To say that March is going to be crazy for us here at ArkCo is an understatement! We are gearing up for our appearance at PAX, as well as ramping up development on Edge of Space. At our livestream with Destructoid last week, we had a big announcement in the form of a challenge to the community: If Edge of Space can get through the next pull for Greenlight, lead developer Jacob Crane will shave his hair, and his beard! No more shaggy for "Lord Shaggy!" King Foom immediately jumped at the opportunity, and snatched up the right to livestream the shaving, should the goal be met! We need everyone out spreading the word, to get the challenge out there and help us finally push over the top and get on Steam!

We are also very happy to announce our first Test Key Weekend next weekend! We are going to invite anyone that wants to test the game for a weekend to come and join us March 8th-10th to experience the game for the weekend, FREE! While the game doesn't lend itself to making a demo, because of the very rapid development, we felt this was a great solution, and will allow people to see how the game plays for them!

The madness doesn't even stop there, far from it! We have also just announced our first ArkCoNaut of the Month, thanking a special fan each month for their contributions to our community. Winners will be granted a special forum tag, as well as a Collectors' Edition copy of Edge of Space. We want to recognize our amazing fans, out there every day helping make the community the wonderful experience it is. It was not easy to pick one from so many, and we feel truly blessed to have such great people around us.

There is so much coming up that we can't even share yet, but suffice it to say that it's going to be VERY exciting! This is a very good time for everyone to get in and sign up for our forums, to be the first to hear everything that's coming.

http://www.playedgeofspace.com/community/index.php



With everything getting so very busy, Jake wanted to take the time to share the following with the community:

Jake:

Hey everyone! It has been a crazy couple of weeks and things have been progressing well. We are now getting our heads down into the nitty gritty for PAX. For those of you who do not know, it's a big deal and we will be there with our own shiny booth showing off EoS!

So we have announced that we are going to not do the stream this week. This is because of all the preparations for a really hard push for PAX are being made. March is going to be a really focused time and that means you might see less of the crew around as we are tucking in to really push forward.

As it stands we might still stream next Saturday, but patches and patch schedules are going to be as soon as we feel it's ready. Keep your eyes out as various patches will be coming through.

We are going to be putting in all of our might to make all ArkCo recruits proud during PAX showing. During this time we are going to need YOUR help. Since we can not get out as much, we need you
making videos, getting active, and getting others active. It's going to be a tough few weeks for us and we ask you to bear with us as we work our brains dead!

ATMOSPHERE DOES NOT MAKE ITSELF!!!


Thanks for reading our somewhat extended version of the news, and stay awesome!! See you guys in space!

ArkCo Weekly News #12


At ArkCo, we definitely love our surprises! Just two days ago we rolled out our newest patch, which was primarily increasing the performance of the game through Paul's coding wizardry. Still, we couldn't resist sneaking in a few goodies, such as a brand new spawn animation, spawn pod, and even the first 3 holopets that have abilities beyond just looking cute! The "firefox" pet has already become a community favorite, lighting the way in dark places and helping ArkCoNauts venture deeper into the dark caves where resources are more likely to hide. Along with him come our nurse cat, who heals you along the way, and our beetle, who keeps you charged with plenty of energy as you explore. They are just a glimpse into some of the ways pets will help their masters.

For our question of the week, we asked Jake to talk about what else we might see from Edge of Space's little companions.

Q:Can you tell us a bit more about the pets, and what players might
see from them in the future?

A: Jake: Holopets will come with a variety of slight bonuses to help the player along. As seen, we currently have 3 test pets out that actually serve purposes. Other kinds of purpose that they can offer could be buffing various stats on the player, procing effects, group buffs, ect. Holopets are meant to be supportive but not necessarily crazy powerful additions. They are an extension of a utility, because sometimes its nice to get that little extra bit of energy/health/light/exposure resistance etc, when you need it.




On the community side this week, we are gearing up for a special livestream event Monday night at 7PM EST, when we appear on Destructoid's livestream! We have cooked up a wonderful surprise to show off, and we also have a very special announcement that will be made during the stream. Both should prove to be very interesting, and more than a little crazy, but that's the Handyman way!

This week we want to take time to remind everyone about Steam Greenlight. Please don't forget about it! This battle is far from over, and every single vote counts. We're gaining momentum, but we have to rise to the challenge and hold that level of interest. Vote, get your family and friends to vote, and don't let up! We need the community behind us now more than ever. You can find the Greenlight page here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92913728


Keep your eye on the community this next week, as several big announcements come your way! Thanks for reading, and stay awesome!

ArkCo Weekly News #11 - Networking!

The key word here at ArkCo this week is definitely networking, both in terms of Edge of Space, and in the community! Following Monday's huge feature patch, it's back to fine tuning the game to continue to improve performance. The next patch will be less visible to the users, but the introduction of features such as exposure,outposts generating in the world, armor with exposure defense stats, and atmosphere generators has pushed the game closer to a sense of progression. No longer is it possible to jump off the edge of a planetoid and freefall to the lower layers of the world. We are happy with the more challenging feel coming into the game, as it presents you with more reason to spend time playing.




This has also been an exciting week for us on the social side, as we have had an opportunity to reach out and meet many other indie game developers. We are especially excited to have met "Grim" Gary Blauvelt, developer of project Epica Rex, currently in it's InideGoGo campaign. Tonight's livestream will be a treat to fans of both Epica Rex and Edge of Space, as Gary joins us to talk about his game, and spend some time playing Edge of Space. The ability to reach out to fellow developers, and work together to support each other is one of the most enriching aspects of the indie development community. It is wonderful to see the Epica Rex community, as well as others, joining us on the irc.indieirc.net network and helping to make it a true home for indie gamers!

This week, we pulled lead developer Jake Crane away from his work briefly, to ask him our first question of the week, something we will include in the newsletter each week!

Q: What is one feature of Edge of Space that people can look forward to seeing in the next couple of patches? Can you tell us a bit about it?

A: Jacob: The next patches will be focused on further battle hardening, networking and making sure everything is stable while moving in more content for testing.We moved in a lot of systems with the two week patch, so we want to ensure that everything is ship shape before we start doing the large content implementations. We're also working on a something special behind the scenes that should be exciting when we release it.

What would an indie game studio be without secrets? Be sure to keep an eye on the community for announcements. Our forums are always open, and updated often!


http://www.playedgeofspace.com/community/index.php

Thanks for reading, and stay awesome!

ArkCo Weekly News #10

Wow! ArkCo news #10 already! Hard to believe we've been writing that long, but it's pretty exciting. What started out as a recap to things we posted during the week, has evolved into a chance to talk with players and newcomers alike, and present the ever changing picture of Edge of Space, and where it's going. The game is coming together so well now, it's surprising even to us! We've mentioned before that sometimes things just flow together so well, even better than expected, and that's absolutely been the case over the last couple of weeks. The frameworks that we put in place as the foundations for the core features are really paying off. Lead designer/CEO Jake even remarked, "Things are coming together TOO well!" It's been a question of where to stop for the next patch, trying not to include so much that players would be overwhelmed. It's a great position to be in as a developer, not worried about having enough content, but instead having so much to choose from.


This week we're very excited to show players the new UI! The community has been awaiting a much more organized crafting menu, as well as a system that is more than a placeholder. We are very happy with the look and feel of it, and look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts as they get hands on time with it. Barring any explosions in the labs, we hope to have our beta players in game with this earlynext week. It will definitely be a different experience this time around, with the game taking on so much more of it's own personality, and moving closer to our vision for the launch version. We won't give too much away here, but this patch will have quite a bit more to talk about!




Never satisfied with just the announced patch features, we are extremely excited for the weekly livestream tonight. We have plenty of secrets and surprises to unveil tonight! Not only will we be streaming tonight, but Tuesday, February 12th, we will be joining Ariablarg on Twitch TV for plenty of fun with Edge of Space. It's always a pleasure to spend time with other communities and meet new people! It's an amazing feeling to have interest in the game on the rise, and to see so many people enjoying it now. We feel very blessed to have the community that we do, and all the support that we get every day.

Our virtual doors are always open, and we want to remind you all that you're always welcome to come chat with us at irc.indieirc.net #edgeofspace, or visit our forums to see what else we're up to!

http://www.playedgeofspace.com/community/index.php

Stay awesome, and we'll see you in space! Thanks for reading!

ArkCo Weekly News #9

If there is one thing you can say about indie game development, it's that there is never a dull moment. Even when things appear quiet to the public, behind the scenes, things are as busy as can be. Last week, we rolled out one of our bigger patches, putting our weapons, pets glass walls, chests, and even some drastic visual changes into the hands of players. This has allowed us to go back and buckle down to work on the next patch, to update the games UI. This will bring drastic visual and performance updates to the game, making the menus and interfaces that much easier to use.

With another week ahead of us before patch day, there is more than enough going on to keep everyone, especially our community, busy and happy! Starting Monday, we will start looking for our first Fan Spotlight build, to feature the amazing things our players are doing in game. We have been delighted so many times already by the creativity and incredible patience some of our ArkCoNauts have poured into the game. We have even had players build functional binary adders in the power grid! Talk about dedication! It's a great feeling to see everyone having such a great time with Edge of Space, and we can't wait to recognize our fans and their hard work!



This week brought changes to our IRC network as well, as they re-branded from Icedawn, to IndieIRC. What might seem a small change also presents a great opportunity. The indie spirit has always been about indie devs sticking together, and doing what they can to learn from and support one another. We hope that a network made for indie communities will become a gathering place for meeting other devs and giving all of us a chance to meet new people! The more gaming communities we can link into the network, the more gamers will get a chance to learn about games they otherwise might not have. We're definitely happy with our IRC home!

In addition to our other happenings, we're replacing tonight's livestream with a live Q&A session with Jake, hosted by our new friends at GlobalGamers. We're hoping for a good, and very inquisitive crowd, and we're happy for a chance to answer plenty of questions about the game, it's development, our community, and all things Edge of Space. Excited fans are also flocking to our Facebook page, as our publisher, Reverb, has launched an incredible sweepstakes to toss free copies of the game at fans, every 100 likes! We're happy to be getting so many new faces in the community, and we can't wait to welcome our new players!


As always, we want to encourage everyone to keep up with us during the week, between updates,
and come hang out with us! Our forums are always open, and so is our live chat, so don't be shy!

http://www.playedgeofspace.com/community/index.php

Thanks for reading, and stay awesome, ArkCoNauts!

ArkCo Weekly News #8

It has been a tremendously busy week for us at ArkCo! Development has really picked up, and Edge of Space is coming together very well. In some ways it's been BETTER than expected. We are finding that the extra time we spent earlier on, ensuring our core features were working the best that they could be, is translating to a much easier time implementing the more advanced systems. This week's upcoming patch is a prime example. As we worked on the game's new modular weapons system, the team got a bit distracted by discovering that the "holopet" system would be easier to put in than we had anticipated. Since we know that travels in space can be a lonely line of work, we dove right in and got the pet system functioning in time to go in with the weapons patch today, provided nothing blows up on us! We look forward to seeing our ArkCoNauts meeting new friends throughout the world as they explore! Here is a picture of our core engineer, Paul, with his Dice Droid "Blinky":



Quite the odd little fellow, isn't he? You never know what you will find out there in the far reaches of space! The observant viewer will notice something else drastically different in the above screen: a drastic overhaul of the game's tile graphics and blending. For quite some time we had heard community members and critics alike decrying the "blocky" look of the tiles in Edge of Space. The feeling we were trying to convey, of the biome's properties "overtaking" the terrain, seemed to be translating into a more grid-like appearance to the world. With this feedback in mind, we revisited the system, and looked for a better, more well-blended approach. The answer we settled on was to remove the effects that were biome specific, except on the surface layer of the area. The effect has beaten our expectations for how much better the game could look, and we look forward to seeing the community's response to the new style.


On the Community side of things, our growth has definitely been more visible as well. New members have been flocking to the IRC, forums, and other social sites. To celebrate this, we wanted to give a much more involved feeling to our forums in particular. For that we introduced our new ArkCo Divisions. Users can now opt-in to a position within ArkCo, giving them not only a fun forum title for roleplay, but also opening the door to fun possibilities down the road, such as competitive gameplay, chances to design something for the game, and many surprises to come that will make the role you choose come into play. Our community team has definitely been busy putting it all into place.

As if the patch hadn't kept the team busy enough, we also introduced our Edge of Space Wiki last week. No longer will players have to scour the internet in search of help for any of the game's features. We felt it was high time to bring out a one-stop site for guides, FAQ's and tutorials. As it evolves, it will also feature lists of the creatures, items, weapons, armor and more. Many players have already expressed their thanks for having a wiki to get them through the learning curve. You can check it out here:

http://playedgeofspace.com/wiki/m/index.php?title=Main_Page



Today will be a busy one to be sure, as patch days always are, but we look forward to taking a step back tonight to enjoy gameplay with the community on our livestream. As a developer there is nothing more satisfying than seeing first hand the enjoyment your game is bringing to its players. We have included a surprise in the patch that we think will make everyone very happy! As we get back to work, we just want to say as always that everyone is welcome to stop by our forums between blogs, to keep up to date with what's been going on and what's to come.

http://www.playedgeofspace.com/community/index.php

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week for the ArkCo Weekly News!