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