Greetings Pioneers!

This week has been very productive in terms of both bug fixes and features. We should be updating the Experimental branch next week, and if all goes smoothly we’ll be pushing the multiplayer builds into the main branch!

Our dedicated servers and new content will be arriving as soon as we’re ready to move out of the experimental branch.

Here’s a breakdown of what each of us have been working on this week:

John – Lead Designer

Me and Marcin have been going through gameplay systems that are in the backlog this week, making sure they are up to date and logically sound, this means checking through the components for the weapon customisation all the way to the armour types and the benefits you receive from different components, down to their initial cost. Refinement of designs for clan system and player utilities has been at the forefront however, as we are aiming to get this out to you in the very near future.

Matt – Art Director

Many block outs for new utilities and our weapons system have been done over the last week. I’ve also been updating the atmospherics with simple volumetric clouds and fog for our new large map, in anticipation of it going out to you all very soon!

Lee – Technical Director

At the beginning of the week I was mainly getting our server back up and running. for the rest of the week my time has been split between fixing any bugs which have cropped up with AI and multiplayer and preparing the ground for our batch of new creatures will be introduced shortly into the game.

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been working on getting previous multiplayer fixes integrated as well as looking into the melee combat system. Hopefully you will be enjoying it soon.

Yves – Senior Developer

Been working on bug fixes and the clan system for testing in our experimental branch.

Ricky – Developer

Prepping the UI for the upcoming Clans feature we have brewing at the moment.

Joe – Environment Artist

This week I have finished the initial visual work on the Underwater Biome assets. I’ve started on placement of these assets in the new larger level.

Marcin – Designer

I haven’t seen much of the engine in the past few days to be completely honest, I was busy with the designs of quite a few of upcoming systems and changes. The main one is of course the progression system we are still working hard at developing, but there was also a few smaller and complimentary ones that a lot of you have been asking for on the forums, such as: armour sets, more meaningful materials and damage types, fun melee combat, less grindy mining etc. As for the more immediate features, we are working on the Clans (our version of Guilds/Parties), so you can expect that fairly soon. Thanks.

Chris – Designer

Fixes and improvements to Eden Kit drop system. Placing the underwater biome, more onyx placement, improvements and added small feature areas to the new level.

Tom – Character Artist

Working on an additional set of Armor and clothing items for your Pioneer!

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been finishing up the Stalker animations along with starting animations for a new, more dynamic and fluid Melee system.

Gav & Simone – Concept Artists

This week we’ve been doing some concepts for additional utilities that Matt has already started working up, so hopefully you’ll see those in the game real soon 🙂 There’s also some awesome work being done with Ricky Marcin & Co. on the UI stuff but instead of posting them here we’ll let you see it in action when they’re in the game!

Andy – Lead QA

Testing fixes for A.I. issues when wave attacks begin, Also been looking at the clan and chat systems in multiplayer.

It’s that time of year again. If you have a spare moment please consider a vote for Eden Star in the 2015 Indie of the Year Awards

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

It’s been a week since we opened the experimental multiplayer branch and we have been working hard on a hotfix for some of the issues encountered. The main focus is to fix any major crashes, improving the AI and their willingness to attack your bases, restoring mineral rock destruction. We will also be addressing some of the server-client sync issues and being unable to connect to servers.

It has been a lot of fun to jump onto some of the early server. The early support is really encouraging, so much so that we’d like to thank you again for your feedback and for supporting the game at this early stage.

Meanwhile we’ve also been working on future features and goodies…

John – Lead Designer

I have been working with Marcin to refine a whole host of gameplay and technical/implementation design including the player inventory and how we intend to balance multiplayer to avoid certain exploits when sharing items.

We have also been looking over respawn pads, the next version of the deployment screen, how to implement the armour system to make it look correct whist using different combinations of armour types and more! At the moment the next release is a hotfix and then we’re most likely looking to focus on inventory, sharing and colony (clan) creation to allow PvP gameplay too.

Matt – Art Director

For future progression gameplay updates I’ve been building more versions of the Mata – Tool. (That funky gravity manipulation device on your right arm) As we go forward it will come in many flavours. All of which will have their own perks. Rest assured when all of these are integrated into the gameplay visuals you will always start with the most basic version.

Lee – Technical Director

Well today I’ve been dealing with our internal server after it seemed to crash late yesterday afternoon. All week I’ve been fixing small bugs with the AI which I’ve noticed for a while but never had the time to get to look at them. I’ve also been planning some work toward a new batch of AI creatures for the world.

Tom – Character Artist

Finishing off the textures and game model for the Stalker!

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been working on single player and multiplayer bug fixes as well as trying to iron out steam issues.

Yves – Senior Developer

Auto loading of saves, and the first version of our in game local and global chat. I’ve also implemented support for in game voice communication.

 

Ricky – Developer

Clearing up some of those minor annoying bugs in the game to ensure your satisfactory quality of life index is being met. I have then been working on some contract work to keep us rolling.

Joe – Environment Artist

I’ve started on the creation of a basic set of assets we can use to populate our upcoming Underwater biome!

Marcin – Designer

Lee and I have sorted a lot of bugs with AI, especially the weird things Ikas had been doing for a while, like falling through the world when killed by smash. On the more important note, we managed to have a good hard look at the night raids attacking your walls as well as your turrets.

I am very excited about that change because not only it prevents the enemies from getting stuck, unable to find valid targets, but it’s on the whole a total gamechanger of the way you plan, build, and defend your base.

On another note I have been working with John on designs for progression system, which is also coming along nicely. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share some saucy details with you all soon.

Chris – Designer

This week I have been stepping up production on the new map. We have been concentrating on various placement tasks, landscape painting, biome improvements and beginning to optimise the world.

I have also been jumping in and out of design discussions with John and Marcin with regards to progression and the revised deployment screen system.

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been animating the Stalker, a bipedal enemy that can also run and creep on all fours and attack both with claws and a swiping spike tail. Sweet dreams.

Animations shown are a work in progress

Gav & Simone – Concept Artists

This week we’ve been progressing some work on the Sieger, Wolf and Owl concepts – we hope they look sufficiently frightening 🙂

Andy – Lead QA

Now that we’ve added all of our multiplayer code, I’ve been looking through the single player with the developers to try and replicate some of the crashes we’ve been having in order to catch them in debug mode.

See you in the fray!

– Team Flix

 

 

Greetings Pioneers!

This will be the start of many community spotlights we’re going to be doing as we update our multiplayer experimental branch going forwards to December.

First of all, thank you again to everyone who are supporting the game from this early stage! It’s great for us as developers and gamers to see people ‘pioneering’ (pun intended) the first of the dedicated servers and input on future features.

Don’t be surprised if you see a developer or two join your game either, we do have a tendency to invade your public server and spy on what you are doing 😉 (purely research based spying).

So far ADN-Mad’s beaten us all to it with the first public dedicated server to go up over the weekend. And for that reason we’ve included some screenshots of the structures built on it, they are very well done indeed!

A massive thank you to ADN-Mad for being the first to the starting line in helping us lay a solid foundation for the future multiplayer community!

We look forward to updating the build further across the next few weeks. Again we must put emphasis that it is at an early stage and fixing any crashes are paramount. Stability is also key for us as a team so we have a lot of optimisations as well as features left to push into Eden Star (Including the new 8km map which we’re particularly excited about).

Also! A big welcome to anyone new who has purchased the game this weekend!

For more current information on development you can keep an eye on what we’re working on next via our public Trello board and even vote or comment on features you’d like to see.

There will be new updates coming very soon, so we hope to see you in the fray!

– Team Flix