Announcing Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars

Check out the trailer here.



Happy Gaming!

Ana

Thanks, Ana. I like the music.

Ana

Looks interesting, thanks, BrownEyedTigre

Thanks Ana. Will check it out.

Thanks for the post, Ana!

I don’t want to waste everyone’s time with a ton of self-promotion on this site; because I’d rather just chat about adventure games themselves, so I’ll do this one thread and periodically update with big news from time to time but I’ll keep most of that to our blog, newsletter, and social media feeds.

Anyway, “Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars” is a point & click built in Unity3D with the Adventure Creator system and it’s based off of a short story that I was plunking around with over 10 years ago. I would work on it for awhile, realize that I didn’t really know how to tell that narrative, and put it away.

It was in 2012 when I was playing through a bunch of old Sierra games that it finally clicked. I COULD tell the story the way I wanted to in an adventure game setting. I gave my brother a ring, I hashed out the story outline and the design doc in a couple of months and began prototyping.

I had a bunch of my own systems in place but they were all rudimentary and…to be frank…not all that great. Once Adventure Creator was released, all bets were off. I’ve been in active production on this thing in my off-hours for a couple of years. This involved building out locations, creating levels, tweaking systems, building shaders, texturing, modeling, animating, etc, etc, etc…

While I still have a long way to go, I’m at a point now that I feel comfortable showing it off and talking about it a bit more.

Thanks for the read!
-Zack

Thanks Ana.

Zack!

Thanks for the update. Good luck on the progress of the game.

to GameBoomers Zack!

Ana

to GameBoomers, Zack. I was interested to read your background information on the game.

Hi Zack
The game looks fantastic. I'm looking forward to it. Keep up the excellent work.

Cathy

Zack. The game does indeed look fantastic. Looking forward to more info as it progresses.

Thanks so much for the great support, all!

If you want to keep up to date on a more regular basis, feel free to follow us:

Webpage - http://www.winternightgames.com/blog/
FB - https://www.facebook.com/winternightgames/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/WinterNightGame
Newsletter - http://eepurl.com/bEYtJf

Hope you all are having a great week and if you celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving, I hope you eat yourself silly!

I must be missing it but I don't see any info on whether this is a First Person or Third Person game. Maybe I have over looked it somewhere.

Hey GreyFuss!

It's Third Person. Some puzzles take a first person perspective, but it's primarily fixed camera with the player moving around in scene. Once you hit the scene's edge, it'll either shift to a new camera perspective or track the player's movement.

I actually just updated the game info on the page to make sure people knew that it's Third Person. Thanks for that!

-z

Thanks, Zack!

Ana

Going to keep my eye on this one... thanks for the info

Thank you Zack

Thanks for the info Zack, and good luck with your game!

to GameBoomers, Zack Continued success with the game, it seems like a must buy for me.

Zack, good luck with your game. I'm looking forward to playing it!

*snorts awake*

AHHH!!

So...Um...I've been quiet lately...a little *too* quiet, if you ask me.

Just wanted to ping everyone about Arkhangel. It's still going strong and we are looking to (hopefully) release at the end of this year. I'm past alpha and pretty much at a "beta" stage. I'm working with the composer now to finalize musicians and recording sessions, doing some finalizing tweaks to puzzles and gameflow (although, you can play the game all the way through now), starting work on cinematics (eesh...that's going to be the time consuming one at this point), and crushing bugs.

We recently overhauled our webpage:
www.winternightgames.com

We also released the official artwork for the game:
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/59...Art_Full_v2.png

We're getting there!

Great to hear it's still being worked on! Looking good!

Ana

Hey all!

I put together a quick gameplay teaser for Arkhangel. Check it out if you get the chance!

This is already using some old footage but I got to the point where I was updating things so rapidly, that I needed to say "ENOUGH" and go through what I had and put something together. Plus, it was just good to take a step back from development and do something linear.

Gameplay Teaser - https://vimeo.com/226576976

Official Page - https://winternightgames.com/arkhangel/

Hope you all are doing well!
-Zack

THanks, Zack!

Ana

Zack. Looking good!

Thanks y'all!

Thanks, Zack. This looks like a very intriguing game.

Hey y'alls!

Just wanted to let you know that the Steam page for Arkhangel is now LIVE! AHHHH!

Check it out and feel free to add it to your wish list!

It'll be out this summer.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/868580/Arkhangel_The_House_of_the_Seven_Stars/

Thanks for the news, Zack!

You betcha!!

Thanks Zack. It looks good. It shows specs as Minimum Windows 10. Is that correct? Will it play on Windows 7?

Hi! It's a Unity game, so it should work fine on Win7. Looking at the min specs for Unity 2018 (which is a newer version than what Arkhangel is built on) and it can go all the way back to Vista. It might not perform as well, but it should run. I'll do some testing!

OK, just wanted to ask the question since some of us have not gone to Win 10 yet, although we'll be forced to soon I guess.

I'll update the Steam page minspec detail! Thanks for that!

Thanks for the news, Zack. It looks great. I've added it to my wish list.

Woohoo! Thanks, venus!

You're welcome, Zack. Looking forward to it.

ARKHANGEL: THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN STARS

July 19th, 2018 – Seattle, WA

Winter Night Games, LLC has announced that its first game, Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars, will be released on Steam for Windows and Mac platforms on Friday, July 27th, 2018.

Michael, Lily, and Gabrielle have recently moved to the frigid town of Haven under tragic circumstances. As they begin to rebuild their lives in this new home and meet the townsfolk of Haven, they quickly discover that not everything is what it appears to be. Michael struggles with dreams of dark waters and an unknown ancient evil resting beneath the cold waves. Are these simply dreams or are they a premonition of things to come?

Inspired by the classic point & click adventure games of yesteryear, Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars is a story told through the eyes of a family that has recently moved to an isolated town in the frozen wilderness. Explore, unearth dark mysteries, solve puzzles, engross yourself with deep lore, and interact with a large cast of characters in this rich and layered narrative beautifully underscored by a thematic and emotional musical soundtrack by composer and conductor Chad Seiter (ReCore, Super Lucky's Tale, Star Trek, FRINGE, Lego Jurassic World, The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses).

Availability and system requirements:
PC - Windows 10 (Windows 7 SP1+ compatible but unsupported); i3 Core @ 2.9 GHz; 4 GB RAM; Graphics card with DX10 (shader model 4.0) capabilities; 5.2 GB available space.
Mac – macOS Sierra; 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7; 8 GB RAM; 5 GB available space.

Steam store link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/868580/Arkhangel_The_House_of_the_Seven_Stars/

Winter Night Games is an American independent gaming company founded by two weird brothers, Josh and Zachary Quarles, focusing on horror and narrative driven experiences.

Visit us online:
https://winternightgames.com/

For press inquiries:
https://winternightgames.com/press/

Contact:
winternight@winternightgames.com
PO Box 31145
Seattle, WA
98103

Follow Winter Night Games on social media:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/winternightgames/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/WinterNightGame
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/winternightgames/

See you next Friday. :-D

Thanks, Zack. Looking forward to playing it!

Greetings all!

Just a quick note to let you know that Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars is now available on Steam for PC & Mac!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/868580/Arkhangel_The_House_of_the_Seven_Stars/

I recommend the bundle, though, because the soundtrack by Chad Seiter is exceptional:

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/7391/Arkhangel_The_House_of_the_Seven_Stars__Game__Soundtrack/

If you want to check out the launch trailer:
https://youtu.be/U1ZNOKqeqUU

Excited!!

-zq

THREAD NECROMANCY!

Hey everyone. Long time no talk. I've sort of disengaged from all forums but I did at least want to let everyone know that I've released the final major content update for Arkhangel. It's a big one. This finally brings traditional point & click navigation to the game along with a ton of additional updates. There's actually been a number of updates since release. Here's a bullet point list of high level things:

+ Added traditional point & click navigation - This is now the default and recommended method of navigation.
+ Multiple direct input updates including faster turning and transitions and allowing the player to continue walking in the direction they are facing after a camera change if input is still active. The direction will update when the user actively changes their input direction.
+ Added game controller support.
+ Added a run option.
+ Added a method of fast travel that unlocks at a certain point of the game.
+ Interface updates that include opening the inventory on a hotspot interaction.
+ Updated Menu Flow & Tutorial
+ Inventory redesign.
+ Adjusted and revamped a ton of camera angles/transitions
+ Reconstructed & revamped many areas to better fit point & click navigation (and just general flow improvements)
+ Steam achievements
+ Several bug fixes and bits of polish throughout including changes to dialogue and some characters.

Here's a video:
https://youtu.be/buWxv1F_X5I

Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/868580/Arkhangel_The_House_of_the_Seven_Stars/
itch.io - https://winternightgames.itch.io/arkhangel-the-house-of-the-seven-stars

Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.
-Zack

We also put together a little video showcasing several user reviews:
https://youtu.be/CQ_Z4ypZmQI

I'll be posting another video later today.

Hi Zack

Great news !!

I played Arkhangel when it was originally released and thoroughly enjoyed it. Just didn't like the rather poor navigation mode.
So .... Wonderful to hear that that has been fixed

Is this new version then a patch or a full replacement ??

Cheers.

Mad

Hey Mad! Thank you so much!

It's somewhere in between. Obviously, the story and all of that stuff is all the same, but there are lots of locations that I completely rebuilt in order to retrofit the point & click navigation mode. Loads of new camera set ups and transitions as well. I think it feels more solid and polished. I will say that I would NOT try loading an old save game after this update. Since there was so much invasive reconstruction, I would have no idea what to expect...so restore pre-1.5 games at your own risk.

Here's a new video we just posted about recording the music for Arkhangel! Think you might enjoy it.

https://youtu.be/Jy95v8Y5T9w

[quote=Zack]Hey Mad! Thank you so much! It's somewhere in between. quote]

Well I burnt the game to disk but I do still have the original files in my Download folder.
So does this new download come with instructions as to how to use it ??
[ I am not a techie person ]

Also .... Is there a charge for the new files ??
I just visited itch.io but couldn't find a specific "update" download.

Of course, if it's a new full game I am willing to pay for it !!

Thanks Zack. I finally installed the game earlier this year but still haven't gotten around to playing it. I have the game from Steam and I was alerted to the update and did it yesterday.

Oh, I see what you mean. So, when you download this, it's a complete replacement. The way Unity handles an update is that it's essentially a new version from top to bottom. I wish that itch.io had a little better communication on updates, but essentially, you just need to download whatever is on the main page for whatever platform you need and run that instead of your old version. If you've already purchased it, there is no additional charge. Just a free update.



Great! Thank you so much!

Would love to hear people's thoughts on it!

Thanks very much, Zack. What excellent news !!

OKAY. Last video from me.

Check out this mini-documentary that we put together to wrap up our video series in honor of the version 1.5 update releasing this week! It goes into the history of Arkhangel and Winter Night Games.

Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/Hgj33WYTsag

Nice history video Zack!

Got the updated version up and running now - with "point & click" working.
A fabulous improvement !! Thank you, Zack

I won't carry on playing right now as I already have three games on the go. But I will no doubt make this my next "new" one

[Still no walkthrough anywhere that I can find, however, so I just know I'll probably get stuck in all the same places I did with the original version once I do get going ]

Thanks all!!

Hi!

At the suggestion of Mad, I have added a full walkthrough for Arkhangel on our site:
https://winternightgames.com/arkhangel-walkthrough

I tried to keep it as spoiler-free as possible. Just the facts.

Thank you so much!

Ana

Fantastic !!!! Thank you Zack

Great! Thanks Zack!

I'm going to post in glitches about a problem with this game but just in case Zack shows up...