Hello, folks!

Today we want to tell you about new music which we’ll add to the update 0.70. It’s written by Michal Cielecki, Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz and Adam Skorupa. The latter is famous for his work on such games like The Witcher series, EVE Online, Call of Juarez, Painkiller, Ash of Gods: Redemption and many other projects.



At the moment five tracks will be added to the game. They’ll be spreaded between the key zones of The Edge. You can hear them exploring the fallen spaceship,if you make your way to the Outpost of the Outcast and to the camp of Scalphunters and also wandering around the desert full of anomalies. Every track perfectly reflects its mood and characteristic features.



Here is a small part of a track that will sound in the Scalphunters’ camp. Don’t hesitate to give your feedback!

And we also remind you that the key raffle in our Discord goes on and we want to congratulate the winners of this week:

@Seki_ETS
@Bar666
@aleksander_suvorov
@koukakurin
@raget01

Have a nice game, guys!

We remind you that you have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel. And if you’re not a winner this time, don’t worry — you’ll automatically become a participant of the next weekly raffles up to the release of the major update 0.70.

That’s all for now. Leave your feedback, follow the news of development in Steam and make sure to drop by to our #devblog in Discord.

See you next week!

Hello, space cowboys!

Today we want to tell you about the new animal we added to the game. We have already showed you our progress in our #devblog in Discord, but since that time plenty of work has been done.



The working name of the mob is alpha but to the release of the update 0.70 it will get a new name suiting the most dangerous predator of K’Tharsis better. Luckily, alphas walk either alone or in pairs—otherwise it wouldn’t be so easy to deal with such strong, fast and clever predators.



It took a lot of time to animate alpha—we’re planning a lot of unique skills for it, quite hard to make. So, a mature species should be able to crawl, attack in a jump, knock down. But it will be added later—and now in the game there is a young species which can only strike with its paw and bite. Don’t underestimate the monster though. His attacks can cause serious damage.



Thanks to its colour, Alpha can easily hide in high grass. If you come close, it will try to frighten you—it’s jaw really looks intimidating!



We’ve tried to make the mob’s movements as smooth and fluid as we could. Considering a lot of details, it turned out to be not an easy task. Do you think it works?



We’ve tried to make as intimidating sounds as possible—heavy breath, sonorous growl, hissing. Most of the work with this mob is still ahead of us. We’ll be happy to get some feedback on already existing ones though.



The information about alpha also exists on one of the load screens from which you can find out more about this monster. The text will be slightly reworked and of course we will change the name.

Hope you’ll like the new mob—and we want to show you the list of the winners of our weekly raffle in Discord who will get an opportunity to fight it:

@Brainwagon
@Ivan
@AnatoliyBIK
@crank34r
@Shetland

Have a nice game, friends!

The raffles will continue up to the release of the Major Update 0.70, so be sure to join our channel, drop by the #devblog where we post the freshest news of the development and leave your feedback. And also suggest a good name for our new mob.

See you on K’Tharsis!

Hello, friends! We are not only filling the game with interesting content, but also working on its look and feel. Additionally we removed some major problems which, according to your feedback, considerably spoiled the impression of the game. Telling you about every improvement step by step below.



The biggest work was done with the fighting system. We have improved the control of the system of hits both in melee fighting and in gunfight. But we’ll talk about it later—in a separate article dedicated to gameplay.

The next important change has become a system of layers. It opens many interesting possibilities and has also let us reduce the amount of the situations where the player falls through the textures or gets stuck in the crevices.

We have also got rid of our old approach to the focus on the objects and now it’s impossible to pick objects through the walls—the bug that you used to report many times. It has also partially decided the problem of pixel-hunting, though we’re going to go on improving the system.



A lot of work was carried out with water. Now it looks more believable—we’ve transferred it to PBR and got rid of some annoying problems like glowing in the dark or unnatural flow. The water also has different levels of transparency depending on the depth, surface of the bottom and turbidity. It will result in the spreading of the light according to the time and in the behaviour of shadows.



These improvements have also let us create the effect of the wet shores and add puddles to the Edge which made the location much more interesting. More improvements are coming soon: we’re planning to change the system of swimming and add the reaction to the character’s or NPCs’ presence in the water.



We have done some work with the surfaces of the savannah and the desert. Now you can see particles reflecting the light under different angles on different types of the ground. It’s especially visible on the sand—nights in the desert have become much more atmospheric.



We have also coped with the problem which appeared with the textures of the rocks—in a definite lighting its texture seemed grainy. We have worked with the surfaces and now the rocks look natural at any time of the day.



Meantime the key raffle in our Discord goes on and we want to congratulate the winners of this week:

@Felov
@Vague-Snowy
@punggol
@juice
@pitt-CH

Have a nice game, folks!

We remind you that you also have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel in Discord—you will automatically become a participant of weekly raffles up to the release of the Update 0.70.

That’s all for now. Leave your feedback, follow the news of the development on Steam and make sure to drop by our #devblog in Discord.

See you next week!

Hello, folks!

We go on putting a lot of effort into making the Edge as diverse as possible and working on the improvement of level design. We have already remade Outpost of the Outcast—and now we want to meet you with the renewed Sculphunters camp, talk about some targeted changes and also show brand new areas.



We have completely changed the design of Scalphunters' camp—starting with the look of their tents and finishing by the position of the objects. Now in the camp it’s not only much more convenient to navigate and accomplish quests, but its visual is much closer to the envisioned look of the tribe.



One of the biggest changes in the level design is the appearance of the area Paths of the Ancient. It’s a huge dungeon with its quests and secret places. There will be a great number of possibilities for exploration and of course fights with dangerous monsters who guard them. You can get there with the help of the Herbalist—so don’t say no when he asks you for help.



The zone of the Hermit will also considerably change—besides the newly planted grass and redesigned waterfalls, we’ve created a road to the ancient abori sanctuary of the Sky Demons bypassing the broken bridge. Maybe that’s where you can find the answers to many mysteries of the abori race.



We have completely changed the area where Eric Kraven hides with his gang. He is a dangerous bandit whose posters are in the abandoned mining town Lucky Hole. If you aren’t scared to face him and his thugs, you can get a pretty good reward. The zone not far from the abori cemetery was also broadened—you can investigate it and even have a real massacre in one of the quests about which we’ll tell you in other updates.



Besides, we’ve put decorative changes into the tombs, added some details into the Outpost which help with navigation and tell more about the personality of its inhabitants and worked on the zone where Curious hides—an abori-child who escaped from Scalphunters—and made it more interesting for investigation and more visually pleasant.

That’s all for now, but we’ll go on sharing our progress in our Discord. And we also remind you about our weekly raffle where you can get a free key. We congratulate the winners of this week:

@泡泡
@死神修仙
@titomalkavian
@hwdp
@Almas_Almuhametov

Have a nice game, friends!

See you next week—and for now share your impressions and give your feedback in the comments, try to conquer cruel K’Tharsis and drop by our devblog in Discord.

See you at The Edge, cowboys!

Hello, friends!

We have already told you a lot about our work on the new interface which will be available in the new build. And today we’d like to share our recent progress with you. We really care about your opinion, so don’t hesitate to leave feedback in the comments!



First of all, we’ve remade the trading window. It caused a lot of discussions, because we decided to change the existing interface completely and make a more immersive variant which suits a role-play game in the open world much better.



Of course, we did attempt to remake an old version with an exchange. A full-screen interface let us fit all the necessary elements but impacted the atmosphere in a negative way. Which window do you like more?



One more important change — The Edge will get a beautiful new map! We’ve completely remade an old draft version and did a great deal of job with the style, colours and landmarks. Now the map has a clear division of the desert and savannah biomes, you can see all the topography, and there are marks of settlements and other important and interesting zones where you can get a quest or find something handy.



The next thing we’ve worked with is a journal. Now the list of the quests looks much neater and the blocks of texts separated from each other are much more convenient for reading. Besides, we’ve added a glossary from which you can get some information about the world of the game.



The window of the skills has completely changed. We wanted to make the character’s level up more convenient and clear, that’s why we’ve added tooltips for every active button.



The crafting window was completely transformed. We’ve removed everything that was unnecessary and added the characteristics of the created object. New recipes will appear in the game very soon for the craft to become a more important part of the game.

You can learn more about the important changes in our previous post and also track them and give feedback in our channel in Discord. Join in, we’re having a weekly rifle where you can get a free key. And we congratulate the winners of this week:

@Hex7ech
@parkchaung
@mirey
@Arhangel
@фф

Good luck on the vastness of K’Tharsis, folks!

That’s all for now—share your feedback in the comments, try to conquer the cruel K’Tharsis and peer into our Devblog in Discord!

See you in space, cowboys!

Hello, friends!

We go on telling you about the changes that await you in the Major Update 0.70—and today we’d like to show you how the process of creating the character will change.

A lot of players keep asking us about the possibility of creating their own character, but as soon as Exoplanet is a story-driven RPG, there can be only one character. Jack Sharp.



Nevertheless, in the beginning we were planning to customize the character depending on his background — an eye patch for an ex-pirate, scars on an ex-soldier's face and so on. But at this stage of development such visual changes would demand a lot of time for their creation and the adaptation of the cutscenes for each character. That’s why at the moment we’ve stopped at the creation of archetypes.



This is an extremely important gameplay option which allows you to create a unique character from the very beginning of the game, putting several points into the skills which suit your style of playing. Every skill has an explanation—which bonuses it gives and what it influences, that’s why there won’t be any problems during the creation of the archetype.



If you don’t like to spend time on the learning of skills and distribution of points and want to start playing as soon as possible, we’ve considered some ready solutions which you can use.

Meanwhile, the key raffle in our Discord goes on and we want to congratulate the winners of this week:

@Vitalii_Pitomets
@Bhai
@rod
@Forsj
@icosinus

Have a nice game, guys!

We remind you that you have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel. And if you’re not a winner this time, don’t worry — you’ll automatically become a participant of the next weekly raffles up to the release of the major update 0.70.

That’s all for now. Leave your feedback, follow the news of development in Steam and make sure to drop by to our #devblog in Discord.

See you next week!

Hello, space cowboys!

As we’ve promised, we’re starting to tell you about the tastiest changes which are waiting for you in the major update 0.70. And the first one is intro cinematic.



Jack Sharp’s story will finally be introduced not only by a small description on the load screen, but by a proper dramatic cinematic. We’ve put a lot of effort into it, to show how a self-confident captain Jack Sharp found himself in a desert on an unknown planet without a ship and without any chance to get out from there.



In the intro you will also meet Smiley who hired Jack to take his cargo to the far away planet K’Tharsis distant from the Core Worlds.

By the way, the characters in the cinematic have voices—it’s our first test of a comprehensive voiceover, so don’t hesitate to leave feedback about the voices—maybe we should use these actors for the voiceover inside the game.



In the cinematic there are a couple of surprises for the most attentive watchers—references to our favourite series. Can you find them?

And finally we want to congratulate the winners who got the keys in our weekly raffle in Discord:

@maloon
@Markb
@! apple bum
@ookaminoken
@isinusx

Have a nice game, guys!



We remind you that you still have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel in Discord. And if you’re not lucky for the first time, don’t worry, you’ll automatically become a participant of the next weekly raffles up to the release of the major update 0.70.

Don’t forget to peer into our #devblog in Discord to get the freshest news from the development process and leave your feedback!

See you on K’Tharsis!

Hello, space cowboys!

Since the time we decided to rework our game completely, a lot of changes have already happened. We’ve done a great deal of job with biomes and are filling them with new plants and animals step by step. More and more quests appear in the game and are revealing K'Tharsis and its severe problems.The work on the big location—the town—is also in progress. And today we’d like to announce that the next update will be a MAJOR UPDATE.



Yes, we are doing our best to bring you a great deal of fun with build 0.70. What’s gonna be there, you ask? Well, follow us to learn more! We are going to reveal everything with weekly updates here on Steam. And we also would like to celebrate it with a contest!

Everyone who joins our Discord from NOW till the MAJOR UPDATE release, gets an opportunity to win a free key for Exoplanet. The winners will be chosen weekly by our unbiased and beautiful A.N.N.A.



If you are not lucky enough the first time, don’t worry—you automatically participate in every other raffle till the Major Update release.

And while you are waiting, there is plenty to do in our Discord! Do not hesitate to share your feedback with us on daily updates, play a little quiz game with A.N.N.A., ask devs anything you want or just start any discussion you want in our #off-topic section .

See you in Discord!

Hello, space cowboys!

It’s been a bit more than a month since our last update, and we’re ready to show you a new build 0.69. There are a lot of animations, new quests and a totally remade Outcast camp.


LEVEL DESIGN



The Outcast camp has completely changed. Now it’s a cosy place with picturesque rocks, a waterfall and a lot of plants. There’s also much more space and more events.



Besides that, we've made the level design more complex by adding some vertical layers to The Outcast.



We also go on working with the spaceship in the desert. The bugs that prevented players from passing to the Edge are fixed, and we also improved some elements of the interior.

QUESTS

There are four new quests in the game. During them Jack will have to communicate a lot both with people and with abori.



In the quest Vandals a small disenchantment awaits for Jack—the terminal which he needs so much is ruined by some vandals. And before fulfilling Fix terminal near mine quest and fixing the town’s property he will have to take care of local hooligans. Jack won't regret it though—turns out that he knows these guys really well!



Treacherous bastard quest seems no big deal on first glance, but it’s because of it Jack gets on a track of his ship Beth. Kraven’s neighbour is none other that the bastard Smiley who hijacked the ship! Locals will willingly tell everything about this guy who managed to annoy them too.



In the quest Нornhog Rabies Jack will have to deal with the herd of hornhogs and do his best not to be got on the horn while he’s looking for sick species. Well, run, Jack, run! Or hide properly.



All quests have several variants of solving and several outcomes which will influence more or less on further events. And during the missions you will not only have an opportunity to know the Edge better, but also to get some useful skills!

ANIMATION AND SOUNDS



We keep working on the animations of the animals. Arphants, hornhogs, crucases and insects will get new movements. Now these mobs will be able to jump which means that Jack will have to try hard to win fights!



We have also added and improved animations of people and made new sounds for them. So, for example, Jack can hear the woman’s cry and decide if he should save a damsel in distress or if it's one more trap of K’Tharsis.

ASSETS



Placeholders for Scolder appeared in the game. A new model of the weapon is ready and already transferred to PBR.



Bandannas get back to the Edge! Now you have more opportunities to make the character’s style more different. Which one do you like best?



We’ve also added a new ritual decole—working on more and more elements of abori culture.

Here are all changes that await you in the build. We remind you that the release of a major anniversary build 0.70 is coming. We’ll start telling you about it beforehand in Steam and in our #devblog channel in Discord.

Follow the news, try to play the new version and leave your feedback on Steam and in Discord!

See you again on K’Tharsis!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/Exoplanet_First_Contact/

Hello, space cowboys!

We’re happy to show you the summer build and want to tell you about the new content and the improvements we have made, and also about the bugs we got rid of—thanks to your feedback as well.

We also remind you that we publish unique updates in our channel in Discord almost every day—and now you can comment on every piece of news to share your opinion, influence the game development and ask questions.

And now let’s see what is waiting for us in the build.




QUESTS

We’ve dedicated a lot of time to improving the quests that already are in the game and adding new ones. For example, the story of Herbalist got an extension with the quest Tools for Herbalist. Now when a grateful abori reaches the mining town, he can teach Jack the basics of the craft.



We’ve added more interactivity into the quest Grave Business. We’ve also divided it into two parts and organized the space better—instead of some small graves, which were not very comfortable to look for, there is a big and significant one. And for improving cutscenes visually, we’ve worked on more harmonious placement of decorations.



In the quest Quick Adventure you can see a lot of beautiful and mysterious things—Jack headed to research aboris’ ancient burial in an attempt to find out who stands behind the tomb raiding.



We’ve also added an occasional event—the quest View Enjoyer. Now you should drop by Lucky Hole more often—there is a chance to meet a mysterious stranger who will make an interesting offer.



LEVEL DESIGN

We keep improving the space ship for the quest Dead Leviathan—new animated elevators are added, and we’ve also reworked the decor—we’ve normalized the position and the size of the chairs for the environment to look more natural.



We’ve also reworked most of the surfaces and reset the parameters of renders to make locations and objects more natural, colours richer and textures more plausible. And each surface sounds more accordingly.



In particular, we’ve renewed hulks, remaking three already existing textures and adding the fourth which gave their skin and body structure a more alien look. The clothes of new hulks are also already remade for the new system of colouring. Besides, we’ve made them new better eyes, considerably adding to these creatures' humanity. We’ve also added a hat-helmet for the main guy. But actually anyone can try it on.



A kid-abori deserves a separate talk. He’s also transferred to new materials and got new eyes. He’s so cute that we’re thinking of adding more abori kids to the Edge.



ANIMATIONS

Going on with the topic of abori-hulks—we’ve added them some new animations, and now the movements demonstrate their power and strength much better.

We’ve also added the movement animations to women NPCs.



SOUNDS

Many bugs are fixed in this build. The loudness of some sounds is normalized and some uncorrect effects are replaced. We’ve also «fixed» music which used to stop from time to time—now the track will please you while you reveal secrets of K’Tharsis.



That’s all for now—a lot of changes about which we were writing in the #devblog channel in Discord will be introduced in the next two builds, but you’ll definitely find things to watch in this one. So add the game into the wishlist and be sure to share your feedback in the comments in our Discord—it’s very important for us to hear what you think of the changes in the game.

See you in the vastness of K’Tharsis!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/Exoplanet_First_Contact/