Greetings Pioneers!

Another development report coming right your way! with insights into further progress on the Island, a vicious flying creature and other goings on.

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have continued with the work to move functionality out of blueprint and into code. I’ve also been working on making sure I stamp on any new bugs this has created.

Tristan – Senior Developer

I have been fixing some bugs with the power and build systems – like telling turrets that have power that they are actually allowed to shoot at enemies and not just to use my power. Pesky turrets.

Joe – Environment Artist

This week I’ve done an initial pass of Onyx placement for the Island edges of the new map. I’ve also worked on Post Process effects and fixed a bunch of issues that were introduced when the Rock shader was refactored.

 

John – Lead Designer

This week we have been finalising the progression designs and working through the initial balancing pass on the on the upgrade system in order to review implementation feasibility. I’m also currently working with the team to keep production tight and so far we are on track to release the new build system by the end of next week.
If we can also get the new foliage system finalised with all of the ‘take damage’ functionality, we may be also able to release an update to the current map for people to play around in. My next focus for this week coming will be to nail down the final progression designs (all of the buildings and player loadout changes so that you start weaker, but with new features to balance it – leaving you feeling vulnerable but wanting to progress) and then work towards concepts with Gav Master Flash, AKA. Gav for the aesthetic counterparts.

Yves – Senior Developer

This will be short as I have been recovering from some sort of flesh eating bug in my mouth. I’ve been working fixes for the build, next week is where the magic will properly happen.

Tom – Character Artist

Been working on the Ika’s bigger brother; the IKA Viper!

 

Carlos – Developer

I have been finalising the last few elements of our new HUD, getting them in and working as we want, adding the new ‘fadeability’ functionality to the elements that need it. The new HUD should allow us to turn more post-process effects on and make our wonderful world even shinier and prettier! In addition I’ve been helping Ricky debug the new Build menu to work perfectly.

Matt & Marcin – Art Director, Designer

This week me and Marcin have teamed up to clean up the build so it looks equally as nice as it works. Matt has been working on additional HUD icons for our build system and clean up of visuals for the material surfaces. As well as collision and socket debugging for build, Marcin has also been working away at Juggernaut mechanics. We are one, we are Matcin.

Lauren – Animator

 

The wind is in my hair, sand at my feet, and Sheep everywhere. I appear to have gotten lost on the way to work yesterday…Otherwise I’ve been working on updates to the game guide that will be released next week whilst refining animations for all of our upcoming creatures such as the Walker and Swamp Snake. Alongside this I have been finishing the 3rd person Pioneer smash animations ready for multiplayer.

Andy – Lead QA

I’ve been working with Joe and Matt to get the Onyx cliff rocks placed around the edge of our new map. (FYI, it’s not as easy, or fun, as it looks) I’ve also been testing the new build mechanic and working with the guys to iron out any bugs.

Ricky – Developer

I have had the luxury of revisiting many long untouched UI and HUD systems and refactoring them to work with the many many changes going in for our new build system and multiplayer.

Gav – Concept Artist

This week I’ve been working with one of our other designers on additional creature concepts and a stripped down, basic version of the MATA Tool.

 

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You can keep up with our progress and latest developments via our Trello boards

-Team Flix

 

Greetings pioneers,

Lots of new exciting development info to get through this week, lets get straight to it!

Marcin – Designer

This week I spent the majority of my time doing two things. The first was the setup of the Primitives and other building blocks for the new version of Construction mechanics we are currently working on. The other is the Juggernaut creature, for which I have been implementing new combat mechanics.

The whole idea for the Juggernaut came from the fantasy of challenging and cooperative combat against an enemy that is by nature more powerful than the average Pioneer. I believe a ‘mini-boss’ would be a fairly accurate label. While the small enemies such as Splintermites should be able to overwhelm you with sheer numbers, the Juggernaut’s forte lies in its brute force. This means that managing this threat should require an entirely new set of tactics.

 

For the experience of combat with the Juggernaut, we took inspiration from multi-phase boss battles such as those in ‘Zelda’ and ‘Shadow of the Colossus’. Of course we are not looking for the same scale of the encounter, but more for that moment of realisation that this is the foe you need to step back from for second to consider how to defeat it, because swinging your sword wildly or your regular shower of bullets just simply won’t do.

The MATA Tool plays a huge role in Eden Star and so we had to consider how such a large creature would react to being assaulted with kinetic powers. This involves a lot of new, and plenty of revamped old mechanics that Tristan, Lee, Lauren and I have been working with recently in order put together the Juggernaut’s unique way of being harnessed and smashed; it is simply too large to be pushed around, but it can have its legs pulled from underneath it and collapse to expose its weak spots.

There is of course more to the Juggernaut than just getting tactically beaten up. It has a range of powerful attacks of its own that will prove devastating if the Juggernaut is left to execute them. It can stomp, breath fire, and charge across long distances into you, your friends, and your outpost.

 

Here’s one of the early designs for what the full scope of the Juggernauts interaction could involve. Please keep in mind that it is a work in progress, but when finished, we hope to have a truly formidable opponent for you to fear. Thanks.

The rest of the team have also been continuing work on future features….

John – Lead Designer

This week I have been reviewing and amending the upgrades and system designs, the image below is a little cryptic without the full descriptions of the proposed upgrade modules, but an accurate direction for where I think we want to take it. The general gist surrounds the ability to combo moves and attacks together with the MATA Tool, which would be what the orange bar on the right hand side of your radial HUD is for. Once full, certain devastating AOE abilities and kill moves can be executed all dependant on what combination of modules and nodes are equipped. As ever, this is a work in progress, but feel free to ask any questions in the comments below!

 

Lee – Technical Director

I’ve been finishing up with putting the AI together for the Juggernaut so the art team can start to add the pfx and audio. I’ve also been moving some functionality from blueprints into code to try and help with performance. The new perception component is still work in progress, but this should also help a lot with performance once finished.

Joe – Environment Artist

I’ve been working on revamping all our Landscape and Rock shaders, as well as adding a bunch of new textures and models. I’ve also started placement work on our brand new super-huge map!

 

Andy – Lead QA

This week has been spent working through the bug and issues people from the community have been having, meetings regarding Onyx rock placement in the new level and weeping silently at the concept of this being the last week with my beloved Kyle :’(

Tom – Character Artist

Swamp Walker is now all finished! Here is a closeup of this guy!

 

Chris – Designer

 

This week I’m in Cyprus, commanding the 300, my glorious Spartans! With our beards and lack of man jewelry we strike fear into the heart of the Persian armies, victory will be ours.. for Sparta! – Kefalonidas

Matt – Art Director

A lot of build refactoring has been done this week, nothing fancy to show just yet as we nail down the updated destruction visuals. I’m hoping to put a timelapse video together soon to demonstrate the improved visuals and variety that can now be achieved.

I’ve also been working on a rebrand of the studio logo, updated shaders and material setups for the new enemies, and level art direction for the 8 km world.

 

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been continuing work on the Swamp Walker animations, working on its movement and attack. This will be a slow moving neutral creature, best observed from a distance. You might be tempted to get a closer look but you might lose an eye…

 

Yves – Senior Developer

Visiting the ancient home of the Vikings.

Tristan – Senior Developer

I AM POWER. I AM BUILDING. I AM… sad. Good bye Kyle. May our paths cross again one day. Possibly even Monday. Something about Sunday? On a more relevant note building and power are both working together wondrously which is what I have been doing over the past week. Hope you all enjoy it when we release it.

Ricky – Developer

Has been on a well deserved break. (Most likely, he probably hasn’t worked as hard as he should of, and instead has watched too much Anime, but otherwise it’s well deserved)

Gavin – Concept Artist

This week I’ve undergone a week’s silence in honour of the eventual loss of our epic producer. We will miss you so much… *silence*

KYLE! I remembered his name, all on my own. HA! Seriously though, we’ll miss you Kyle.

In spite of a week’s silence I’ve been working on the side on some environment concepts with Joe and Chris for new world 🙂

 

Carlos – Developer

This week I’ve been working on fixing some of the FOV implementation as well as the HUD elements and their visibility. To be more precise I’ve been implementing their fading and reveal when not in use, which clears up the screen a lot when travelling and when in combat as well as our new build menu, working the functionality of fading into it so only the necessary elements remain on the screen when needed.

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You can keep up with our progress and latest developments via our Trello boards

-Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

This week the Flix team have been continuing work on exciting new features, abilities, enemies and environments. From high level progression design to new build and power system implementation, from huge map development to increasing the creepy nature of the swamp areas… Take it away John!

John – Lead Designer, CEO

I’ve been working on getting the upgrades defined and the progression system nailed down, there’s plenty of nerfing that i’m looking at balancing with new features such as takedown/instant kill executions. I’ve also been pushing the full designs through for the armour types and perks, feel free to ask questions in the comments below and i’ll elaborate! Also been overseeing the new build system implementation this week which includes the new power generators and a power bar so that you know what you’re building and how much power you have left.

 

Part of the progression system I’m playing with includes such placeholder item names as; construction kit, armoury of destiny and wobbly turrets. There’s a bit of micromanagement, but i’ll post the details on trello next week once we get there, but for now I thought i’d share a small nugget of the ideas here. (Please note – all of this is work in progress and subject to change!)

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have been continuing to work on the new Juggernaut. I’ve also been taking a look at the performance issue which was introduced from our last update with the new in-engine perception component. I want to see if it can be improved or possibly re-written for our own needs.

Joe – Environment Artist

This past week I have been working on visuals for future underwater sections of the new Swamp Biome, which has also seen a bunch of internal fixes. I have also finalised my initial setup of the terrain for a brand new map – we think you’ll be impressed!

Water shader WIP
 

Andy – Lead QA

This week I’ve been getting my teeth in to the new build mechanic building loads of epic bases that will, I’m sure, make you pioneers feel even more awesome. Remember “A Pioneers base is his castle” Well now you can actually build a castle!!

Tom – Character Artist

I’ve been working on the latest addition to the Swamp, the Swamp Walker. Really trying to push the creepy vibe for this one!

Chris – Designer

Working with Gav and Joe on the initial design and feel for the new map including establishing design rules for making different biomes feel realistic in the world. Created rough terrain geometry before passing it over to Joe. Begun the setup and blockout of the world.

8km x 8km Map in development (WIP)
 

Kyle – Producer

Finalising all our tasty production timelines all the way through to Version 1.0. I’ve also been sadly saying my goodbyes to the team, this has been the best two years of my life, it’s been a blast…thank you

Matt – Art Director

Over the past few weeks we’ve made some major changes to the build system, including a slightly larger grid size. The new assets for the base build set (of which there are now over a dozen unique pieces) are my primary focus, getting them made and set up correctly.

With the help of Andy ‘the man’ Simkin testing the new pieces we are hopefully going to be getting them into an updated build of the game sooner than later!

I’ve also been working on HUD graphic updates with the boys from the UI department, aka Ricky.

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been refining 1st person swimming animations and setting up the blending in engine to allow use of the right hand for underwater combat. I have also been continuing work on the Swamp Snake and Juggernaut and have started work on the animations for a new creepy swamp critter, the Swamp Walker.

Animations are work in progress and subject to change

Yves – Senior Developer

This week I have been working mainly on refining version two of build which we are hoping to get to you as soon as possible. It’s a huge step forward from the original build and I’m really looking forward to seeing the structures that our community build. Also squashing bugs like a demon.

Tristan – Senior Developer

I have been working on integrating the new power system into the new build system and setting up the utilities and defences to work with them.

Ricky – Developer

Finalising the work and visuals of the new UMG HUD to ensure everything is in order. The shiny new Build Menu is in UMG, as well as the Power System HUD bar which I am also adding finishing touches to and ensuring efficiency on.

I’ve been phasing out the old menus, to make way for the new UMG HUD which allows FOV changes. I’ve also completed some code functionality to control the scale of Construction UI, Loadout UI and Eden Kit UI menus.

Gavin – Concept Artist

Chris, Joe and I have been exploring some of the possibilities for biomes for the aforementioned new map; it’s going to be absolutely huge and filled with cool things!

You can keep up with our progress and latest developments via our Trello boards

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Lastly, as you might have seen above, we are saying goodbye to our wonderful producer Kyle (don’t worry we plan on throwing him an awesome party). Over the past two years he has been staring at spreadsheets, gantt charts and our multiple internal Trello boards, organising tasks in the backlog so we have everything planned out up to v1.0. Not to mention cooking the team delicious lunches to keep us going.

Everyone here at Flix wishes him all the best for the future, take care and good luck!

-Team Flix