RODINA

Monthly Archives: January 2014

Vote Complete!

It’s over! The first Official Rodina Vote! The winner is……

Nuts and Bolts!

…with 50 votes! Hacking, First Aid, and More of the Same all tied for second place with 6 votes each!

So, what does this mean? Well, it means that the next chunk of development time will be focused on gameplay surrounding emergency fires, and damage to the interior of the ship. After that, perhaps more “Nuts and Bolts”, although we’ll have to see how long it takes and whether or not another vote is warranted.

While I’m updating: I made a few changes to the site. Added a new Patrons page to publicly thank those individuals who have been extraordinarily supportive towards Rodina. I also revamped the FAQ to account for the fact that the game has been out for a month and a half :P I’m trying to get everything settled so that I can start working in earnest on the next update. Between PR and support emails, it’s really hard to get enough time to actually get work done :\

Final point. There were 6 people out there who voted for First Aid. That means that there are at least 6 paying customers whose primary concern is the game’s stability and/or performance. If you were one of these people or feel similarly, please email me at brendan@elliptic-games.com and let me know about the problems that you are having. If they are severe, I’d like to try to get them fixed anyway.

One last day to vote…

I’ve just realized that I never mentioned how long the official vote would be active! So- there’s one more day left. Tomorrow I’ll post the results, along with some notes on what’s going to happen next. Last chance to get your voice heard!

First Official Vote!

The time has finally come to issue the first official Rodina vote! Everyone who is in the Bossypants tier can participate, and if you aren’t yet in the Bossypants tier, you can upgrade at any time in order to have your voice heard.

The topic of this vote is very simple: What should Brendan focus on next? All items will be addressed in time- which would you like to see first?

Nuts and Bolts

This option will have me focusing on ship simulation stuff. Fires in the engine room! Electrical grids! Life support systems! I love simulation stuff cause it can lead to emergent situations, which will be the long-term focus of the game.

This is the option I would like to start work on first, as I think the character-level gameplay needs some work, and that it doesn’t make sense to work on other features (such as hacking) until there’s more going on in the ship. I imagine the VERY first thing that will happen are fire emergencies!

Hacking

A fan favorite! This feature will eventually allow players to customize their own ship’s behavior, and someday to hack enemy ships as an offensive tactic. But until the game becomes more complex, this feature would be more of a sandbox. I favor waiting on this feature until there are some simulated elements in the ship which the hacking could manipulate, but I’m also totally happy to just dive right in and see what can be created right now!

First Aid

Choose this option if you’d prefer that I focus on Rodina’s performance and stability! Since Rodina was released about a month ago, I’ve been trying to clear up crashes and improve problems people are having. I’m pretty happy with where things are, but if you’d like a LOT more focus on this area, choose this option!

More of the Same

More weapons! More enemies! More planets! If you like Rodina the way it is and would just like to see more of it, choose this option! I can try to add some moons for a couple of the planets, and perhaps some dwarf planets in the Asteroid Belt, some new projectile types, some new enemy types with cool new behaviors.

Go Vote!

Check out the vote by visiting your Dashboard (after you log in, if you are presented with the payment page, click “Dashboard” from the menu at the top of your screen).

If you’ve got feedback on this vote, please feel free to jump into the conversation about it on Reddit or Twitter.

Rodina 1.0.3 with Headlights!

Rodina 1.0.3 is now available! There’s lots of new stuff in this update- you can check the readme if you would like to know more. Highlights include:

* Lights! The #1 most requested feature. Now you can press “G” to engage your ship’s headlights, or the player character’s flashlight, when you exploring those dark asteroids!

* Gamepad support! Technically you could always use your gamepad (like a 360 Controller) to play Rodina, but the experience wasn’t very good. Now I’ve added a gamepad remap menu, I’ve tweaked control for the gamepad to make it much easier to control, and added some other tweaks/fixes.

Now that this first update of the year is out, I am going to start moving forward with real development again. Expect to see our first official vote soon, allowing everyone who bought the game at the Bossypants tier or above to choose what I work on next!

One last thing: I hate that people need to download the entire installer to try new updates. Starting next week I’ll also be starting work on an integrated updater for the game. No telling when that will be done- just wanted you to know :)

As before, you can also download this release in ZIP form.