Looking back at the history of game development for PC and console it is very easy to see why so many people get hung up on what we might call “Dev and Dump” titles. Where a studio releases a title after X amount of years working on it and if it does well, it makes money and gets a sequel. And if it doesn’t do well they cut their losses and either close up shop or move on to something else. Re-purposing their tools as they can.
However in the year 2024, because of the progression of technology and the spread of the internet across the globe, developers like myself are no longer beholden to the idea that once you’re launched, you’re done. In fact I would go so far as to argue that launching a game is really only about 75% of the work. Especially if, like myself and the team at Blind Alien Productions, a developer is looking to curate a library of games over time and not just dev and dump titles on to store fronts.
Where as games as a service see annual updates in the forms of season passes or battle passes, games curation means maintaining our games with visual updates, bug fixes, and balance changes as we collect feedback from a community of players vested in the games we make. There may even be feature additions or story driven expansions spun off from the main project files if there is enough community demand from it.
So even though the story is complete, and the feature set filled out in accordance with our internal plans, if the players want more of what FR1 offers, then I and the rest of the team are very much capable of delivering on that.
And to show you more of what games curation for FR1 looks like I have some images below.
Below is new tunnel art for train tunnels. Similar is coming for naturally occurring caves.
Behind the scenes of all these gorgeous pictures I am also working on streamlining the entire process of creating content for the Frontiers Reach Universe. Everything from small tools to make positioning groups of objects quick and easy to refactoring large portions of code and cleaning it up to make it run better and easier to understand for future integrations. And in some cases, the tech being developed for future titles is being back ported to previously launched titles now in maintenance mode. Like a new method for doing fast travel between planets like in the video below.
And last but not at all least, we’re getting closer and closer to achieving a near seamless transition between planet and space environments. This is a pretty big step in the direction of creating FR2 and the methods developed to manage the levels and art for this transition will definitely be pulled into Frontiers Reach 1 to bring up the visual quality when you’re flying around in the newly improved and expanded levels you can see in the images above.
01/01/2025 Save the Date!!
On January 1st 2025
, the single largest overhaul of Frontiers Reach worlds and terrain artwork will go live. There is a lot to do till then and the holidays are just getting started here in the US.
These terrain updates will include a major overhaul to all the campaign missions and the warmap scenarios. All of the scaling has changed to include the flight ceiling, overall playspace horizontally, and wildlife will be making a return to some maps. Additionally the first uncharted worlds map will be released on January 1st along with a new sector type that was once a thing of myth in the very early days of Frontiers Reach development.
The Wild Sectors.
All the existing planets will get Wild Sectors which will procedurally generate a new map every time you load into a wild sector. Exactly what you will find there and how you will access them is a secret for now, but it will include plenty of opportunity for collecting salvage, exploring unseen areas, and encountering hostiles that have as of yet been a rarity in Frontiers Reach aside from the occasional story mission, and some you have not yet seen before.
Till next time happy hooning, enjoy the video, and I look forward to seeing you on the frontier!
The Known and Uncharted Worlds
Work on the first of the Uncharted Worlds is progressing the script is out and voice actors being recorded. However in this news update I would like to share the fruit of nearly a years worth of learning with a tool set I picked up back in January for creating the planetary surface playspaces of Frontiers Reach.
This of course require some changes to the game and have a major affect on gameplay. It will also see origin shifting finally implemented into Frontiers Reach.
Update to version 1.3.4 and a Blog About Frontiers Reach
What is Frontiers Reach?
A few weeks ago I made a post mostly describing what Frontiers Reach isn’t. But I didn’t really go into a whole lot about what Frontiers Reach really is.
Before I get to deep into that, I should probably explain a bit more about myself.
First of all, I hate talking about myself. But people rightfully want to know where their money is going if they choose to support even a game studio these days and I can understand that.
I grew up out in rural and wilderness America, where I still live(though I have traveled outside the country under orders). Come the 2040s, it will be 400 years since the trunk of my family tree came over from England and settled on the frontier. Most of my family has spent the past 400 years living in such isolation and poverty that when things like the Civil War or the Great Depression were cast upon the nation we just didn’t feel it; though there are exceptions. For instance only my grandmother on my mothers side had any recollection of the Great Depression. However the past 30 years have seen an uptick in the amount of technological progress the great American wilderness has seen slowly creeping in. Which is why it is possible for me to make Frontiers Reach at all and write to all of you today.
Many years ago I had my first experience with games with an Atari 7800 and a Kaypro 2 computer and this was in the early to mid 90s. Older games and tech is what the family could afford, so that is what I grew up playing when time allotted. My first experience with game development was with the StarEdit tools that came with StarCraft and StarCraft : Broodwar some time between 2000 and 2003 after we relocated to living in town for a spell and a family member took a job at a local university which helped pay for a newer computer. Then I did the military thing from 2007 to 2013 where I served in the mechanized infantry and in the recon infantry. Got out of the military and went to college for animation and game design between 2014 and 2017. There I got a 4 year degree in 3 and graduated salutatorian. I probably would have been valedictorian if I hadn’t made a couple of enemies in college because I have a habit of drawing lines and putting up boundaries and I’m not afraid to ruffle feathers when I feel it needs to be done. First job in the tech industry I worked on smart kiosks for healthcare, banking, and hospitality i.e. hotels. Then I worked in corporate for about a year as a pipeline engineer, then AR apps for the Air Force and a demo app for NASA which I’m told they loved. I was a contractor for that job so I didn’t get to talk directly to NASA.
Now for the good stuff.
Four years and four days ago I found myself on furlough and living in my then studio directors basement. Which really sucked because just before that I was sharing a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 college buddies who are also veterans like myself(great times). But at the same time I suddenly had a bunch of free time and was able to actually sit down and focus on a large game project with the intention of completing the game and releasing it to the public.
Because I don’t come from middle class America, and had not yet proven I could even complete a project, I was going to have to pay for everything upfront. So I decided I would make the game that I wanted. A game that would never see the light of day if it had been pitched to a AA or AAA publisher. While I tried to share the project with others, I had to learn the hard way that I am not really leadership material, and for the record I never got to a leadership role in the military(shamshield for life). The programmer I was working with was about the only person who would actually listen to me and his design work is still in the game. He was an Ace Combat fan and is currently running his own project called Red Sun.
Before meeting him I had never played an Ace Combat game in my life, but my development efforts were already leaning in a similar direction as I was hyper focused on trying to capture the experience of early Cold War Era fighter jet combat from Korea and Vietnam which includes massive dogfights, very early, short range, air-to-air missile warfare, and about every possible type of military engagement you can think of. It is an era that also includes some of the wildest design in aviation ever.
Using a bunch of sketches and writing that I had been working on since 2015, and using 1950 to 1969 as my art and mechanical design inspiration point, I then proceeded to create something that as far I could tell, would have never made it past the pitch stage if it had been pitched to a studio or a publisher. LOTS of rejections even after I built a prototype.
For the menu system and general structure of the games architecture I looked at titles like Wing Commander and Freespace, which used 2d images and video to great affect between full 3D gameplay in large and interesting environments(for their time at least).
For the moment to moment action I kept some of the spirit of what my programming partner had worked up, but leaned a bit harder towards turning it into a sim where the expectation is that you’re expected to be the crazy newbie pilot asked to fly and fight according to the rules of an unfair universe, while using less than perfect equipment against a superior foe. I even at one point considered adding something like engine failures with a mini game that would have required pressing cockpit buttons in the right order to get the engines back up(now that’s podracing). But felt like I was already asking the player a lot.
But this isn’t really the game I want to make. But it is a stepping stone towards the game I really want to make. I used to call Frontiers Reach, Pirates of Frontiers Reach, because my original plan was to make a flight game first, and then the next game would include getting out of the cockpit after landing at an airfield and running around on foot for one purpose or another. And you’d be able to do that with your friends(multiplayer). But that is a ways off still.
Till then I am here to work on Frontiers Reach and I will continue to support the game for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure when I will be able to get warmap multiplayer in(authentication servers and a host server are needed and cost money every month), or if it will be possible to make more expansions. I’ve got the Uncharted Worlds content in the works now, and I’m trying to prep some stuff for promoting the game IRL. But, the game doesn’t make enough money for me to be able to focus on it full time, so I’m having to spend time pinning down contracts and other forms of work to keep even the slightest momentum moving forward. Also, there is another project that differs greatly from Frontiers Reach 1 that I’m trying to get into an Early Access state.
But money is only really needed to add new content to the game, like voice over and character art, and to build out and maintain server infrastructure. Everything else is stuff that I can do myself but without a player base giving feedback and requesting & suggesting, I have no idea what else anyone would want to see added or changed to the game. And for the record, I am open to suggestions for the game, but if a suggestion deviates too much from my core design philosophy I will absolutely change or reject it. I do this partly to avoid the game becoming bloated like a giant community mod installed on top of a base game, but mostly because I am making a conscious decision to avoid going down the same route that others have been down multiple times. And we’re only just getting started.
The Frontiers Reach Universe was always intended to break some of the rules of established philosophies in the space game genre and if you’re interested in that kind of journey, there is room for you here. After all, in the year 2230, humanity has only just had its first major interstellar conflict and the timeline I have planned goes on for at least another 1000 years. And there’s aliens. The old, the new, and the unreal. Special Forces operations on worlds habited by other civilizations. Espionage, intrigue, and all manner of interests.
Until next time pilots, happy hooning!
Oh, one last thing, here is a list of the fixes in this latest patch for both the official release and the demo.
- Fixed a critical bug in the AI that was affecting multiple breaking points. - Repositioned all the HIT and MISS indicators on all fighters. - Added the ability for bomb hits to also track number of targets hit. - Increased the lift factor for all fighters by 2. - Increased the amount of fuel on all fighters by a small amount. - Modified fuel consumption to be relative to the throttle and afterburner input. - Fixed a bug that caused the TRC MPB-1055 to misreport its ammo count. - The demo has been updated.
The Unity Runtime Install Fee is Gone
And in keeping with the promise I made when it first went it to affect, Frontiers Reach is now back to it's original price of 19.99!!
If you've been following the updates those of us who have been using Unity for some time are a bit tickled right now because the changes coming out the past few days have been showing just how great Unity can be when the right leadership is in place.
I also want to take a moment to show off something I've been working on in the background that came about a result of the work on Frontiers Reach the past 4 years. This was part of an internal game jam that I did in my own time that. I've continued to work on it in small capacities as time allows.
Till next time pilots, happy hooning!
Update to Version 1.3.3
- Another pass at fixing node flips on the WARMAP. - Fixed a bug that could cause the Fleet Fights to not behave properly. - Fixed a bug that could cause both Fleet Fight and Sector Battle Scenarios to become incompletable. - Fixed a bug with the UI on the Alhaju Al Akir map.
Update to version 1.3.2
- Fixed a dialogue timing issue in the first tutorial mission. - First pass at a potential fix for a bug on the WARMAP that was stopping nodes from flipping when the player had finished a mission on the node.
I’m probably going to get into trouble for this, but I’m going to say it anyway
I’m probably going to get into trouble for this. But I’m going to say it anyway. And I’m going to say it because I want newcomers to understand what Frontiers Reach is, and what it is not.
Steve Jobs once said “people don’t know what they want until we show them”, but I would prefer to say it another way.
Most people, only want more of the things they already know that they love.
Frontiers Reach is not a traditional space game. It is not an Ace Combat or Project Wingman fan game. It does not care to even try to compete with a game like Star Citizen. In fact, I’ve actually made jokes that most of the missions in Frontiers Reach are quick and intense enough that you could play them while on downtime waiting for your friends to group up in Star Citizen.
(insert “I heard you like space games so I made space game you could play while you play space games” meme)
I’ll be 40 years old in the next few years. Making games has been my passion since I was kid, even when they didn’t make any money. And I grew up in a family that believed games, especially computer games and console games, were a waste of time and money and as an adult now myself I can kind of see their point. But working on games has opened doors for me that would have otherwise been closed. So even when they didn’t make money directly, other opportunities came along.
When I started Frontiers Reach I was definitely inspired by past games. But I also had reached a point of exhaustion. At that time I had played Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, Freelancer, Darkstar One, and dabbled around with games like the X series, Battlecruiser, Everspace 2, EVE Online, and I:war2, and I watched long plays of all the Wing Commander games. And I’m sick and tired of looking at the same design aesthetic and playing with the same game mechanics in the space game genre.
In the past 30 years the most innovative thing anyone has to offer is No Man’s Sky with some awesome procedural generation tech to fill out an entire universe. Yeah I’ll give Star Citizen some props for doing large planets with a massive city or 2 but as far as I’m concerned, NMS beat everyone to the dream game and they did it with a studio that was a fraction of the size of most. And that’s despite the rocky start. And I’m still not convinced that procedurally generating a whole universe is necessary or worth it. But Sean Murray and his team deserve props for being the absolute mad lads and lasses that they are for both taking the risk to make it happen and actually pulling it off.
But I’m still tired of playing what are essentially re-skins of the same game. Whether they be a survival space game, a looter shooter space game, or a traditional space sim.
So if you want more of what Everspace 2 has, I recommend playing Everspace 2 and giving your support to those devs, they work very hard on that game and they deserve every ounce of loyalty their fan base gives them.
And if you want more Ace Combat or Project Wingman, go give your support to those teams. They also work very hard on their games. I’ve played both of them, but as an older person I just can’t get into them like younger people do. And then there is Project Red Sun, I’ve given some small advice to the dev on that game and we’ve worked together in the past. That project should be your next target if you’re looking for more Arcade Shooter games.
If you’re looking for something more like No Man’s Sky, I would recommend either sticking with No Man’s Sky because they are still updating the game, or checking out Terrene; it’s basically NMS in 2D and very fun and accessible if want a universe in your pocket.
If you want the traditional space trucker experience I highly recommend tuning into some tracks from the band Deep Purple and downloading Star Trucker. It’s literally just that. Like, from the videos I’ve seen it may as well be American Truck Simulator, Space Edition.
And if you want 2nd life in space, well, I guess they’re supposed to release Star Citizen at some point.
Reality is Frontiers Reach is none of those games. And maybe it’s a game that nobody asked for, but I am indeed nobody, and yes I did ask for this game. I asked for a military retro-scifi space and atmospheric combat sim with game mechanics and an art style inspired by the early to mid Cold War fighter jets and aerial conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union. I tried something that leaned more towards the arcade side of things with a different team early on, but when things didn’t work out, I went my own way and leaned more towards simulation.
But this isn’t just a simulation in respect to having a lot of physics interactions going on. Nor is it a pure aerodynamic simulation because that would actually make some of the fighters I designed literally unflyable. Part of the simulation is that you’re one of the underdogs in an asymmetrical conflict where your goal isn’t really to win the war, but to get out of it. And you won’t have the luxury of an entire military behind you either. You’ll need to do your own recon, strategize on the fly, and learn to identify friend from foe on a battlefield where civilians and military alike are struggling for control and stability. And you’ll have to do it all in a world you don’t really understand and will have to learn.
If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. Frontiers Reach is a space/flight sim made by me and I’m the type of person who has a pretty long history of playing space/flight games and sims. So it’s not really made for the casual gamer, and if your heart isn’t really in it, then I recommend playing something else. You won’t hurt my feelings by doing so.
With that aside, those of you who are here for it can rest assured that updates to Frontiers Reach are still coming. The Uncharted Worlds exploration themed content will be getting a revamp here soon and I’ll be looking to begin work on multiplayer.
Yes, that’s right. We’re looking to add multiplayer to Frontiers Reach. I say we, because I met someone last year who was kind enough to take time out of their day to put together a simplified multiplayer setup for Frontiers Reach where you will play WARMAP missions as a singular player and when you complete missions you’re completion data will be calculated across the network so every player connected to the internet will see your progress affect their maps and vice-versa. There is still a lot of work to do on that front but we’ve already gotten it working in the test environment.
Till next time pilots, happy hooning!
Patch Update to 1.3.1
- Fixed a bug that stopped the camera from zooming in on the bounty board in the galley.
- First pass at an attempted fix for ultra wide aspect ratio monitors and UI scaling.
The End... or is it?
This is it, this is everything for the story and the game mechanics. Nothing else will be added unless there is demand enough for it.
It has been almost 4 years since I started development. It's been pretty crazy all throughout and what's awesome most of all is that it's finished. This is by far the largest project I have ever taken on and have completed and I'm pretty excited just to be able to say it's done.
While this update is the last major update it should be noted that smaller updates with bug fixes and balance changes will be released. I'm not abandoning the game but I will be moving on to working on other projects. If you would like to follow those please feel free to hop in the Discord and hang out with the team and the community to stay up on what's going on behind the scenes.
Now for the patch notes.
New Player Experience
One of the most important changes coming to Frontiers Reach is a revamped new player experience. It took quite a bit of time and multiple play sessions to gather the feedback that went into this and there may be more tweaks that need to be made but this new intro to the Frontiers Reach universe is designed to get you better acquainted with the game mechanics and universe.
While the original tutorial mission will remain, 3 additional tutorial missions are being added and Instant Action is has been split into Planet and Space modes. Two of the three new missions are hyper focused on a set of mechanics.
Basic Flight Training is for introduction to flight and the starfighter instrument panel.
Basic Combat Training is for familiarizing the player with the concepts of aerial combat.
Combat Scenario #1 is a new scenario focused on fighter combat.
Combat Scenario #2 is the original tutorial mission on Tom Uul with some tweaks to streamline things a bit.
In each of these missions you will fly a different starfighter in a different environment with different weapon loadouts. The goal here is get players acquainted with the idea of flying different starfighters for different missions.
New Capital Ship Damage Models
Damage models for capital ships have always been either bare minimum or non-existent. When Act 3 launches those days are over. Every capital ship in the game will have a new damage model all new effects.
Major Performance Changes
Numerous fixes and tweaks to performance have yielded a significant increase in performance across the entire game. Getting this increase took a lot of trial and error and analysis of the game as it was running. One of the biggest problems was the sheer amount of particle effects being used in the game in ways that were supposed to be performant but proved otherwise. The biggest performance hit of which was engine plumes, especially for large capital ships with lots of engines. By changing out the old engine plumes which were run by Unity's Shadergraph for VFX with a simpler customized solution using some old school tricks I was able to get back about 40 FPS and finally achieve something in Frontiers Reach I have wanted since the start. Flying a starfighter in large fleet battles.
New Engine Version
The version of Unity that Frontiers Reach is built on has been update to Unity 2023. I was going to wait a bit longer to do this but in the pursuit of trying to get as much performance out of the physics engine as possible I discovered that Unity 2023 increased support for multi-threaded physics. Additionally the previously highlighted issue of Unity 2022 not supporting Wayland on Linux should now be fixed. Wayland support was added in a much earlier version of Unity 2023 but was still experimental at that time. The version I chose for this update is a more recent version of Unity and should have all the issues hammered out. If you experiencing something on Linux that seems like it may be Wayland related, please don't hesitate to let me know as soon as possible.
Bug Fixes & Tweaks
- Joysticks of all types should now work with Frontiers Reach. - Increased the number of options for setting up throttles to the players liking. - Added inverse options for look controls. - It is now possible to change the time of day through the scenario script. - Hooked up city lights to day time controller. - Altitude warning has been lowered again. - Ladder and compass UI when in first person mode has been trimmed back to be less obtrusive. - Added sound effects for lock on. - Added sound effects for weapon switching. - Added new Radar Warning sound effects. - Adjusted fog on Frontiers Reach to be less intense. - Moved cave waypoint in Mission 1. - Added fighter spawns to mission 3. - Adjust spawn time for mission 5. - Modified AI on Mission 11 set piece to ensure it works properly on initialization. - Updated waypointer positions on Mission 13. - Tweaks to fighter AI to keep them from getting stuck underground. - Fixed ground vehicles going off trail on the New Karachi map. - Increased lift factor for all fighters to make flying at lower speeds easier. - Fix for missile lock angle allowing missiles to do 180 degree turns to hit targets. - Fixed AI losing track on player when assigned through script at long ranges. - Fix damage VFX on mercenary carriers. - Added hit SFX on some destructibles on the Utsukushi Ringu map that did not have them. - Fixed character interactions in the galley (improvements coming) - Fixed the cursor not working when gamepad was used on the warmap. - Fighters should no longer get stuck under the terrain on planetary missions. - Modified cooldowns on some tertiary weapons to keep some fighters from deploying their entire payload. - Modified tutorial message UI elements to keep them from overlapping other UI elements - Toggled off idle thrusters in Bleakers Folly Station. - Fixed Ajagar ace fighters SFX. - Fixed some vehicles moving around maps during warmap scenarios when they should have been immobile. - Fixed some destructibles in warmap scenarios not registering hits. - Fixed some destructibles in warmap scenarios not registering damage. - Tweaks to the warmap to change how is updates the visuals as the warmap data updates. - Fixed an instance where the warmap would not properly display the defcon level of a node, or would go into "Stand Down" status before it was intended to do so. - Fixed a bug that could cause the end of the game to not load properly. - Fixed a bug that could cause dialogue for characters in the galley to not load properly. - Fixed several instances of destructibles on some warmap scenarios not registering hits and/or damage. - Fixed an instance of double loading of dialogue for the main story elements in the CIC. - Fixed Land to Reload not working when using Mouse and Keyboard. - Added the ability to cycle through potential targets. - Added the ability to camera track a locked target. - Added 2 flight modes to the game, Tight and Loose. Tight feels more like flying a simulator, and Loose feels more like playing a game. - Fixed a bug that could cause the NPCs to rapidly repeat their dialogue. - Changed Unity Splash screen to dark mode - Fixed boundary mesh not rendering. - Fixed missing collider on commsat dish. - Adjusted bomb sight range. - Normalized wingman audio. - Added a welcome screen for new players. - Fixed Caldero landing cutscene. - Fixed a bug that could cause the menu system to break when completing a mission if that mission was completed using a player madeloadout. - Fixed waypoint marker in tutorial mission #1. - Added fighter select for instant action. - Added the ability to skip dialogue in tutorial mission #1 - Spaced out rings in tutorial mission #1. - New voice over for tutorial mission #2 - Updated galley conversations. - Changed selection indicator for Galley characters. - Touched up cannon VFX. - Touched up destructible explosions. - Refactored some target acquisition code for better performance. - Increased base resolution for clouds in all levels that have them. - Reset all primary light sources in levels. - Tweaks to clouds on nebula levels. - Updated graphics settings to use newer HDRP pipeline assets.
