Some developers like to lay out their plan for the future of their games in "roadmaps" which break down the path they intend to take from point A to point B. Garry Newman of Facepunch Studios is not one of those developers, but people keep bugging him about what's coming next. So, as an alternative, he's put together what he calls a "mind-map" for Rust that details his ideas without placing undue pressure on the studio.

"I don t want us to feel tied down to features and timescale," Newman wrote in the most recent devblog. "We re hobbyists at heart—we re not a game factory—we don t need that kind of pressure."

The mind-map, viewable here, is broken down into four basic categories—Priority, Strategies, Future Ideas, and Bugs—each of which branches off into multiple levels of increasing detail. The first priority on the list, for instance, (but not necessarily the number one priority) is Working Blueprints, which includes Blueprint Distribution, Saving/loading, and Limits; Blueprint Distribution devolves further into Radtown Monuments and Item Re-spawing, while Limits branches to Store Unlocked Blueprints, Send Player Unlocked Blueprints, and Limit Item Creation Via Blueprints.

There's much more to it than just that—it's a big document with a lot of ideas on it. But it shouldn't be seen as "ten tablets of stone handed down from God," as Newman put it. "It's a rough, scatterbrain plan of our intentions and direction. Like everything we do, it changes and evolves."

Facepunch recently released a significant update to Rust that shifted its focus from building to exploration.

We don't have a Hammer Simulator yet because, well, that's basically what Rust is sometimes. Facepunch Studios is aware that many players spend a lot of time, maybe too much time, hammering their abodes together in the survival adventure, so a forthcoming update with streamline the process. This means you'll probably spend more time exploring and gathering resources than, y'know, hammering. Apparently some people aren't happy about the changes though. Not enough hammering.

"I ve seen a few people comment that they don t understand why we re changing the build system," Garry Newman writes in a new devblog. "They loved it, it was miles better than legacy, don t change it, please god don t change it. Well you probably should have said something before because all I ve heard is moaning."

Once the changes are live, players will have a lot less hammering to do. According to Newman, resources rather than time should be the payment for building, and as a result exploration and gathering will be a stronger focus. "Anything we can do to encourage players to explore, we should," Newman writes.

Another reason is that the art cost was too high. "Every component needed 7 different stage models (wood, wood2, stone, stone2 etc), this is a lot of art especially when you consider that things like stairs don t need that. The new system keeps these requirements low while allowing for the maximum customizations."

The full notes are over here. 

Microsoft bought Mojang yesterday you may have heard something about that. You may also have heard grumblings from some corners of the community that Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson "sold out" by taking the money and abandoning his game and, by extension, his millions of adoring fans to the fickle whims of of a corporate villain. But Garry Newman, the man behind indie darlings Garry's Mod and Rust, says he'd do exactly the same thing if he could, and you probably would too.

Newman pointed out in a blog post that went up shortly after the Mojang deal was was confirmed that everything changes for an indie developer once he starts hiring people to work for him, because you're suddenly responsible for a lot more people than just yourself. Citing the case of Blitz Game Studios, which shut down in September 2013, laying off 175 employees, and then effectively re-launched in November under a new name, he wrote, "Those are the guys you don't want to be."

"I am sure more than the top guys at Mojang became very financially rich due to this deal and that's something that should be admired not seen as a bad thing," he continued. "Long story short, I d have done the same thing. The money is enough to very much take care of all the staff. The game is in relatively safe hands. Mojang s legacy is as a huge success story instead of a one hit wonder. Everyone wins. Can you seriously say you d have done it differently?"

No, Garry. No, I cannot.

It could only happen on PC: Garry's Mod, a seemingly pointless sandbox allowing all manner of ridiculous and perverse experimentation, has managed to sell 6 million copies. The news comes via Garry Newman himself, who managed to drag himself away from mountains of cold hard cash for long enough to Tweet the news.

Garry's Mod originated as a Half-Life 2 mod. It hit Steam in 2006 and, according to figures from April 2013, has earned over $22 million. More than a year later, and since the game went standalone earlier this year, that figure has no doubt increased significantly. As reference, the game had sold a mere one million copies back in 2011.

Along with the new sales milestone Newman provided a platform breakdown for the title. The vast majority sold for Windows, 336,765 sold for Mac and 28,322 for Linux.

As for the future of Facepunch Studios, Rust is still in development, albeit in Early Access, while Riftlight is a newly announced topdown shooter which looks pretty sweet.

 

Reaction to their recent announcement of a new game Riftlight involved more flaming pitchforks than Facepunch Studios may have anticipated, but that hasn't put them off from revealing another one. Deuce (working title) is being described as "tennis crossed with Street Fighter" and OK, we're going to have to examine that a little bit. Expect over-the-top characters, themed arenas and extravagant special moves: for instance, a teleport power that swaps the direction of the ball mid-flight. *Andy Murray's sullen head perks up in interest*.

Deuce appears to be developer Ian James' baby, so don't expect Garry Newman or, indeed, Gary Numan to suddenly divert all of Facepunch's resources to this newest project. (Meanwhile, Gary Numan is probably working on an album or something.) The fact that Rust is in Early Access does muddy the waters a little bit, but development teams work on multiple prototypes all the time just usually in secret.

Here's how Deuce is looking at the moment, from Ian's post: "So far I ve pretty much got a functional tennis game with some placeholder special moves already in place. There s still some issues to iron out such as how and when to trigger special moves but I m iterating on these ideas all the time. There are also functional multiplayer modes including local and online play."

There will be a "large roster" of playable characters, with concept art showing images of a moustachioed luchador and a Southern redneck massive stereotypes, in other words.

It sounds pretty fun in a Mario Tennis sort of way, and it's obviously a massive departure from Facepunch's nudey survival sim, though perhaps not quite so huge a departure from the extremely silly Garry's Mod. If you're wondering, like a joking commenter under the reveal post, whether Rust, Garry's Mod and Riftlight have now been cancelled, here's Garry Newman's tongue-in-cheek reply:

"and half-life 3 sorry :("

Thanks, Eurogamer.

I think it's safe to assume that for every action, there is at least one person on the internet angry about it. For instance, I ate a cheese, ham and pickle sandwich for lunch, and can only imagine that my decision has already sent someone into an incandescent fury. Luckily, what I didn't do was announce a new game. Facepunch Studios did, and the Rust developer is now faced with a backlash. The reason? Early Access survival game Rust isn't yet finished.

"Are we crazy?" asks Facepunch's Garry Newman, who is about to drop some analogies up ins. "Are we doing it wrong? Should every person in the company be working on the same thing? Should HBO make one TV show at a time? Should Warner Brothers make one movie at a time?"

The point, as you can probably tell, is that work on Riftlight won't affect the development of Rust. In fact, it's one of a number of games being developed by the company. "Assuming read the full post and got all the information and are still angry... they are probably going to be even angrier to find out that we have three other prototypes being worked on by Facepunch staff."

"Our strategy at the moment is to hire talented people to make the games they want to play," Newman writes. "We re not asking you to fund this. We re not starting a kickstarter and begging you for money we re funding it.

"We are spending money Rust and Garry s Mod make to do this. Arguing that we should be re-investing that money back into only those games is like telling apple they can t spend the money they made from iPhone and Macs to fund the development of the iPad. Keep in mind that we spent money Garry s Mod made to develop Rust and that turned out pretty good, right? Or should Helk and Pat have been working on Garry s Mod all that time?"

Newman points to the @RustUpdates Twitter account as a sign of the work that's still being done on the game, and also states his belief that "funding" a game is different to buying into Early Access. "We funded Rust for 1-2 years before it eventually became what it is. You bought early access to it. When you buy a pizza you aren t funding Dominos, you re just buying a pizza. It s true that the sales of Rust have been insane and we have stepped up development to suit, and I think you only have to compare the experimental version to the live version to see that."

Finally, Newman confirms that all the people who work on Rust are still working on Rust not the studio's other prototypes.

Have you ever seen Survivorman? It s a documentary series about a guy called Les Stroud who spends a week in the world s most inhospitable places deserts, rainforests, tundras and survives with only the clothes on his back. Fakers like Bear Grylls have doctors on hand, camera crews, and cosy hotels to return to after filming, but Stroud does it all for real and films everything himself. It s really good TV, and I promise that after you watch the first episode you ll be hooked.

Anyway, what Survivorman shows us is that nature is terrifying, and doesn t care whether you live or die. These great, lonely expanses, whether it s the dense jungles of the Amazon or the icy plains of Alaska, are cruel, merciless places. Stroud is a seasoned survival expert, and even he struggles to find food or keep warm sometimes. Imagine if you were out there. You wouldn t last a day.

So why do survival games always have enemies in them? Zombies, cannibals, wild animals it s completely unnecessary. Nature has already done the hard work and designed the most formidable, intimidating, ruthless villain imaginable: itself. Survival sim developers seem to think they need to include some kind of threat to keep players interested, but that really isn t the case. Being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no food, no fire, and night closing in is scarier than any monster.

A survival game doesn t need conflict. There are other ways to keep a player engaged. There could be exploration elements; discovering abandoned camps or ruined buildings, and using them as makeshift shelters. There might be stories to discover, or clues to escaping the wilderness like an old map left behind by a hiker with a route scribbled on it. Or imagine finding something like Christopher McCandless bus, and reading his diary by a flickering campfire.



But for this hypothetical game to really work, a lot of love would have to be put into the atmosphere and design of the world. You d need realistic weather and lighting, and stunning natural beauty. That s another thing I love about Survivorman: Stroud is always in awe of the majesty of his surroundings, but also respectful, and occasionally fearful, of them. With a large, diverse, and beautiful environment to explore I d love somewhere like a rainy forest in the Pacific Northwest I d play the game just to wander the landscape and see what I could find before nightfall.

But let s say you re an indie developer making your dream realistic survival game, but the guy holding the cheque that ll decide whether the project lives or dies insists on some kind of danger. Well, in that case, you do it subtle. You make animal attacks rare, but possible. As you walk through the forest at night, you might hear a growl, or something stalking you. But it s unlikely it ll ever show itself; until that one, unexpected time when it does, and you have to run for your life. That would be infinitely more compelling than a million shambling zombies.

One survival game that almost gets it right is Miasmata. I love the realistic character movement, cartography system, and being able to forage for plants to craft medicines. But then that stupid monster turns up and I lose all interest. The Forest recently added a hidden enemy-free mode (type veganmode on the main menu), but it s clear the game was designed with the cannibal natives in mind, and it feels a bit empty and aimless without them. No developer I know of has been brave enough to design a survival game without any threat. Who ll be the first?

A Rust "reboot" is in the works, with a major overhaul coming in the form of a new development branch that will implement changes to just about every aspect of the game. Fortunately, creator Garry Newman has confirmed that purchasers of the original Early Access release of Rust won't be left out in the cold.

I spent a good chunk of time with Rust for an alpha review in January, and the short version is that I liked it quite a lot. But as good as it is for players, Newman told PCGamesN that it's a mess on the development side. The problem is that the game is rooted in a prototype for an open-world Hitman-style game that has very little in common with what Rust has become.

"There's a lot of systems that are integral to Rust that are 3,000 lines long, that could be 100 lines long," Newman said. "So every time you go to change something you have to chase around finding how these five different systems that it doesn't really need work, then you change it and it breaks 4 different systems that you thought had nothing to do with it."

With so much of the game needing to be changed, Facepunch decided to just start over again. The new version will simplify and speed development, and also bring changes to the interface, crafting and visual fidelity, all while maintaining or even improving performance. But this is all happening in an experimental development branch, while the original the one I played remains the default. Just to be sure, we asked Newman if gamers who have the old version of Rust will be given the new one, and the unsurprising answer is "yes."

"They get the new version," he told us. "We're still developing the same game, we just switched tracks."

Rust is available now, in both the default and experimental branches, on Steam Early Access.