and engaging video game.

As an admiral of the system, it is your duty to strategically manoeuvre your fleets onto objectives to seize territory and take control of the star system. Fleets can hold strategic objectives, but only if they are linked to the outermost ring of the system, but be aware, a solar system rotates, so every carefully planned move can be undone by the passage of time. 

 You will need to command your fleets with patience and cunning, planning ahead and encircling your enemies when the opportunity arises.  Nexus is a game of grand strategy, where the future and prosperity of the system is in your hands, if you can hold it. 

• Turn-based gameplay: Admirals place fleets using a dynamic turn order to mitigate first mover advantage. 
• Customisation and unlocks: Customise your admiral and fleet with cosmetics including ship skins, admiral profiles and dynamic music tracks.
• Minimalist design: Clean design methodology for clarity, ease of access and use.
• Deep mechanics: No two games play out the same way with innumerable strategies and territory combinations.
• Replayability: Like Go or Checkers, the board and the pieces may be the same every game, but the game evolves each time you play it opening up new strategies and concepts.
• Polar board and ring rotations: Nexus is played on a polar coordinate board that rotates every turn. With multiple rings in the system, building and maintaining territory is a difficult challenge.
• Evolving Music: The music in Nexus grows and develops as you play and unlock more layers. 

Ikari Dojo is planning to launch a kickstarter campaign for BrightStar: Nexus in the near future. If you are interested about being notified when we launch, we can submit your interest at this link.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ikaridojo/brightstar-nexus

Full Release

Nexus will be released on Steam for the Windows platform. The full release will be distributed on Steam as well as a DRM-free version.

Other Platforms

Dependent on circumstances, releases for MacOS, Linux, Mobile (Android/iPhone) and Switch are planned.

In the far future mankind has taken to the stars to explore new worlds, establish colonies and extract resources. The Cygnus sector of the Milky Way is home to the Union, a newly established star nation built on the principles of equity, cooperation and community. Despite social and technological evolution, mankind still turns to old habits and the outer star systems are rife with piracy, warlords and criminals. Valuable systems on the frontier are now a battleground for vast fleets vying for control and the victor takes all the spoils.

Observe the system, predict your opponent's strategy, plan your move, deploy the fleet!

Turn-based games are the purest form of gaming abstraction, providing each player with a discrete unit in which to perform their moves and actions. In Nexus, each player receives a turn in which to indicate their intention to deploy a fleet. Unlike other strategic games, your deployed fleets require time to reach their destination making forward planning even more critical to achieve victory.  This is represented by a holographic projections on the target objective.

After every admiral has taken their turn and placed their fleets, the round ends and translations are resolved. Translation are the jump from subspace into real space, allowing the fleets to travel interstellar distances.

Nexus utilises progressive turn order which means that the turn order changes every round. In a two player game, this can mean that the player who goes second, in the first round, will go first in the second round, essentially giving them two turns back to back. This is designed to eliminate the first mover advantage given to players who get the first move in the first round. This continues with the first player receiving two back to back turns in the next round. 

In multiplayer games with 3 or more people, this turn order shifts the players each round, giving each player the opportunity to go first in a round. This also adds another layer of strategic depth to the game, allowing players to plan for strong rounds, where they get to move first, or weak rounds, where they may be placing their fleets last before round resolution. 

Work towards new cosmetic content that changes the look and feel of every aspect of the game!

From the stars, to player colours, to the ambient music, every aspect of Nexus can be altered and modified. These customisation options are purely cosmetic allowing a player to show off their dedication, but this also means that the playing field always remains fair and level at a gameplay level, placing an emphasis on player skill and experience.

Customisation options include player fleets, ambient music tracks, player colours, systems, emotes, profile images (admirals), player avatars (command ships) and ship skins. 

• Fleets: From corvettes to battleships, choose your fleet composition. Whether you prefer small agile attack craft or massive battle fleets, it doesn't really effect gameplay, but it sure looks cool!
• Music Tracks: Each tier unlocks new instruments, layers and percussion. Mix and match, the music is dynamic and based on your choice. You can even turn it off!
• Colours: Are you one of those people who absolutely specifically without fail must play a certain colour? I know I am. What if you could always play as the colour you chose in the customisation settings? Well,  we thought of that. Choose your colour, don't get messed around. 
• Systems: Tired of a single star? Do you want asteroid belts? Prefer a brown dwarf to an F-class main sequence star? We've got you covered. With multiple systems to choose from, customise your playfield with stars, planets, nebulae and asteroid belts.
• Emotes: Give your command ship some character. Use emotes to communicate with your opponents.
  
• Profile Images: From the Union Navy, Merchant Stellar or Privateers, there are (currently) 12 characters to choose from.
• Avatars: Every player has a flagship which also acts as their in-game avatar. Choose from corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, carriers, escorts and prowlers.
• Ship Skins: Customise your fleet's colour scheme using ship skins. There are 12 colour schemes to choose from!

Clean UI and minimalist design assists players in navigating the galaxy and engaging their foes.

Nexus has placed great emphasis on the design of the UI to keep it in-galaxy and visually clean. The distinct design of UI elements helps players easily identify gameplay elements and provides intuitive visual identification with cues.

Easy to learn, hard to master.

Similar to games like Go and Checkers, the rules of Nexus are intuitive to learn, but deeper gameplay mechanics become increasingly more complex as a player gains experience or plays against more experienced opponents.

Rules of Nexus:

• Nodes: Strategic points in the system.  Place a fleet on a node to control it. A node can only be occupied by one fleet at a time. Adjacent nodes are connected by routes.
• Rings: Strategic orbits. The system is divided into four rings; innermost, inner, outer and outermost. At the end of each round, the rings rotate around the sun moving the positions and associated routes of the nodes.
• Routes: Lines of supply and reinforcement. Solid lines are direct routes and dotted lines are indirect routes. Any route allows placement of fleets deeper into the system as long as it is connected to the outermost ring.
• Occupation: Placing a fleet on a node controls that strategic objective and allows the placement of fleets on adjacent nodes. Any fleet placement requires an unbroken path to the outermost ring. Fleets can be placed anywhere on the outermost ring as long as the node is not occupied.
• Territory: Connecting three or more fleets with an unbroken route to the outermost ring creates a territory. Enemy fleets caught in a territory are captured and player fleets are recalled. Recalled fleets can be played again only on their next turn.
• Ambush: Enemy fleets can be captured if they occupy a node connected by two direct routes on adjacent nodes.
• Turn: Each player gets a turn to place a fleet per round. Each turn is 28 seconds plus 6 seconds per recalled fleet.
• Rounds: After each player has completed their turn, the round ends and the rings rotate, resolving territories.
• Game: The game lasts for 21 rounds. At the end of the last round, the player with the most territory wins. In the case of a draw, captures are added to the territory total to determine the winner. 

Layers of strategy mean deep replay value and skill development.

Nexus is a game of strategy and forward planning. Each game starts in the same state, but players choices can drastically increase the challenge and difficulty of overcoming the opponent. With a vast array of strategic options, no two games will ever be the same providing endless Replayability to Nexus. 

A different way of viewing the world. 

What makes Nexus so unique is that the playing area is in polar form, a two-dimensional coordinate system in which the point on a plane is determined by the distance from a reference point and the angle to the reference direction. Unlike a square board, estimating the distance from one point to another or connecting nodes through the circular play area becomes far more challenging due to the nature of the polar coordinate system.

Additionally, each turn the four separate rings of the system turn independently, making the prediction of future moves even more challenging. In the beginning, a beginner will rely more on luck to make good plays, but as a player becomes more experienced with the format, highly complex manoeuvres planned three or four steps ahead are possible and very satisfying.

Adaptive music that evolves as you play!

The music in Nexus is made up of layered tracks that grow as you play. By unlocking new track layers, the game music becomes richer and more varied deepening the gameplay experience. Tracks are unlocked by gaining experience and accessing the new track layers from the customisation menu.

The music in Nexus is inspired by the classics as well as music found in other space opera media such as Star Trek, and Legends of Galactic Heroes.

Ikari Dojo is a small indie development studio located in Brisbane, Australia, which has been developing video game assets and video games for 4 years . BrightStar: Nexus is Ikari Dojo's first commercial game.