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.