As some of you know, ARK-ADE has been available on App Lab and Steam in early access for a little over a year now. During that time we’ve used invaluable feedback from players all around the world to polish and tweak it, and now we’re finally able to release it on a wider scale. We couldn’t be more thrilled! 😎
We're now happy to announce that we will go into full release mode on March 2, 2023 around 10 am PST / 19:00 CET!
If you've already purchased the game, you will have an update waiting for you at the above time. We're so grateful for your support!
Our store page will additionally have a makeover in the coming days and weeks leading up to the launch.
For those of you who dont’t know, and are new visitors, ARK-ADE is an action-packed FPS shooter that pulls you (literally) inside an arcade cabinet, where you get to fight bad guys and giant bosses in a neon, retro-futuristic setting reminiscent of the glorious 80’s. It’s easy to get into, but as the saying goes, difficult to master. If you simply want to do some virtual run and gunning, it’s perfect. For those of you who like a real challenge, our Expert mode and leaderboards await!
The price will remain the same as now on launch, there's nothing stopping you from hitting that purchase button now if you'd like to take a peek before the full launch ;)
A short note on the updated content:
🦈 More than double the amount of unique and gnarly bosses. Can you name all the references?
🤖 More game modes for 3x the fun. Want an endless amount of stupid minions to shoot at? We got you.
🏆 Revamped basement. Dude, you're going to love your rad trophy corner.
📜 The lore. We has it. Collect all the comic pages to learn more about why you're stuck in this basement, and why you're babysitting the cube thing.
Also awaiting are our various social media channels, where we regularly shoot the breeze with our growing community, share ideas and tease updates. See you there! We hope you’ll enjoy ARK-ADE!
It's been a while since our last update, we’ve had many exciting things going on in the last few months. Just to share a happy example, we're jubilant to announce that we are finally able to get a salary from our "hobby" and can finally call ourselves Professional Game Developers! And that's only thanks to you! All of you!
To celebrate this, we wanted to give you an update with some new cool content and features, so you can see that we’re still actively working on it and hopefully provide you a reason to revisit the game for another round, or ten.
We are also happy to tell you that we decided to lower the base price of ARK-ADE to $9.99 from now on. Although we heard different thoughts in the community, we strongly believe that the more people who engage with our game, the more the community benefits, and the bigger the game will become… we hear you guys, and we really want to emphasize our appreciation and that your opinion is super valuable and important to us.
Of course, after taking this decision our first thoughts go to all the wonderful souls who believed in our work from the very beginning. Our warmest thanks to all of you; you were the first who believed in us and that means the moon! You maybe don’t even realize how vital your support has been to make dreams come true. We wouldn't be writing this without you! While we’ve made the decision to adjust the price to be able to move forward and hopefully have a positive effect on more players discovering the game, we have a little something special for you who supported us early to show our appreciation to our Founding Players. We will give you special recognition on our Discord and let you know there when our little extra thing is available. To make sure everyone’s taken into account, and if you haven’t joined our Discord yet, we’ll set the cut off date two weeks from now to claim the status of a Founding Player.
Join our Discord HERE -> https://discord.gg/CJrEP8vA6S That being said, let's dive into what this update will bring you…
THE WORM
The brand new hand-made boss of the “Sand Wave” level is ready to give you some hard time.
The Worm should be fairly manageable if you play NORMAL difficulty, really difficult in HARD Mode and a f#*!@>g nightmare in EXPERT mode. But this is just our opinion. As usual, please speak your mind openly and give us some feedback!
Spoiler alert: he’ll try to chew you! :O
RESPAWN BEFORE THE BOSS.
Some of you told us that being forced to restart the entire level every time you die duringa Boss fight is a bit overwhelming. At least if playing at NORMAL Difficulty. So from now on, if you die fighting a boss, the option to "CONTINUE" will let you respawn right before the boss and provide you with another chance. This however, will bring the score points on that level back to 0, meaning that to get to the leaderboard you still have to run the whole level with one single life.
But for sake of the fun of ALL the ARK-ADERS, this should be helpful.
COMPLETION TRACKER
We have had the lobby/basement slightly restyled. Now you'll be able to check your achievements, the secrets you've found and which bosses you have defeated in a cooler and more visual way in the basement. Completion percentage of the game and some other cool stats will be there for you as well. Unfortunately, you’ll have to re-find the secrets and re-beat the bosses to see them in the new basement, as we unfortunately didn’t track any of that data before the update.
Fun fact: None of us is actually able to complete the game; it might still be too hard at extreme difficulty level. Yes, we can’t even 100% our own game. :')
Fun fact: None of us is actually able to complete the game; it might still be too hard at extreme difficulty level. Yes, we can’t 100% our own game. :')
MORE STATS
This is another request by the community we decided to welcome gladly. At the end of the level, you'll now find more stats about your play divided in two categories; Attack and Defense. If you would like to include more stats to the current list now in the game, please let us know and we’ll look to update if possible
Changelog summary: Enhanced overall performance Sandwave boss (Worm) Boss re-spawn functionality on Normal difficulty Base price point lowered to $9,99 Enhanced end-of-level statistics Physical Trophies and progress statistics in the basement 2 new enemies (invisible guy and minigunner)
As usual, thank you so much for playing our game and following our updates! We’re really excited to be able to keep doing what we love. And we love Video Games! :)
Better VFXs, because it's cool
Hi everyone,
Sorry for not updating the game lately but we've been really busy in the last couple of months.
Big news are coming out soon about us and our company (Castello Inc) but this is not the time to tell you about it yet.
No new level this time, for "The cove" you'll have to wait a bit more. Sorry about that.
This update is a minor update and it's mostly VFX and performance improvements so nothing too fancy.
Change Log:
New VFX on spawn, now the enemies glitch out of the Matrix to attack you.
You can now see pixels on the cabinet screen in the basement if you get close enough.
The screen from the inside of the cabinet (we call it screen in game) is now showing the cover image of the level you're playing and yes you can see the same pixels you saw from the outside.
There's a new warp in effect when you get sucked into the cabinet, it should feel more immersive now or at least that's what we wanted to achieve. Let us know if you like it and how we can make it even better.
Minor bug fixes
Community asks:
We added an option for movement orientation, now you can choose to move forward controller direction instead of head direction
Some players told us that it should be more evident when an enemy dies or you will keep shooting at it so we made a new VFX for deaths, now headshot will make the enemies explode instantly without the death animation.
There's also a new hit VFX, it wasn't too clear whether or not you actually hit an enemy, this should make it more evident.
The bhaptic feedback for ark taking damage is less strong, some people found it a bit overwhelming
As always thanks a lot for your support guys, it really means a lot to us and it keeps us going in the darkest moment of our first development journey.
Schrodinger Update, ARK-ADE is getting both easyer and more difficult.
Hi Everyone.
First of all, a little gif of the new boss we're working on. Someone called it Shark-ADE, we love it.
In this Schrodinger Update we had a deeper look at difficulty levels.
We had a long conversation about what to change based on difficulty: projectile speed, projectile size, player capsule size, weapon damage, enemy health, ecc... We choose not to modify any of this, ARK-ADE plays quite well as it is and changing what you already know and learned about the game seemed a bit weird.
We'd love you to play ARK-ADE as you always did but giving the chance to new players to enjoy the game and not get frustrated by ADE and the bosses. At the same time we wanted to give experienced players, the ones chasing the first places on the leaderboards, a more challenging and rewarding game. Expert mode will be a nightmare and a high-score breaker!
Difficulty changes
Normal - This mode should get you through the game without getting mad. You'll get the same points as always but boss life is reduced by half.
Hard - for the player who wants a challenge This mode will be the same as always, in terms of boss life but you'll get 50% more points.
Expert - for real arcade Gods You'll get 300% points in this nightmare mode and bosses will have 50% more life than usual.
This is the first update of a series that aims to really separate casual gamers from expert high-scoring ones, it will be impossible to get a good placement on the leaderboards playing normal mode. If you want to be up there you'll need to go at least for hard mode. For the top of the leaderboard expert mode will be your only choice.
Controller angle option
You can now calibrate the controller vertical angle to fine tune your aim.
Added volume reset option
This is an easy one and should have been there from the beginning, our apologies.
Small bug fixes.
As always, we want to thank you everyone for your support and your feedback. ARK-ADE is getting better and better and it's all thanks to you!
Dr. Evil: "Release the sharks! Mr. Powers, you'll notice that all the sharks have laser beams attached to their heads. I figure every creature deserves a warm meal."
Supermall Level and Teddy Bear Boss are out!
Hi Everyone,
We are happy to finally announce that SUPERMALL LEVEL is READY FOR YOU TO PLAY!
SUPERMALL is openly inspired by the first Shoppingmalls popping out around the world during the beloved 80s. We tried to bring back that feeling, when you used to wander there with your parents, and everything looked so shiny and bright.
The level is structured in 2 parts, THE MALL and THE WAREHOUSE. In the WAREHOUSE, watch out for GIANT BOMBS rolling from a huge slope.
But, as usual, let's the game do the real talking:
SUPERMALL
We are not gonna lie, this is a pretty difficult level, we were hardly able to reach the end ourselves. TEDDY is no merciful foe; he won't let you stand still for a second.
NEW SOUNDTRACK
A brand new soundtrack for a brand new level! Yes, you're right, we said we were to release the OST of the entire game as well, and we will. But we think that keeping it for the FULL GAME RELEASE would be better. Please be patient and just wait a bit more for that.
ACHIEVEMENT DESCRIPTIONS
Luckily, we also had simple tasks. Our community requested this "feature" a long time ago. Can we even call it a "feature"? Actually, the achievement description should have been there from the very beginning, apologies for the delay!
CHANGE LOG
Open level Crash bug fixDestructibles crash fixYellow weak points on bosses to better spot themADE's Arms now glow when activeMinor bug fixes
WHAT'S NEXT ?
SHARK-ADE is NEXT! Are you curious? Stay tuned for more UPDATES!
Pinball Level and new boss!!!
Hi everyone!
Pinball Level is out now!!!
New update is out with a whole new level to add to the 7 already in the game. The level is inspired by old pinball machines, so you will find yourself dodging and shooting at balls bouncing all around the new level.
New Boss
The new boss is something we're really proud of. A lot of you guys suggested adding more variety to the bosses so that's what we're gonna do before the full release of the game. more levels, more bosses. Pinball boss is just the first of many that will come soon after this update.
All levels unlocked
All levels are unlocked now, a lot of players found ARK-ADE to be too difficult, we want it to stay like this, difficult and unforgiving like the old arcade games. We also want everyone to enjoy the game so that's how we decided to unlock all the levels for everyone.
For the ones that instead enjoy a more challaging game we're working a on an ARCADE mode. You'll have to beat all the levels in a row. If you can get to the last level and collect all the ARK-ADE letters there will be a surprise waiting for you at the end, we're not going to reveal it for the moment... Now that we think about it... we'll probably never do.
Bug fixing
- destructible trees now don't crash the game (sorry for that!) - height in seated more bug fixed - minor bugs fixed
What's next?
Here a look at the second boss we're working on for the new supermall level. You'll get to shoot at a soft, lovely and at the same time pretty distrurbing teddy bear!!! :)
As always thanks a lot for supporting us, your opinion matters and we'll steer the development of the game according to what you guys ask! We're no experts here and your feedback is making the game better and better.
Thanks for playing our game!
Double Gun, Double fun!
Hi everyone,
This update is about an express request from you guys!!! In a thread a few weeks ago we were asked to add a double gun and there were useful suggestions on how to make it possible as the controls in the secondary hand are now used for controlling bullet time and shield.
DOUBLE GUN
We have added a brand new powerup, The double gun powerup! It will last for 20 seconds. You'll have double the firepower but no access to shield nor bullet time!
And there's more, if you get a double gun powerup and while you are active you shoot at a gun power up you'll have both upgraded weapons.
Double laser and double machine guns are just nuts!!!
In the meanwhile we've been working on a brand new level that will come soon after this update! Have you ever dreamt about being in a PINBALL machine?
As always thank you all guys for playing our game, it means a lot to us and gives us the strength to keep going on with development!
Shield and missiles update
Hi everyone,
As always thanks a lot for your feedback, it keeps us going on implementing the game and adding new features. We're working hard on every suggestion you gave us, some are more complex to make other are easier, we'll do our best to add them all as we go forward with development.
SHIELD
A brand new companion for the fight against ADE. You can activate it by holding the grab on your secondary hand. It defends you from anything dangerous in ARK-ADE. I can finally beat some levels in "deux ex cabinet" difficulty level now.
MISSILE
Still a work in progress, this new turret will shoot tracker missiles that will hunt you no matter what. We highly recommend to take them down instead of avoiding them as they'll come back for you! Shield here is a must have!
Better VFX Mortar decal now working properly Other minor bug fixes
