Starbound Frontier

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a playable browser-based 3D sci-fi exploration prototype titled “Starbound Frontier.” Use a Three.js-style third-person chase camera and a dark nearly black space background with sparse bright star points and a field of blue dust particles. The visual style is clean, colorful, low-poly sci-fi: large smooth stylized planets with colored surfaces and faint atmospheric glows, occasional tilted torus rings, emissive cyan crystals, and a readable futuristic HUD in translucent dark rounded panels with thin blue borders and white text.

The game starts in Spaceflight near a large blue starter planet. The player pilots a compact detailed starfighter: a pale metallic capsule/cone hull, dark wide wings, a glowing cyan cockpit, central spine, upper fin, and two rear engines with orange/cyan emissive cores and animated translucent blue exhaust plumes. Keep the ship visible in the center/lower part of the third-person view. The camera follows from behind and above, looks ahead of the ship, and can orbit around it using mouse drag. Flight should feel like inertial 3D cruising: persistent throttle, forward speed, yaw, pitch, roll/banking, boost, and braking rather than instant movement. Engine glow and plume length/intensity should respond to speed, throttle, and boost.

Generate an endless-feeling procedural universe in sectors around the player. Divide space into roughly 360-unit sectors and keep nearby sectors loaded, creating one to three generated planets per sector at deterministic pseudo-random positions; unload distant sectors except the starter sector. Planets should have deterministic generated names assembled from syllables, unique seed-based hue/color, radius roughly 12–30 units, smooth spherical low-poly geometry, a subtle matching atmospheric halo, and a chance of a tilted ring. Include a guaranteed starter planet at the beginning. As the ship travels, new planets appear. Each planet stores a crystal resource count (roughly 6–14), a visited state, and whether it contains an inhabited outpost.

Core objective/loop: cruise through space, find planets, scan them, land, explore their surface on foot, collect glowing crystals, optionally build beacon settlements, trade crystals at inhabited outposts for credits and alliance standing, then launch back into space and continue discovering. There is no hard ending; progression is represented by discovered planets, credits, crystals, beacons, and alliance rank.

Space controls: W/S adjust the persistent throttle up/down; A/D yaw left/right; Arrow Up/Down pitch; Q/E roll; hold Shift to boost; hold X to brake/dampen velocity; R scans the nearest planet within about 220 units; L lands when within about 12 units of a planet and moving no faster than about 44, or launches from the surface. Use mouse drag to orbit the chase camera. Clamp throttle approximately from -20% to 100%, allow boost to add substantial forward speed, apply lateral damping, and make the ship bank visually while turning.

Scanning: pressing R on a planet in range marks it discovered once, increments the discovered count, and displays its generated name, radius, crystal count, whether an inhabited outpost was detected or it is uncharted wilderness, and distance. If no planet is in range, show a temporary message such as “No planet in scan range.”

Landing: pressing L near a slow enough planet switches to a surface mode, hides the flying ship, places the player at the center of a circular surface area, and shows a temporary “Landed on [name]” message. If too far away or too fast, explain that the player must slow down and get closer. On the surface, render a circular colored ground matching/darkening the planet color, around 40 scattered low-poly rocks, and the planet’s generated number of floating/rotating emissive cyan octahedral crystal nodes distributed around the area. Surface movement is third-person: W/S move forward/back, A/D turn, Q/E strafe, with a simple orbitable camera behind the character/ship position. Keep the player inside an approximately 84-unit radius.

Surface controls and interactions: F checks nearby objects. Within about 3.5 units of an uncollected crystal, hide it, increase crystals by one, and show “Crystal harvested.” At most inhabited planets, place an outpost at a fixed offset on the surface: a gray circular landing pad, tall pale cylindrical tower, and glowing yellow sphere on top. F within about 6.5 units trades all carried crystals; each crystal gives 12 credits and 3 alliance, then crystals become zero. If empty, show “Outpost trader wants crystals.” At other locations show “No resource or outpost in reach.” B builds a cyan-lit beacon on the surface if the player has at least 10 credits: deduct 10 credits, increment beacon count, save its position for that planet, and place a small low-poly structure consisting of a broad metallic octagonal base and a tall glowing cyan light column. Beacons persist when leaving and returning to that planet during the session. If funds are insufficient, show “Need 10 credits to build a beacon.” L from the surface launches back to space near the planet, restores the space ship and space background, and shows “Launch successful.”

HUD: place a large title panel near the upper left reading “STARBOUND FRONTIER.” Below it, show a translucent blue-edged panel with live lines for Mode (Spaceflight or Surface — planet name), throttle percentage/speed/boost state during flight or a surface movement/launch hint, Credits, Crystals, Alliance and rank, plus Discovered and Beacons. Alliance rank thresholds should read Drifter below 20, Trusted Scout at 20, Alliance Broker at 60, and Alliance Captain at 120. Show a lower/central instruction panel with contextual guidance such as “Cruise the stars. Press R near a planet to scan it.” and the relevant control hints. In space, the contextual text should identify the nearest planet and distance/speed and suggest R scan and, when valid, L land; otherwise show throttle/boost/brake guidance. On a surface, mention gathering crystals, building beacons, trading at outposts, nearby F interactions, and L to launch. Use temporary message notifications for scans, landings, harvesting, trades, building, and invalid actions.

Show controls clearly in the HUD: “W/S thrust • A/D turn • ↑/↓ pitch • Q/E roll • Shift boost • X brake • L land/launch • F interact • B build beacon • R scan • Mouse drag orbit.” Do not add combat, weapons, enemies, creatures, multiplayer, crafting, upgrades, stations, warp gates, or a hard victory screen; these are not part of this prototype. The game should be continuously playable and focused on flying, discovering, landing, harvesting, building, trading, and alliance progression.