Talkin’ Tools & the Technical Side of Orphan Age with Lucien Baldacchino
Ahoy mateys!
Another month has come to an end and here we are a touch late on our news post plans. Fortunately, the team closed up the studio for a nice week off to rest and recharge, but unfortunately that threw the news post schedule a bit off balance. But we’re back, this month talking to Lucien Baldacchino, Captain and lead programmer, about both his work on Orphan Age, as well as what’s under the hood of the game:
What is your role and what do you do at Studio Black Flag on Orphan Age?
I’m the lead programmer, which means I do programming, but also manage all of the programming work that is to be done by the team. This involves splitting the work among the programming team, keeping track of progress, estimating time, and discussing with the designers the cost of implementing features—cost being in time and risk, not money.
What’s under Orphan Age’s hood? What engine and tech are we working with?
We’re working with Unity. We were on the 2021 version, but recently upgraded to 2023, which wasn’t an easy process; changing the major version of the engine while a project is ongoing is never an easy task. On top of that, there’s is some sort of homebrewed “engine within an engine,” called “OrphanEngine”, and it manages all of the dataflow and does a lot of heavy lifting regarding asset and resource management. It makes making the game easier, and simplifies dev work. We’re not exactly making the game itself in Unity, but rather a suite of “tools” that are then used to make Orphan Age. Most of what’s visible and possible to do in the game hasn’t been programmed, but implemented using those tools: actions, interactables, quests, dialogues, etc.
From a technical standpoint, what do you find most interesting about working on the game?
Everything mentioned previously, that most of the work is oriented towards programming and supporting tools. The making of the game from them is then, in theory, just playing around with boxes and dropdown menus to visually “program” what we want the game to do. It’s extremely interesting to work this way, because it means that the game code itself has very little knowledge of the game itself, which makes it extremely scalable, and flexible.
Can you clarify what you mean by the code having little knowledge of the game itself?
There's no specific element of the game present in the game code. For example, the "dismantle" action doesn't exist anywhere but in the game data. It's the same code for all actions, and all actions are exactly the same, as far as the codebase is concerned. It's the same for orphans, for interactable objects, for quests etc. Without data the game is like a "blank slate," and putting in data is akin to a game or level editor. Skyrim's creation kit is what'd be closest to the kind of thing we have.
Where have you found the most difficulty, whether that be implementing features, using certain tools, processes, or whatever else?
The game went through a lot of iterations over the three and a bit years I’ve worked on it. Most of the difficulty isn’t to add new features, but removing them when they aren’t needed anymore. Other than that, nothing is ever easy, and everything comes with risks and added bugs and stuff that we need to come back to and patch.
But I don’t recall anything in particular being the “most” difficult. Maybe the character animations? They’re always very fiddly.
Can you give an overview of what it looks like to take one of our features from concept to implemented? What does that entail for you and our developers?
A game designer first comes up with a concept for a feature and produces a design document. It’s then discussed with the production team and myself as the lead programmer to fit it into the production plan; looking at how long will it take, what impact can it have on the game, etc. And the concept is refined from there until it is ready enough to be put in the game. There’s a tech review next from a programmer (most often, me again), that will look at the finished documents and try to point out potential areas of friction and difficulties, etc. Once everything is ready, and validated by everyone, it can be put in the game.
Generally, a single dev is responsible for doing a whole feature. Depending on the size, the work can be split up, but it’s usually just one. Implementing a feature is usually split into two parts: the making of a “framework” (adding code needed for the feature to work, but nothing more), which results in the feature being implemented, but not actually visible or available in game. This usually means for the dev to produce a tool, or prepare some data structure, and the “integration” part which is filling the feature framework in the tool with the relevant data. This is usually done by the designer.
Of course, no two features are alike, and each is often its own special case. Afterwards, a new feature always introduces new bugs that are kept as surprises for later. When they surface, the dev that handled the feature will fix them.
And finally, what’s your favorite feature or aspect of the development process of Orphan Age?
Most of what I prefer to have worked on and take the most pride in seeing work are all of the “invisible” parts of the game. For example, downloading and automatic formatting of game data from google sheets, the entities framework that allows for referencing every functional object in the game or a node editor tool I made from scratch be able to make all our other node based tools with as little boilerplate code as possible. Things of that nature are always the most satisfying.
And there you have it!
For April I’m looking at putting out the aforementioned high-level look at our systems, or the highly requested dive into our expedition system and how leaving the base will work. Currently I’m writing them both, but there’s a few factors I’ll need to confirm before being sure which one—or both—will go out.
As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, comments, you can find us in the comments, on our Discord, or across whatever is left of the collapsing world of social media.
Building a Game that Showcases Kids as Heroes
Ahoy mateys!
The last month or so has been a whirlwind of activity, with the sails raised full so we could hit our latest target deadlines. Overall, things are looking great and we’re getting so much closer to truly opening up the ship for a full inspection. You can read more about those tentative plans in the mini news post from earlier this month.
Now, that brings us to the first item from that list, so without further ado here is my interview with Jen Vaughn, Captain and senior game designer on Orphan Age:
For those who may not know you, when thinking of the narrative/gameplay plans for the project, what was it that drew you to wanting to work on Orphan Age?
Honestly, I saw it as a challenge. A simulation game where the player also cares about the characters, aside from popular SIMs games where you create a vanity character that is you. RPGs and visual novel games, those narratives are crafted to make you fall in love with (or hate!) certain characters and I saw this genre as a new challenge for me.
Plus, so much media about dystopian times follows the major political or military or future important characters; focusing on the ‘every person’ affected by a crumbling society and how they live their life is much more interesting. If perhaps a bit too germane, as we watch in real time many of the world’s leaders and billionaires buy remote homes in climate crisis-’resistant’ locations.
While not uncommon in most genres of games, kids aren’t seen as often as the main characters in a survival sim game. What advantages or disadvantages do you feel there are in utilizing them as both the heroes and narrative focus in our story?
In Orphan Age, the kids grew up without a lot of resources and the idea of ‘’fun’’ is new to them. Narratively and in game play they must relearn how to be kids, in addition to keeping up with their chores that keep them alive. This is one of the strongest points of the game, to help the kids reclaim a moment of pure, unabashed joy.
Kids are fantastic as heroes because their goals and wishes are not always logical and can change at the drop of a hat. They are also challenging - I would never say it’s a disadvantage! - because they might not have the same skill levels as an adult but we fudge it a bit with it being the future and these kids grew up hard. Also, if there are no adults in the game to compare skill sets to, who is to say we are wrong?
Forged by the fire, sharpened by society - we were all kids once and the melancholy flavor of the game is a real connection point for those of us, myself included, who experienced fractured or lost childhoods.
What can you tell everyone about our band of intrepid orphans? You know, without major spoilers…
These kids are cute as shit. That’s all I can say.
Heh, but really the original character designs Laura Bisson made helped maintain the cuteness factor even through art direction changes. Maureen was the only character in the game when I first joined the team in 2022 so it was a joy to collaborate with Laura on the rest of the characters (hopefully they will all be in the game eventually).
The kids are spunky, full of heart but not untouched by trauma. Each orphan will have their personal quest where the player can explore more of the world’s lore and the character’s personality all with a uniquely terrifying backdrop. The player can choose to help all the kids fulfill their (somewhat reasonable) dreams, help just one or two, or plow forward with only the group quest.
In the world of Orphan Age, what trials do these kids have to go through?
These kids are going through all of the trials essentially. From struggling to find food and water, to maintaining their mental health. As any simulation player knows, the basics of living are how you keep pushing the game forward but it’s using characters’ special traits that can unfold more narrative highs and lows.
Since the kids are technically wanted for [REDACTED AT THIS TIME], they can only go out at night which presents its own type of trial. As animals, we’re all ‘scared of the dark’ in some aspect because we believe we’re masters of our own stories, the pilots of these bone and flesh mechs called bodies. So we’re working to capture some of that fear when the kids go out to explore by night.
What do you hope players get out of taking on the roles of our Orphans?
First and foremost, I hope they have a damn good time. But almost tied with that, I want to instill hope and the need to be a part of the change in the real world in the players.
Some people have given into the idea of a world collapse, that it’s easier to see themselves living out a Mad Max-style future than be a part of the change. It’s a way to absolve their own guilt and inaction. And please don’t think me ill-informed, of course, I know most of the pollution is made by major corporations. But there is collective action and there is individual action that can help.
In parts of the Global South and many countries with indigenous populations, they’re already making small gains against climate change by adapting and also having lifestyles less intertwined with single-use plastics and food waste. So this optimism and flexibility can be applied to supposed first-world nations and their economies of over-abundance.
Not to even mention the political leaders who create laws while not keeping in touch with what the average person goes through. Rent is too high, food costs too much - I’m not saying playing Orphan Age will create a wave of people crying “Eat the Rich’’ but it is definitely sewn into the fabric of the game.
There’s also the hope - this may sound silly but it’s a big goal - that by playing Orphan Age will help spark compassion in the players they might not have had before. And not the kind of compassion that ends at the main menu when they exit the game. Unfortunately, we’re living in a world with multiple wars and ongoing exterminations of people, the Congo, Ukraine, Palestine/Gaza to name a few. While a war is not the background of the game, we cannot create and develop within a void, so we’re obviously working on a plan for some charity streams and some other real-world work.
No game made with children as the heroes in dark times will be without flaws, it’s impossible to get something with such a delicate matter 100% right but we hope we’re able to inspire courage in those who felt nothing before. For players to enjoy the story of Orphan Age but prevent it from happening for future generations.
And that covers this month’s updates. No “Around the Studio” this time, as we’ve spent most of February fairly head down on hitting our latest milestone goal. In fact, as I finish writing this the rest of the team is deep into our build week as we prepare to send our latest milestone build onto our publisher.
With that, I bid you all adieu until next month! We’ll be back with another interview, and if my schedule allows for it, a second news post sharing a high-level look at our game systems for Orphan Age—no promises on both, but I really want to get both out in March. If there’s any topics you’d like to see discussed in a future news post, please let me know in the comments or join our Discord and chat with us about it there!
A News Update About News Updates
Hi all!
This update is going to be fairly short and simple, and also a bit more personal news-oriented. I (Josh the CM) had planned to get a news post out in the last week of January or first week of February, but due to a series of health concerns at home I have spent much of late January into the last week taking time off. Things are fine now and thankfully I work for a wonderful, understanding company and was able to take the necessary time off.
That being said, we’re now a bit behind on our planned news and update cycle. As such, I’m here to provide a planned news post roadmap leading into our tentative late summer 2024 launch for Early Access. The tentative launch window and this roadmap are subject to change, but hopefully it gives you all something to look forward to and maybe discuss.
If you have any questions, suggestions for upcoming updates, or want to chat Orphan Age, you can find me and Studio Black Flag in the comments, Steam forums, and on our Discord.
Tentative News Update Schedule_Revision 3
By end of February: “Building a Game that Showcases Kids as Heroes with Jen Vaughn”
Mid March: “Talkin’ Tools & the Technical Side of Orphan Age with Lucien Baldacchino”
Late April: “Building a Game that Showcases Adults as the Enemies with Jen Vaughn”
May: Announce art support studio here? (50/50 we keep this as the title)
Goodbye 2023
Ahoy mateys!
Here we are fast approaching the end of 2023. The last few months of development have seen some high and low points, as well as illnesses popping up throughout the office—part of why there was no November update, sorry. As for this update, we’re deviating from the original planned topic, which should come as no surprise. Instead, we’d like to offer an update on development, how this year shaped up, and to offer some loose plans for 2024.
To start with the lows, in early November we had our latest milestone build rejected by our publisher. These things can happen in development, but it was the first time this had happened in a year and it was honestly a bit of a blow. The short reasoning being that they felt the experience wasn’t living up to the promise of Orphan Age, and that it simply wasn’t an overall enjoyable experience. Definitely a real kick, but it also led us to reevaluate and as a team to take a deeper look at our cohesive narrative and gameplay experience.
Going back to the drawing board led us to completely overhaul how our maps are built and laid out, we revamped the entire expedition system—previously it all happened off camera with an orphan disappearing for a chunk of time, but now it’s entirely playable—we changed how the narrative is fed to the players, and honestly I’d have to write up a full patch notes to even explain all of the changes, which for a game few have seen in its last form would be a bit incoherent. Suffice to say, it’s gooooood and we’re happy with this shift.
A look at our latest “starting” map iteration
In addition, we’ve hired an external studio to help revise Orphan Age’s art assets, in particular focusing on the UI & UX experience. Our plan is that we’ll share what this looks like early in 2024, as well as sharing who we’re working with. (They’re an awesome team and deserve some attention as well.)
Now, rounding out the game news is an answer to the question we have no doubt we’ll be asked: When is Orphan Age releasing? Right now we don’t have the exact info, but I can say that internally we have a window defined that we’re aiming for and we feel fairly confident about it. There’s still some matters to finalize both with internal plans as well as plans with our partners, but our 100% intent is to release Orphan Age in Early Access in 2024.
There you go, all the Orphan Age news that’s there to be read. If you’ve made it this far, I thought we’d do something to celebrate the end of 2023 and our current stage of development. Here are a few members of our team sharing what they like about Orphan Age, and their thoughts on the project as we move into 2024:
What We Like About Orphan Age…
Captain Blandine - Executive Producer
Orphan Age is about finding sparks of joy even in the darkest times; I can’t find better words to describe the adventure of developing this game with the Black Flag crew!
Even after our world almost collapsed, we're still here and giving all we have to make Orphan Age the best possible game; we're crafting better everyday, learning together, and facing challenges so the adventure in itself is fulfilling. I wish I could take a peek into the future to see what my favourite bunch of pirates will accomplish and the Orphan Age we will be able to share with you all.
Ydris - Apprentice Programmer
Orphan Age is about a world in which society as we know it has collapsed, and at a time not far from our own. On the surface, we're playing orphans trying to survive, not only because subsistence has become an ordeal, but also because the other survivors, the adults, are turning the surrounding area into a hostile space. Their situation resonates strongly with the rest of the society in which they live: a lost world with no role models. Unlike the adults, these children are not the product of the past, and although they are metaphorically a reflection of their macrocosm, they are an optimistic reflection of it, devoid of the old cynicism, and with no choice but to hope for their future.
In the end, this staging brings us face to face with the question of the role of hope in our representations in a violent world where everything pushes us to despair. What lessons can these orphans teach us? Personally I'd like to think that they remind us that fantasy and hope don't rhyme with banter and naivety, that freedom is certainly about acting with lucidity, but it's also about daring to believe and seeing the beautiful, the good and the possible where they seem to have disappeared.
Yes, I like this game a lot and I think it has enormous potential. It’s my sincere hope that we'll be able to do justice to the narrative-entertainment issues it tackles.
Captain Maxime - Technical Director
Orphan Age is a project I've been working on for over 8 years, and I want it to see the light because I've always loved the setup and the subjects it tackles: Children left to fend for themselves in a war, up against adults. It feels like a modern-day David versus Goliath, with a pinch of revolutionary spirit.
Also in terms of gameplay: a kind of This War Of Mine, more narrative and poetic than dark and cold. That, in a nutshell, is why I love Orphan Age.
Captain Lylia - UX Designer
It's been more than 2 years that I've been working on Orphan Age, and what I can say is that everything about the project is unique! The game we are making, with children at the center of it and its universe, the team I am working with, and the overall experience around the project. I watched children's interviews on youtube for so looong just to get how exactly they are speaking and interacting... xD
And I know that the future will bring new unique experiences, especially with such a motivated team! That's exactly why I love working on the game! Each day brings new ideas, surprises, and improvements to the game and I can't wait to get the game in player’s hands!
Pierre - Senior Level Designer
Orphan Age is a complicated game to design mostly because, well, it talks about orphaned children! It's a sensitive topic that instantly brings a lot of different things in people's mind. This creates a struggle to make that an actual gameplay experience, one that can fulfill all expectations in terms of lore and fantasy while being enjoyable.
But I'm sure the crew will succeed in encompassing an interesting vision of it and make players feel part of that original experience: leading a group of children to survive in a devastated world.
Finally, thank you all once again for being a part of our community in 2023 and anyone who has stuck with us through the regrettable multiyear communication blackout. Opening the doors a bit wider the last six months has been a real boost to the team with getting to share our progress with you all. Our aim in 2024 is to only expand upon that openness and to really build towards a wonderful launch for Orphan Age.
Thank you and happy holidays (if you’re celebrating) from the entire Studio Black Flag team!
Before we close for the holiday break, here's a present we hope you enjoy: the screenshots I captured for this post that didn’t fit neat and pretty in the update. (Reminder: UI and art is not finalized.)
About the Art Update [Team Interview]
Ahoy mateys!
The last few weeks have been busy around the studio, so this posting will include some studio updates and a chat with Adrien Forestier, captain, founder, and game director about last month’s most talked about topic: the Orphan Age art style update. We saw the replies across Kickstarter, Steam, and social media wondering why there was a stark difference between the demo and the game as it looks now, and we’d like to take you through the decisions that led to these changes and share news of how the art style is continuing to evolve.
How would you describe the art style for Orphan Age when it was shown off during the Kickstarter and the Steam demo?
It was supposed to be semi-realistic low-tech cyberpunk. Since I was making most of the art and I’m not an artist, it was very inconsistent and ugly for a big part. Most of it was made of assets bought here and there where I tried to adjust the texture so they could match together. Since I couldn’t paint properly, most textures would look vaguely realistic.
The interface was pretty futuristic but was also super inconsistent in style with grunge, LCD, hand painted, and holographic elements.
What I liked though was the lighting which was very hazy and neon lit. (It was able to hide a lot of the ugliness of the game. Ha ha.) There was a downside though, we didn’t have a day/night cycle and the game was in a perpetual night which caused issues with there being no feeling of time.
How would you describe the current art style?
The version we’ve been working with is still semi-realistic but this time with hand painted textures. This helps a lot with readability since we have more control over the contrasts of the 3D objects on screen. We want to keep this dark vibe in the world.
With the previous art style, we found there was a lack of details visible, as seen in this scene:
Alternatively, this had been our goal for Orphan Age’s final look:
In the most recent concept, we can see that there is enough contrast for the space to be readable despite the lack of light. Everything is destroyed but it’s not noisy. There is a bit of environmental storytelling (chains were used to rip the door behind the counter and something was dragged from here…).
The hand painted style of the textures brings two big advantages here:
First, almost nothing is shiny—low specularity of the 3D materials—this gives us more control on the contrast and ties everything together. Second, the (almost) absence of normal maps/bumps on the different materials reduces the noise that would come with the level of detail we would get with a more realistic style. In less technical terms, the textures are less detailed and the volumes are easier to understand.
Before, the game was hard to read, textures were too detailed, and it would put a strain on the eyes after a long play session.
While the 3D of Orphan Age stays pretty dark, it’s not the case anymore with the interface which is more in line with the fact that the protagonists are kids. Our goal is simple: the 3D world is the world seen with an adult gaze, but the UI is seen from a childlike point of view. This allows us to convey more emotions like what our characters are feeling right now. That being said, the current interface is too bright and colorful, overly contrasting with the 3D world.
On the subject of the UI’s brightness, the above concept art is not the final version then?
No, it’s not, as we had been discussing internally finding external support for revising our UI design and the visual tone of the game. We’ve entered an exploration phase with an external development studio who are working on concept art for what Orphan Age can look like, maintaining our desire for the scenes to be dark, but readable, but the UI to not feel contrasting to the overall experience.
Their own feedback included thoughts on the UI being too bright, noting that we may have overcorrected from the far too dark original visuals. As we are still very early in the process with them, we have nothing to share, but once we have the concept art in place we’ll begin sharing with the community for your thoughts and feedback.
What was the decision that originally led to changing the art style?
What we’re working towards now was always the art style that we envisioned, but we didn’t have the skills to achieve it. I’m not a fan of realistic games. I personally think that they tend to age very badly where non-realistic games can stay beautiful for a longer period.
Do you have any final thoughts on our plans for the art style?
Most of the interface that has been shown in the screenshots is a work in progress that does not represent our aim for the final, definitive look and feel of the UI. I completely understand the feeling of a downgrade when you look at a screenshot with a WIP UI and lighting.
That being said, we think that with the 3D, the music, and the stories in the game, Orphan Age is quite bleak. It’s still about kids fighting to survive in a dangerous future, there are many ways to lose and only a few chances to make it to a safe place.
We feel that working with an external studio will allow us to continue to have the childlike UI that should create an interesting contrast between the reality of the world the children live in and how they feel through it. Something to consider is that whatever the living conditions, kids will be kids. It’s something that has been very well documented from the street urchins of Victorian England to the footballers of the favelas. In this regard, one of our core inspirations is the beautiful photo “Bath Time in Gaza” by Emad Nassar.
Our goal remains as it was, to create a beautiful and dark story, but one containing a strong current of hope throughout. As we develop this, we appreciate the feedback the community across all platforms provides. The response on the art style aligned with the feedback we had been receiving in our search for an external art contractor, which showed we were on the right path. But even when the feedback doesn’t align with our own thoughts, we still need it because it will help us continue to keep our ship afloat as we sail to our destination.
Until next time, please keep your thoughts and feedback coming our way.
_________________________________
One final thought on the art: We will be updating the Steam store page as soon as we have sufficient art to do so. Taking down the demo last month was step one in painting a more accurate picture of what Orphan Age is, while our next step will be a partial revamp of the Steam store page.
Around the Studio…
In September our beloved apprentice and developer Lucas Rossignol completed their 3-year apprenticeship, becoming a full time member of the crew. A hearty huzzah for Lucas!
We’re planning further local testing phases for anyone either located in or near Bordeaux that wants to come by the studio to try out the latest build. If you’ve already submitted the form, you don’t need to submit again unless any information has changed. If you’re not local, you can also fill out the form, though we’re not looking for remote playtesters yet. (Hopefully very soon though!)
Finally, our next news update is scheduled for the first week of November. This is planned to be our previously discussed high-level look at how we’ve been building Orphan Age, with a look at our development packages*. We felt the art style discussion took a bit of priority, which is why we delayed this topic by a few weeks.
*Place your bets with the boatswain on whether we maintain this topic or switch it up again.
For now though, let us know if you have any questions in the comments and if there’s anything else you’re hoping to see or learn in future updates. (And before anyone says “I’d like to learn when the game is actually releasing,” we know and we’ll shout that from the top deck as soon as we can confidently share a defined time.)
Goodbye Demo, Hello Quick Update
Ahoy mateys!
First off, thank you for all of your comments regarding last month’s publisher announcement and the first look at what Orphan Age currently looks like. As for the latter, we know the overall look probably feels very different with the brief glance provided, but it is our strongest belief that the changes bring the game more in-line with what was envisioned years ago, but now we have people talented enough to bring it to life. But of course, please keep in mind that a lot of what you will see these coming months is work in progress so things will shift and change.
Speaking of shifting and changing, let’s start this off with what some might see as a bit of bad news: tomorrow we’ll be removing the Orphan Age demo from Steam. Simply put, it’s too old to be a fair representation of what the game will look like at launch. That being said, anyone who wants to keep playing it needs only to keep it installed on their PC as it won’t be updated, but should continue working. Our plan is to bring a brand new demo to Steam, but that’ll be closer to launch once we can make a more polished slice of the game.
On the good news front, we have hit another milestone with our publisher and received very positive feedback on our direction and progress. For a brief explanation, last month I discussed how we previously ended up stripping Orphan Age back down to the basics. Since then we’ve been rebuilding it stronger, slowly implementing our planned systems and designs. With my next update I’ll begin sharing a bit more of these systems.
For now, I’ll leave you all with some images from our latest build:
Oh, one more thing!
We’ve seen a bunch of questions on Steam, Discord, and Kickstarter asking a variation of “will I have to re-buy the game to play it at launch?” And no, absolutely not, categorically no. If you backed our Kickstarter or purchased the game during our brief post-campaign period, then you own it and will be able to play at launch.
If there are any other questions, please drop them in this thread and I’ll do what I can to answer them.
UPDATE: Let's Talk About Orphan Age
Hey all!
Before we go any further, there are real answers in this post and not my standard “we’ll tell you more when we can” or “I promise we’re still working on this” that you’ve grown to expect. Just give me a moment of preamble first.
Simply put, it’s been a bit and every one is understandably frustrated about the situation. I’d say no one is more frustrated than our team, but honestly, we’ve known what’s going on while you’ve all been in the dark. It was a situation that unfortunately we couldn’t help. We are now thankfully finally in a position to let you in on what has been happening to Orphan Age the last couple of years, encompassing most of the post-Kickstarter period.
Also, I’ll be writing out what I can, but there will also be an FAQ at the bottom of this post and I’ll be doing my best to answer any questions I can in this thread. Please note for questions, and across the forums as a whole that any hate speech or threats to myself or the dev team, even in jest, will be met with an immediate ban. We may have been too quiet with you all, but that doesn’t give permission to threaten anyone.
Diving into it, there were two major factors that led to the massive delay in the timeline and even the shutdown in communication:
After our successful Kickstarter campaign, while attending gamescom, our founders Adrien and Maxime had an awakening. The attention garnered by the campaign far surpassed expectations, and with that came sky-high anticipation. Their vision for Orphan Age had to evolve beyond a "simple indie game." This led to expanding our team and securing a larger budget than originally planned.
Simultaneously, publishers and potential funders came knocking. This was a wonderful development, but figuring out funding options, building a team, and the lack of comms experience of those already on the project led to the beginning of the communication breakdown with their burgeoning community.
Then in the process of finalizing contracts with a publisher—a great moment for Studio Black Flag because it assured that the studio would have the money to support the creative, inspiring developers they needed—they realized that Orphan Age as it stood wasn’t going to live up to the Kickstarter hype, nor was it living up to their own internal expectations. So, for the second time in the project’s history they scrapped pretty much everything and went back to the beginning, and so began the biggest reason for the studio not hitting the originally announced plans for a launch date, whether Early Access or full.
This of course doesn’t explain the lack of notice, because as I’m sure you all are asking, “OK, so the team sucked at comms stuff, but how hard would it have been to drop a simple ‘we messed up on our timeline and need more time, and also we’re signing a contract with a publisher to make the game we want and you want’?” And you know what, y’all would be right in asking that, but the complexities of running a studio, building a team, and realizing that they needed to start over took its toll on the team. There was also a belief that “well, this overhaul won’t take that long, so what’s another month,” and yeah, one month turned to two and then to a year, and so on.
Again, we messed up on comms, and we’re sorry, truly.
Enter my hiring as the community manager this project long needed. Our contracts were fully finalized with a publisher—yes, Orphan Age does have a publisher—and we could begin putting stuff together to plan the announcements of everything the team needed to tell people. Except, we weren’t hitting our milestones the way we needed. Our crew wasn’t organized how we’d have liked and our build process wasn’t smooth.
Along with our publisher we made a decision to delay our plans for Orphan Age out of 2022 entirely. It was a painful moment, especially for our new hires like myself, BUT we took a few months to overhaul everything at the studio, from structure to tools to how everything was conducted internally. And now, a few months into 2023 I can confirm that our ship has been sailing unhindered for months and hitting every milestone.
So, what's next? We're tired of the darkness, tired of the silence. We’re unhappy that we left our community and backers feeling betrayed, and we want to do what we can to try to begin earning back y’all’s trust. Among those initiatives we have the following plans:
With our publishing agreement, let me first state that it continues to be built on the foundation of support of our vision. While the publisher provides guidance and backing, Orphan Age is still at its core the same game it has been since we announced it.
Regarding the publishing agreement itself, we won’t be announcing specifics at this time, as we are in agreement with our publisher that it is best for them to make that announcement at what we all agree is the appropriate time.
Keeping all of this in mind, after many discussions with the publisher, we all feel it is best that we don’t overpromise or sell you, our community, on any aspect of the updated experience until it’s been tested and proven. In the past we’ve said too much, but shown too little and we want to fix that dynamic. So, in the short term, we cannot get into much of the specifics of how Orphan Age has changed and evolved, but we will as soon as we feel our work has progressed to an appropriate point.
We recently conducted our first local external playtests and they went VERY well. We’re now putting together the framework to open up our playtesting plans, which if all goes well will allow members of our community and backers to take part in sessions.
I’ve personally been given the all-clear to be more active on social media, Discord, the Steam forums, and elsewhere with studio news, and approved information about Orphan Age. It won’t be full openness, but it’ll be so much better than my “I promise you we’re working on stuff still” messages which I know sucked for everyone.
In that respect, you can expect more various and tangible content your way in the months to come as I’m planning to try to do monthly updates to start. These may be minor updates initially, but we’re aiming for not just corporate messages, but also behind the scenes, various media, and overall regular interactions on all our channels. it’s our hope that these will keep you informed and engaged.
There you have it! It’s been a long af time coming, but we’re finally here and I hope you all receive this well. Check out the FAQ below, and let me know if you have anything else you’d like to ask!
Is Orphan Age still being developed? Yes, we just passed a major milestone in having external testing conducted and we’re happy with the response we received.
Was the Kickstarter a scam? No, it wasn’t, but we agree that the post-Kickstarter period wasn’t conducted as well as it could have been.
You ran a Kickstarter while having plans to get a publisher to pay for everything? No, at the time of the Kickstarter Adrien and Maxime simply wanted to show off what they were working on, to gauge interest, and to put together funding. The experience of the campaign showed there was more interest than they expected, especially when publishers began reaching out about the project.
What happened to the game I Kickstarted? We’re still working on it! But it’s been entirely overhauled, restructured, and replanned. The Orphan Age you backed is still the Orphan Age we’re making, but after several years of work, we feel it’s a far more enjoyable experience and one that truly represents what the team originally planned to make.
I gave you my money only for you to not say anything for half a decade and then announce a publisher? We messed up on communication, no question. Originally we thought we’d only be quiet for maybe a month or two, then get to announce the publisher and the new game plan. But between the process of contracts and a realization that we had to rebuild so much, and generally not a great internal pipeline at the time, months turned to years.
Speaking of that pipeline, how are things going internally? Things are going great, with 2023 being a marked improvement for our working systems. We spent the back half of 2022 fixing all of our pipeline issues and making sure that our team had everything they needed to be successful and creative.
Do you honestly expect us to still support you? This isn’t the first time you’ve promised the game is still being made with little to show. Honestly, we’re not sure where to set our expectations on community response. Our hope is that there will be an understanding and a rebuilding of trust that we can start on. But we know we’ve burned many of you one too many times and we get it. We’re going to do everything we can to be open and honest moving forward, and when we can’t be open on something, we’re going to do everything we can to explain why. We/I hope you’ll stick with us and that we can convince the people we burned to come back.
What can you tell me about these planned playtests? Only a little bit at the moment, as I don’t want to overpromise. If you’re interested in signing up to take part in a potential test, you can find our survey here. We are favoring people local to Bordeaux for now, but we encourage everyone interested to sign up as we’ll begin building online tests from this information as well.
When is Orphan Age launching? Will it be in Early Access? I can’t say. We and our publisher are very happy with the progress we’ve made, but we have a few more major milestones to hit before anyone is comfortable announcing any plans.
OK, will plans be confirmed before the end of 2023? I sure hope so! But I won’t commit us to any dates, even for an announcement of an announcement. (Making and promoting games is a thing, let me tell ya.)
What’s next? Well, this thread will remain open to further questions that I didn’t consider while writing this. Our Discord will also continue to be an open hub for discussions, though I am in the process of overhauling it because there’s simply a lot of fluff and superfluous or out-of-date information. We’ll be better utilizing our Steam forums as well, as they’ve been dormant for far too long.
Beyond that, I’ll be doing a better job monitoring our various platforms, being more active on socials, and planning out our first community/backer playtesting session.
Before I go, here is a look at what Orphan Age looks like now compared to what it looks like in our Steam demo. As you can see, we've made great strides to adjust the art style, the UI, and much more. In an upcoming update I plan to dive a bit deeper into these adjustments, so please stay tuned!
Demo
Now
Again, thank you all for your patience. We hope this can be a new beginning for us all. 💖🏴☠️
Orphan Age Alpha patch v21.05
The long-awaited moment has arrived! Orphan Age finally gets an update!!!
Before listing the changes, let me tell you why did we had to wait so long for this update.
At the end of 2019 we did several long playtest series to understand how to improve the game. When we made a list of everything that needed to be done, we realized that it would take us ten years to get a proper version of the game.
Unless we expand the crew...
In 2020, we went looking for funding to bring more people to the project. It took us a while because of a pandemic but the team is almost complete and there are about ten of us working on Orphan Age. As soon as the team is assembled, we'll be happy to introduce you to the new pirates!
Anyway, when the new programmers arrived it became clear that we had to rethink the architecture of the project. On top of that the designers wanted to add more RPG components to the game. So, we set out to completely reboot Orphan Age.
Which brings us to this first update, which is only the first of many and will allow us to check the stability of the new game foundations. In practice, the game is pretty much the same as before in this patch, but there are some nice surprises in store for June. Most of the changes are made to the back end so their hard to notice. That being said, this patch is the first of a series that should completely change the game this summer.
Let's go through the patch note:
A new build menu that is clearer than before
New characters avatars (that change depending on the orphan’s mood)
Eat UI (you can now choose what to eat)
Quest book (new design)
Refuel system for campfires
Skills system: there's a new level up system and advanced attribute
Jobs: every orphan now pursue dream jobs which allows them to perform better certain actions (character classes)
Leisure system: Leisure is a new need to oversee leisure actions are now possible
Revamped behaviour, we have a new AI for the orphans which will be upgraded along patches
Traits have been reworked and should not cause bugs anymore
Actions have been revamped. They have now difficulty based on orphan skills and yield...
Critical successes and failures!
Cooking and mixing system in order to discover and cook your favorite recipes
Needs have also been reworked; we are trying a new way to display them in the UI that should be clearer
Health has been reworked and replaces hygiene. You can now get hurt or sick and there's a healing system that will be unveiled next month
Doors can now be opened and closed with a new locking system
Social Interactions have been completely reworked, you have now new interactions between orphans (chat, cheer, play, comfort...)
A new dialog, emoji based with a new dialog editor which will allow us to bring in the next update lots of discussion about...
Favorites. Now every orphan has favorite food, animals (...)
Furniture have been reworked and should not be bugged anymore. They have now durability and must be repaired from time to time
A new character model has been integrated for the little sister
Next month will be crazy since we are going to implement some radical changes to the game!
We are super excited about this long due update. Since every system was in shambles it was impossible to update before. We thank you for your patience and hope you're as excited as us about the future of Orphan Age.
This update is only available on Windows but we'll correct this issue with our future patches!
Have fun mateys! Team Black Flag
Orphan Age - Steam Game Festival update!
Let's go for the biggest update Orphan Age has ever known! Buckle up, it's going to be a long trip!
First of all, the Black Flag's crew has grown and we are no longer a two men team! We are super glad to welcome Daniel, Florent, Martin, Laura and Harry on board. Thanks to them, we were able to add a lot of new things to Orphan Age and speed up our development process!
Thanks also to Francisc who organized long test sessions to allow us to improve the interface of Orphan Age!
So, let's go for the patch note:
New features:
Cooking is now possible!
New portraits for the orphans
New furniture to be built
New level up system
New loot system
A hope meter helping you to better manage your orphans' hope.
Thanks to your feedback we have completely changed many in game systems:
Redesign of the craft
(Almost)Complete redesign of the interface
Complete overhaul of resources and storage
Redesign of the tutorial
complete rebalancing of the game
Backend improvments:
Update of the game design tools
Refactoring of all game actions
New save system (which will allow you to keep your backups for future updates)
New feedback on many actions to make the game clearer:
Feedback on the death of an orphan
Feedback on furniture construction
Feedback on quests
Feedback on Hope's change
Feedback on the change in the environment value of the rooms
There are still some bugs and we have planned to fix them by the start of November.
Oh by the way, please come on discord where we often post polls about in game art and design!
Thanks a lot and have fun!
Alpha update 20.07 is live!
Ahoy, everyone!
The latest alpha update is live and brings a lot of bug fixes and optimization, so the game should run way better now!
Here’s the list of the bug fixes:
FIX: Can't eat despite having picnic spot
FIX: Can't wash even with ingredients in stock
FIX: Black screen (except UI)
FIX: Orphans won't craft
FIX: Nobody can craft crowbar
FIX: Breaking In Quest
FIX: Crowbar quest
FIX: Can't find tool kit for the workshop
FIX: Can't send orphan in expedition (button doesn't work)
FIX: Building Furniture stop before end
FIX: Stash quest tooltip is cut "gather resources ne"
FIX: Coffee table building
FIX: Can't collect food
FIX: Orphans walk in circle in order to speak/play
FIX: Can't build barrel bed
FIX: Needs are hard to "go up" (especially tiredness)
FIX: Stuck while perform an action
FIX: Save corrupted after game over
FIX: Glitch out saying "Enter Item description" over picnic spot
✔️ optimized city building meshes ✔️ faster room rendering ✔️ general optimizations ✔️ improved UI performance ✔️ improved text rendering quality ✔️ revamped settings screen ✔️ new graphic settings
You can try it now and tell us what you think! Have fun! ːsteamhappyː
PS: during the last few months we realized than Orphan Age has gotten too big for a two men team and we spent a lot of time finding the right pirates to join the Black Flag crew. The team is now almost complete and we'll do a proper introduction real soon! 🏴
