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

Greetings Pioneers!

The team have been working through more gameplay and interaction improvements across the board this month, including advancements in gamepad support and new animations.

The new build wheel is looking sharp after receiving fixes and polish, new effects for impacting with melee improve the feel of all hits and distinguish more clearly when things are getting damaged vs not damaged, and an awesome new portable turret has been taking shape…

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

Matt – Art Director

The team have been pushing to improve quality of life with the interface by fixing gamepad and crafting issues, both visual and input driven. The updated build system is close to being in a working/presentable state after being quite.. ‘broken’ whilst we were improving asset and UI visuals.

I’ve also had a hand in directing an update to player built doors which will replace the old shutter style door.

OG Tom – Lead Designer

From a design perspective we’ve had to go back through some of our key game system logic to help improve and speed up our workflow. Our next focus is working the improved A.I into our base designs so they can help us shape improved player enemy encounters.

Melissa – Technical Designer

The build wheel has had even more love this month and now looks very polished with new animations and artwork as well as new prompts to ensure you know how to use it!

A new addition to the build wheel is also Modifications, so now you can fortify your buildings, add lights and add doors.

Ryan – Designer

Hey! This month I have been working on keeping the game looking and playing perfect, by fixing up any issues we uncover along the development process. Along with this I have been adjusting some parts of the landscape around Pharus 7 to get it feeling just right.

Katrine – Senior Artist

Hello! I have a few exciting things on the game this month. I’ve been reworking all of the Visual FX. Making explosions, impacts and destruction!

Lauren – Lead Animator

This month I’ve been working with Chen to get our 3rd person animations up to scratch, finally replacing some of the placeholders that have been in there for a while. With improvements to both the motion and the blending method, It really is looking a lot more natural. Adjustments to the first person meshes have also taken place and I’ve been smoothing out the weighting of the first person arms along with making further alterations to various animations including the flare and axe.

John R – Developer

We’ve been creating a Turret weapon, which provides a cool twist to the set of weaponry the player can equip.  The Turret can be carried in your inventory and then placed whenever you want something defensive to watch your back or you just want a bit of extra fire-power when battling the enemy.  And once you’re done, you can pick up your Turret again and take it with you.

Leon F – Developer

This month work on the gamepad support for our Player Menu has continued with functionality added to allow us to select and highlight empty slots allowing us to extend our functionality for gamepad specific actions.

You can now navigate around the menu with just a gamepad with the essential functions such as equipping and consuming now coming together.

In addition to gamepad support I’ve also been hard at work adding the icons to the Build Wheel system that correlate to the resources you’ll need to build various structures and utilities as you create your colony.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

Polish, lots of polish, just not the typical kind you apply to cars and surfaces you care for the most. There’s been a real push to get destruction effects for designer placed items (which also drop related items and resources). 

Most exciting is the vastly improved appearance of the AI behaviour, which is starting to come together. We’re continuing to make steady progress towards showcasing these improvements in the form of moving images for an upcoming blog!

Matt – Art Director

My primary focus has been helping Melissa get the new build wheel and buildables up to scratch. It’s required some slight system changes, and visual polish and tweaking. We’ve unified the iconography for all build items so that every utility and block are now represented by a stylised icon. Which is far more readable on a menu system than something fully detailed and squished into a smaller space.

On the other side of things there has been a big push to get particle VFX more varied and interesting for rocks, and metal destructible objects. This has really helped add to the illusion of things breaking apart, which we feel goes beyond most destruction in other games, helping to elevate the quality of the whole scavenging and mining experience.

Tom Whittemore – Lead Designer

This week I have been focusing on whiteboxing areas of the dam for gameplay testing. With the AI and combat coming along nicely we can start to test them in an encounter settings. A knock on effect of this was adjusting some of the level design in the dam to accommodate our new play space. Other than that it has been mainly cleaning up our levels and blueprints so things will run a bit smoother.

Melissa – Technical Designer

I’ve been working on quite a few different elements of the game recently including UI for the new melee system, implementing further destruction elements and various bug fixing throughout.

My primary focus thus far has been continuation on implementing the new build wheel. 

New artwork has gone into the wheel (courtesy of Matt Clark) to improve the overall aesthetic and make it much clearer as to what you are building and selecting; as well as this a lot of animations have had a second pass and we have some much better transition animations in the works. 

The finishing touches are still being worked on and hopefully the wheel will be completed soon! (Here’s another teaser though)

Ryan – Designer

Hey! Recently I have been going over the terrain around the Dam to continue my work on the landscapes and ensure we maximise buildability, while maintaining an interesting environment. 

Katrine – Senior Artist

Hello Pioneers! These last few weeks has been very exciting as we have been updated the destructibles and PFX throughout the game. Anything from flashy electrical explosions to runny toilet waste is coming soon to your game, near you… I have also been updating the visuals in and around the drop pod.

And last but not least I have made goo, guts, blood and intestines. Skipping lunch for a great cause!

Ellis – Environment Artist

Hey guys! In the past month I have been mainly working on destructibles for the environment. I have made a variety of different assets that can be smashed with a swing of the axe, they look well cool when they break! I have also delved into some of the levels in the dam, especially the canteen room. Finally I made a new makeshift flare for the game which looks really cool and can be made from drop items. Im looking forward to posting some gifs in the next blog post!

Hannah – Environment Artist

Hey everyone 🙂 This past month I have been creating some more drop assets, including a makeshift bandage which can be utilised by the player to gain extra health, and some simple wiring which can be used for crafting various electrical items in Pharus 7. I’ve also had a lot of fun making some destructible props, including an air filter and series of wall pipes that break into pieces when shot at or hit with a melee weapon. Watch this space for some images and gifs in the upcoming blog post.

Lauren – Lead Animator

Refinements and fixes have been the main focus these past few weeks, animations for the axe are nearing final polish level and we’ve been working with a new animator Chen who has been hard at work updating our third person locomotion and spear animations.

John R – Developer

I’ve been working on the melee combat system to improve the feel of the weapons and fix some bugs.  Attacks and blocks now flow together more smoothly and are more accurate too.

Leon F – Developer

Since my work with Ricky on the Build Wheel from last month is now complete I’ve been spending this month developing the Gamepad Implementation for the inventory and crafting menus working off of Melissa’s designs and making exciting improvements to the player experience with a controller. 

In addition to gamepad support additional contextual short cuts are being added to the tab menu which includes double clicking weapons and armor to equip them with ease as-well as some other shortcuts I’ll hopefully be able to show off in the next blog post!

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix