Greetings Pioneers!

All new artwork for the bridge has been implemented this week with new points of interest and minables placed around the world. We wanted to ensure that there is a suitable placement of these nodes that makes them both easy to see while also fitting in with the aesthetic of what and where they are, harder than you think!

Also this week the stalker AI getting some love, A new dodge mechanic and backing away as the player approaches is in the works to make certain AI harder to hit. Initial balancing passes have been started with the minables, weapons and AI in preparation for uploading a test branch and having more people playing and giving feedback.

John – Lead Designer

This week I’ve been organising a test build for the team at the Epic Games Lab at Staffordshire University. This gave us some great feedback to get our heads around.

The day went down a storm and allowed us to focus on some objective gameplay points for improvements for the next steam build. Very exciting to see people getting excited about the big changes we’re making!

Matt – Art Director

After creating a good benchmark for crashed wreckage areas, I’ve moved onto reviewing a lot of the new artwork being pushed into the game. This includes new assets for the bridge areas and Dam surface which create the ruined and ravaged look we’re after.

There are a lot of doors in the game as well, so unification of their look and how you interact with them is on my radar, as well as practical work for the larger blast doors we have as entrance ways to a lot of the larger structures.

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have been ironing out bugs with the Stability/Reaction system with Tom and Laurens help. There are a few more tweaks I need to make this weekend, but the combat with AI is looking really good.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been creating the points of interest that will inhabit the world around the Transmitter and Silo areas, this includes creating camps long abandoned by men, large rocky outcrops that will provide perilous drops, and sections of ship wreckage that will hold valuable mining materials.

As well as this I have been implementing the assets onto the bridge leading up to the Dam from the Drop Pod, this area now has fully textured assets and makes the area as a whole seem much more broken and worn down. I have been creating large piles of debris that will hold some scrap metal on the ice if you dare to venture down and large holes in the bridge for you to traverse if you have the feet for it!

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve worked on part of the interaction logic this week, this will allow the UI guys to finish off what they needed to do. I’ve also focused on fixing some of the elements regarding environment oxygen depletion.

Ricky – Lead Developer

Getting the weapons to play unequipping animations when they deteriorate or are consumed in the case of grenades spears of food. Fixed crash with edge case consumables and crash with interacting with foliage now we’ve added the ability to “Use” foliage to gather from them.

Ryan – Developer

Hi, I’m new to the team but this week I have been getting myself up to speed with the project and have been focusing on fixing client-side bugs surrounding the UI and items.

John T – Environment Artist

This past week I have been focused on producing the final few assets for within the dam. This has included floors, wall and door ways. I have also been on the task to apply these within the engine with the necessary material setups experimenting with procedural materials and masking techniques.

Captain Tom– Designer

 

Further AI developments have been taking place over at Flix HQ, I’ve been working with the lovely Lee and Lauren on implementing a dodge and counter attack for our Stalkers and Huntermites.

Ontop of that, I’ve been optimising our lighting and instanced static meshes, ready for our public release of the build, so everything runs nice and smoothly on supercomputers as well as potatoes (Fingers crossed).

OG Tom – Designer

This week there we’ve been running lots of tests and reviews that have been super helpful to drive the design forward. For me this means I’ve been thinking about rocks more than a normal person should. Based on the review and feedback we decided that we weren’t happy with the current destructible rocks, they were either too hard to find or not obviously minable.

So I have been testing out different styles of destructible rocks in the environment to see what works for both gameplay and visuals. Other than that there has been the usual barrage of getting things fixed like doors, weapons, destruction and crafting.

Will H – 3D Artist

This week has been focused on creating breakable crates for spawning common items. In the end, these two will need to have broken versions in order for them to have a satisfying smash when the player cracks them open. I have also been making various tweaks and properly setting up the bridge assets to be used wherever they’re needed.

Marcin – Designer

On the systems front, I have implemented a new method of saving the state of existence of many new objects that new to the game, such as oxygen canisters, crates, and various new weapons. We needed that so the lose items that you pick up as you play can stay gone when you load the game.

We are also undergoing more testing or the objective system and we are starting to look into doing another pass on the collision setup across the world. In comparison to the live version of the game we have new environments and surfaces that need to properly interact with each other and the rest of the game. That is something I will be focusing on next week.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

This week I have been tweaking areas of the medical pack from last week in addition to finishing the design of the water container, tightly sealed in a metallic casing.

Lauren – Lead Animator

Hit reaction and dodge animations have been the focus this week. Starting with the Stalker and moving on to the Huntermite, I have been making sure each AI has a suitable amount of reactions to fit our new stability system that ramp up with each hit.

As well as hit and stagger reactions there will also be a chance for the AI to make a ‘Dodge’ movement, to take them out of the players range and ready to attack again if you managed to hit them a few times in succession. Along with the AI work I have been fixing up various animation bugs and implementing the hit while blocking animation for the axe.

Jamie – QA

This week I’ve been testing out the different enemies thoroughly and posting bugs to do with their attack behaviour. I’ve also been running through the level and reporting on any collision issues in the critical path in the level along with reviewing and signing off fixed bugs and new features.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix