Dragonflight
Dragonflight VR Launch
First and foremost, THANK YOU. It’s the support from folks like you that enable developers like us, to create the characters, worlds and stories we all love. There is no way projects like Dragonflight could come to life without your input, comments and encouragement.
Secondly, I would like to officially introduce myself to the Steam community. I joined Blackthorn Media a few months ago as CEO to help build the business around the incredibly talented storytellers and CGI masters that started the company over 2 years ago. My background is from the tv side of entertainment and I focused on content creation, branding and building successful businesses. Coming to Blackthorn has opened my eyes to the amazing possibilities that are on the horizon.
Over the past year the world of VR has exploded with the launch of Vive, Oculus and PSVR. Simultaneously, the demand for high quality experiences has dramatically increased. During this period, our passion for VR has consumed our every available thought and free moment. So with that, we decided to focus our energy on this new medium.
Today we are very proud to be announcing that Dragonflight as our first fully realized VR experience will launch July 28th on Steam. We recognize the pivot to VR represents a substantial change from the project's beginnings. Our decision here is an acknowledgement of market realities, incredibly positive press and fan reactions that we received for the VR incarnation of Dragonflight at the Tribeca Film festival and elsewhere. It is clear to us that this VR path offers our best shot at making Dragonflight a commercial success over the longterm.
We hope you will remember with us the credo of Steam's early access channel - projects evolve as we find the path to our best work. Please know that we hope to continue developing the original, non-VR branch in the future, but the timeline for this will depend on the growth of the franchise.
This is a new direction for our company as we focus on VR. Our goal is to bring to you the best possible cinematic stories and experiences at the highest level of quality that the medium and technology can deliver. We promise to push ourselves to a level of excellence that you can’t find anyplace else in VR and we hope that you will continue to push us as well.
For those of you who have been playing the PC version of Dragonflight, do not worry as you will be able to continue to access that game as it exists through a branch.
Again, thank you for your past and future support of Blackthorn. I look forward to staying in touch with all of you.
Peace,
L
Larry W. Jones - CEO Blackthorn
1.3 is OUT
We're bumping 1.3 up to the main branch to get VR working by default with the default application. This build includes several new zones as well as support for Oculus and Vive headsets (and hand controllers where appropriate.)
VR USERS: You'll need to select "VR mode" from the title screen after the game launches. All chapters have a corresponding VR mode.
VR CONTROL SCHEMES: We're experimenting with different modes of VR.
- Chapters 1 & 2 require either a joystick/gamepad or mouse/keyboard control. (Note for Chapter 1: Shortly after starting, you'll be prompted to set your preference for steering sensitivity. You should be able to do this with a joystick, or mouse/keyboard.)
- Chapter 2 Arcade: Requires Vive or Oculus Touch controller. This is a flight on rails, where you use the left controller to aim the dragon's head. The left trigger launches a long-range fireball, and the left thumb-pad launches a short-ranged attack (on both Vive and Oculus controllers.) Ride the dragon and blow up as much as you can before the enemy dragons get you!
- Chapter 3 Intro - VR Only: Introduces the concept of steering volumes in VR. Steer with the right-hand controller, shoot with the left. Steering in this mode should activate ONLY when your hand is within the steering volume. Moving your hand farther from the center makes for a sharper turn.
- Chapter 3 - The Hidden Temple: A mixed-mode environment, into which we're still working on gameplay elements, so this is really more of a peek at a stage where the play hasn't started yet. But the free flight fans should enjoy having a look around. We're dropping more landmarks into this environment soon.
Chapter 3 - The Hidden Temple - note the steering controls are locked out for both VR and normal modes, until you pass down through the clouds.
Worth noting: For any level, if you just want to haul ♥♥♥ with full steering control, grab a joystick/gamepad and go nuts.
Coming soon: Collision sensor & position reset: Crashing into stuff in VR is bad news for most of our riders. We're writing code to sense collisions before they happen, and to fade to black, reset to a safe spot, and resuming. That'll be in soon.
Dragonflight "pre-alpha" build is out!
So we've posted our first "pre-alpha" build (Betas tab >> preAlpha - Alpha releases) to show you all some work in progress. A few notes:
This is a *rough* build. Game dynamics are currently in flux. Level design is changing. This is a peek behind the curtain for the curious. It doesn't represent finished, polished gameplay or design, but it *does* give you a look at where we're going with things. We'll continue to use the pre-alpha channel as a window into the workshop - - odds are if you spot something weird in pre-alpha, we already know it's janky, but please feel free to mention it anyway. We always appreciate the feedback! As we migrate things from the pre-alpha down into the beta realm, expect them to stabilize and feel more like a polished product. Just want to set expectations right.
VR Users: We've exposed menus for some of the VR options we've been working on - BUT: somewhere in the mix the Steam launcher is interfering with the app talking to SteamVR/openVR (currently we're ONLY using openVR, which lets us run on both Vive & Oculus) The upshot is that *most of the time* when launching from Steam, the VR modes aren't activating properly. We're looking into this now.
Attack strength: The pre-alpha has verrrry different attack strengths compared to the main build. The short-range breath attack in particular is (quite accidentally) radically too powerful when used against castles. Whoops! If you're feeling especially destructive, enjoy it while it lasts.
Chapter 2 - breaking the covenant - modest changes from prior versions, but generally similar to prior release. As mentioned, changes in attack strength affect gameplay somewhat unintentionally. We'll re-tune this level as more of our code base resolidifies.
Chapter 2 Arcade Mode (VR only): Requires Vive or Oculus Hand-held controllers. This is a flight on rails, where you use the left controller to aim the dragon's head. The left trigger launches a long-range fireball, and the left thumb pad launches a short-ranged attack (on both Vive and Oculus controllers.) Ride the dragon and blow up as much as you can before the enemy dragons get you.
Chapter 3 Intro - VR Only: Introduces the concept of steering volumes in VR. Steer with the right-hand controller, shoot with the left. Steering in that mode should activate ONLY when your hand is within the steering volume. Moving your hand farther from the center makes for a sharper turn.
Chapter 3 - the hidden temple: Is a mixed-mode environment - into which we still need to build our new gameplay elements, so this is really more of a peek at a stage where the play hasn't started yet. But the free flight fans should enjoy having a look around. We're dropping more landmarks into this environment over the next few days. Anyway, more updates coming soon in Ch3. Note that the insertion into the canyon locks out the steering until you're beneath the clouds.
VR Controls in general: Work in progress. Ch1 & Ch2 VR modes expect a joystick/game-pad, and are far more likely to induce motion sickness - yikes. Ch2Arcade and Ch3VR expect hand-held controllers and are much more gentle on the inner ear. Suffice it to say, VR steering is work-in-progress.
More to come.
1.1.0EA is out!
This is the "Free Flight" version which has been in beta for the past 2 months.
Enjoy!
New Beta Available!
We have a new beta available. Just use the "beta" branch of Dragonflight if you want to live (or die) on the bleeding edge. This will be version 1.1.0EA.
This version adds a "Free Flight" level. This is the same layout as "Breaking the Covenant" but nothing harms you and the level doesn't end if you destroy the big castle. (Since the level doesn't end by itself, you'll have to explicitly exit the level or game via the settings screen.)
Also, there are significant improvements to how information text is displayed.
And of course: "Bug fixes and stability enhancements" ;)
As always, send all bug reports to a forum or PM a dev.
Thanks for all your help!
Welcome new Dragon fliers!
We saw a tremenous amount of support and attention during that week, and would like to welcome all our new players.
Dragonflight is an Early Access game and as such we are always looking for your feedback. So please, let us know what you would like to see in future updates. Feel free to join the Discussion Forums.
We'd also like to proudly announce that a version of Dragonflight will be featured at the TriBeCa fim festival in New York. We're very excited!
We have some Dragonflight updates coming soon, so stay tuned!
Thanks everyone!
Version 1.0.4EA is released!
Lots of bug fixes and stability improvements.
Also, there are now Leaderboards!
Thanks to all the beta testers this weekend.
Enjoy.
New Beta Available!
We have a new beta available. Just use the "beta" branch of Dragonflight if you want to live (or die) on the bleeding edge.
This is a minor release, 1.0.4. The biggest change is a fix so weapons better respect energy level. This fix makes the game more difficult!
There are also some improvements in the look of weapons hitting castles and bug fixes like overlapping text. The first chapter has some more detailed instructions.
This, when released, will also support stats, leaderboards and achievements, so it would be nice to test these a bit before release.
As always, send all bug reports to a forum or PM a dev.
Thanks for all your help!
1.0.3EA is out!
This release has some bug fixes, most notably the "tiny window" bug.
As always, thanks to all the dedicated beta testers.
New Beta is out!
Since we have released, our beta distributions will now be on Steam branches.
If you play the game and would like to help out with beta testing, you can, just right+click on the game in your library, choose "Properties". From there choose the "Betas" tab and select the "beta" branch from the drop-down.
As long as you have this set, you will continue to automatically be a beta tester. You can opt-out any time via the same drop-down menu.
In general, if no problems are found, beta releases will migrate to the default branch after a few days. Send any feedback to the forums or PM a dev.
Thanks everyone!