Ahoy mateys, Weve been at sea looking deeply into the horizon for the last couple of months, so my/our apologies for the return to quiet. Our ship was becalmed as we awaited certain confirmations of our upcoming trajectory, and unfortunately it looks like the wind will no longer be blowing behind our sails. Dropping the nautical jargon for clarity, the last few months weve been going through bankruptcy procedures in France. This started when communication broke down between us and our publisher, leading to payments not continuing. Alas, with our publisher not continuing funding and no other sources of continued funding to finalize the game, the French government has elected to shut down the studio effective immediately. (Like at the end of the work day today we cannot legally continue working.) This is an eventuality we had become worried about as we crossed into June, but honestly it wasnt until the last few weeks that it went from an unlikely maybe to an inevitable situation. Weve tried to remain positive, continuing to work on the game, but due to the legal specifics of this case, we were put back in a closed bottle and unable to talk about the situation. Ultimately, we appear to be another casualty of the current downturn in the video game industry. So with that, we are deeply saddened to announce the end of our time working on the development of Orphan Age, and that Studio Black Flag will no longer be sailing as of the end of this month. Before continuing, a brief FAQ to answer what I anticipate will be the most common questions asked:

Why cant you find another publisher and continue development?

Im not able to get into the specifics of our contract with our publisher, but we simply do not have ownership over Orphan Age in a way that would allow us to shop it to another publisher. As many have seen, the market is also heavily dried up for indie publishing. Even if we could re-secure publishing rights, it could be an incredibly difficult, lengthy process to find someone open to supporting our project. It is possible that development will continue under our publisher, but at this time that is entirely out of our hands.

What happens to the Kickstarter and off-site backers?

Unfortunately, the money contributed through our crowdfunding campaign has long since been spent, and the nature of utilizing a platform like that is that there is an inherent risk of not receiving a return on your investment. We wish this wasnt the case, but unfortunately backing a product that isnt out is an inherently risky investment, and with Orphan Age the risk didnt pay off. Currently were exploring options to release our most finalized build of Orphan Age to our community, but theres some legal issues we need to explore before confirming. For full clarity, this will not be anything approaching a final, polished product, but it will be significantly further along than our previously released demo.

Now, what does the future look like for Studio Black Flag?

Unfortunately, this is the end of our adventure. While we had been exploring smaller, secondary projects at one point, the last few months have dried up all of our funding. This has led to Studio Black Flag going through the aforementioned bankruptcy trial and situation, which as of this week has led to the imminent closure of Studio Black Flag. As today is our last day, well be working on assisting our employees in preparing for finding their next roles. Our hope was that wed be able to touch-up and share a final build so the community could at least experience Orphan Age again, but as of this moment thats outside of our abilities. Finally, I leave you with a comment from our studio founder and game director, Adrien Forestier: Today marks the end of Black Flag in a pretty brutal way and in slow motion at the same time. I'm not sure if it signifies the end of Orphan Age as the project may end up in other hands, but it is my hope that it finally sees a release. I'm alternating between shock and numbness and it's just too early for me to address what's next and why we're in this situation. We've been so close to a release, several times, and there's a lot to regret after all the work done along the many iterations and restarts we went through. Orphan Age was always a slippery concept and when it's time I'll reflect publicly on this even if it matters only to a dozen players. I'd like to end on a positive note, because I will fondly remember the friends I made along this journey, the lessons learned, and all those moments that I will treasure. Thanks to all the people who worked, helped and participated in this adventure who made this quarter of my life feel like the blink of an eye. My final thanks go to all our backers, followers, and everyone who followed Orphan Age; our wholesome community who supported us throughout every stage, even in the darkness. It's heartbreaking to end this adventure on these words and to think about all our supporters we are letting down. As I said earlier, while it's the end for Black Flag, I'll do whatever I can so it's not the end for Orphan Age.

[ 2024-10-02 09:08:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ahoy mateys! Another month has come to an end and here we are a touch late on our news post plans. Fortunately, the team closed up the studio for a nice week off to rest and recharge, but unfortunately that threw the news post schedule a bit off balance. But were back, this month talking to Lucien Baldacchino, Captain and lead programmer, about both his work on Orphan Age, as well as whats under the hood of the game: What is your role and what do you do at Studio Black Flag on Orphan Age? Im the lead programmer, which means I do programming, but also manage all of the programming work that is to be done by the team. This involves splitting the work among the programming team, keeping track of progress, estimating time, and discussing with the designers the cost of implementing featurescost being in time and risk, not money.
Whats under Orphan Ages hood? What engine and tech are we working with? Were working with Unity. We were on the 2021 version, but recently upgraded to 2023, which wasnt an easy process; changing the major version of the engine while a project is ongoing is never an easy task. On top of that, theres is some sort of homebrewed engine within an engine, called OrphanEngine, and it manages all of the dataflow and does a lot of heavy lifting regarding asset and resource management. It makes making the game easier, and simplifies dev work. Were not exactly making the game itself in Unity, but rather a suite of tools that are then used to make Orphan Age. Most of whats visible and possible to do in the game hasnt been programmed, but implemented using those tools: actions, interactables, quests, dialogues, etc. From a technical standpoint, what do you find most interesting about working on the game? Everything mentioned previously, that most of the work is oriented towards programming and supporting tools. The making of the game from them is then, in theory, just playing around with boxes and dropdown menus to visually program what we want the game to do. Its extremely interesting to work this way, because it means that the game code itself has very little knowledge of the game itself, which makes it extremely scalable, and flexible. Can you clarify what you mean by the code having little knowledge of the game itself? There's no specific element of the game present in the game code. For example, the "dismantle" action doesn't exist anywhere but in the game data. It's the same code for all actions, and all actions are exactly the same, as far as the codebase is concerned. It's the same for orphans, for interactable objects, for quests etc. Without data the game is like a "blank slate," and putting in data is akin to a game or level editor. Skyrim's creation kit is what'd be closest to the kind of thing we have.
Where have you found the most difficulty, whether that be implementing features, using certain tools, processes, or whatever else? The game went through a lot of iterations over the three and a bit years Ive worked on it. Most of the difficulty isnt to add new features, but removing them when they arent needed anymore. Other than that, nothing is ever easy, and everything comes with risks and added bugs and stuff that we need to come back to and patch. But I dont recall anything in particular being the most difficult. Maybe the character animations? Theyre always very fiddly. Can you give an overview of what it looks like to take one of our features from concept to implemented? What does that entail for you and our developers? A game designer first comes up with a concept for a feature and produces a design document. Its then discussed with the production team and myself as the lead programmer to fit it into the production plan; looking at how long will it take, what impact can it have on the game, etc. And the concept is refined from there until it is ready enough to be put in the game. Theres a tech review next from a programmer (most often, me again), that will look at the finished documents and try to point out potential areas of friction and difficulties, etc. Once everything is ready, and validated by everyone, it can be put in the game. Generally, a single dev is responsible for doing a whole feature. Depending on the size, the work can be split up, but its usually just one. Implementing a feature is usually split into two parts: the making of a framework (adding code needed for the feature to work, but nothing more), which results in the feature being implemented, but not actually visible or available in game. This usually means for the dev to produce a tool, or prepare some data structure, and the integration part which is filling the feature framework in the tool with the relevant data. This is usually done by the designer. Of course, no two features are alike, and each is often its own special case. Afterwards, a new feature always introduces new bugs that are kept as surprises for later. When they surface, the dev that handled the feature will fix them.
And finally, whats your favorite feature or aspect of the development process of Orphan Age? Most of what I prefer to have worked on and take the most pride in seeing work are all of the invisible parts of the game. For example, downloading and automatic formatting of game data from google sheets, the entities framework that allows for referencing every functional object in the game or a node editor tool I made from scratch be able to make all our other node based tools with as little boilerplate code as possible. Things of that nature are always the most satisfying. And there you have it! For April Im looking at putting out the aforementioned high-level look at our systems, or the highly requested dive into our expedition system and how leaving the base will work. Currently Im writing them both, but theres a few factors Ill need to confirm before being sure which oneor bothwill go out. As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, comments, you can find us in the comments, on our Discord, or across whatever is left of the collapsing world of social media.

[ 2024-03-29 15:22:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ahoy mateys! The last month or so has been a whirlwind of activity, with the sails raised full so we could hit our latest target deadlines. Overall, things are looking great and were getting so much closer to truly opening up the ship for a full inspection. You can read more about those tentative plans in the mini news post from earlier this month. Now, that brings us to the first item from that list, so without further ado here is my interview with Jen Vaughn, Captain and senior game designer on Orphan Age: For those who may not know you, when thinking of the narrative/gameplay plans for the project, what was it that drew you to wanting to work on Orphan Age? Honestly, I saw it as a challenge. A simulation game where the player also cares about the characters, aside from popular SIMs games where you create a vanity character that is you. RPGs and visual novel games, those narratives are crafted to make you fall in love with (or hate!) certain characters and I saw this genre as a new challenge for me. Plus, so much media about dystopian times follows the major political or military or future important characters; focusing on the every person affected by a crumbling society and how they live their life is much more interesting. If perhaps a bit too germane, as we watch in real time many of the worlds leaders and billionaires buy remote homes in climate crisis-resistant locations.
While not uncommon in most genres of games, kids arent seen as often as the main characters in a survival sim game. What advantages or disadvantages do you feel there are in utilizing them as both the heroes and narrative focus in our story? In Orphan Age, the kids grew up without a lot of resources and the idea of fun is new to them. Narratively and in game play they must relearn how to be kids, in addition to keeping up with their chores that keep them alive. This is one of the strongest points of the game, to help the kids reclaim a moment of pure, unabashed joy. Kids are fantastic as heroes because their goals and wishes are not always logical and can change at the drop of a hat. They are also challenging - I would never say its a disadvantage! - because they might not have the same skill levels as an adult but we fudge it a bit with it being the future and these kids grew up hard. Also, if there are no adults in the game to compare skill sets to, who is to say we are wrong? Forged by the fire, sharpened by society - we were all kids once and the melancholy flavor of the game is a real connection point for those of us, myself included, who experienced fractured or lost childhoods. What can you tell everyone about our band of intrepid orphans? You know, without major spoilers These kids are cute as shit. Thats all I can say. Heh, but really the original character designs Laura Bisson made helped maintain the cuteness factor even through art direction changes. Maureen was the only character in the game when I first joined the team in 2022 so it was a joy to collaborate with Laura on the rest of the characters (hopefully they will all be in the game eventually). The kids are spunky, full of heart but not untouched by trauma. Each orphan will have their personal quest where the player can explore more of the worlds lore and the characters personality all with a uniquely terrifying backdrop. The player can choose to help all the kids fulfill their (somewhat reasonable) dreams, help just one or two, or plow forward with only the group quest.
In the world of Orphan Age, what trials do these kids have to go through? These kids are going through all of the trials essentially. From struggling to find food and water, to maintaining their mental health. As any simulation player knows, the basics of living are how you keep pushing the game forward but its using characters special traits that can unfold more narrative highs and lows. Since the kids are technically wanted for [REDACTED AT THIS TIME], they can only go out at night which presents its own type of trial. As animals, were all scared of the dark in some aspect because we believe were masters of our own stories, the pilots of these bone and flesh mechs called bodies. So were working to capture some of that fear when the kids go out to explore by night. What do you hope players get out of taking on the roles of our Orphans? First and foremost, I hope they have a damn good time. But almost tied with that, I want to instill hope and the need to be a part of the change in the real world in the players. Some people have given into the idea of a world collapse, that its easier to see themselves living out a Mad Max-style future than be a part of the change. Its a way to absolve their own guilt and inaction. And please dont think me ill-informed, of course, I know most of the pollution is made by major corporations. But there is collective action and there is individual action that can help. In parts of the Global South and many countries with indigenous populations, theyre already making small gains against climate change by adapting and also having lifestyles less intertwined with single-use plastics and food waste. So this optimism and flexibility can be applied to supposed first-world nations and their economies of over-abundance. Not to even mention the political leaders who create laws while not keeping in touch with what the average person goes through. Rent is too high, food costs too much - Im not saying playing Orphan Age will create a wave of people crying Eat the Rich but it is definitely sewn into the fabric of the game. Theres also the hope - this may sound silly but its a big goal - that by playing Orphan Age will help spark compassion in the players they might not have had before. And not the kind of compassion that ends at the main menu when they exit the game. Unfortunately, were living in a world with multiple wars and ongoing exterminations of people, the Congo, Ukraine, Palestine/Gaza to name a few. While a war is not the background of the game, we cannot create and develop within a void, so were obviously working on a plan for some charity streams and some other real-world work. No game made with children as the heroes in dark times will be without flaws, its impossible to get something with such a delicate matter 100% right but we hope were able to inspire courage in those who felt nothing before. For players to enjoy the story of Orphan Age but prevent it from happening for future generations. And that covers this months updates. No Around the Studio this time, as weve spent most of February fairly head down on hitting our latest milestone goal. In fact, as I finish writing this the rest of the team is deep into our build week as we prepare to send our latest milestone build onto our publisher. With that, I bid you all adieu until next month! Well be back with another interview, and if my schedule allows for it, a second news post sharing a high-level look at our game systems for Orphan Ageno promises on both, but I really want to get both out in March. If theres any topics youd like to see discussed in a future news post, please let me know in the comments or join our Discord and chat with us about it there!

[ 2024-02-29 15:34:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all! This update is going to be fairly short and simple, and also a bit more personal news-oriented. I (Josh the CM) had planned to get a news post out in the last week of January or first week of February, but due to a series of health concerns at home I have spent much of late January into the last week taking time off. Things are fine now and thankfully I work for a wonderful, understanding company and was able to take the necessary time off. That being said, were now a bit behind on our planned news and update cycle. As such, Im here to provide a planned news post roadmap leading into our tentative late summer 2024 launch for Early Access. The tentative launch window and this roadmap are subject to change, but hopefully it gives you all something to look forward to and maybe discuss. If you have any questions, suggestions for upcoming updates, or want to chat Orphan Age, you can find me and Studio Black Flag in the comments, Steam forums, and on our Discord.

Tentative News Update Schedule_Revision 3

• By end of February: Building a Game that Showcases Kids as Heroes with Jen Vaughn
• Mid March: Talkin Tools & the Technical Side of Orphan Age with Lucien Baldacchino
• Early-Mid April: UI & Playtesting with Lylia Fauvel (Needs fancy title)
• Late April: Building a Game that Showcases Adults as the Enemies with Jen Vaughn
• May: Announce art support studio here? (50/50 we keep this as the title)

[ 2024-02-16 14:30:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ahoy mateys! Here we are fast approaching the end of 2023. The last few months of development have seen some high and low points, as well as illnesses popping up throughout the officepart of why there was no November update, sorry. As for this update, were deviating from the original planned topic, which should come as no surprise. Instead, wed like to offer an update on development, how this year shaped up, and to offer some loose plans for 2024. To start with the lows, in early November we had our latest milestone build rejected by our publisher. These things can happen in development, but it was the first time this had happened in a year and it was honestly a bit of a blow. The short reasoning being that they felt the experience wasnt living up to the promise of Orphan Age, and that it simply wasnt an overall enjoyable experience. Definitely a real kick, but it also led us to reevaluate and as a team to take a deeper look at our cohesive narrative and gameplay experience. Going back to the drawing board led us to completely overhaul how our maps are built and laid out, we revamped the entire expedition systempreviously it all happened off camera with an orphan disappearing for a chunk of time, but now its entirely playablewe changed how the narrative is fed to the players, and honestly Id have to write up a full patch notes to even explain all of the changes, which for a game few have seen in its last form would be a bit incoherent. Suffice to say, its gooooood and were happy with this shift.
A look at our latest starting map iteration In addition, weve hired an external studio to help revise Orphan Ages art assets, in particular focusing on the UI & UX experience. Our plan is that well share what this looks like early in 2024, as well as sharing who were working with. (Theyre an awesome team and deserve some attention as well.) Now, rounding out the game news is an answer to the question we have no doubt well be asked: When is Orphan Age releasing? Right now we dont have the exact info, but I can say that internally we have a window defined that were aiming for and we feel fairly confident about it. Theres still some matters to finalize both with internal plans as well as plans with our partners, but our 100% intent is to release Orphan Age in Early Access in 2024. There you go, all the Orphan Age news thats there to be read. If youve made it this far, I thought wed do something to celebrate the end of 2023 and our current stage of development. Here are a few members of our team sharing what they like about Orphan Age, and their thoughts on the project as we move into 2024:

What We Like About Orphan Age

Captain Blandine - Executive Producer Orphan Age is about finding sparks of joy even in the darkest times; I cant find better words to describe the adventure of developing this game with the Black Flag crew! Even after our world almost collapsed, we're still here and giving all we have to make Orphan Age the best possible game; we're crafting better everyday, learning together, and facing challenges so the adventure in itself is fulfilling. I wish I could take a peek into the future to see what my favourite bunch of pirates will accomplish and the Orphan Age we will be able to share with you all.
Ydris - Apprentice Programmer Orphan Age is about a world in which society as we know it has collapsed, and at a time not far from our own. On the surface, we're playing orphans trying to survive, not only because subsistence has become an ordeal, but also because the other survivors, the adults, are turning the surrounding area into a hostile space. Their situation resonates strongly with the rest of the society in which they live: a lost world with no role models. Unlike the adults, these children are not the product of the past, and although they are metaphorically a reflection of their macrocosm, they are an optimistic reflection of it, devoid of the old cynicism, and with no choice but to hope for their future. In the end, this staging brings us face to face with the question of the role of hope in our representations in a violent world where everything pushes us to despair. What lessons can these orphans teach us? Personally I'd like to think that they remind us that fantasy and hope don't rhyme with banter and naivety, that freedom is certainly about acting with lucidity, but it's also about daring to believe and seeing the beautiful, the good and the possible where they seem to have disappeared. Yes, I like this game a lot and I think it has enormous potential. Its my sincere hope that we'll be able to do justice to the narrative-entertainment issues it tackles. Captain Maxime - Technical Director Orphan Age is a project I've been working on for over 8 years, and I want it to see the light because I've always loved the setup and the subjects it tackles: Children left to fend for themselves in a war, up against adults. It feels like a modern-day David versus Goliath, with a pinch of revolutionary spirit. Also in terms of gameplay: a kind of This War Of Mine, more narrative and poetic than dark and cold. That, in a nutshell, is why I love Orphan Age.
Captain Lylia - UX Designer It's been more than 2 years that I've been working on Orphan Age, and what I can say is that everything about the project is unique! The game we are making, with children at the center of it and its universe, the team I am working with, and the overall experience around the project. I watched children's interviews on youtube for so looong just to get how exactly they are speaking and interacting... xD And I know that the future will bring new unique experiences, especially with such a motivated team! That's exactly why I love working on the game! Each day brings new ideas, surprises, and improvements to the game and I can't wait to get the game in players hands! Pierre - Senior Level Designer Orphan Age is a complicated game to design mostly because, well, it talks about orphaned children! It's a sensitive topic that instantly brings a lot of different things in people's mind. This creates a struggle to make that an actual gameplay experience, one that can fulfill all expectations in terms of lore and fantasy while being enjoyable. But I'm sure the crew will succeed in encompassing an interesting vision of it and make players feel part of that original experience: leading a group of children to survive in a devastated world.
Finally, thank you all once again for being a part of our community in 2023 and anyone who has stuck with us through the regrettable multiyear communication blackout. Opening the doors a bit wider the last six months has been a real boost to the team with getting to share our progress with you all. Our aim in 2024 is to only expand upon that openness and to really build towards a wonderful launch for Orphan Age. Thank you and happy holidays (if youre celebrating) from the entire Studio Black Flag team! Before we close for the holiday break, here's a present we hope you enjoy: the screenshots I captured for this post that didnt fit neat and pretty in the update. (Reminder: UI and art is not finalized.)

[ 2023-12-21 16:00:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ahoy mateys! The last few weeks have been busy around the studio, so this posting will include some studio updates and a chat with Adrien Forestier, captain, founder, and game director about last months most talked about topic: the Orphan Age art style update. We saw the replies across Kickstarter, Steam, and social media wondering why there was a stark difference between the demo and the game as it looks now, and wed like to take you through the decisions that led to these changes and share news of how the art style is continuing to evolve. How would you describe the art style for Orphan Age when it was shown off during the Kickstarter and the Steam demo? It was supposed to be semi-realistic low-tech cyberpunk. Since I was making most of the art and Im not an artist, it was very inconsistent and ugly for a big part. Most of it was made of assets bought here and there where I tried to adjust the texture so they could match together. Since I couldnt paint properly, most textures would look vaguely realistic. The interface was pretty futuristic but was also super inconsistent in style with grunge, LCD, hand painted, and holographic elements.
What I liked though was the lighting which was very hazy and neon lit. (It was able to hide a lot of the ugliness of the game. Ha ha.) There was a downside though, we didnt have a day/night cycle and the game was in a perpetual night which caused issues with there being no feeling of time. How would you describe the current art style? The version weve been working with is still semi-realistic but this time with hand painted textures. This helps a lot with readability since we have more control over the contrasts of the 3D objects on screen. We want to keep this dark vibe in the world. With the previous art style, we found there was a lack of details visible, as seen in this scene:
Alternatively, this had been our goal for Orphan Ages final look:
In the most recent concept, we can see that there is enough contrast for the space to be readable despite the lack of light. Everything is destroyed but its not noisy. There is a bit of environmental storytelling (chains were used to rip the door behind the counter and something was dragged from here). The hand painted style of the textures brings two big advantages here: First, almost nothing is shinylow specularity of the 3D materialsthis gives us more control on the contrast and ties everything together. Second, the (almost) absence of normal maps/bumps on the different materials reduces the noise that would come with the level of detail we would get with a more realistic style. In less technical terms, the textures are less detailed and the volumes are easier to understand. Before, the game was hard to read, textures were too detailed, and it would put a strain on the eyes after a long play session. While the 3D of Orphan Age stays pretty dark, its not the case anymore with the interface which is more in line with the fact that the protagonists are kids. Our goal is simple: the 3D world is the world seen with an adult gaze, but the UI is seen from a childlike point of view. This allows us to convey more emotions like what our characters are feeling right now. That being said, the current interface is too bright and colorful, overly contrasting with the 3D world. On the subject of the UIs brightness, the above concept art is not the final version then? No, its not, as we had been discussing internally finding external support for revising our UI design and the visual tone of the game. Weve entered an exploration phase with an external development studio who are working on concept art for what Orphan Age can look like, maintaining our desire for the scenes to be dark, but readable, but the UI to not feel contrasting to the overall experience. Their own feedback included thoughts on the UI being too bright, noting that we may have overcorrected from the far too dark original visuals. As we are still very early in the process with them, we have nothing to share, but once we have the concept art in place well begin sharing with the community for your thoughts and feedback. What was the decision that originally led to changing the art style? What were working towards now was always the art style that we envisioned, but we didnt have the skills to achieve it. Im not a fan of realistic games. I personally think that they tend to age very badly where non-realistic games can stay beautiful for a longer period. Do you have any final thoughts on our plans for the art style? Most of the interface that has been shown in the screenshots is a work in progress that does not represent our aim for the final, definitive look and feel of the UI. I completely understand the feeling of a downgrade when you look at a screenshot with a WIP UI and lighting. That being said, we think that with the 3D, the music, and the stories in the game, Orphan Age is quite bleak. Its still about kids fighting to survive in a dangerous future, there are many ways to lose and only a few chances to make it to a safe place. We feel that working with an external studio will allow us to continue to have the childlike UI that should create an interesting contrast between the reality of the world the children live in and how they feel through it. Something to consider is that whatever the living conditions, kids will be kids. Its something that has been very well documented from the street urchins of Victorian England to the footballers of the favelas. In this regard, one of our core inspirations is the beautiful photo Bath Time in Gaza by Emad Nassar.
Our goal remains as it was, to create a beautiful and dark story, but one containing a strong current of hope throughout. As we develop this, we appreciate the feedback the community across all platforms provides. The response on the art style aligned with the feedback we had been receiving in our search for an external art contractor, which showed we were on the right path. But even when the feedback doesnt align with our own thoughts, we still need it because it will help us continue to keep our ship afloat as we sail to our destination. Until next time, please keep your thoughts and feedback coming our way. _________________________________ One final thought on the art: We will be updating the Steam store page as soon as we have sufficient art to do so. Taking down the demo last month was step one in painting a more accurate picture of what Orphan Age is, while our next step will be a partial revamp of the Steam store page.

Around the Studio

In September our beloved apprentice and developer Lucas Rossignol completed their 3-year apprenticeship, becoming a full time member of the crew. A hearty huzzah for Lucas!
Were planning further local testing phases for anyone either located in or near Bordeaux that wants to come by the studio to try out the latest build. If youve already submitted the form, you dont need to submit again unless any information has changed. If youre not local, you can also fill out the form, though were not looking for remote playtesters yet. (Hopefully very soon though!) You can find the form here: https://forms.gle/MNN2wfjcJRhfGnV66 Finally, our next news update is scheduled for the first week of November. This is planned to be our previously discussed high-level look at how weve been building Orphan Age, with a look at our development packages*. We felt the art style discussion took a bit of priority, which is why we delayed this topic by a few weeks. *Place your bets with the boatswain on whether we maintain this topic or switch it up again. For now though, let us know if you have any questions in the comments and if theres anything else youre hoping to see or learn in future updates. (And before anyone says Id like to learn when the game is actually releasing, we know and well shout that from the top deck as soon as we can confidently share a defined time.)

[ 2023-10-13 08:53:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ahoy mateys! First off, thank you for all of your comments regarding last months publisher announcement and the first look at what Orphan Age currently looks like. As for the latter, we know the overall look probably feels very different with the brief glance provided, but it is our strongest belief that the changes bring the game more in-line with what was envisioned years ago, but now we have people talented enough to bring it to life. But of course, please keep in mind that a lot of what you will see these coming months is work in progress so things will shift and change. Speaking of shifting and changing, lets start this off with what some might see as a bit of bad news: tomorrow well be removing the Orphan Age demo from Steam. Simply put, its too old to be a fair representation of what the game will look like at launch. That being said, anyone who wants to keep playing it needs only to keep it installed on their PC as it wont be updated, but should continue working. Our plan is to bring a brand new demo to Steam, but thatll be closer to launch once we can make a more polished slice of the game. On the good news front, we have hit another milestone with our publisher and received very positive feedback on our direction and progress. For a brief explanation, last month I discussed how we previously ended up stripping Orphan Age back down to the basics. Since then weve been rebuilding it stronger, slowly implementing our planned systems and designs. With my next update Ill begin sharing a bit more of these systems. For now, Ill leave you all with some images from our latest build:



Oh, one more thing! Weve seen a bunch of questions on Steam, Discord, and Kickstarter asking a variation of will I have to re-buy the game to play it at launch? And no, absolutely not, categorically no. If you backed our Kickstarter or purchased the game during our brief post-campaign period, then you own it and will be able to play at launch. If there are any other questions, please drop them in this thread and Ill do what I can to answer them.

[ 2023-09-11 13:10:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey all! Before we go any further, there are real answers in this post and not my standard well tell you more when we can or I promise were still working on this that youve grown to expect. Just give me a moment of preamble first. Simply put, its been a bit and every one is understandably frustrated about the situation. Id say no one is more frustrated than our team, but honestly, weve known whats going on while youve all been in the dark. It was a situation that unfortunately we couldnt help. We are now thankfully finally in a position to let you in on what has been happening to Orphan Age the last couple of years, encompassing most of the post-Kickstarter period. Also, Ill be writing out what I can, but there will also be an FAQ at the bottom of this post and Ill be doing my best to answer any questions I can in this thread. Please note for questions, and across the forums as a whole that any hate speech or threats to myself or the dev team, even in jest, will be met with an immediate ban. We may have been too quiet with you all, but that doesnt give permission to threaten anyone. Diving into it, there were two major factors that led to the massive delay in the timeline and even the shutdown in communication: After our successful Kickstarter campaign, while attending gamescom, our founders Adrien and Maxime had an awakening. The attention garnered by the campaign far surpassed expectations, and with that came sky-high anticipation. Their vision for Orphan Age had to evolve beyond a "simple indie game." This led to expanding our team and securing a larger budget than originally planned. Simultaneously, publishers and potential funders came knocking. This was a wonderful development, but figuring out funding options, building a team, and the lack of comms experience of those already on the project led to the beginning of the communication breakdown with their burgeoning community. Then in the process of finalizing contracts with a publishera great moment for Studio Black Flag because it assured that the studio would have the money to support the creative, inspiring developers they neededthey realized that Orphan Age as it stood wasnt going to live up to the Kickstarter hype, nor was it living up to their own internal expectations. So, for the second time in the projects history they scrapped pretty much everything and went back to the beginning, and so began the biggest reason for the studio not hitting the originally announced plans for a launch date, whether Early Access or full. This of course doesnt explain the lack of notice, because as Im sure you all are asking, OK, so the team sucked at comms stuff, but how hard would it have been to drop a simple we messed up on our timeline and need more time, and also were signing a contract with a publisher to make the game we want and you want? And you know what, yall would be right in asking that, but the complexities of running a studio, building a team, and realizing that they needed to start over took its toll on the team. There was also a belief that well, this overhaul wont take that long, so whats another month, and yeah, one month turned to two and then to a year, and so on. Again, we messed up on comms, and were sorry, truly. Enter my hiring as the community manager this project long needed. Our contracts were fully finalized with a publisheryes, Orphan Age does have a publisherand we could begin putting stuff together to plan the announcements of everything the team needed to tell people. Except, we werent hitting our milestones the way we needed. Our crew wasnt organized how wed have liked and our build process wasnt smooth. Along with our publisher we made a decision to delay our plans for Orphan Age out of 2022 entirely. It was a painful moment, especially for our new hires like myself, BUT we took a few months to overhaul everything at the studio, from structure to tools to how everything was conducted internally. And now, a few months into 2023 I can confirm that our ship has been sailing unhindered for months and hitting every milestone. So, what's next? We're tired of the darkness, tired of the silence. Were unhappy that we left our community and backers feeling betrayed, and we want to do what we can to try to begin earning back yalls trust. Among those initiatives we have the following plans:

• With our publishing agreement, let me first state that it continues to be built on the foundation of support of our vision. While the publisher provides guidance and backing, Orphan Age is still at its core the same game it has been since we announced it.
  • Regarding the publishing agreement itself, we wont be announcing specifics at this time, as we are in agreement with our publisher that it is best for them to make that announcement at what we all agree is the appropriate time.
  • Keeping all of this in mind, after many discussions with the publisher, we all feel it is best that we dont overpromise or sell you, our community, on any aspect of the updated experience until its been tested and proven. In the past weve said too much, but shown too little and we want to fix that dynamic. So, in the short term, we cannot get into much of the specifics of how Orphan Age has changed and evolved, but we will as soon as we feel our work has progressed to an appropriate point.
• We recently conducted our first local external playtests and they went VERY well. Were now putting together the framework to open up our playtesting plans, which if all goes well will allow members of our community and backers to take part in sessions.
• Ive personally been given the all-clear to be more active on social media, Discord, the Steam forums, and elsewhere with studio news, and approved information about Orphan Age. It wont be full openness, but itll be so much better than my I promise you were working on stuff still messages which I know sucked for everyone.
  • In that respect, you can expect more various and tangible content your way in the months to come as Im planning to try to do monthly updates to start. These may be minor updates initially, but were aiming for not just corporate messages, but also behind the scenes, various media, and overall regular interactions on all our channels. its our hope that these will keep you informed and engaged.

There you have it! Its been a long af time coming, but were finally here and I hope you all receive this well. Check out the FAQ below, and let me know if you have anything else youd like to ask! Is Orphan Age still being developed? Yes, we just passed a major milestone in having external testing conducted and were happy with the response we received. Was the Kickstarter a scam? No, it wasnt, but we agree that the post-Kickstarter period wasnt conducted as well as it could have been. You ran a Kickstarter while having plans to get a publisher to pay for everything? No, at the time of the Kickstarter Adrien and Maxime simply wanted to show off what they were working on, to gauge interest, and to put together funding. The experience of the campaign showed there was more interest than they expected, especially when publishers began reaching out about the project. What happened to the game I Kickstarted? Were still working on it! But its been entirely overhauled, restructured, and replanned. The Orphan Age you backed is still the Orphan Age were making, but after several years of work, we feel its a far more enjoyable experience and one that truly represents what the team originally planned to make. I gave you my money only for you to not say anything for half a decade and then announce a publisher? We messed up on communication, no question. Originally we thought wed only be quiet for maybe a month or two, then get to announce the publisher and the new game plan. But between the process of contracts and a realization that we had to rebuild so much, and generally not a great internal pipeline at the time, months turned to years. Speaking of that pipeline, how are things going internally? Things are going great, with 2023 being a marked improvement for our working systems. We spent the back half of 2022 fixing all of our pipeline issues and making sure that our team had everything they needed to be successful and creative. Do you honestly expect us to still support you? This isnt the first time youve promised the game is still being made with little to show. Honestly, were not sure where to set our expectations on community response. Our hope is that there will be an understanding and a rebuilding of trust that we can start on. But we know weve burned many of you one too many times and we get it. Were going to do everything we can to be open and honest moving forward, and when we cant be open on something, were going to do everything we can to explain why. We/I hope youll stick with us and that we can convince the people we burned to come back. What can you tell me about these planned playtests? Only a little bit at the moment, as I dont want to overpromise. If youre interested in signing up to take part in a potential test, you can find our survey here. We are favoring people local to Bordeaux for now, but we encourage everyone interested to sign up as well begin building online tests from this information as well. When is Orphan Age launching? Will it be in Early Access? I cant say. We and our publisher are very happy with the progress weve made, but we have a few more major milestones to hit before anyone is comfortable announcing any plans. OK, will plans be confirmed before the end of 2023? I sure hope so! But I wont commit us to any dates, even for an announcement of an announcement. (Making and promoting games is a thing, let me tell ya.) Whats next? Well, this thread will remain open to further questions that I didnt consider while writing this. Our Discord will also continue to be an open hub for discussions, though I am in the process of overhauling it because theres simply a lot of fluff and superfluous or out-of-date information. Well be better utilizing our Steam forums as well, as theyve been dormant for far too long. Beyond that, Ill be doing a better job monitoring our various platforms, being more active on socials, and planning out our first community/backer playtesting session. Before I go, here is a look at what Orphan Age looks like now compared to what it looks like in our Steam demo. As you can see, we've made great strides to adjust the art style, the UI, and much more. In an upcoming update I plan to dive a bit deeper into these adjustments, so please stay tuned! Demo
Now

Again, thank you all for your patience. We hope this can be a new beginning for us all.

[ 2023-08-24 13:18:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

The long-awaited moment has arrived! Orphan Age finally gets an update!!! Before listing the changes, let me tell you why did we had to wait so long for this update. At the end of 2019 we did several long playtest series to understand how to improve the game. When we made a list of everything that needed to be done, we realized that it would take us ten years to get a proper version of the game. Unless we expand the crew... In 2020, we went looking for funding to bring more people to the project. It took us a while because of a pandemic but the team is almost complete and there are about ten of us working on Orphan Age. As soon as the team is assembled, we'll be happy to introduce you to the new pirates! Anyway, when the new programmers arrived it became clear that we had to rethink the architecture of the project. On top of that the designers wanted to add more RPG components to the game. So, we set out to completely reboot Orphan Age. Which brings us to this first update, which is only the first of many and will allow us to check the stability of the new game foundations. In practice, the game is pretty much the same as before in this patch, but there are some nice surprises in store for June. Most of the changes are made to the back end so their hard to notice. That being said, this patch is the first of a series that should completely change the game this summer. Let's go through the patch note:

• A new build menu that is clearer than before
• New characters avatars (that change depending on the orphans mood)
• Eat UI (you can now choose what to eat)
• Quest book (new design)
• Refuel system for campfires
• Skills system: there's a new level up system and advanced attribute
• Jobs: every orphan now pursue dream jobs which allows them to perform better certain actions (character classes)
• Leisure system: Leisure is a new need to oversee leisure actions are now possible
• Revamped behaviour, we have a new AI for the orphans which will be upgraded along patches
• Traits have been reworked and should not cause bugs anymore
• Actions have been revamped. They have now difficulty based on orphan skills and yield...
• Critical successes and failures!
• Cooking and mixing system in order to discover and cook your favorite recipes
• Needs have also been reworked; we are trying a new way to display them in the UI that should be clearer
• Health has been reworked and replaces hygiene. You can now get hurt or sick and there's a healing system that will be unveiled next month
• Doors can now be opened and closed with a new locking system
• Social Interactions have been completely reworked, you have now new interactions between orphans (chat, cheer, play, comfort...)
• A new dialog, emoji based with a new dialog editor which will allow us to bring in the next update lots of discussion about...
• Favorites. Now every orphan has favorite food, animals (...)
• Furniture have been reworked and should not be bugged anymore. They have now durability and must be repaired from time to time
• A new character model has been integrated for the little sister

Next month will be crazy since we are going to implement some radical changes to the game! We are super excited about this long due update. Since every system was in shambles it was impossible to update before. We thank you for your patience and hope you're as excited as us about the future of Orphan Age. This update is only available on Windows but we'll correct this issue with our future patches! Have fun mateys! Team Black Flag

[ 2021-05-04 16:30:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Let's go for the biggest update Orphan Age has ever known! Buckle up, it's going to be a long trip! First of all, the Black Flag's crew has grown and we are no longer a two men team! We are super glad to welcome Daniel, Florent, Martin, Laura and Harry on board. Thanks to them, we were able to add a lot of new things to Orphan Age and speed up our development process! Thanks also to Francisc who organized long test sessions to allow us to improve the interface of Orphan Age!
So, let's go for the patch note: New features:

• Cooking is now possible!
• New portraits for the orphans
• New furniture to be built
• New level up system
• New loot system
• A hope meter helping you to better manage your orphans' hope.

Thanks to your feedback we have completely changed many in game systems:

• Redesign of the craft
• (Almost)Complete redesign of the interface
• Complete overhaul of resources and storage
• Redesign of the tutorial
• complete rebalancing of the game

Backend improvments:

• Update of the game design tools
• Refactoring of all game actions
• New save system (which will allow you to keep your backups for future updates)

New feedback on many actions to make the game clearer:

• Feedback on the death of an orphan
• Feedback on furniture construction
• Feedback on quests
• Feedback on Hope's change
• Feedback on the change in the environment value of the rooms

There are still some bugs and we have planned to fix them by the start of November. Oh by the way, please come on discord where we often post polls about in game art and design! Thanks a lot and have fun!

[ 2020-10-08 16:00:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ahoy, everyone! The latest alpha update is live and brings a lot of bug fixes and optimization, so the game should run way better now! Heres the list of the bug fixes:

• FIX: Can't eat despite having picnic spot
• FIX: Can't wash even with ingredients in stock
• FIX: Black screen (except UI)
• FIX: Orphans won't craft
• FIX: Nobody can craft crowbar
• FIX: Breaking In Quest
• FIX: Crowbar quest
• FIX: Can't find tool kit for the workshop
• FIX: Can't send orphan in expedition (button doesn't work)
• FIX: Building Furniture stop before end
• FIX: Stash quest tooltip is cut "gather resources ne"
• FIX: Coffee table building
• FIX: Can't collect food
• FIX: Orphans walk in circle in order to speak/play
• FIX: Can't build barrel bed
• FIX: Needs are hard to "go up" (especially tiredness)
• FIX: Stuck while perform an action
• FIX: Save corrupted after game over
• FIX: Glitch out saying "Enter Item description" over picnic spot
• FIX: Can't scroll in build or stock menus
• FIX: Component storage is buggy
• FIX: Build List keep goin back to top
• FIX: Can't build hopscotch
• FIX: Workshop can't be build
• FIX: Settings panel (audio, quality settings etc...)

And with that, more optimization: optimized city building meshes faster room rendering general optimizations improved UI performance improved text rendering quality revamped settings screen new graphic settings You can try it now and tell us what you think! Have fun! steamhappy PS: during the last few months we realized than Orphan Age has gotten too big for a two men team and we spent a lot of time finding the right pirates to join the Black Flag crew. The team is now almost complete and we'll do a proper introduction real soon!

[ 2020-08-03 15:02:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Last time, we announced that the studio had decided to recruit other talents to speed up the production of the game... Good news: the team is now complete! We'll introduce you to the new crew members soon, but for now, we need you. In order to improve your gaming experience, we will need as many Orphan Age players as possible to fill out this form : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRr2T3BSEfCHOpj9pvbji_qIOt6UHB13L2a4tFY-CLwo4UVg/viewform. If you've played the alpha or even the demo, your opinion matters to us! Also, feel free to tell us how you feel about topics that have not been mentioned in this questionnaire in the comments or on our Discord server. Thank you for your help which will be very useful to us! The Black Flag Crew

[ 2020-05-27 11:59:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, everyone! We hope you're all well! With this confinement everyone has to deal with, our studio has not been spared either. Indeed, everything is a bit more complicated so we're running late on our update schedule. Besides, we feel we can't meet the expectations that have been set if there are only two of us in the team. To correct the situation, we have therefore planned to recruit people to expand the team and speed up production. Once we have recruited everyone we need, we will introduce you to the team!
By the way, we're looking for a Unity C# Gameplay Programmer who has already worked on a game and have an appetite for system games. - Remote work possible, full-time work as employee or freelance possible. - Contract starting in May. More info here : https://sites.google.com/studioblackflag.com/black-flag-is-hiring/accueil Please send us your applications at contact@studioblackflag.com if you want to join us and work on a great project! And don't worry, in the meantime we're working hard to fix the current bugs and we'll have good news soon! Thank you for your understanding and your support, and rest assured that we're doing our best to make Orphan Age a great game! Take care!

[ 2020-04-22 12:46:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, The new 20.02 update for Orphan Age is now available!
We have updated from Unity 2018 to the latest version => 2019.3. This version allows us to upgrade the graphical engine from standard rendering to high definition render pipeline which comes with State-of-the-Art possibilities, tools and features. All the lighting and atmosphere has been remade for every scene. So, what's new with the HD Render Pipeline ? Better overall graphics quality. Better lighting & accurate shadows. More realistic effects in post processing. Game render scalability in the long run. Finer graphical optimizations. A final render closer to our visual references Better particles system and VFX Volumetric lighting and fog Bug fixes : Escape menu buttons doesn't work (Main menu & Exit). Better highlights management on furniture & buildings. Launch expedition button doesn't work. Sometimes orphans don't want to finish build (should be fixed...) Better display of colliders while building furniture. Orphans refuse to eat/wash (should be fixed...) Can't close binding keys' window in settings.
If you want to leave us any feedback or discuss the game you can do it on Discord or on the forum! We hope you'll like this update, and we can't wait to have your feedback! Enjoy! The Black Flag Crew PS: new updates are coming soon so stay tuned!

[ 2020-02-19 12:35:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here is a list! New game always start on day 1 (sometimes it would start on day 15) The Hope meter now displays the accurate Hope value Building furniture no longer prevent orphens from using storage units All storage units have been fixed and can be used properly When you click on a quest, it now unfolds properly The Quest "build a Stash" has been fixed, you can now go further into the furniture tree! There is more food to loot Adding more loot variety in the city Fixed issues with loading of corrupted autosaves Visually upgrade of the enemy outpost Tooltips are acurately shown when you return from expedition Several Load/Save issues have been fixed Enemy AI has been updated (in order to prepare the next patch) Several fixes to the tutorial's interface The following patch will be pretty big. We will switch to Unity's new HD render pipeline which will not only upgrade the graphics, but will also allow us to bring more visual effects and feedback. There will also be a huge AI update with new enemies and stealth options! Please join us on Discord to share your feedback or submit bug reports! See you soon for the next update! Layar & Ouroboros

[ 2019-11-19 10:08:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Orphan Age's biggest update ever is live! After many months of hard work, we are very happy to present this new iteration of Orphan Age. We are aware there are some issues with the game but a hotfix is coming as soon as we can! So, what's new? :infamy: Expeditions have been visually upgraded and revamped! It's not 100% finished, but you'll have a better idea of where we want to go. We'll next work on exploration of the buildings and adding more enemies in a near future. :infamy: Storage remade from scratch! Two new types of storage have been added, the first one being consumables (1 time use resources) :
Raw food / ingredients
Meals : we'll work on cooking in a future update
Soap: used for hygiene
Meds: used to cure illnesses
Bandaids: Used to heal wounds The second type is construction resources:
Junk: Broken stuff that can be deconstructed into useful resources
Scraps: basic and low quality crafting and construction stuff
Components: main ressources to build higher tier stuff, they can be crafted.
Unique: Uncraftable rare resources
Tools: consumed by crafting stations, can be crafted. We believe this new system will offer more depth while being clearer. :infamy: New quests: we have entirely remade our quest tool which allow us to bring more quests and ditch the previous and rather boring research system! The UI has been updated too! :infamy: New content: we now have 17 furniture to build and 15 more are coming with the next update! :infamy: Dozens of bugs have been squashed and a lot of polish and optimization has been done too! Oh! Last but not least, we also have updated the website which will allow you to join he Alpha! http://orphan-age.com/ As usual please share your feedback here and the bugs and issues with the in game tool! We hope you'll love this gigantic update! :withlove: Have fun!

[ 2019-10-18 14:09:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi, this is Maxime & Adrien from Black Flag, if you are reading this, it's because a new version of Orphan Age and its demo is available! So, what's on the menu? Lots of good news! First of all, we have started the complete redesign of the interface: the texts are larger, more spaced and more readable. We have also reorganized the information to make it easier to read. We have also improved the tutorial and the general ergonomics.
In order to enter the more pleasant controls, there is no longer any need to right-click on the objects to interact with them, a simple hover is enough!
We have started to completely redesign the quest system and we hope to be able to publish it next month! The next update will focus on HOPE. Hope represents the willingness of orphans to continue to search for their parents. Each event, each successful or failed quest will affect everyone's Hope. But if Hope falls to zero, the Orphans will abandon the orphanage and the game will be over. Hope will put the emphasis on survival and it is the last major gameplay brick missing from Orphan Age. This means that from May onwards, we hope to focus on adding content and polish in order to consider a release later in the year! In the middle of these important announcements, we also fixed a lot of bugs, here is a non-exhaustive list:

• Non responsive or bugged buttons
• You can now delete your previous save game
• The auto saves are now limited to 5
• The Button to select an Orphan has been fixed
• The looted objects now have their proper names displayed
• Most of the numerous exploration bugs has been squashed
• You now start without a resource storage you have to survive on your own now!

Please leave us any feedback here on in Discord and don't forget to use the in game bug tracker on the top of the screen if you have any issue! Cheers! Adrien & Maxime PS: you might want to clean your previous saves in the load menu. Very old saves can create issues with exploration. :)

[ 2019-04-09 09:20:02 CET ] [ Original post ]