Greetings Pioneers!

A big happy new year from the Team! The holidays have passed with haste so we’ve started by fetching the best bits from our backlog of progress to bring everyone up to speed with development from the end of last year. With the addition of the portable turret and a massive audio overhaul which we’ve been wanting to get into the game for quite a while now, we’re excited to start the new year strong.

Other essential gameplay components like the objective system/markers are being polished for designers to flesh out the rest of the world story. A lot of focus is being put into quality of the ‘initial zone’ and interaction with objects. We can’t wait to showcase all of improvements properly with an update to our experimental branch.

Here’s what everyone’s been up to in more detail;

Matt – Art Director

Whilst working through environment tasks the art teams main focus has been to get the visuals for the deployable turret up to scratch. Over the last few weeks this has gone through prototyping and has been subject to quite a few visual updates to make it feel more top heavy/creepy looking. We’re keeping in mind that these turrets are effectively glass cannons so they need to feel unstable so every visual change has been made to support this design.

OG Tom – Lead Designer

It’s been a mixed month for me this December as I’ve been trawling through our backlog of bugs and smaller tasks and fixing up what I can. Mainly this has revolved around the AI and combat as we are getting very close to our final result once we can clean up a few more errors. Alongside that we’re also busy planning the next steps of in engine work so we can get mechanics and levels together quicker.

Melissa – Technical Designer

Since the build wheel is now at a completed state, with only a few bits of polish left to do, I’ve been focused on redesigning the reticles.

The new reticles are more minimal and responsive allowing further feedback for what you can and can’t damage in the world. We are hoping to expand the designs and implementation to include different reticles for each weapon type as well as other cool, interactive ways the reticle can respond to things in the world!

Glenn – Artist

I’ve been busy on Eden Star lately! I have managed to improve the road textures significantly so now there is less of a difference between the detail density of the terrain and the road. I’ve also been helping get the deployable assault turret ui designed and implemented. The reticle is also in the process of being updated to provide you with more feedback and should make the game a more intuitive experience in general, so Im looking forward to getting that in. 

Ryan – Designer

Howdy! Since last post I have been working on the level design of Pharus 7, ensuring the start of the game sets the player up with all the information and tools they need to survive. This involved placing necessary scrap metal around the landscape to allow players to get back up and running after any unexpected demises.

Lauren – Lead Animator

These past few weeks we have been improving animations for various weapons and animating a shiny new turret that players can pick up and deploy when needed. This powerful companion can fire at foes like the existing buildable turrets but can easily be moved around for the best tactical approach. However due to its portable nature it can also be easily knocked over…

The Shiv, Flare and Spear have had animation updates. Another weapon getting some TLC is the Katana, with updates to both 1st and 3rd person animations in progress 🙂

Ricky – Lead Developer

Keeping on top of optimisations to the game among a slew of new features coming in, gotta hit that 60/30/20fps… It can’t run on calculators just yet sadly but maybe one day.

George – Junior Developer

Since joining the team I have primarily been developing a new damage indicator system to improve the player feedback and general feel of combat. The system aims to provide the player with more relevant information when taking a hit, such as the direction of the hit, as well as how much damage you took from that hit. Currently this system does not replace the arrows that point out nearby enemies, so the player will still be able to use those arrows to avoid being struck in the first place!

Additionally, I have been working on fixing bugs with the save/load system, especially in multiplayer. Drop bags should behave more now too, such as remain in the world after loading a game, and deal with tap/hold interactions properly in multiplayer. Also fixed a bug that would cause the hologram of consumable items to remain after equipping another weapon.

John R – Developer

I’ve been continuing work on the new Turret weapon.  The turret can be carried in your inventory and deployed whenever you need a little extra firepower or something to watch your back while you build.  The turret can fire a long burst of bullets at the enemy and if they run to cover then it will keep up the pressure to keep them hiding. It’s weakness is that it can be knocked over but the player can quickly pick it up again and redeploy it.

I’ve also made the player’s aim become less accurate as they run; turn around; take damage or become fatigued.  Moving slowly and crouching are the best way to get those perfect sniper shots.

Leon – Developer

I’ve been hard at work continuing the development of the gamepad control scheme for the tab menu, this month that has included new support for inventory and crafting filtering as-well as the addition of two new gamepad shortcuts allowing you to use consumables as-well as repair your armour with a gamepad.

In addition to working on the gamepad support I’ve also managed to push a new objective marking feature so we can make it clear what locations a player needs to go to and how far away they are. You can see an example of this below.

Azeem – Junior Developer

I’ve been working on the lift to make sure it works with saving/loading during multiplayer. It can now move even if it is part way up or down and it can continue from where it left off. The button animation for the lift plays the correct animation and transitions back to whenever the lift has stopped.

Graham – Audio Designer

Being new to the project, a review of global current audio content & audio pipelines was started. From there, I planned out a large update of global audio content & tech gamewide.

I have been busy creating a vast array of new SFX content, every part of SFX is being updated and then some more! Everything from Gun fires > Environments > Entity types > UI, etc… a total of just under 1500 new audio assets have been created so far for the initial audio pass 1 milestone.

New pipelines and processes have been implemented allowing for a more detailed audio soundscape + a new Audio engine allows us to utilise modern techniques and larger audio assets variations (minimizing audio asset repetitivity)

Over the coming months, the new SFX content will start to make its way into the game and will be continually evolving as new content becomes available.

More updates coming soon!

See you in the fray,

-Team Flix