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 It’s available for free with a description that states the project is no longer active.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 the team has not spoken since. The project was left in a state of limbo.
What now?
As of now, the project is formally cancelled. This is not the ending we wanted or anticipated, but unfortunately this is where we’ve ended up. We apologize to all the people who believed in us and were looking forward to playing Arkin.
Development Status Update
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 obligation to everyone who’s supported us to release the game for them to enjoy. So much time and effort has gone into getting Arkin to where it is now we wouldn’t even consider giving up on it. We’re proud of what we’ve created so far and we truly believe Arkin deserves to be released.
With all that in mind the same reasons so little progress has been made over the past months still exist. With the end of summer many of us expect life to slow down (especially once we’re buried under a couple feet of snow) and make more time available to once again make real progress.
Expect a new dev blog shortly detailing the work that has been made over the past months and some of our plans to maximize the time we do have available to ensure the project gets finished. Also expect more regular updates to begin again. Even if those updates are not as packed with as much content as we’d like we understand that frequent communication is far more important than waiting until we have more to share.
Once again we thank all of you for your support, patience, and understanding. If you have any questions that we’re not answered here please don’t hesitate to contact us via the forums, Steam, Kickstarter, or email.
-The Arkin
Dev Blog 31
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 second to make it work, but that led to a minor improvement at best. We are now on the third iteration and we finally think we’ve got it right.
Defending civilian ships is your primary objective in Mission 2 but our previous damage setup made it impossible to tell if a ship was in perfect shape or about to explode from the next missile impact. We set out to improve the damage state effects on these ships and in the process improved our large ship damage system greatly. We took these changes to the damage system and applied them to our other large ships – the TDF and Arkin frigates. The result? Some great looking and very obvious damage effects.
The main issue with Mission 2 was repetitiveness. To solve this problem, we introduced new objectives to break up the main gameplay loop. We also designed a new damage subsystem that allowed us to make killing Arkin bombers a more involved process rather than just shooting them a lot until they explode. We also improved our checkpoint system to ensure destroyed ships had their debris persist when loading a checkpoint. The persistent debris makes it feel like the battle is ramping up as time goes on by forcing the player to dodge and navigate the growing debris field of destroyed frigates and bombers.
Art
We’ve got a new ship to reveal in this update – the Arkin Light Fighter. As the name implies these fighters are smaller than their counterparts and benefit from much higher speed and maneuverability at the cost of firepower. They use hit and run tactics to attack foes rather than persistently following their targets. Lining them up can be difficult but their light armor makes them easy to take down with a well-placed burst of chain gun fire.
We’ve also been working on new customization assets for the Orion. Some of the new assets include armor, shield generators, and support modules. Here are a couple of possible Orion configurations showcasing the new assets:
Engineering
Much of the engineering work of the last release has gone into improving the damage system for the new Arkin bomber kill process and the overhauled large ship destruction. The great thing about both improvements is that they were designed to be generic and will give us more flexibility in setting up damage systems and destruction effects on other objects going forward.
Another goal for Alpha 0.3.6 release was a proper system to handle distant ships and battle effects. These distant ships are far outside the level and provide a backdrop for large battles. This isn’t as simple as sticking the ships we use right now far off in the distance. With these ships being so far away we do not require highly detailed models and textures and reusing our existing assets would be a huge performance drain. This feature has been shoved to the back of the queue for some time because it doesn’t affect the core gameplay at all. It does however add to the atmosphere and plays an important role in the narrative of Mission 1 which is why we decided to get it in. Going forward we can warp distant fleets in and out, trigger battles between ships, and destroy ships as needed.
Another task for the latest release was taking another high-level performance optimization pass. This was successful with several key areas targeted and improved.
What's Next
In the short term, we’re working on a list of gameplay improvements we’ve compiled over the last few months. Most of these are minor but they’ll help polish off some of the gameplay’s remaining rough edges. This leads up to a large in-person playtest session we have planned for next month where we will be running people who have never played the Arkin through the alpha. Playtests like these are important as we can discover issues we or our alpha testers would not. Issues with the tutorial, unclear objectives, and difficulty are much easier to spot when watching someone who has not played the game before.
Beyond the playtest session we continue to work on new content for the 0.4 alpha update. No ETA on this update right now but it will be some time after the playtest to give us a chance to work on the feedback we receive.
That brings this dev blog to a close! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time!
-The Arkin Team
Alpha Update 0.3.6
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 music mix which is still being worked on.
Changelog
Beside the Mission 2 overhaul there are also many more improvements and fixes in this release.
Gameplay and Balance Tweaks
Reduce cluster munition damage
Slightly down AI fighter turn speed
Increase enemy damage across the board
Enhancements
Main menu now loads customization on demand instead of at start (improved menu loading time)
New damage states for Arkin frigate with new particle effects and progressive destruction
Civilian ships now feature full damage states with proper debris and new particle effects
TDF Frigates now feature full damage states with proper debris and particle effects
Created new systems for distant ships, includes warp in/out, battle, and destruction
Add check to squadron warning audio to ensure attacker is behind player
Large ship debris (frigates, civilian ships) will now persist if a checkpoint is loaded
TDF frigate is now actually destroyed in Mission 1 when dialog states that this has occurred
Added continue prompt and tips to loading screen
Implemented new debris caching system to only cache debris one for identical objects (performance improvement)
Add logic to skip tutorial after Prologue if it has already been completed
Audio
Tutorial is now fully voiced
Updated attenuations and sound culling by distance values on multiple sources
Tweak sound bank handling to improve memory usage efficiency
Added new medium size warp effect audio
Added positional values for generic medium warp in audio
Changed railgun pitch variance to vary sound
Tweaked Ship voice and AI warp volumes and attenuation over distance
Art and Visuals
Replaced old Arkin Bomber with new model
Add new customization assets for Support Modules, Shield Emitters, and Armor
Replaced all Arkin Fighter destruction particles effects
Update customization hangar model (still WIP)
Update chaingun impact particle effect
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug causing collision avoidance to be essentially non functional
Fixed issue with audio listener not attacking to first person camera
Fix world destroyer animation jump
Disable level boundary and boundary visual once warp jump begins
Fixed possible shield state on player where you could no longer take damage
Added missing explosion sounds to tutorial targets
Fix TDF capital hangar not disabling automatically on level load
Fix Warp HUD flashing visible briefly when the warp system is enabled
Fixed generic squad dialog playing after player death
Fix player ship “space particles” not appearing
Fix state of weapon energy mode persisting on load (audio only)
Fix hitmarkers not appearing when shooting turrets
Fix TDF Capital cannon projectile appearance
Fix issues with save system and checkpoint loading where values were being persisted unintentionally
Fix some issues with clearing mission in progress data correctly
Fix bug causing AI to return to level for far too long
Ensure cluster missiles pool impact particles
Fixed issue with debris lingering on in mission scene switches
Fix for music state persisting between scene transitions
Fix issue where having a target locked that then became an objective would hide the lock indicator
Dev Blog 30 - New Visual Effects and More
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 games is not entirely accurate, but rather an approximation that serves the purpose of adding that extra bit of detail to a scene without destroying performance.
Here is an example of ambient occlusion in action. In one shot you can see the fully rendered scene including ambient occlusion. In the other you can see the raw ambient occlusion pass that has been calculated in real time. The calculated occlusion is then applied over top of the rendered scene to add the shadow details.
Our next effect is certainly not new but we’re very happy to be able to use it nonetheless. Volumetric Lighting is a way to add physical presence to light. It gives light the effect of passing through an actual three-dimensional medium such as fog, dust, smoke, or steam. Sun rays are a very common representation of volumetric lighting in modern games.
Here are two screenshots of the exact same scene with the only difference being the addition of volumetric lighting. You can see how the work lights gain physical presence in the scene when volumetric lighting is enabled. Going forward we’ll be looking for opportunities to apply this effect to add an extra layer of graphical fidelity to the game.
Art
Our art update is brief in this Dev Blog as a number of assets are almost ready to be shown but aren’t quite there yet. So for now we’ve got some shots of the new work-in-progress launch hangar.
Keep in mind that the hangar is completely untextured right now and missing almost all its detail geometry. Even then it does manage to look fairly good thanks to a darker lighting setup and strategic use of ambient occlusion and reflections. We’re looking forward to showing off the completed hangar in our next update.
Alpha Update
Earlier this week we released alpha version 0.3.5, a small update with a few new features and several fixes and enhancements. Among those features are our new graphical effects and dynamic squadron dialog to inform you if they spot hostile fighters on your tail. Our next big update (0.4) will be more substantial and feature new and updated mission content among other changes. No ETA at this time but as usual we hope to have it ready as soon as possible!
That’s all for this month! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time!
- The Arkin Team
Alpha Update 0.3.5
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 behavior
Animated landing gear, will automatically deploy/retract when appropriate
AI aiming precision improvements
AI will better compensate for target leaders
Space elevator now has collision geometry
Many objects now have Level of Detail meshes to improve performance
Shadows now have dynamically calculated cascades, significantly improves shadow quality close to all cameras
Added a quick cutscene to Tutorial to introduce the mission
New Arkin turret models
Added damage areas to TDF ship thrusters, because at some point someone will complain this feature is missing
Improved HUD missile warning system to handle multiple missiles
Bug Fixes
Fix some billboard issues with volumetric lights
Fix possible checkpoint reload issue in Tutorial
Switched back to correct skybox in Border Raid Pt.2
Fixed some issues with AI and GOExtension targeting registering, should stop too many AI engaging a single target
Fixed instances of Reset function conflicting with MonoBehaviour
Fix darkness in customization hangar caused by broken SSAO
Fixed pause menu issues with Confirmation Dialog and pressing ESC
Tweak Border Raid Pt.3 layout to properly align with incoming warp vector
Fix directional light shadows in Level01_03
Add hangar ambient light control to stop scene ambient bleeding in
Fix hangar launch prompt appearing after docking
Disable in launch tunnel to stop superfluous warnings
Updated TDF Capital with launch tunnel alignment fixes
Fixed hard lock radius not updating correctly
Double pause for audio to stop coroutine audio leaks
Fix for not being able to switch cameras after cutscenes
Increased far camera ranges to avoid clipping distant geometry
Fixed issues with tutorial and main menu mission select
Tweak weapon input handling to better handle pausing
Alpha Update 0.3.4
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 it can't be avoided).
Dev Blog 29 - First Update as Arkin!
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 it out on our YouTube channel.
Art
The art team was mostly unaffected by the name change process so we've got some great updates from them this month. Before we jump into the big updates, there are several ongoing tasks we'd like to mention. We're working on several new attachments for the Orion, such as shield generators, armor, and support modules. We've also begun work on the Orion's hangar which will be visible when outfitting the Orion aboard the Fury in between missions.
First up is the new Arkin Heavy, a ship that takes on both support and bomber roles. It's large, well armored, and designed to take out hard targets like frigates and other vessels of similar size. To accomplish this task its capable of firing devastating torpedoes of charged plasma that home in on their targets. It's also equipped with two heavy pulse laser turrets for suppressing fighters attempting to take it down. Despite these defenses Heavies will rarely operate without a fighter escort.
We’ve also finalized the new space elevator used in one of the first missions of the game. A space elevator is just what it sounds like – a car that travels to and from space along a very long tether to provide easy and inexpensive access to orbit. While a fantastic idea on paper these massive structures are expensive and difficult to construct. For this reason the TDF only builds them on important colonies that have great economic, strategic, or political significance, and as such there are less than three hundred in existence.
Engineering
There have been quite a few developments from the engineering side since our last dev blog. With the completion of the new Orion there came a whole list of other things that needed to be updated when getting it into the game. The customization system had be be updated to fit the new ship, collision geometry had to be redone, weapons had to be adjusted and calibrated, and the list goes on.
We’ve recently updated our engine which will allow us to provide higher quality shadows while also supporting more visual effects. On the old version we had to choose between sharp shadows or the ability to use certain effects. Now that the limitations on shadows are gone we have added in new effects like SSAO and volumetric lighting. Graphics don’t make a game good, but that doesn’t mean you can have a good game that looks awesome too.
Leading up to the next alpha release we’ve also spent some time optimizing at a very high level. Real in-depth optimization does not usually happen until a game nears completion, but tackling the worst offenders now makes the experience better for our tester playing the game and us developing it.
Conclusion
And thats everything of note for this month! A quick update on the alpha: our engine update has set us back slightly but we still expect to get 0.3.4 released shortly.
This will probably be our last update until the new year, but the next update should be packed with content. With the holidays coming up we’ll have significantly more time to spend on Arkin and we’re looking forward to making some serious progress. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next year!
- The Arkin Team
Arkin - The New Name of Project Orion
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 being primarily to blame), and there were a couple games out there with similar names. It was one of those games that really forced us to make the decision to change the name. Recentlythis game garnered significant media and community attention, and regardless of what the proverb says, there is such thing as bad publicity. Especially when people begin mistaking your game for the one getting all the bad press.
With the indie game market being so crowded we couldn’t afford to have people dismiss our game out of hand as “that game with all those problems”. Indie games rely heavily on word of mouth for visibility and community building; having a name that is already tainted in people’s minds just isn’t an option.
Arkin?
For those who haven’t read too much about the game (or had a chance to play the Alpha) the name might be a bit of a mystery. Just like Project Orion, Arkin has serious significance in the game’s story.
The Arkin are a race of hostile aliens seemingly intent on destroying every trace of humanity in the galaxy. Their motivations are completely unknown. Even the nature of their race is unknown; are they organic, machine, or something entirely different? Do they function as individuals, or as a hivemind? As the pilot of the Orion, the only ship even remotely close to the technological level of the Arkin, you and your battlegroup are the the sword and shield of humanity in this new conflict.
New Trailer
To accompany the name change we’ve been working hard to prepare a new gameplay trailer. Having been several months since we last released a video we’re very excited to show you how much has changed. Its short and sweet, and we hope you find it as awesome as we wanted it to be!
https://youtu.be/lkroXTI-rtg
Whats Next
We will be releasing a new dev blog in the next few days. It will be a bit shorter than normal due to the work that has gone into the rebranding but we still have some interesting updates for you. We also expect to be releasing the new Alpha 0.3.4 build to our testers shortly. We’ve just got a few things to wrap up before we can take care of some final testing and get it out the door.
As always if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, let us know! You can reach us through our official forum, Steam, Facebook, Twitter, or email. Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next time!
- The Arkin Team
Dev Blog 28
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), we’ve also got a brand new OSA ship ready for combat. The ship you see below is an Outer Systems Alliance Crusader-class frigate. Coming in at 273m long it’s a very serious piece of military hardware.
Finally, we’ve got another work-in-progress model ready to show, and that’s the new space elevator for one of our early missions. This is part of a complete redesign of a mission that, to put it bluntly, sucked. We’re confident that we’ve learned from our mistakes and the revised mission will be as fun as we imagine it will be.
Combat Training
Something that came to our attention this month while working on the next Alpha update was that our testers might have a hard time playing the game. Why? Because we don’t actually teach them how. Yes, we forgot the tutorial. We figure that not having a tutorial is something that can be overlooked pretty easily when you’re the developer of a game because you forget that not everyone has played it for many, many, many, hours.
Explanations (or excuses) aside, we’re working to rectify this issue by providing a comprehensive flight and combat training mission. Keeping to the trend of disguising the tutorial as part of the game world, you are on one of the final test flights for the Orion before it is deemed fit for combat. You’ll run though all the basic flight systems before moving onto shields and weapons, and finally some drone combat. We also plan on providing a free flight mode in this area so players can practice their skills and test their loadouts away from the danger and pressure of a real mission. As with the new Orion we’re looking to have the full training mission available in the next Alpha release.
Alpha Update
We’d like to give a quick update on the state of the Alpha testing for those not in the alpha test, or Alpha testers that missed the update. Earlier this month we released version 0.3.1 for testing. It was a fairly substantial update that included checkpoints, new sound effects, music, explosions, and a number of other improvements.
Our next update will center around the new training mission, the new Orion, and any other features that are ready to go at that time.
Conclusion
And that brings another dev blog to a close. One last thing to mention in case you thought we’d forgotten; the new gameplay trailer is still high on the to-do list. One of the main things we wanted featured in it was the new Orion so now that it’s almost flight-ready we’ll be getting started on the trailer very soon.
Thanks for joining us for another monthly update, and we hope to see you next time!
