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

Greetings Pioneers!

It has been another week of integrating and fixing this week, RMD – Tool modules with the build systems being the main focus. We want to be sure you can still work your way up to be the badass with the kinetic cyborg arm, even if you now start off with little more than an axe pulled out of somebody’s dead face…

Regarding the pending release…

Our initial anticipated release date was pointed out as the ‘end of July’, which is fast approaching, however as we said, it has always been a target estimate. We are super busy at the moment working on multiple projects and so we still feel we need more time to benchmark an enjoyable experience with the core mechanics, making them fun, functional, logical and the major game/fun-breaking bugs, fixed. This is unfortunately not looking likely for the end of July but John is assessing progress this weekend and will update you up with progress on outstanding tasks as soon as possible!

Some of the core links for progress are still flakey at this stage, we need more “wiring” in the world currently as a salvageable resource (for example!) in order for you to then easily craft the Repaired Emergency Build Module. In addition to this we need the new Kinetic Manipulation Module in the game to perform the functionality of the previous Kinetic Blast and Energy Harness modules (mining tool + Fuel as ammo), once you gather the materials and workstations to build it. Smash will now be the final upgrade to this rather than being available from the start allowing us to overpower it a little, balanced against fuel use.

The changes we have made to the progression, crafting and build modules are extensive as we shift the starting configuration to be more ‘left defenceless’ and less ‘left slightly damaged but still a supersoldier’. We hope this will lead to a more intense experience as you battle creatures in hand to hand combat with makeshift melee weapons being the staple for the start of the game; from survival to domination.

On the art and level design side of things, it has been all hands on deck to populate the world with clusters of material nodes and points of interest ‘jackpots’ for Pioneers to explore, discover and loot.

Multiple AI fixes have also been achieved, but in the process of fixing one of the core bugs, some of them have been temporarily broken, we’re working on it! They are really starting to come together now otherwise. The player customisation screen has also been in development this week, with new options for selecting options for the visuals of your character available at the start of the game.

Some of the major things left to fix:

Crashes in multiplayer
Broken AI
Hit reactions bugs
Not attacking – Some of the planners are currently broken + Balancing needed
Build tool
Picking up items being unforgiving
Player movement needing balancing
Player animation bugs
Player weapon and AI balancing
Cleaning up Build Tool so that it works as it does in the current Steam release

Major Features remaining:

Radiation zoning
Fuel in Utilities and Defences
Fuel in Tool Modules

There’s a new gameplay video coming soon… For now here’s what we’ve been up to this week in more detail:

John – Lead Designer

I’ve been running around in reviews all week, attempting to grab a spare minute to organise the remaining tasks and external team members. This weekend I’m going to be reviewing the latest build to check on player-facing progress and to prioritise our last remaining sprints.

Matt – Art Director

So we’ve done a huge optimisation pass on the whole Areas we’re looking at releasing, which included distance LODs and lighting tweaks. We’re now at a constant high frame rate across the game, which we’re still squeezing for more performance up till that last stages. We’ve been working through all the blockout assets left in the game as well as focusing on the quality of the mineral placement throughout the relevant levels.

Lee – Technical Director

So this week I found a rather elusive bug with our AI planners, which I fixed. Unfortunately this fix also exposed some underlying issues with the AI planners in blueprint, which I have been desperately trying to find time to fix. As it stands, I’m partially through fixing them, but not quite finished, which means Matt was a rather disappointed along with other members of the art team because they wanted to put a showreel together today with the AI, but alas its not to be 🙂

Katrine – 3D Artist

This week I finished up the axe materials and textures and added it in the game. Thanks for the feedback from the community! It means a lot to hear what the players think about the art we put in the game.

Tristan – Lead Developer

This week I have been going through code reviews and bug fixes galore. I have also been looking into getting the good old trusty tool back up and running as we don’t want to be taking the fun out of the game.

Joe – Lead Artist

More optimisation this week, specifically with lighting. I’ve also been reviewing and nosing around the awesome new art the guys have been working on. The world is really starting to come together!

I have also been populating one of the levels in the world, trying to make the landscape a beautiful journey with lots of minable goodies and open spaces to build bases.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been going through one of the levels on the mpa to ensure the balancing of the minerals and mineable foliage is good, creating new rocky formations and soaring hills for you to explore!

Tidying up a lot of the landscape in these areas also means dealing with new ways to guide you through the world and find different locations within the level. Always looking to help you orient yourself in the world and fine new points of interest to interact with!

Charlotte – Concept Artist

At the start of the week I worked on refining some of the previous reticle designs which will need to be implemented, along with some additional discussion to how they would be animated when pointed at certain things.

Asides from this, I have also been creating more strange rock formations that could be mined, in addition to a new destructible build set which will include things like walls, windows, foundations, doors and stairs. We’re going for a more simplistic, slightly retro inspired look with this one!

John S – Developer

Submitted the rest of the work on the character customisation system for review with the rest of the team!

Ryan – Developer

Hey everyone, this week I have been developing craftable item notifications to help out new players. The notification will only display once and inform the player that they can now craft a makeshift item. I have also continued to fix bugs around the spears, weapons and inventory.

James – Environment Artist

Worked on populating an area of the map with wrecked ship debris set, placed rocks in such a way to break the skyline with an interesting silhouette, blended some rock debris texture with sand texture for a nice fade off from the rock assets. Added minerals for the player to go find, some in interesting spots, others perhaps in risky places.

Mike – Developer

This week I’ve been on bug fixes again. At the start of the week fixed the aiming system for the 3rd person control system and repaired a weapon which crashed the game. From wednesday onwards I was fixing a bug in multiplayer which withheld player identities and health bars. It’s not completely resolved yet but effect of the final edge case is relatively insignificant and to fix it may require some restructuring of the code. Next week I’ll be looking at new features.

Tom S – Developer

This week i’ve been tackling the issue of having to be pixel perfect when looking at items to interact with them – instead, i’m making it more forgiving. If the item in front of you is near enough around your reticule, you can pick it up.

John T – Environment Artist

This week I have mainly focused on replacing and enhancing certain areas of the map in terms of lighting, efficiency and narrative. Alongside this have been replacing old structural assets with the newly created ones. Overall this gives a better aesthetic to the designs we have created.

Will H – 3D Artist

Some of this week has been spent creating low resolution distance meshes for the landscape geometry. This is done to make sure that performance doesn’t suffer from keeping the high res meshes loaded. Currently, I am working on creating an elevator asset based on concept art, replacing the simple placeholder mesh that’s been there for a while.

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week I have been focusing on the AI and player animated interactions. This included many tweaks to the death, the the ragdoll and the reaction animations. We now have a different set of reactions for when hitting the AI from the front to when you hit them from the side. Along with AI fixes so they play the correct reactions, this will help make them seem more believable.

We’ve still to finetune the balancing for them and fix the remaining bugs. As it goes with game development sometimes it can be two steps forward, one step back but we are slowly making progress.

In addition to this I have been fixing up the 1st and 3rd person movement animations to try and get them looking nicer.

Andy – Lead QA

This week I have been liaising with the new members of staff and reviewing their progress. A lot of these tasks were bugs or art test 3D models.
I have also been working closely with Rich our IT guys to get members of the team up and running with the correct hardware

Jamie – QA

This week I’ve been gathering the most game breaking bugs and assigning the dev team to them to make sure they get squashed. I’ve also been having a look at trying to make sure all the issues to do with the build system are being dealt with. Then lastly I’ve been catching more bugs and crashes to do with multiplayer.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

This week more AI balancing and refinements have been under way. This includes many individual small tweaks that, while small individually, really work together to in order to provide the best experience when fighting the AI. Also this week the visual final pass has been completed for the Dam area with the new maintenance set and lighting passes. We have also been designing the opening sequence UI to give the player more information at the start of the game as to their current stats, status and story.

John – Lead Designer

Voyaged down to Develop conference for the most of this week. Caught up with a lot of the awesome people that we know from a studio perspective. In between and whilst travelling on the train, I’ve been triaging tasks that we have in the backlog of the game to better suit our evolving crew!

Matt – Art Director

Been pushing to get our process a bit more concise this week as well as drive some of the level placement work. Excited to say we’ve had a few new artists come on board which has given me a chance to spread the load a little in terms of producing the artwork itself. This is only a good thing as we can have more awesome artists working on important stuff all at the same time, instead of loading it all on to one really awesome artist.

Lee – Technical Director

I’ve been working to iron out more bugs with the new combat reactions for the AI. Lauren has been playing it to death to find bugs and tweaks which are still needed, but it’s starting to look very good indeed.

Tristan – Lead Developer

This week I have been helping out with some of our new devs get up to speed and ironing out some of the third person camera issues with them and reviewing code and more code. With some extra code.

Joe – Lead Artist

I’ve been going over the new HUD/UI “boot sequence” with Charlotte, which will add some nice world building and tutorialisation to the start of the game. I also finished the optimisation work for the first area, which is helping claw back some valuable frames!

Carlos – Developer

I have finally hunted down our gnarly inventory crash! I am victorious! Anyway… yes, I have restored the inventory which happened to go missing whenever the Pioneer died.
I’ve also been hunting down some of the other crashes which we seem to be getting on a regular basis.

Lastly, I’ve begun work on one of our new tool weapons, so you all have that to look forward to 🙂

Jon S – Developer

Moved a bunch of stuff that i’ve been working on for the player customisation over to development review this week. The character customisation feature displays during game setup giving the player complete control over how their character will look in the game world,
from body size to space suit colours and gender, the player is able to view a live model representation of their character in the menu and see these changes carried over to in-game. All changes pending review.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

So I started the week by finishing the lift concept art I was working with last Friday, then moved on to creating some storyboard images for the opening sequence of the UI that will display when you enter the game. Think of a computer booting up, that’s the effect we want to recreate! In addition to this, I have also concepted some simplistic designs for different crosshairs/reticles and more realistic for destructible rocks you will be able to find like Silicon, Silver and Gold.

James Brady – Environment Artist

Started working on a console which one of our talented concept artists created. It will be featured in the Dam interior. The console will be featured in events and interactive through it’s fancy holographic display.

John T – Environment Artist

Finished the full pass of lighting improvements for the depths of the Dam interior. I’ve moved onto some minor improvements for the other base locations. A lot of light sources needed to be more obvious with brighter more contrasted fall off areas to create the long abandoned rundown mood that we wanted.

Katrine L – 3D Artist

Hello everyone, I am new at Flix and very excited to work on Eden Star! Today I started creating a scrap pickaxe from some awesome designs created by one of our talented concept artists. The axe is currently in highres, the next stages will be to bake it down and plug it in the game.

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week I have been refining the Stalker and other AI, balancing their attacks while testing them in multiplayer, reporting issues for Lee and smoothing the experience where I can. I have also been working on the physics for death ragdoll and setting up syncing of animations during locomotion so that the directional animations blend better from one to the other.

Jamie – QA

This week I’ve been doing lots of bug retesting and I’ve been looking closely at some new problems that have cropped up to do with multiplayer. Me and Ryan have been looking at ways to make our bugs board more accessible for the team to help identify and find bugs that have already been made.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix