Why The Name Change?
We’re sure this will be the biggest question so we’ll jump right into it. First, a bit of background is needed.
When development on Project Orion started over two years ago the name was simply a placeholder. It was a code name of sorts, which many games have when they start development. However, as time went on we grew fond of the name, and when it came time to decide on an official one we quickly agreed to stick with Project Orion.
Project Orion served the game well throughout our college years and beyond. It wasn’t a perfect name; it did not have great search engine results (the NASA nuclear propulsion project of the same name being primarily to blame), and there were a couple games out there with similar names. It was one of those games that really forced us to make the decision to change the name. Recently this game garnered significant media and community attention, and regardless of what the proverb says, there is such thing as bad publicity. Especially when people begin mistaking your game for the one getting all the bad press.
With the indie game market being so crowded we couldn’t afford to have people dismiss our game out of hand as “that game with all those problems”. Indie games rely heavily on word of mouth for visibility and community building; having a name that is already tainted in people’s minds just isn’t an option.
Arkin?
For those who haven’t read too much about the game (or had a chance to play the Alpha) the name might be a bit of a mystery. Just like Project Orion, Arkin has serious significance in the game’s story.
The Arkin are a race of hostile aliens seemingly intent on destroying every trace of humanity in the galaxy. Their motivations are completely unknown. Even the nature of their race is unknown; are they organic, machine, or something entirely different? Do they function as individuals, or as a hive mind? As the pilot of the Orion, the only ship even remotely close to the technological level of the Arkin, you and your battlegroup are the the sword and shield of humanity in this new conflict.
New Trailer
To accompany the name change we’ve been working hard to prepare a new gameplay trailer. Having been several months since we last released a video we’re very excited to show you how much has changed. Its short and sweet, and we hope you find it as awesome as we wanted it to be!
What's Next
We will be releasing a new dev blog in the next few days. It will be a bit shorter than normal due to the work that has gone into the rebranding but we still have some interesting updates for you. We also expect to be releasing the new Alpha 0.3.4 build to our testers shortly. We’ve just got a few things to wrap up before we can take care of some final testing and get it out the door.
As always if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, let us know! You can reach us through our official forum, Steam, Facebook, Twitter, email, or leave a comment here. Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next time!
- The Arkin Team
Links
Want to know more about Arkin? Visit our website for more info about the game and the full Dev Blog archive.
