This update is mostly directed towards gradually improving the game's UI and major issues that build the framework of the VR. We will be addressing the state of the AI, adding the final mechanics that are in the older VR Missions and fixing up the 1P very soon. (hopefully this Friday no promises though! )
You can track what is going into each future update and hot-fixes before they come out here plus offer your suggestions and comment and vote on cards that are unsorted. So we can address them sooner .
You will see more sections and cards filled in Wednesday around the evening when we normally meet to discuss progress on the game
https://trello.com/b/89CmpT33/vr-tasks
More coming this Friday stay tuned! =)
VR Missions Public Test 0.2.1 HotFix Now Live
VR Missions Public Test 0.2.1 Hot-fix Now Live
Based on feedback we've received on our forums and other official pages we have addressed a few stability issues and successfully updated our framework of the engine to 4.11. With it comes improved optimization and more stable features.
We're still working on the Readability but it will be improved upon future updates :).
Some more stuff! Too
We are aware of the following issues and are currently working to resolve them.
VR Missions Public Test 0.2 Now Live
[H1]VR Missions Public Test 0.2 Now Live[/H1]
The new update is now live, feel free to restart your client or wait till it fully goes out to get it now.
The Update covers the following additions:
VR HUB Overhaul - Newly designed area with added functionality and refined design. We designed a more centralized area to stage,get supplies and generally disembark and we will be filling in more sections of the hub as time progresses. Here is the hub as it stands now in the current build. We plan to address and add the following:
Includes :
VR Mission 3 Addition - Featuring a new VR level that offers new gameplay mechanics and additional challenges.
Includes :
Open ended mission objective system with multiple outcomes and avenues of approach.
New orange force field that when touched removes players current weapons (Find an alternate route or risk having the disadvantage).
New elevator / lift system used to quickly change the floor the player is on in the level.
NOTICE:
The insertion room start up map has been temporarily removed and will be added once again after more work and detail is put into it.
Coming Soon:
Sya Terms
Experimental physics system for dynamically changing levels and additional ambiance / interactivity in the VR
VR Encounters / VR Mission 4 (Hidden secrets and bonus content in the works!)
Fenrir Studios Live Twitch Streaming
Fenrir Studios is kicking off our live twitch streaming on Saturday, March 12th, at 3 PM Central, GMT -6.
These streams will showcase individuals on the team as they work on our VR Missions, and later down the road, our Dark Storm Ascension!
So why are we doing this you may ask. The answer is simple. We want to show those who support us, that their money isn't being wasted, or that we are not able to get what we promised done. The best way to prove this we thought, would be to literally let those who are interested, watch as we work on making the game.
Please understand these streams are not an FAQ. They are for your enjoyment to watch as an indie team creates the game they set out to make. Any member who does stream will answer questions at their digression, and when they are able.
In the most recent Letter from the producer, I mentioned our new Patreon for Fenrir Studios. However, I'd like to go into a little more detail than I was able too in the letter.
Our goal with Patreon as a whole is to help with much needed funding to secure a solid and reasonable time frame for a release that everyone will be happy with. That's the long term goal. The short term goal is to help with everything along the way. Of course this is much easier said than done being a small non funded indie team. We've had many ups and downs over the years which you can find more on that here in the Letter from the Producer I
To be able to release towards the end of this year, we simply need more funding, and money. It's an unfortunate reality of today, that without money you're really not going to be able to get far very quickly if at all. A hard learned lesson as we tried to complete our game in the past 3 years.(Probably doesn't help that we are aiming to achieve the highest quality of...everything that we can.)
Since reducing our quality is simply not an option patreon is our answer to this dilemma. With a small help from wonderful backers, and supporters, we hope to give you both good rewards for showing your priceless support, and release a game that not only are we proud to release, but you can say "I'm glad I supported this."
Even if you aren't interested in supporting us monetarily, please don't hesitate to tell your friends about us and help spread the word. Every little drop combined can create a wave.
Once again as always, thank you for showing your support and interest in Fenrir Studios!
The month of february proved to be a big step in planning many of our future endeavours. In the early months we pushed out several quality of life updates to the VR in a timely manner, and will continue to do so. Patch notes will be given with each VR update in the coming months as well. The VR will be getting an update in the central hub, with a building that keeps everything centralized in a single area. This will reduce the need of running great distances, without taking away from the aesthetics and feel of the VR.
While nothing can be shown quite yet for Ascension we do have most of the areas created on a basic level and only missing the props and quality of life cosmetics. Once those are done soon, we hope to have something to show for the Dark Storm Ascension aspect of our game.
If you have not read the Letter from the Producer I and wish to know more about Fenrir and our experiences and challenges of creating Dark Storm Ascension, and Dark Storm VR Missions, I'd highly suggest doing so. For those of you who have, or know of our past history will know that money is something we've rarely had if at all, and manpower is something we have struggled with since the beginning. This is why at the end of February, the leads decided that setting up a Patreon account for Fenrir Studios would be a much needed goal.
For those who do not know what Patreon is, it's a system which allows you to donate money to us. Depending on the amount you give you will recieve rewards from us. These rewards range from free music from the game, extra behind the scenes look, a free copy of the game on release, or even the chance to meet the team on Discord once a month and ask anything your heart desires about the game. We also list out how much we hope to achieve money wise, and what exactly that will do to help us so you're never in the dark about how your money is being spent on our end.
We will be hosting a Twitch channel stream several times a week as our team permits for timeframe. While I can't promise a steady x day on x hour everyday setup. I will be posting on our steam forums and twitch channel when the next stream will be up and available to watch. These streams will be simply times that a member from our team will be working, and where you can sit and watch as they do their work for our game. We will be attempting to incorporate all aspects of our game into this stream at some point from programmers, modelers, concept artists and level designers. Please remember that this is for your viewing pleasure, but not an FAQ time. Work does come first, and while they aren't obligated to answer every question, our members will answer a few questions when they can about their current work.
Once again, thank you for supporting Dark Storm and Fenrir Studios and taking interest in our project!
Sincerely,
Isaac Cudd
Assistant Producer
VR Missions public test is Live
The VR Missions public test has gone live as of February 5th.
This public test is a work in progress, and most likely will be for the majority of the development of the single player. As we continue to expand on the mechanics which will be put into Dark Storm: Ascension we will put the mechanics into the VR Missions and continue to update it.
The reaseon we wish to do this is to get constant feedback from the players as we expand and experiment on new mechanics, AI logic, and situations which will be presented in Ascension.
We understand the current condition of the VR, and though it is not up to the standard we would have liked due to a few recent set backs, we will be updating it on a strict and timely schedule. For more information on that, please refer to the Letter from the Producer II.
VR Missions will be on sale until Friday the 12th, and soon we will be releasing emoticons, and cards exclusively for the VR Missions. So keep an eye out!
Letter from the Producer II
Hello everyone.
Alot has happened since the last Letter from the Producer. While these letters will come at the last day of every month, I wanted to make an official one for January. All of January was mostly focused on getting the VR Missions as polished as we could. Several key bugs, and fixes to the AI were done, as well as polishing the levels themselves. While my last Letter of the Producer described the difficulties and set backs non funded indie teams face and despite we have come forward, that's not to say we aren't still effected by it. Unfortunately due to health issues our lead animator had to drop out, and our co-lead was hired at 2k Games. This has rendered us down to only 1 animator on the team, who at the moment does not have alot of time to commit, a situation which we will quickly remedy to the best of our ability no doubt. She has however agreed to continue working on a few animations up till February, and has been an angel for the short time she was on the team. So congratulations and a friendly farewell and thank you.
The VR Missions is set to release in a public test on February 5th. You will be able to play both the old and new versions of the VR. The VR Missions are not as polished as we'd of liked by any means, and further updates should be expected either every week, or every 2 weeks depending on what the team is currently working on. We would appreciate any and all feedback in regards to the VR Missions in terms of aesthetics and gameplay, and we will be upating the VR with new game mechanics, AI changes, and the like to get more feedback as the development of the main game continues. Keep in mind the AI is on their most basic level, and we understand this. We have many goals and idea's already in mind and being worked on. Unfortunately, due to changes in the Unreal 4 engine, we are currently having issues with the Mac version of the build. We are working on fixing this though, and hopefully should have a fix soon.
On another note, the progress of the Single Player Dark Storm: Ascension is still coming along. The levels are coming to fruitation and the basic level layouts are finished. The modelers are beginning to create the models of everything that will populate the levels, and the final passes of the modular pieces are nearing completion. As the VR comes closer to completion, more of the team will be transfered over to help speed up development in the single player.
Our writer has also been burning the midnight oil finishing up the Dark Storm Novel. A book parrelleling the games storyline, giving insight more into what the characters were thinking at the particular moments, allowing players to get a better understanding of the main characters they will meet, and who they are. So keep a lookout for this in the near future, as well as further Letters from the Producer at the end of each month!
Where has the Dark Storm team been on progress? Check out a note on development progress from one of our Producers.
I am Isaac Cudd, the Assistant Producer here at Fenrir Studios. I first want to start off with how much we appreciate the support of those who are interested in our game, and have been for a long while. I apologize for our long term silence regarding our game, but want to let you know, that your continued support helps with the morale of our team, and we are taking steps to keep those interested in our project up to speed with our current situation as we continue on with our ambitious project, and the difficulties that present itself to us. It is our belief here at Fenrir Studios that transparency and honesty is the best policy, and so I'd like to help those interested in our game understand the difficulties and complications we've experienced throughout the past few years.
Fenrir Studios has always intended, and still intends for Dark Storm: Ascension to be a high quality game for an Indie Team. What we didn't realize, is just how hard this was going to be. Developing a game, the intricacies between the different parts, and the complexities of making it all work together smoothly is much more difficult than people realize. Over 2 years ago, we were a small team of inexperienced people wanting to be game designers, and took on a project that in reality was over our heads. None of us realized just how difficult and complex it can truly be, especially when you have a small team of people who have never created a game in their life. Back then for instance, I had no experience, and was a simple programmer at best. At this moment in time the story was not fleshed out, or completed, and while we had the general idea of the direction we wanted the game to go, there were still many tweaks and changes necessary. The team was not structured, and we were by all intents and purposes "winging it".
Working off of a royalty contract system, nobody gets paid until the game is done. While this system is nice for small teams such as ours just starting out with zero income, despite our vision, and goals, our lack of experience only enhanced the difficulty of keeping people on the team for long periods of time. Our ability to create new assets in a timely fashion, learning how to develop a game from the ground up, and how to put it all together properly was a time consuming process, filled with many pitfalls, problems, and errors. This was compounded by the fact that we were originally creating the game in UDK, which had much of its code locked, or very little proper documentation on it. The first year was really a "Dark Storm" for the Fenrir Team, as we got pushed and shoved around by reality and the situation we were in. By the end of the first year, we had fleshed out the story, characters, and levels, and while we were still plagued by people dropping, difficulties in hiring, and still learning the intricacies of game development, things were for the most part, starting to pick up.
The second year proved to be many ups and downs. A few good calls, and a few bad calls from inexperience. Our first step of the year was getting a new writer to help make the story flush, full, and adding more meat to the bone of the story. We made new passes on the levels, and decided that we'd just need to scrap a few sections of our game and simply re do them. Hammering through the obstacles that were presented to us in the UDK engine, by both inexperience, and lack of documentation, or more usually a combination of the two. We began to pick up the pace, and much of the levels were getting a simple pass done and completed. Through this time, parts of the story were being updated, changed, and presented.
It was at some point of the second year, we realized that the story was not taking the direction we originally asked, or directed the writer to take. This presented the major complications of that year. Half the team liked the new version, half the team liked the old version. This ultimately deadlocked the team, and slowed our continued development to a crawl as our weekly meetings turned into disagreements rather than fixes, and pushing the development ahead. This created a dilemma, that no matter which story we choose ultimately, several people would be dropping from the team. It was finally decided after a few more months that we'd simply stick with the old story. Unfortunately this also caused several key members from dropping on the team, and the continuation of the story to once again be re written. Having lost several key members, most notably our writer, and main voice actress, we were once again hurting.
Heading into the third year, we learned much from our mistakes, but once again inexperience, and the difficulties of a non funded Indie Team struck again. The first most notable situation early in the year was learning that UDK was no longer going to be supported coming into the next year. This once again was a massive decision to be made on the team. As it meant re learning a new engine all over again, re making and altering our assets to work with a new engine, and the new unknown difficulties that presented itself to a team who was learning everything as they go. In the end, we ultimately decided that it was an option which needed to be done. We began transitioning our game into Unreal 4. The biggest focus of the 3rd year was the transition. This gave new unique problems for our team, the un orthodox fixes, and workarounds we did in UDK to by pass or go around the locked coding, and lack of documentation was a large obstacle.
It was also during this year, that we decided a kickstarter is a must. The difficulties of getting people to stay on the team, and the frequency they'd drop was weighing our team down. Our lack of proper marketing and getting our name out was another issue we were well aware of. Those who followed Dark Storm know, that the kickstarter did not succeed, and had the unintended consequences of making yet more of our key members leave once again rather than than the intended effects of keeping them on longer. The game had been in an awkward state of completion for 3 years. It was because of this the key members of the team at the time got together and had a serious discussion of why that was, what we are doing wrong, and really sat down and figured out what our next best steps should be, as we were obviously doing something wrong.
Our final conclusion was simple, yet effective. We needed a Project Manager. While we have had weekly meetings since the very first year, they were simply not enough. This simple realization would lead to a very big impact on the team. I took the role, and organized the team into divisions. The two main owners being the Producers, with each of the main members of our team with the most experience having been with us since the beginning, taking the reigns as Division Leads of their respected divisions, while my own place in the team was moved to Assistant Producer. After this, we worked out a road map for each month of what we could realistically get done month by month up to our release date. After this we familiarized ourselves with the tools necessary to get this done. We began utilizing Trello, and other various tools to keep everyone in touch 24/7, and keep track of the progress of each area of the game month by month. This had wondrous results. The speed and progress of our development going into 2016 is faster, and thanks to the new Unreal 4 Engine, our assets, and mechanics are looking better than ever. We are for the first time, realistically aiming for a release date towards the end of the year, with the release of the stand alone Dark Storm VR Missions just around the corner. While we still have a lot of work to do, our team is dedicated, renewed with energy, and organized to take on the task, story, and vision we had over 3 years ago.
Those at Fenrir Studios wish to thank those who supported us through all these years.
