Presskit
RODINA

Press Kit

Welcome to the Rodina Press Kit. This page should give a complete overview of the game, but if you need any additional information, please don’t hesitate to email me at brendan@elliptic-games.com!

Facts

Screenshot-8

Description

Rodina is a vast, immersive Space Exploration / Action game developed as a labor of love primarily by a single developer. It is built on a powerful procedural generation engine (written from scratch) which is capable of creating detailed, full-scale planets, as well as procedurally created interiors. Inspired by a diverse set of games like Star Fox, The Elder Scrolls series (of which the developer is an alum), and DOOM, its arcade-like gameplay allows for ship to ship as well as first person combat, lots of expansive space exploration, and an interior editor with which players can fully customize their ship.

Released initially in 2013, Rodina was the first-ever game to feature completely seamless travel across a full-scale solar system, including Earth-size planets and moving ship interiors. Walk into your ship, sit at the controls, fly out into space and into the atmosphere of an Earth-sized planet, land and walk around - all without a single break or loading screen.

While Rodina is simple graphically, its atmospheric tone and immersive, tactile gameplay offer moments of excitement as well as true beauty. Dozens of people have written Elliptic to say that they have welled up with tears while entering a planet’s atmosphere for the first time, or while watching the sunset on an alien world.

History

Rodina was begun in 2012 as a passion project by game developer Brendan Anthony, an industry veteran who worked on Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Fallout 3 as well as many other projects. The game and procedural engine were programmed from the ground up by Brendan, but he had assistance from writer Andrew Schurr, composer John Robert Matz, and artist Miriam Nagi among others. It was initially released in December 2013 and has been expanded massively since then - most recently with Rodina 1.7, which added rock-strewn planet surfaces and moved the engine to 64-bit with Jolt Physics. Ultimately, Brendan hopes to turn Rodina into a kind of “Daggerfall in Space” - an RPG with hundreds of procedurally generated locations to explore.

Features

  • Full-scale, completely seamless procedural solar system
    Travel with NO loading screens to 4 full-size planets, 50 randomized major asteroids, something like 45,000 minor asteroids, and one enormous star! Fly down to planet surfaces covered in procedural terrain and rock fields.
  • Procedurally generated locations
    Explore Vanguard Ruins, Xeno Mines, and Xeno bases on planets and asteroids - multi-level interiors that are laid out, constructed, and decorated completely procedurally.
  • First Person Combat
    Battle the Xeno infestation - Soldiers, shielded Troopers, Fliers, Scrappers, Incinerators, turrets and more - with the Blaster, Trilaser, Missile Launcher, and powerups.
  • Ship Combat
    Take on alien ships in dogfights, with target locking and heat-seeking missiles.
  • Gear and Upgrades
    Grid inventory, Jetpack, Carrier Beam grapple, Target Scope, Headlamp, and the GravBike (overhauled in 1.7!). Install upgrade chips powered by your Power Core to boost speed, health regeneration, damage, and jumping - or unlock the Slide Attack and Ground Pound.
  • A Persistent World
    Enemies and interiors remember their state - what you change stays changed.
  • Customizable, simulated ship interiors
    Personalize your ship’s layout in the built-in interior editor and share your design with other players. Watch out for fires and explosive decompression!
  • A Story and Background fiction
    As told through dozens of books, emails, and logs
  • Dynamic Soundtrack
    Over an hour of music, written by award-winning composer John Robert Matz.
  • Mod Support
    An open scripting system allows for mods that are simple to create, install and remove
  • Modern Engine
    A 64-bit engine with Jolt Physics, built for smooth performance.

Future Work

Next up: destruction (rocks, props, interiors, and enemy ships), mining and procedural materials to power the player’s armor generator, and eventually Ship Boarding. See the Roadmap for details.

Video

Screenshots

(download zip)

Screenshot-3 Cockpit GravBike Incinerator Screenshot-5 Bots-10-15 Target-1 Rodina 1-1-0 Fire1 CockpitMode Ships Destroyed Screenshot-1 Screenshot-28

Music

Press

  • PC Gamer: The PC gaming highs of the year
    We’ve seen the beginnings of lovely in-the-works space exploration game Rodina…
  • PC Gamer: Rodina review (Early Access 9/2014)
    There’s one big problem with this setup that the game’s lone developer, Bethesda veteran Brendan Anthony, has tried to solve in a clever way: space is really big. To help navigate all that distance, the ship has a manual transmission that switches ‘gears’ to climb exponential power levels. It’s a perfect solution, and I’ve never controlled a spaceship engine in this way before.
  • PC Gamer: Rodina interview: exploration, combat and modding in an indie space adventure
    I got in touch with Brendan, and he told me about the game’s eye-catching tech, ambitious development roadmap, and how it has as much in common with Daggerfall as it does with Freespace.
  • Rock Paper Shotgun: The Lighthouse Customer: Rodina
    So. Rodina (I played verson 1.1.1) is really neat. The soundtrack is dynamic (exciting things happening means exciting music plays) and wonderful.
  • Rock Paper Shotgun: Remind Yourself Of Rodina’s Space Combat And Computers
    It’s been a while since we last checked in with Rodina, in as much as we haven’t mentioned it on this site at all since Craig noted the release date late last year. That’s a shame given that we live in a world of in-progress but unreleased or expensive space sims, and Rodina is a space sim that’s unfinished but i) out now and ii) has a demo and iii) has a pay-what-you-want business model.
  • Space Game Junkie Podcast: SGJ Podcast #14: Rodina Q&A
    In this episode, Jim and I sit down with Brendan Anthony, former Bethesda developer who is currently working on an awesome space game called Rodina.

Logos Pack

(download zip)

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