Hey everyone!

OrbitEngine 0.3 is out, and it's available to everyone. No more closed testing: you can download it right now.

It's the biggest update OrbitEngine has ever had. Huge thanks to everyone who tested the previous builds. A lot of what's in this release was shaped by your feedback. Here's what's new.

🎞️ 2D animation

OrbitEngine now has a real timeline: tracks, keyframes and scrubbing, plus an easing curve editor to get the motion just right. You can shake the screen, zoom, flash, add parallax backgrounds and 2D particles, and give your characters animated expressions. Animations behave properly with rollback and skip, so they never get stuck halfway.

🦴 Skeletal animation, built in

This one took me the longest, and I'm really happy with it. You can rig and animate characters directly in the editor, with no Spine or Live2D licence needed.

I spent extra time on the beginner workflow. You start a rig from a PNG, cut it into parts, bind them to bones, and a step bar guides you through it. Drag and drop works everywhere. Advanced users still get meshes, weight painting, IK, skins and animation clips.

🎨 Your own UI

Menus, HUD, screens, splash screens: everything is now designed visually. You get image buttons, a visual style editor and a fully styleable dialogue box, so your game no longer has to look like every other VN.

🏆 Achievements & 🎙️ voice acting

• Achievements: an "Unlock" node, a toast notification, an achievements screen and locked icons. Unlocks persist across playthroughs.
• Voice acting: a voice per line and per language, auto mode that waits for the voice to finish, a replay button, and batch import to set up hundreds of lines in one go.

There's also a gallery and scene replay, so players can come back to their favourite moments.

🧠 Scripting (optional!)

If you want minigames or tricky logic, you can now write Rhai scripts. They run in a sandbox and even work on the web, and there's a little dice duel example to get you started. For deeper customisation, Rust plugins let you add your own nodes.

But to be clear: you can still make a whole game without writing a single line of code. That doesn't change.

📱 Android & more

• Android export (APK/AAB) joins Web, Windows and Linux.
• Localization tools: PO/CSV exchange, outdated-translation detection, plus CJK and right-to-left text.
• Accessibility: text size, high contrast, reduced motion, gamepad support and screen readers.
• Text view: edit your story as plain text if you prefer typing.
• Project templates, a built-in manual (EN/FR), a profiler (press F3 in game) and an even smaller web build.
• The editor layout is reorganised into tool workspaces, so it's less cluttered.

🧊 3D (experimental)

You can import glTF models and build 3D scenes with lights, shadows and a skybox, then put your 2D characters and dialogue on top. It's still rough, so it's hidden behind an experimental switch for now. Turn it on if you're curious, and please tell me what breaks!

🔒 Your games keep working

Projects and saves from 0.1 and 0.2 still load in 0.3. You can upgrade without fear.

Get it now

⬇️ Download OrbitEngine 0.3 on the project page (Windows & Linux).

Made something with it? Found a bug? Got an idea? Come tell me on the Discord. Your feedback decides what comes next.

Thanks a lot to everyone who's been following the project. Seeing people actually make stories with this thing is what keeps me going ❤️

See you in the next devlog!