To all SSC Station occupants
Thank you for the donations over the past year (2024), it is much appreciated. I am still trying to figure out how to migrate the forums to another community software (probably phpbb) but in the meantime I have updated the forum software to the latest version. SSC has been around a while so their is some very long time members here still using the site, thanks for making SSC home and sorry I haven't been as vocal as I should be in the forums I will try to improve my posting frequency.
Thank you again to all of the members that do take the time to donate a little, it helps keep this station functioning on the outer reaches of space.
-D1-
Kickstarter looking for 40K http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/467671205/new-orbit?ref=live as usually lot more info on the Kickstater page go check it out.
You know this sounds a lot like an update of Space Rogue.
Website http://blackish-games.com/
A space game with realistic gravitation, custom ship building and a fully voiced story.
Earth is gone.
Only some survived.
Everyone who could, fled the planet and settled in the asteroid belt.
Years passed, factions formed, WAR ensued over scarce resources and precious knowledge.
You are a young engineer of the Node Collective, lost deep inside enemy territory. Your mothership was on an important mission, but you weren't senior enough to know its goal and purpose. Now here you are - in a tiny, badly damaged shuttle - alone amidst the burning debris of your mothership, with nothing but the cold voice of your computer to keep you company.10 Story-missions and a bonus playground introduce you to the world of NEW ORBIT and the story of Jonah Braun.
Now we are going to take it to the next level!
Episode 2 consists of 3 parts:
Story - The story will continue, it will be longer and even more intense! We’re working on haunting cutscenes, adventure sections that play out inside your shuttle cockpit and a finale like no other. Prepare for a downward spiral like you've never spiraled downwards before!
Challenges - Test your skills and earn rewards. Challenge yourself and challenge your friends! (The "Challenges" tier comes with an additional exclusive mission pack!)
Open Playground - Enter the zone as a Triterian outcast, work your way up, build a mean ship and rule the sector! (The more money we raise the bigger we can make the sector, the more freedom we can give you and the more good stuff we’ll be able to add!)
This time we’re aiming for the big screens too! This is still a perfect game for touchscreens, but now you'll get AAA-quality graphics and game controller support! - Let me tell you: the game plays great with an Xbox 360 controller on an HD TV!
All ships in the game are based on the same modular system - if you see it you can own it. Collect a wide variety of components and build the perfect ship for your play-style!
And some of the reward tiers come with exclusive components that you won't be able to get anywhere else. Ever.
Update
15% in the first 2 days - what a great start! Thank you all for your support, we truly couldn't make this game without you!
Many of you have been asking if there will be an iOS version of the game. The answer is yes! - And every backer will get it! (That is: every backer of any tier that includes Episode 2! - We’re still looking for the perfect way to make this work - iTunes won’t let us gift it to people in other countries - but we’ll get it done! Promise!)
In other news: We just submitted NEW ORBIT to Steam Greenlight. Please take a moment to vote for us - your reward will be a free Steam-key for the game if we are accepted!
Campaign Progress: We have 85% left and 44 days to get there! Needless to say, we’re working day and night to get the word out! Please help us if you can! Tell your friends, tell your coworkers, post on Facebook - Every little bit helps!
Talk to you soon,
Markus
PS: Here's another view of the shuttle cockpit, just for you! In the final game all the monitors will show live-updated stats about your installed components and there are a few adventure sections that require you to work some magic in there! - Stay tuned for another update soon! We’re preparing something very special...
Looks like an Atari joystick in that pic.
Update and a demo, think I have Unity installed.
Hi everyone,
Thanks to all you wonderful and generous people we've passed 20%!
Please keep spreading the word! Feel free to share on twitter, facebook, youtube, reddit and everywhere else - the more people we reach, the more money we can raise and the more time we can spend to expand and polish NEW ORBIT!
As a special thank you, we're giving you a sneak peak at the new shuttle! We've installed a medium-sized cargo-hold, one and a half large fuel tanks and a top notch thruster for your viewing pleasure. Take a look at the shuttle, then press Space to switch inside and get acquainted with the cockpit ! (Best experienced in full-screen! You can get there via right-click menu.) In the final version of the game all the screens in the cockpit will be dynamic and display stats about your installed components!
Follow this link to the Shuttle Sneak Peak (Unity Webplayer, ca. 50 MB) and let us know what you think in the comments!
It's fantastic to have you all aboard! Much more good stuff coming your way soon!
Markus and the team at BLACKISH
PS: Check out this fantastic project by our friends 3 Sprockets: Fight the Dragon - They're great guys and are making a great game! Please consider backing them as well!
New update.
Hi everyone!
So glad to have you on board!
Some of you have been asking about the 2D to 3D transitions in the game, so here is a short video showing how it will work! (Also available on Youtube)
I think we arrived at a very smooth solution for combining the two, but what do you think? Let us know in the comments!
Why not just make the entire game 3D? Well, our tech is actually fully capable of doing that, but it's so hard to control! It's near-impossible to get to where you want to go if you add a third dimension! Another direction we explored was having it all in full 3D and always making the camera perpendicular to a plane drawn through the strongest gravitational influences in the area. It looked similar to what we have now, but due to the constantly moving and turning camera the layout of the asteroids would constantly shift - which is very confusing to say the least. - Back our SOURCE tier if you want to get your hands on the source code of our gravitation system to build your own gravity-based game. It's fun! 🙂
What else have we been up to?
I'm glad you asked! This week we spent a good deal of time on the ship building system! Up until now you could install any component into any slot, as long as the slot supported that type of component. Now we wrote our own simple box-collision system to determine if there's actually space for that component! No more intersecting fuel-tanks on randomly assembled ships, hurray! And while we were at it, we added code to calculate the center of mass for each ship based on the local density of all installed components, smoothly shifting it around as you install or uninstall parts!
Campaign Progess: 25% funded!
Even though we're working hard to let people know about this campaign, we haven’t managed to make a big splash in the media yet, but there’s a great article (plus interview) up on SlimGamer - check it out!
25% is great news, but we still have a long road to travel to get to 100%! Please keep telling everyone about our campaign, tell your family over the hollidays, tell your followers on twitter, facebook, google plus or whatever kinds of services you use - we're in this together now! Let's take it all the way!
Talk to you soon!
Markus and the team at BLACKISH
PS: A little cross-promotion - Check out War of Omens, a very promising deck-building game! I'm a backer!
New update going a bit slow but as they say still have got 20 days to go.
Happy new year everyone!
I hope you had a great time during Christmas and are all set for our next lap around the sun! Glad to have you on board!
There's an interview with me up at Red Bull Games and I think I might have let slip a few things that we hadn’t talked about before. Check it out here and let us know what you think in the comments!
And while we’re talking weapons... here are two little screenshot from earlier today!
I felt it was time to give our missiles a proper look, so I started sketching out some ideas in 3D. After this rough stage, I'll build the most promising parts in much higher detail, then bake normal-maps for the low-detail meshes, bake an ambient occlusion pass, paint textures and finally bring the finished 3D models over into the game to turn them into components and give them proper stats! - If you want to see your own missile ideas in the game - we have a tier for that 😉
Missiles - just like everything else - will be built from modular components. They are simple (and fast) little things: Just a small thruster, a small fuel tank, an explosive charge and a brain. Homing missiles will contain some very basic AI and try to hit their target automatically, but remote controlled missiles will rely on your skills alone! (Make sure your ship is in a fairly safe position before you take your eyes off it...) - You can also see a few mines in the first screenshot - from a technical standpoint they’re more or less just stationary missiles...
Yes, most of the finished little parts and pieces will also make their way into the Ship Construction Kit tier as FBX, OBJ and COLLADA files!
So where are we at with this Kickstarter Campaign? We’re halfway through our duration and we’ve raised a bit over 30% of our funding goal. It might have been a bad idea to run the campaign through christmas, but we’re not getting scared just yet! With all your help we can still make it! Please keep spreading the word! Tell your friends! Tweet! Share as much as you reasonably can!
We’re getting a lot of positive feedback on Steam Greenlight and are currently ranked #91 of 1527 games! Unfortunately all the stats are kind of meaningless since in the end there is no way of telling when and why Steam will accept a game - please vote for NEW ORBIT if you haven’t voted yet!
Talk to you soon,
Markus and the team at BLACKISHPS: Cross-promotion! A phone-case with included wallet? Love it!
New orbit not doing too well only 3 days left but only just over the $17K mark
Looked a promising idea but it looks like the curse of the updates has struck again as they have only done 4.
Did not make the target but looks like they will continue.
Hi everyone,
First and foremost: Thank you so much for all your support and feedback! It was a great experience and we have truly learnt a lot!
Sadly we didn't reach our goal. Is this the end of NEW ORBIT? I'd like to think it's not.
So where do we go from here?
Episode 1 is done and you can get it on our website. If you haven't played it yet, please consider supporting us by getting it!
If you want to know how the story of making NEW ORBIT - Episode 2 continues, join our Development Newsletter here (the "BLACKISH Dev List") and like our Facebook page, so we can keep you in the loop!
A lot has happened since this campaign started! We were invited to join the developer program of 2 next-gen consoles, we got greenlit by Steam (all thanks to your support!), and we got emails from a lot of wonderful people with great ideas and suggestions! The path ahead looks bright! - Now all we have to do is find a way to pay the rent so we can keep going.
See you on the other side and thanks once more for your support!
Markus
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