- The State of the Project - 25 September 2019
Hello everyone, This update may come as a surprise for most of you as we expect this project has long been forgotten at this point. We dropped off the map over two years ago and this update is intended to provide some closure to the project. What’s the reason for this update? In the interest of our fans, and ourselves, we felt the project needed some form of closure. To that end we’ve released Arkin as is. It’s available for free with a description that states the project is no longer active. This is not the end we wanted for the project but it’s the best outcome we can provide at this point. What happened? As development began to stretch far beyond our initial estimates, working on Arkin became more and more of a burden. No one was being paid for their time and life’s many other obligations began to take precedence. This led to a point about two years ago where work finally stopped and…
- Development Status Update - 25 October 2017
We know it’s been several months since our last update of any kind and we apologize for the lack of communication. Many of you are probably wondering what the current state of the project is and in this update we hope to explain all that’s happened and our plans for the future. The Past Months Over the past several months development has slowed significantly. There are many reasons for this (work, life, and other obligations), but the end result is that very little progress has been made. This is the unfortunate reality of working on a game of this scale part-time – when life gets crazy time available for development drops to near zero. We’re not happy with this explanation, not having the time to make any real progress has been hard for us, but that has been the reality of the situation. What Happens Next Let us be absolutely clear – we are committed to finishing Arkin. We have a oblig…
- Development Status Update - 25 October 2017
We know it’s been several months since our last update of any kind and we apologize for the lack of communication. Many of you are probably wondering what the current state of the project is and in this update we hope to explain all that’s happened and our plans for the future. The Past Months Over the past several months development has slowed significantly. There are many reasons for this (work, life, and other obligations), but the end result is that very little progress has been made. This is the unfortunate reality of working on a game of this scale part-time – when life gets crazy time available for development drops to near zero. We’re not happy with this explanation, not having the time to make any real progress has been hard for us, but that has been the reality of the situation. What Happens Next Let us be absolutely clear – we are committed to finishing Arkin. We have a oblig…
- Dev Blog 31 - 26 March 2017
It’s been quite a while since our last Dev Blog so we’ve got a content-packed update this month. Since our last report we’ve overhauled Mission 2, created new destruction effects for large ships, and made dozens of improvements major and minor. All these changes were rolled out to our Alpha testers last week in the 0.3.6 update (full release notes available here). Work has also been ongoing for the 0.4 update which will feature some brand-new content for our testers to explore! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, let’s look at some of the work done over the past few months. Mission 2 Mission 2 has always been a bit of a thorn in our side. We initially thought it would be a very straightforward mission that would be simple to create and balance – we were wrong. To put it bluntly Mission 2 was not fun in its first iteration. It was also not fun after the second. We tried to tweak the se…
- Dev Blog 31 - 26 March 2017
It’s been quite a while since our last Dev Blog so we’ve got a content-packed update this month. Since our last report we’ve overhauled Mission 2, created new destruction effects for large ships, and made dozens of improvements major and minor. All these changes were rolled out to our Alpha testers last week in the 0.3.6 update (full release notes available here). Work has also been ongoing for the 0.4 update which will feature some brand-new content for our testers to explore! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, let’s look at some of the work done over the past few months. Mission 2 Mission 2 has always been a bit of a thorn in our side. We initially thought it would be a very straightforward mission that would be simple to create and balance – we were wrong. To put it bluntly Mission 2 was not fun in its first iteration. It was also not fun after the second. We tried to tweak the se…
- Alpha Update 0.3.6 - 18 March 2017
We’ve just released a new Alpha update to our backers on Steam! The main highlights of this update are a completely overhauled Mission 2 experience, redesigned large ship destruction effects, tweaks, bug fixes, and more. Mission 2 We spent a significant amount of time on this release to make Mission 2 more fun and polished. The changes will provide more interesting mechanics, more varied gameplay (no following Bombers around the whole mission), and a much improved atmosphere. Here’s a list with some of the main changes: New Arkin Bomber damage model that requires accurate shot placement New objectives to vary gameplay New Arkin Bomber model and damage/destruction effects Rebalanced wave timing and enemy counts Improved Bomber AI Updated music Persistent debris on checkpoint loading Two things missing in this update are complete voice acting (we’re about 50% right now) and the final musi…
- Alpha Update 0.3.6 - 18 March 2017
We’ve just released a new Alpha update to our backers on Steam! The main highlights of this update are a completely overhauled Mission 2 experience, redesigned large ship destruction effects, tweaks, bug fixes, and more. Mission 2 We spent a significant amount of time on this release to make Mission 2 more fun and polished. The changes will provide more interesting mechanics, more varied gameplay (no following Bombers around the whole mission), and a much improved atmosphere. Here’s a list with some of the main changes: New Arkin Bomber damage model that requires accurate shot placement New objectives to vary gameplay New Arkin Bomber model and damage/destruction effects Rebalanced wave timing and enemy counts Improved Bomber AI Updated music Persistent debris on checkpoint loading Two things missing in this update are complete voice acting (we’re about 50% right now) and the final musi…
- Dev Blog 30 - New Visual Effects and More - 15 January 2017
Welcome to the first Arkin Dev Blog of 2017! After a much needed break for the holiday season we’re back and working harder than ever to bring Arkin to life. We’ve got some interesting updates to kick off the new year so let’s get to it! New Visual Effects In a previous update we mentioned that changes to how shadows are being handled in our engine have allowed us to update our camera setup to support some cool new graphical effects. We’d like to expand on that and show you a couple of those new effects in action. Ambient Occlusion has become a staple of modern game graphics. Essentially it is the shadowing that exists in cracks, corners, and narrow gaps, regardless of other lighting in the scene. Physically accurate ambient occlusion requires a much more realistic lighting setup than is possible for modern hardware to handle in real time. That of course means that Ambient Occlusion in…
- Dev Blog 30 - New Visual Effects and More - 15 January 2017
Welcome to the first Arkin Dev Blog of 2017! After a much needed break for the holiday season we’re back and working harder than ever to bring Arkin to life. We’ve got some interesting updates to kick off the new year so let’s get to it! New Visual Effects In a previous update we mentioned that changes to how shadows are being handled in our engine have allowed us to update our camera setup to support some cool new graphical effects. We’d like to expand on that and show you a couple of those new effects in action. Ambient Occlusion has become a staple of modern game graphics. Essentially it is the shadowing that exists in cracks, corners, and narrow gaps, regardless of other lighting in the scene. Physically accurate ambient occlusion requires a much more realistic lighting setup than is possible for modern hardware to handle in real time. That of course means that Ambient Occlusion in…
- Alpha Update 0.3.5 - 11 January 2017
We're happy to release our first update for 2017! This update is primarily bug fixes and enhancements with a few small features sprinkled in. New Features Dynamic Squadron Dialog - Squadron leaders will now inform you if they spot hostile fighters on your tail. Volumetric Lighting - Currently implemented on some lights and suns, will be expended upon. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - Provides enhanced shadow details New Anti-aliasing method - Significantly reduces jagged edges. Still in testing & development stage. Countermeasures - ECMs are now standard equipment on the Orion. This will allow us to use missiles and other tracking weapons much more liberally. Enhancements Cluster Munitions have been overhauled, are now significantly more effective due to increased quantity and explosive radius Third person camera has been rewritten to solve issues with manual rotation and strange follow…
- Alpha Update 0.3.5 - 11 January 2017
We're happy to release our first update for 2017! This update is primarily bug fixes and enhancements with a few small features sprinkled in. New Features Dynamic Squadron Dialog - Squadron leaders will now inform you if they spot hostile fighters on your tail. Volumetric Lighting - Currently implemented on some lights and suns, will be expended upon. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - Provides enhanced shadow details New Anti-aliasing method - Significantly reduces jagged edges. Still in testing & development stage. Countermeasures - ECMs are now standard equipment on the Orion. This will allow us to use missiles and other tracking weapons much more liberally. Enhancements Cluster Munitions have been overhauled, are now significantly more effective due to increased quantity and explosive radius Third person camera has been rewritten to solve issues with manual rotation and strange follow…
- Alpha Update 0.3.4 - 17 December 2016
We've released a new version of the Arkin alpha! This version some great changes so heres a list with the highlights: The new Orion is here! Brand new model for a cooler, sleeker, starfighter appearance. New Tutorial mission to help new pilots get accustomed to flying the Orion and its features New explosion effects throughout New space elevator for Mission 2 - Civilian Defense Several new HUD indicators with menu options to control whether they are enabled Updated audio mix for improved experience New and updated Orion attachment models Some major performance fixes (just a start - many more to come down the road) Plenty of bug fixes and tweaks throughout the game No new campaign missions as part of this release, but look forward to that in the near future. NOTE: This update will reset your save file (this will probably happen fairly often during the Alpha, we apologize in advance but i…
- Alpha Update 0.3.4 - 17 December 2016
We've released a new version of the Arkin alpha! This version some great changes so heres a list with the highlights: The new Orion is here! Brand new model for a cooler, sleeker, starfighter appearance. New Tutorial mission to help new pilots get accustomed to flying the Orion and its features New explosion effects throughout New space elevator for Mission 2 - Civilian Defense Several new HUD indicators with menu options to control whether they are enabled Updated audio mix for improved experience New and updated Orion attachment models Some major performance fixes (just a start - many more to come down the road) Plenty of bug fixes and tweaks throughout the game No new campaign missions as part of this release, but look forward to that in the near future. NOTE: This update will reset your save file (this will probably happen fairly often during the Alpha, we apologize in advance but i…
- Dev Blog 29 - First Update as Arkin! - 16 December 2016
Welcome to the first Arkin dev blog! While the rebranding has taken a lot of our time over the past month we’ve still got some development updates for you. Changing the Name If you missed our news post on changing the name from Project Orion to Arkin you can find it here. Changing the name was a big undertaking. We had to update text, images, links, and references across more than half a dozen websites. Beyond that we had to make several changes to the game itself, including art assets, save structures, build configurations, and more. As you might expect this is where quite a bit of our time went over the past month or so. We also finally took the time to create a new trailer. Our last trailer had been released in March so we were in dire need of a new one, and what could be better than a new trailer to accompany the announcement of our new name? If you missed the trailer you can check…
- Dev Blog 29 - First Update as Arkin! - 16 December 2016
Welcome to the first Arkin dev blog! While the rebranding has taken a lot of our time over the past month we’ve still got some development updates for you. Changing the Name If you missed our news post on changing the name from Project Orion to Arkin you can find it here. Changing the name was a big undertaking. We had to update text, images, links, and references across more than half a dozen websites. Beyond that we had to make several changes to the game itself, including art assets, save structures, build configurations, and more. As you might expect this is where quite a bit of our time went over the past month or so. We also finally took the time to create a new trailer. Our last trailer had been released in March so we were in dire need of a new one, and what could be better than a new trailer to accompany the announcement of our new name? If you missed the trailer you can check…
- Arkin - The New Name of Project Orion - 29 November 2016
Welcome to the first official update for Arkin! As you may have gathered from the title, this post is about our new name and the reasons for the change. We’ve also released a new trailer that blends a bit of story and some exciting gameplay. Why The Name Change? We’re sure this will be the biggest question so we’ll jump right into it. First, a bit of background is needed. When development on Project Orion started over two years ago the name was simply a placeholder. It was a code name of sorts, which many games have when they start development. However, as time went on we grew fond of the name, and when it came time to decide on an official one we quickly agreed to stick with Project Orion. Project Orion served the game well throughout our college years and beyond. It wasn’t a perfect name; it did not have great search engine results (the NASA nuclear propulsion project of the same name…
- Arkin - The New Name of Project Orion - 29 November 2016
Welcome to the first official update for Arkin! As you may have gathered from the title, this post is about our new name and the reasons for the change. We’ve also released a new trailer that blends a bit of story and some exciting gameplay. Why The Name Change? We’re sure this will be the biggest question so we’ll jump right into it. First, a bit of background is needed. When development on Project Orion started over two years ago the name was simply a placeholder. It was a code name of sorts, which many games have when they start development. However, as time went on we grew fond of the name, and when it came time to decide on an official one we quickly agreed to stick with Project Orion. Project Orion served the game well throughout our college years and beyond. It wasn’t a perfect name; it did not have great search engine results (the NASA nuclear propulsion project of the same name…
- Dev Blog 28 - 16 October 2016
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Project Orion dev blog! This month we’ve been hard at work on missions as well as a new flight and combat tutorial. The art team has been working on the updated Orion, as well as other assets both big and small. Let’s get to it! Art In our last dev blog, we showed you a very grey and very much work-in-progress version of the new Orion. This month it’s quite a bit less grey. In fact, it looks absolutely amazing (and I can say that objectively, since I’m not the artist). At this stage the modeling and texture work is nearly 100% complete. Any changes beyond this point will be minor, typically to fix UV or texture issues in hard to see places that can easily be missed. We expect to have the new Orion in the next Alpha release. The new Orion isn’t the only thing to come out of the art department this month (if you can call three people a department), w…
- Dev Blog 28 - 16 October 2016
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Project Orion dev blog! This month we’ve been hard at work on missions as well as a new flight and combat tutorial. The art team has been working on the updated Orion, as well as other assets both big and small. Let’s get to it! Art In our last dev blog, we showed you a very grey and very much work-in-progress version of the new Orion. This month it’s quite a bit less grey. In fact, it looks absolutely amazing (and I can say that objectively, since I’m not the artist). At this stage the modeling and texture work is nearly 100% complete. Any changes beyond this point will be minor, typically to fix UV or texture issues in hard to see places that can easily be missed. We expect to have the new Orion in the next Alpha release. The new Orion isn’t the only thing to come out of the art department this month (if you can call three people a department), w…
- Dev Blog 27 - 14 September 2016
Welcome back to the Project Orion dev blog! The past month has been a bit slower than normal with a number of team members enjoying the last few weeks of summer with some much-needed vacation. However this month has still seen some big changes to the game and one of our most important art assets. Engineering If you’ve seen any raw gameplay from Project Orion you may have noticed that death is not the end. Or rather, upon death you would respawn in a shiny new ship and launch back into combat as if nothing had happened. The obvious solution is to just add checkpoints, and load them when the player dies. I mean, what game doesn’t have a save system? Should be easy, right? Unfortunately not so much. Project Orion started over two years ago as a student project with our team essentially having zero experience. So as time went on most of the original design, code, and art from those early da…
