Greetings Pioneers,

Following on from last weeks blog update we are pleased to announce the release of our next update to the game which adds the Missile Turret to your defenses. This turret will wreck havoc on unsuspecting ground and airborne enemies, as well as destroying anything that gets in its way.

You can view the full change list on trello.

Today is also a good opportunity to update you all on the exciting new features some of the team have been working on…….

Lee – Technical Director

I’ve recently been working on implementing the new missile turret which you will be able to test in this new release. I’ve been debugging some of our own multi-threaded pathing code we use for our flying creatures trying to iron out remaining bugs and crashes. At the moment I’m just about to begin work on the flying fauna creature, which you should see in game very soon.

Marcin – Game Designer

I have been focusing mainly on implementation of the finishing touches to the fresh, new Missile Turret, making sure that it’s in working order, fun, and even maybe slightly overpowered. Moreover, I have been designing some of the upcoming interactive additions to the world of Pharus7, including the combat with the Juggernaut by grabbing and smashing of its legs.

Yves – Senior Developer

Last time I insisted they use my title “King Developer”, but said request was ignored, you just cannot get the staff these days *shakes head*. Anyway, I have been working on super technical multiplayer stuff, namingly replication of our destructible assets which is a combination of nVidia’s APEX destruction module and our own home brew stuff. We’ve had to get our hands dirty with engine code to (low-level unreal networking code) implement the APEX part. I hope you appreciate that this is all very hard work and now my fingers are bleeding, alas we suffer for our passions.

Chris – Designer

This past week I have been helping the dev team test new tools to aid in the expansion of the world including the ability to add more dense environments without compromising on performance. I have also been prototyping new interactive foliage which allows the player to pick them up and smash them causing havoc to the surrounding environment and any enemies unfortunate enough to get in the way.

Tristan – Senior Developer

I have been working on making the foliage in the world much more efficient to allow the artists to splash out a little. If all goes to plan we can have nice dense forests and plant life without reducing the framerate to that of a flipbook. Virtual trees were destroyed in the making of this system. Its ok though I just press B and they come back.

Carlos – Developer

This week I’ve been working on optimization of the game. I’ve been looking at how to implement some scalability settings, adding new shiny options to it as well for all of you to play with! 🙂
These changes should hopefully mean that the game will run smoother if you turn these settings down.

Ricky – Developer

Working on new video options for the menu
Working on Upgrade to shiny new engine version
Continuing work on the new build Menu/System
Beginning designs/work on the multiplayer UI’s

Lauren – Animator

Recently I have been working mainly on animations for the fauna creatures, specifically the upcoming flying fauna (Nahmar). I have also been tweaking the Missile Turret animations to fit with the chosen firing type and refining character multiplayer animations.

Andy – Lead QA

Since our last release I’ve been testing the Missile Turret, taking a look at some of the multiplayer implementation and working my way through 17 peanut butter Kitkat chunkies Kyle bought me. You’ll be happy to know I finished the last one today!

Gav Li- Concept Artist

This week we’ve been working on a VERY exciting backlog of creatures – more than you can count! (so long as you’re incapable of counting very high)

Matt – Art Director

All of last week and this week I’ve been designing, iterating and preparing an update to the build assets. This is being done in anticipation of re-launching build with a tonne of extra variety when Multi-player is launched. I’ve also been working closely with Gavin and the rest of the guys to make sure the additional flora and creatures that we have planned feel and work believably in our world and new biomes.

That’s all for now folks! For an up-to-date view on all of the features being worked on please visit our Trello board

Also please continue to keep us informed of any feedback and issues on the Forums

Many thanks,

– Team Flix