Greetings Pioneers!

The customisation screen for the start of the game has been tested and is mostly working! with just some visual refinements to make, as well as any replication setup so that it all works in multiplayer. New visuals for the Proto-Radiation zones have been in development and the very basic ‘weapon’ of your ‘own two fists’ has now been finished, so you can get to punching aliens in the face.

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

John – Lead Designer

There’s been a lot work put in this week ensuring there’s a premium placed on destructible buildings within the world. We’ve begun prepping certain levels for the destruction elements in anticipation of building in the existing structures that John and Charlotte have been putting together. This will offer back up the pre-built bases you can stumble across throughout the world.

Matt – Art Director

Making some quite extensive revisions to the Transmitter Tower after playtesting identified we were not getting the most out of the existing gameplay mechanics. There’s been a push to get the Character customisation screen visually up to scratch after the main functionality of it has now been implemented, so there’s some interesting character Combos you’ll be able to assemble when we push this update out!

Lee – Technical Director

In between fixing bugs that Lauren has found with the AI reaction work, I have managed to get a good chunk of time to look at Turrets. They were in a sorry state with all the changes we have been making to different systems, but I think I can now see light at the end of the tunnel. I have a working Turret, with just a few bits of polish left to apply.

Katrine – 3D Artist

I worked on some level design and asset placement this week, placing clusters of loot around in the world. I also worked on some of the cliffs, making sure that they look natural and varied.

Tristan – Lead Developer

This week I have been looking at some the less noticed bugs such as collisions on foliage not being reactivated when they regrow. This is something left over from an engine update but we have tracked down the issue and are now determining how best to resolve it and not break any more recent engine updates. I have also been reviewing lots of the new code and bug fixes coming in and it’s looking good all round.

Captain Tom – Designer

Now that I’m back from my holiday, I’ve gotten straight back into the thick of it, optimising and reworking left and right, smacking bugs into orbit and generally getting things nice and polished up for when you finally get your hands on the build. Enjoy the lovely screenshots!

Carlos – Developer

I’ve implemented our new cool shiny Kinetic tool, its now been handed over to our QA team to start testing it. I’ve also been taking a deep dive into the engine to hopefully start sorting out some of our inventory problems which are unfortunately still plaguing us!

Tom S – Developer

This week i’ve been mostly working on being able to interact with things when they’re not quite on the reticule. Having it being quite forgiving makes it feel much smoother, especially when there’s a lot of things to pick up. Still a ways to go in getting it to feel just right, but we’ve made good progress so far!

Joe – Lead Artist

Lots of little extra bits from me this week, I put together some basic visuals for our new UI tutorialisation, added functionality to the new in-world door UI and tidied up much of the UI and lighting for the Front End Character Customisation screen, which is now fully functional!

John S – Developer

Finished the core work around the character customisation system, this has gone onto Art and UI to add the finishing touches.

James – Environment Artist

This week, I worked on sections of the map, adjusting terrain for nice rolling hills and heights for the player to transverse over, adding cliffs/rocks for some nice visual breaks along with some sweet l00t and mineral placement around the map for the player to go and discover.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

This week I continued with concepting individual pieces of the breakable build set ready for John to create in 3D, which I’ve seen progress of throughout the week and they’re looking really great so far! In addition to this I’ve completed the final designs for the silicon, gold and silver rock nodes you guys will be able to mine. They went through a lot of iteration and I experimented with some cool shapes that may become rarer rock types in the future!

Ryan – Developer

The past week I have been working with Jamie and Mike to remove the most critical bugs that plagues Eden Star. This meant that most of my bugs this week have been bugs with multiplayer around crafting, weapons and player stats like hydration and health.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been working on one area in the game to ensure the landscape is as natural looking and fun as can be. Asset placements and landscape changes are the aim of the game when creating areas that are fun to explore and also allow you to have a sense of direction, ensuring no matter where you are you can see a way back. I have aimed to achieve this in this area.

As well as this I have also been placing the mineable elements in this area to ensure exploration is rewarded and players looking for progression will be able to have it by wandering through this area. This coupled with the new cliff placements will give you guys an area rich and interesting to explore.

Mike – Developer

Performed some fixes for Multiplayer, relating to account names and UI display as well as a few game mechanics which broke when run online. Also had a few strategy meetings on cleaning up some of the bigger bugs in the game right now.

John T – Environment Artist

This week I have been focused on the planning and production of the assets which will make up a new buildable set used for populating the world. These rundown structures will be entirely destructible and provide the player with resources or a ready built structure to expand off!

Will H – 3D Artist

This week has briefly been spent texturing the Lift from last week. The initial colour scheme was tweaked to match the surrounding in game assets, opting for a more military green.
For the rest of the week, I have been figuring out the visuals for a radiation zone, which will be situated at the edge of the playable area. This involved transitioning into a much harsher post process effect mixed with some particle effects to further push the feeling of the surrounding radiation.

Lauren – Lead Animator

Many bits and pieces for me this week such as weapon and AI balancing, setting up the breather meshes (to have glass, be skinweighted and work on both male and female meshes), updating the animations for first person grenade and spear locomotion, fixing up AI spawners in multiplayer, improving various attack animations and testing the AI…

Besides all that I have managed to make a start on the player ‘fists’ melee moves such as straight punches and left and right hooks so that even when you have no weapon equipped, you can still use your arms to defend yourself (though they won’t be as effective as swinging an axe around)…

Jamie – QA

This week I’ve been working with Mike and Ryan to get some major bugs fixed and signed off. I’ve been doing fps tests across the game to see where we have had the biggest fps drops and what has been causing the frames to drop. I also tested out the new pioneer customisation screen and gave feedback on that.

See you in the fray!

– Team Flix