Frontiers Reach News

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.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


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.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]On January 1st 2025[/h2], 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!

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.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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.

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.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Till next time pilots, happy hooning!