Greetings Pioneers!

There may or may not be something in store for people to test soon, hint hint. We’re really pushing to tie up some loose ends with the gameplay, adding back in pre-existing destructible outposts and really focusing on making the mining feel better. We’re really excited to see how people engage with the new crafting levels, so it’s closing to the point where community feedback is going to be essential.

Here’s what we’ve all been upto:

John – Lead Designer

Triage is the word of the week. At the beginning of each week we make sure that we have the priority bugs and tasks in order so that we can get maximum gameplay value out of the improvements we’re making to the game as a whole. The final tutorial elements for the beginning of the game is going in, which explains why your RMD (Tool) is damaged from the beginning (due to the protonic EMP blast suffered as you make landfall)

Matt – Art Director

I’ve been processing the new mineral rocks for use in engine. We’ve had a few playthrough reviews that have come back which have meant a few changes to the rock sizes and chunk amounts. We’ve managed to get it pretty much nailed down as to what we think feels best..

Before there weren’t enough chunks to break off on minerals with the assets also being too large. So we’ve scaled those down and re-chunked them to make them more interesting to mine! It’s actually feeling very similar to what we had on the current steam version.

Lee – Technical Director

Been looking at and mostly scratching my head over issues with some of the AI floating in particular area of the levels. Good news is this isn’t a game breaking bug! I’ll be helping Lauren implement sounds for the Stalker soon as well.

James – Environment Artist

This week I finished working on two additional rocks of awesomeness that the player can mine for some sweet minerals. A gold and silver rock. Those lovely golden nuggets, too bad they aren’t filled with sugar.

Joe – Lead Artist

More small bits for the UI this week, I carried on with the boot sequence and got it to a stage where it can be disabled/enabled easily and added the art for a notification pop-up that’ll let you know when you’ve discovered a new Data Log entry. Lots of bug fixes too!

OG Tom W – Designer

This week I have been testing and analysing the new crafting and building systems and the progression through them. This has lead to a slight redesign of the crafting progression to include more of the original buildables and items alongside new components.

Captain Tom – Designer

Looked at clean up work on our sandy material along with how it blends with the current rock. Including some finer details such as glistening particles.

Katrine – 3D Artist

Hello everyone! This week I have been working on some health crate assets, to make sure you are all keeping healthy out there in space. It is not done yet, but I will add some renders of it in next weeks blog post!

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been placing new spawners for our AI creatures around certain areas of the map, these areas act as points of interest for players when they are exploring the harsh environment in this world. These sections include wreckage sites from ships, tree locations and interesting rock formations. Be careful when exploring these areas as these creatures are not to be underestimated!

John S – Developer

Had Ricky review the additional work I’ve put in for the fuel system. It’s about 70% there, there’s quite a bit of UI work to go in to inform players of their fuel consumption next. Then this all needs testing!

Will H – 3D Artist

I have spent this week starting on replacing some of the placeholder assets, primarily for the Dam area. This week was focused on creating a modular pipe system that the player will be able to walk around in.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

This week I made a few minor changes to the boot sequence in addition to concepting up a Relay Unit, ready for James to model.

Ryan – Developer

I have worked with Joe to add the data log entry notifications and environment oxygen alerts. I have also been fixing more bugs and crashes with modules and buildables.

Mike – Developer

Diagnosing and prioritising bugs for release. This week my priority has been working to fix the pause menu functions such as saving and loading and exiting to the main menu.

John T – Environment Artist

This week I have been busy producing all the droppable items for the fabricator. These small items will represent the craftables when dropped from the inventory. I have also started to produce the in game points of interest using the Dev scrap building modules, which players will be able to modify and adapt to their own use. Or just smash to pieces…

Andy – Lead QA

This week I have been clearing up the list of known bugs/fixes. Testing more of the guys fixes and testing out the new fists melee that has been implemented.

Jamie – QA

This week I’ve been testing out the first implementation of the new fuel system and along the way I’ve been finding new bugs and crashes for the Dev team to fix. I’ve also been testing some new changes for the build system and interactions in the game.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

This week at Flix HQ our testers have been on our newly installed giant hamster wheel blasting through a bunch of single player bugs, and retesting ones that have come back from being fixed. Wonder boy Carlos has been implementing our default defence mechanism of punching, and a digger working on the grounds fell over.

But wait, more exciting things have happened.. here’s what we’ve all been upto:

John – Lead Designer

Organisation of the testing team is in full motion. There have been some changes for the better introducing a more dedicated testing team, as we’ve brought them up to speed we’ve been pulling out changes and tweaks through playing builds so we can properly see what is still missing from the player experience. As mentioned previously we’ll be pushing for something we can get onto steam as soon as we’ve properly implemented the changes needed to pull the full experience together.

Matt – Art Director

So there are some aspects of the game that have been in constant review over the last few days, tutorialisation being one aspect. It is a premium with our current setup where the pioneer is given a malfunctioning Tool Arm to repair. This is going to require UI elements to communicate across what is required to fix it, as well as audio that makes this very apparent to as a problem to a player. establishing what will/won’t visually work will by my focus with Joe going into next week.

Lee – Technical Director

Surprisingly AI issues have been quite sparse until this week, we’ve had a bunch of new bug reports come in on some creatures not behaving as we expect. Fixes are in hand once we can figure out what broke those aspects of their behaviours..

Carlos – Developer

This week I’ve been working on adding a default melee weapon to the character for when they have nothing else equipped. Lauren made the weapon, anims and AI reactions which all look amazing! I then worked on the logic to make this weapon become the default if nothing else is available to you guys, so you can punch your way through Pharus 8!

Best watched whilst listening to this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I33u_EHLI3w

I’ve also been working with our designers to make the current weapons a little more flexible for them to make!

Joe – Lead Artist

I’ve spruced up the death screen so at least you’ll have something nice to look at if you trip and fall off the edge of the world. It’s a stopgap until we can do the full rework which will include more detailed statistics and make it much clearer how you died. I’ve also improved the placeholder Objectives window visuals, and I’m now finalising the boot sequence.

OG Tom W – Designer

This week I have been looking at getting more crafting and buildable up and running and fixes bugs across the board.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been bug fixing all across the map, you can call me an exterminator I’ve gotten rid of so many bugs (sorry). Collision issues, floating assets, terrain and landscape deformations and AI spawning issues. I have looked at it all this week, and fixed as much as I can along the way!

I have also been implementing more corrupted tree locations into the map, these small oasis sections provide refuge in an otherwise dead environment, and can also provide you with valuable protonite and fibers, keep an eye out for these areas in the game and often hidden around rocks or in large open areas of the map.

James – Environment Artist

I’ve been working on some tasty (probably poisonous) mineral rocks for the player to mine. I’ve also started working on a radar dish.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

I have been continuing with some implementation of the boot sequence this week, in addition to some more keyframe animation creation with lots of tweaking!

Ryan – Developer

This week I worked on how modules handle/store energy and I have been working more with Jamie and Andy to clear out more bugs and crashes involving UI, dropbags and weapon attachments.

John T – Environment Artist

Previously I finished up one of our ventilation units for the Dam surface.. This week I’ve been producing extra drop assets for the fabricator. These small assets represent the produced items in game when they are dropped on the floor and in Icons.

Will H – 3D Artist

This week has been spent finalising the Quartz and Silicone nodes. Heavy focus on them looking more natural, so a rougher type of stone detailing was needed to help push this.

Lauren – Lead Animator

AI bugs have been the focus of this week, I’ve been working with Lee to find fixes for the remaining issues. Also I have been tweaking the animations for the flare while working on 3rd person animations for our new ‘fists’ melee….

Andrew H – QA

This week I have been ploughing through fixed bugs and tweaks, testing to make sure they are definitely fixed. Also I’ve been doing run throughs and exploring the map for anything that doesn’t look quite right. In doing so found a few pesky bugs that the guys will have no trouble ironing out.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

The shiny new menus and the UI boot sequence for the start of the game have been getting implemented this week. Also this week the energy blade has been making its way back into game under the same format as our new melee system with blocking and parrying. Meanwhile an extra tester joins the team and more critical issues are continuing the be found and fixed up by the dev team.

Here’s what we’ve been up to in more detail:

John – Lead Designer

There has been a revelation, something that I’ve always felt to be true, yet only recently realised it. My children have breathed new passion into me with a new calling, paleontology. I just can’t get enough of uncovering old dinosaur bones. No doubt I’ll get bored of my new found love as soon as I return to the office, where my passion for AAA game making will be rekindled.

Matt – Art Director

The the art team have been focusing on cleaning up any of our blockout models that have existed in the game for quite a while, but unfortunately have not been important enough to receive any love up to this point. We’re also going to be stuck into the process of building smaller structures out of the in game build system which players will be able to pull apart and re-build.

A lot of polish has gone into the UI and menu systems, which has now been fully realised by Joe and Charlottes work. Very much looking forward to showing our new UI intro sequence in game!

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have been looking at some hard to produce bugs because they won’t happen all the time, like occasional clipping of AI through geometry. I’ve also tried to continue to focus on adding polish to the existing AI and making life as easy as possible for designers to add more behaviours.

Tristan – Lead Developer

I’ve been to all corners of the earth, nothing can satisfy my thirst for distant exploration on this globe anymore.. So I’ve taken it upon myself to take a week off to train as an astronaut so me and my partner can go sightseeing on the moon. I fear one day the moon may not satisfy my want for distant travel, and on that day I fear I may not have enough money to get home.

Joe – Lead Artist

I’ve pretty much finished the rework of our menu systems this week, and have been fixing up a few bugs and polishing animations. I have also been working through the “boot sequence” with Charlotte and reviewing various bits and pieces the other guys have been hammering through!

Captain Tom – Designer

Reviewing polish work that is going into the levels which is being driven by Tom Hughes. Bits of directional feedback that should hopefully make a big difference to smaller aesthetic touches.

Tom W – Designer

This week I have been going over the crafting and building designs to make sure you can still build and craft everything from before. Some of this has been changed to some that it has better context for our new raw materials. Also we have a couple for new components to streamline crafting and give components 2 or 3 uses in crafting and building.

Katrine – 3D Artist

Hello gamers! Lately I have been working on other projects here at Flix, however I did have some time for an Eden Star model this week! Say hello to a new fancy H2O Canister! Keeping you hydrated and fresh in the sandy dangerous lands of Eden Star. Top yourself up with at least three litres a day, sprinkled with some oxygen and you should be ready to soldier on.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been implementing final touches to the AI inside the Dam as well as continuing to polish up these areas from a gameplay perspective, making sure the level design is fluid and clear so players will be able to guide themselves effectively through the Dam. Additionally I have been fixing up the edges of the Map with new rocks and structures, making sure there is no way players can get trapped inside rocks or in crevices. In addition to this I have been polishing up the landscape around these areas and adding in points of interest and rock formations.

James – Environment Artist

Been working on getting the new mineable rocks ready to rock *excuse the pun* along with working on a Satellite Dish to phone home!.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

Boot sequence is starting to really come together, we’re implementing the finishing touches to it at the moment and we’ll hopefully be ready to show it off in all its glory next week!

Ryan – Developer

I have been fixing more crashes and hard to track down bugs this week, these bugs have consisted of anything from tough multiplayer only bugs, to UI/Inventory bugs, duplication bugs and building bugs.

John T – Environment Artist

This week I have been working on getting the dev build tools fully functioning for our new Scrap build set. This will allow us to create new structures with the same mechanics as a player. Also this will allow player the cannibalise and adapt these premade structures as they see fit!

Will H – 3D Artist

I got down with a sickness this week, so not much to report, but I have been continuing to revise the mineral rocks when I can. The previous iteration had too much of a cobblestone look, so we are heading for a more singular, solid form.

Lauren – Lead Animator

The baton and the much loved Energy Blade have been getting some tlc this week, we wanted to bring them in line with the axe in terms of functionality. Now we have the ability to block and parry and now include deflected animations for hitting solid objects.

Andrew H – QA

This week I have been mainly trying to reproduce bugs that needed retesting. Most of which seem to have been resolved which is great.
Been working with Ryan on a game crashing bug, testing to figure out what is the main cause.
I have also dug out a few minor bugs for the team to tuck into.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix