Greetings Pioneers!

This week we have been hard at work on the game settings, server optimisation and introduction. We are looking to push an update out very soon to the experimental branch to allow all you lovely people to set up their own servers from within the main menu UI.

We will be updating the main branch with a brand spanking new build as soon as we feel it is stable and balanced enough. There is a lot that has changed so we need your help in testing all these changes, especially the server setup interface as we cannot test every router-modem configuration in house. Let us know how you get on with this when we get this next release out.

John – Lead Designer

I have been working through the final designs for the corruption mechanic, overseeing the work on the introduction/tutorial, designing how vehicles/mech’s will work and also working out the details on how we refine the survival gameplay loop. This weekend I plan on working through another balancing pass to allow us to push out an update to the experimental branch at some point next week (no intro included).

Matt – Art Director

I’ve managed to revise and create new models and materials for the different Eden Kit levels. These will hopefully give Pioneers more of a sense of progression when it comes to upgrading one the most important parts of their base!

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have been looking into enemy spawning inside of bases so that we can make exploring colony bases more an experience. This may be also accompanied by placing hives into bases which could see hives removed from the outside world eventually, changing the way that hives are tackled, turning them into a far greater risk vs reward.

Ricky – Developer

    I helped with design on a new upcoming feature with the corruption mechanic and how we can involve it in the game world and get it to fit in with the game and UI.

Few bugs along the way such as incorrect gathering amounts being displayed on the HUD and some of our shiny new items not being present in the game, or infact existing in the first place so I whipped up some ideas in the lab and… well long story short I created something from nothing and they’re now in the game once more.

OK so the biggest new feature I’ve been working on is customisable game settings. We previously have had a small number of game settings available when creating your own server, but now They will be open to single player users too! And most (Currently all) will be available during gameplay to tweak the experience as you go or set yourself up for challenges!! And here I just wanted to write something worthy of 3 !!! … 4!!!!? NO RICKY BAD…too far…. Awwww

So what kind of things can you expect to tweak? (Taking extra note of my courteous use of the colon). We currently have ready:DayCycleLength, DaytimeRatio, HarvestYield, MiningSpeed. Aswell as returning options for modifying damage to Structure Blocks from AI and Deterioration.

We’re also working on others such as; altering AI spawning, Altering other types of damage such as damage vs players and vs ai and damage from ai to the player, altering Block HP, Changing Stat rates such as Hunger and Thirst.

Tom – Character Artist

Finished off this ugly water Beast! Based on a crocodile, he certainly doesn’t look friendly..

Joe – Environment Artist

I have mainly been continuing with work on the Introduction/Tutorial sequence. I’ve worked on a simple fire asset, art assets for the crash site, UI design of the inventory tutorial component, the intro sequence itself, and the logic that drives said sequence. With Ricky’s help I also created a system to turn on/off different parts of the HUD as required for the tutorial. I’ve also got some fancy sci-fi HUD animations playing when each component appears on-screen.

Looking to future features I also created a UI layout for our first iteration of the Synthesizer screens. This utility will allow you to research and create treatments for a rather unpleasant ailment that you might need to watch out for in future…

Lauren

This week I’ve been continuing with the introduction with Joe, Matt and John, making some placeholder audio for the voice of the drone and various triggers.

Marcin – Designer

I’ve gone to find the gold at the end of the rainbow, and hopefully make friends with a few leprechauns on the way. Exciting. I’m probably on my 100th pint of Guinness by now and have a developed an impulsive urge to say the phrase ‘thanks a million’ to anyone who is nice to me.

Simone – Concept Artist

Created colour concepts for the damaged variant of the Drop Pod in our introduction, and finished the ‘Humming bird’ style creature. I’ve also begun collating reference imagery for upcoming vehicles! We’re in the process of revising some of the initial designs for player controlled mechanicals.

Andy – Lead QA

Working away helping to identify all the major bugs while testing multiplayer on our large island map. The rest of the developers have been working on optimsations and internal multiplayer build fixes so we felt there was no need to include everyone of them by name this week!

See you in the Fray!

– Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

Well this is exciting! For today’s development blog we thought we would focus in on a preview of our introduction/tutorial development. Joe, Matt, Lauren and John have all been knocking heads to develop story, animation, dialog, artwork and pacing to bring it all to life.

Overview

Our goal for the opening sequence is to keep it feeling as free form and flexible as possible. Critically, our main aim is to effectively use visual and animated interactive components to guide you through different stages of game play learning. Pioneers should also be able to opt out entirely and wander away at any stage if they desired to do so, not affecting the overall story experience.

The process started with the player feedback we’ve had since the early versions of the game. From there we’ve fleshed things out a lot. We’ve always wanted Pioneers to feel isolated, yet superior against surmountable odds. The Introduction has to portray this, both showing your vulnerability, and immense power.

This links into helping Pioneers understand their stats and how to repair their Armour. One of the first stages in this introduction is a quick interactive sequence that will prompt you to repair your existing suit armour.

Good pacing is the core to a digestible tutorial, and it’s important we teach the critical gameplay systems early on. Our basic outline that helped us structure this are as follows.

• Inventory & survival systems
• Weapons and Combat
• Mining and Reclaiming
• Objectives System
• Building System and Base Essentials

Combat and salvaging

Once Pioneers are on their feet we almost immediately want to show that Eden Star at it’s heart is built around Combat. This is important to get to grips with early on as a core game pillar, so there will be a basic weapon drop on the floor as you get up after a seemingly mysterious and violent crash.

With what seems like your own drop ship downed in front of you, smoldering and battered, the Pioneers first challenge awaits. Giving you basic splintermite enemies that must be tackled to allow investigation of the pod in a hassle free environment. This is critically important as all night enemies are designed to be a constant threat to your survival as the game progresses.

The Drop Ship

The design of the drop ship becomes the perfect opportunity to bind gameplay and a unique asset. The development for the parts of the ship logically have to follow our build system to allow Pioneers to reclaim parts.

In principle we are employing a ‘you can do this if you want to approach’ so this is not going to be directly taught to Pioneers through dialog. Instead the most important elements like the pod are made to be obviously interactive, becoming a learning discovery method which is gently pushed under your nose with prompts from the on screen scanner.

Scout Drone

The Drone in the sequence initially acts as an informer for your Pioneers current and rather worrying predicament. We are toying with the idea of potentially making him/her a free starting A.I. scout companion. This all hinges on our progress implementation of the allied A.I. system.

Early Objectives

One of our best solutions to fit within the free form structure is a ‘communication relay’ which will essentially be a trigger with audio. These ‘comm relays’ will actively trigger different location markers on the islands that will lead to other drops/events within our story component.

This is all still work in progress so we hope you liked the preview! You can stay up to date with out development tasks and progress on our Public Trello Boards.

See you in the Fray

– Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

This week the team have been working on all new server host options for the experimental branch, allowing you to change settings and launch a server based on those settings, including setting a custom day-night cycle length and a whole bunch of other requested features! We’ve also been testing the scanner with the balancing for all the new materials, compounds and components. In addition to this we’ve been looking at the weapon tweaking we did earlier in the week and the modular weapons are feeling much more balanced.

Here’s what the team has been up to:

John – Lead Designer

This week I’ve been discussing potential new mining and Kinetic Blast mechanics as well as overseeing Lauren and Matt’s continued work on the introduction sequence. I also managed to get through a complete balancing pass over all of the stats for our modular weapons – tweaking and changing to get them feeling unique, believable and combat-ready! *tchk-tchk – BOOM*

Matt – Art Director

Some say I’m like a human solar panel, absorbing the rays of the sun in order to output my artistic energy.

Some say I can manipulate those rays into pixels of light on any computer screen.

I say those people are wrong. What I have actually been doing is crafting different level visual versions for the Eden Kit which will see their way into the game soon!

Lee – Technical Director

So this week I have managed to get some time on spawning AI inside the Colony bases. We plan to have some bases which are more strongly defended than others because they contain better loot.

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been looking at creating a new charged blast module/upgrade. It’s quite fun even without any of the visual aspects so it should be even better once we get those in.

Ricky – Developer

Game Setting menu with configurable game settings has been the cards for this week, along with stopping the AI attacking the player while in the deployment UI which needed a bit of rejigging.

So we are including this new Game Settings menu which will allow you to tweak multiple settings of the game before you start. We are additionally looking into launching servers with these custom game settings from within game too and sorting some of the server logic out with regards to usability.

Yves – Senior Developer

Coming very close to wrapping up the feature end of network replication optimizations, next week will be begin the journey of fixing all of the things that this new feature would definitely have broken.

Marcin – Designer

I’ve been working very closely with Ricky on multiple Interface elements these past few days. Along with the new set of materials, we’ve done a pass on the Scanner Info and we added a new shiny highlight effect that goes with it too.

In addition to that, as Ricky has mentioned, we’ve been working on the view Game Settings feature, which will let you change most of the general balancing values in order to customise your game to your liking. That will include both single and multiplayer experience. Please keep in mind that the feature is brand new and it may change drastically before official release.

Joe – Environment Artist

I’ve been working on art for a few new base-specific decorators for placement in the abandoned compounds. With the upcoming release I’ve been hammering through bugs too, including highlights such as walking fish and finding thousands of rounds of ammo in crates. I’ve made a bunch of minor tweaks and fixes bases on all your feedback on the forums, so keep it coming 🙂

Tom – Character Artist

I’ve been working on the high-res model of a particularly nasty critter that will be lurking in a Swamp near you sometime soon…

Lauren – Animator

This week along with various meetings I have been continuing with the animation for the introduction sequence, which is coming along nicely!

Simone – Concept Artist

I’ve been working on the interior view for the drop pod having two different variants – a clean version and destroyed version. Also I have been making sure that all the armour sets have a base colour version ready for when Tom can start modelling them.

Andy – Lead QA

This week, as with last, I have been focused on the balancing of the minerals and weapons. Along with the balancing I have been looking at the issues you have listed on steam and in particular I have been attempting to reproduce an issues a few of you guys have been having with claimed turrets attacking you.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix