The moment we have all been waiting for is here!

https://youtu.be/d1p6N44UwvI

Today, almost exactly one year after our initial game reveal, we have started sending out The Riftbreaker Alpha Test access keys to our community members! The first batch of keys is out in the open.



The keys are being sent out to those people, who applied to join our testing through the form available on our Discord. Don’t worry if you have not received your key yet. We are distributing them in waves, according to your activity in the community and the hardware you have. We will be sending out new waves of keys together with new updates to the alpha. If you’re new to our community and would like to sign-up for Alpha testing then you can still do so through our Discord. www.discord.gg/exorstudios



This “pre-Alpha 2” build of the Riftbreaker offers an Introductory Mission and Survival/Sandbox Mode. The Introductory Mission is a scripted experience that is meant to guide you through the basics of gameplay. Once you are ready for a real test of your skills, try the Survival mode. You can pick one of the pre-made difficulty settings we designed or adjust the difficulty sliders to your liking. If you feel especially adventurous, you can also randomize all the game parameters and jump in blind, only to see how long you can last. There is also a sandbox mode available, where you can enjoy endless gameplay without being bothered by enemy attacks. It’s a perfect setting to test new solutions and toy around with the game. A Sandbox Control Panel will allow you to change what happens in the game world, too.



Please take note of whatever bugs you find in the game and report them to us, using the built-in ‘Send bug report’ option in the game menu. We are going to be fixing the problems on a regular basis. If the game crashes, it will ask you what you were doing at the time of the crash and ask you to send the crash report. This is very important - the sooner we can catch a game-breaking bug, the sooner we can fix it. Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts about the game on Discord, too!



You are free to stream your game sessions, make YouTube videos and other forms of online content. The only thing we ask of you is to disclose to your audience is that the game is not finished and that the footage they see does not represent the final quality of the Riftbreaker. We work on improving the game every day.



Some Streamers, YouTubers and Media have already had access to our previous pre-Alpha build in November. The current “pre-Alpha 2” build has a lot of changes and improvements since that time. If you’d like to know what exactly has changed - here is the changelog for the current build:

• New Streaming Features:
  
• Added votes between attack waves.
  
• Added new event types: rain, meteor shower, unlock research, resource comet, change time of day, new objective.
  
• Added ability to enable/disable positive/negative stream events.
  
• Added streaming settings screen to the Pause menu,
  
• Added a popup informing about streaming after load
  
• New Difficulty Modes
  
• Custom Difficulty - now you can tweak the game’s settings to your liking including gameplay time, resource amounts, enemy wave strength, building cost or even enemy damage multipliers
  
• Random Difficulty - let the game surprise you with some unknown modifications
  
• New Feature: Sandbox Control Panel - It allows you to send in custom waves of enemies, grant resources or summon weather effects. Have you ever wanted to test your defense setup against a wave of 10000 canoptrix?
  
• New Feature: Treasure Detector - an equipable item that adds a whole new gameplay layer of searching for buried resources through a “hot’n’cold” mechanic. Hidden resource caches and resource deposits including geothermal vents can be found across the map.
  
• New surface properties system - different types of surfaces (e.g. ground, metal floor, sand, mud) have unique properties including walk speed, walk sound, walk effects etc.
  
• New Feature: All defense tower types are now upgradable.
  
• New Floor Building System - much improved interface for mass building floor.
  
• New Power Plants
  
• New Building: Carbonium Power Plant - burns carbonium to produce energy
  
• New Building: Animal Biomass Power Plant - burns animal biomass to produce energy
  
• New Building: Plant Biomass Power Plant - burns plant biomass to produce energy
  
• New Resource: Geothermal Vent. A few geothermal vents appear on the map, plus a few remain hidden to be found using the treasure detector.
  
• New Research Path - Atomic Power - it is now possible to mine and refine uranium to build nuclear power plants.
  
• New Resource: Uranium
  
• New Building: Rare Element Mine - used to mine uranium and other rare elements.
  
• New Building: Uranium Centrifuge - used to enrich uranium.
  
• New Building: Nuclear Power Plant - produces energy from uranium.
  
• New Building: Carbonium Synthesizer - produces carbonium from steel using energy.
  
• New Bio Self Sustainability Path
  
• New Building: Flora Cultivator - grows vegetation that can be harvested for biomass.
  
• New Building: Flora Collector - harvests vegetation for biomass.
  
• New Building: Bio Composter - produces flammable gas from biomass.
  
• Walls are now upgradeable - reduce the number of layers necessary to survive
  
• New Weapons
  
• New Weapon: Plasma Gun - rapid fire energy gun.
  
• New Weapon: Small Machine Gun - basic machinegun.
  
• New Weapon: Laser - high power laser that shoots a continuous beam that increases damage over time.
  
• New Feature: Charged attack mechanic. Single-shot weapons can now have an additional, charged attack.
  
• New Feature: Critical Hits System. Mr. Riggs can now deal critical hits with much higher damage.
  
• New Feature: Items can be dismantled for resources.
  
• New and improved enemies
  
• Tougher enemy strains - Alpha and Ultra. They appear mostly on higher difficulty settings.
  
• New Arachnoid Boss design - changed model, added destructible armor, tweaked movement speed in regards to animations, added melee attack. It can now also lay eggs and take part in wave attacks on higher difficulty levels.
  
• New Canoptrix Spawner design, model, sounds, - canoptrix spawn from eggs.
  
• New Feature: Added mass Upgrade, Repair and Deconstruction tools. Now you can perform all of these tasks very quickly.
  
• New Weather system:
  
• Random weather events can now happen during the game also outside of streaming mode.
  
• Added time of day icon.
  
• Added new weather events including Rain and Rock Rain(TM)
  
• Improved world randomization and new map sets. Now the world has even more variety.
  
• Added a new automated crash dump upload and feedback tool - now you can just click “Send” after a crash and type some nice @#$#%^@ for us!
  

• Optimized performance - the game runs up to 30% faster.
  
• Tweaked difficulty modes:
  
• Easy is now much easier
  
• Normal is now slightly easier
  
• Hard is now much harder and lasts 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes
  
• Brutal is #@$%%!
  
• Stream integration: Add and Take Away Resource events now work based on percentage of total storage available.
  
• New event manager handling game logic. Changed quest spawning rules.
  
• The minigun weapon has been moved to heavy weapons and buffed significantly.
  
• Changed aiming constraints for towers - Sentinel Towers can now aim at enemies standing directly beside them, Flamer Towers will not shoot towards the ground.
  
• Tweaked building upgrade levels - higher level buildings have improved efficiency with much better cost/effect ratio.
  
• Removed ammo storage from HQ, added more storage to Mech.
  
• Health and efficiency of many Level 2 and Level 3 buildings tweaked.
  
• Less lights for building effects - decrease visual noise.
  
• Changes to the appearance of damage numbers.
  
• Mines disappear under buildings, changed mine behavior.

• New vegetation shader - added a sub-surface scattering effect to foliage for improved rendering quality.
  
• Unified vegetation fire patterns - all vegetation props are now flammable with improved fire effects.
  
• New enemy damage skin system. - Enemies look hurt when damaged.
  
• LightFadeInOutAffector added to fire - now burning objects light up gradually.
  
• Multiple sets of new rock and crystal formations.
  
• New mushroom models.
  
• Additive bloom - optimized performance.

• New Main Menu music.
  
• Changed building sounds.
  
• New sounds for most weapons.
  
• New GUI sounds.
  
• New bullet hit sounds.
  
• New sounds added for Arachnoid Boss.
  
• Startup sounds buffer increased.

• Fixed shield shader.
  
• Fixed dash melee damage.
  
• Fixed multiple crashes connected to the big map.
  
• Fixed searching for unit type with a fixed distance from the player (look for the boss instead of the marker).
  
• Fixed crash on FinishSurvival event.
  
• Fixed wall flickering
  
• Multiple anonymous small and large bug fixes that didn’t make it into the change log - R.I.P.

Contact us through Discord and Social Media!
www.discord.gg/exorstudios
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www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

Hello everyone!

We have something special for you today. It’s been almost exactly a year since we unveiled The Riftbreaker to the world. Your response has been overwhelmingly positive and motivated us to work even harder. Obviously, the game has evolved a lot over the course of this year. We would like to show you what we’ve been working on these past months. We are beyond excited to present to you our first official Gameplay Trailer for The Riftbreaker!

You can see the trailer here:
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-riftbreaker-is-a-base-building-action-rpg-for-mech-lovers/

We did our best to show all the important aspects of The Riftbreaker gameplay in this short video. We start off with a segment on exploration of Galatea 37 with new biomes! These are the areas of the planet that we have not visited yet during our streams. They do not only change the visual side of things, but also introduce gameplay changes. Some resources are less common in these areas than in other regions, which will encourage you to adapt your strategy. Unique effects such as environmental damage will also require you to research additional solutions to brave the wilderness of Galatea 37.

Here are short characteristics of the locations you can see in the trailer:



ARID WASTELAND - Intense radiation from rich uranium deposits has rendered this area inhabitable to most fauna and flora species. Those that remain have adapted in unique and interesting ways. The lack of a protective atmosphere above this zone invites the sun to scorch the ground with intense heat. It might be safer to explore at night, but you probably won't be alone...



VOLCANIC GORGE - Unforgiving, unwelcoming, relentless. Setting up an outpost here is not an easy task. Volcanic ash blocks most of the sunlight, rendering some of the technologies useless. Intense heat can break most of the Riftbreaker’s equipment components. Make sure you are well prepared if you want to uncover the secrets of this place.



CAUSTIC BADLANDS - The unique mix of conditions present in this area resulted in a place that’s both dangerous and interesting. Salts of elements present in the soil transformed the lakes into vast pools of acid. It’s not great news for Ashely, but there are unique lifeforms here that thrive in such conditions. Researching them might make survival on Galatea 37 a little easier.



After establishing your base it is time to make sure that all your infrastructure is safe from any outside interference from the native creatures. New variants of enemy units will test your defensive setup time and again. However, there are more defensive options than ever that you can utilize to protect your valuable mines, factories, power plants and other facilities. You can spot some of the new buildings in the trailer, too! Oh, and did we mention new weapons? Yeah, we have them as well! New launchers in several varieties, railguns, plasma guns, a portable nuke - all attachable to Mr. Riggs and ready to wreak havoc.



The trailer also shows you the scale of battles that will take place while you are defending your piece of land on the surface of Galatea 37. The numbers of creatures will go into thousands and there will be plenty of things to take care of… and you will be able to start taking care of them very shortly. Tomorrow we will have some exciting news about The Riftbreaker. News about the thing that interests you most…

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www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
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The Riftbreaker is a mix of genres that we at EXOR love very much. There is a bit of strategy, a bit of survival and a bit of action RPG. That last part especially tells you that there is going to be a lot of creatures to deal with and various weapons to choose from, some more destructive than others. Today we are going to take a look at one of the latest additions to The Riftbreaker arsenal that belongs to the former category - the Swarm Missile Launcher.



The Swarm Missile Launcher is one of the more advanced weapons in the game. It means that in order to craft it and use it properly, you will need to do a fair bit of research. First, you must download the blueprints for the weapon from Earth using the Communications Hub. After the download is complete, you will be able to craft the weapon and equip it. We guarantee that the first time you do so, it will make you feel like the most powerful entity in the Universe.


The red spheres show you the radius in which the rockets bend the grass.

Every time you pull the trigger, a salvo of rockets will launch. The projectiles are quite small, but their explosive nature means that they will damage all the enemies in a radius of the explosion. You can even wield two launchers at the same time, akimbo style! The best part, however, is that there is almost no delay between the shots. There is almost nothing stopping you from simply holding the trigger down and unleashing hell on your foes. Almost nothing…


Quick pest control, Riftbreaker style.

Unfortunately, such a power cannot come without a cost. Your basic storage for explosives is pretty limited, preventing you from simply spamming rockets all day long. There are ways to circumvent this - you can either increase the ammo production by upgrading your Armory (or building an additional one), or stockpile explosives in Ammunition Storage. Either way, the Missile production requires a steady flow of Carborium, Steel and Tanzanite, a rare mineral. You will need to work hard to be able to use it constantly, but the benefits are really worth it.


Make sure that the build of your base supports spamming launchers, or you can get surprised by an empty mag in the worst moment.

The Swarm Missile Launcher is a universal weapon. It can stop swarms of smaller creatures, as well as take down larger, individual threats, such as the Ultra varieties of Hammerroceroses or Arachnoid Sentinels. It might become even better in the future, as we are currently working on expanding our weapon crafting and customization system. Many parameters of the weapon will become adjustable to your liking. That, however, is a topic for later. Add The Riftbreaker to your Wishlist and join our Discord not to miss all the latest news about the game and to sign up for testing - www.discord.gg/exorstudios


Other social media:
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The action of The Riftbreaker is set hundreds of years into the future. Centuries of technological progress allow for the automation and simplification of many processes that are huge undertakings today. Various multi-stage tasks can be handled by autonomic facilities that require only basic resources and power to operate. Unfortunately, the production of nuclear power is not one of those processes that can be neatly wrapped up into one package. Even though it has been simplified a lot, it still requires a fair bit of setup and that’s our topic for today.


Rare Mineral Mine - a universal building that will relieve you of the mining duties.

It would be impossible to produce energy in a Nuclear Power Plant without proper fuel. Luckily, there are natural deposits of uranium ores present on Galatea 37, although they are quite rare. If you happen to find one, you should do your best to make use of it. While it is possible to mine uranium using Mr. Riggs’ drill extension, it is much easier to set up a specialized mine to do the dirty work for you.


The centrifuges do not have to be built next to the power plant, but we like them this way :)

The isotope of uranium that you find in the ore is not pure enough to sustain a chain nuclear reaction. It has to be enriched in order to be used as fuel. This task is handled by Uranium Centrifuges. These devices make it possible to harvest a much more volatile isotope of uranium that can be easily used as fuel. The collected enriched uranium is then automatically transported to the real star of the show - the Nuclear Power Plant.


Mr. Riggs is four meters tall - the power plant is a really massive structure.

This impressively large building houses a reactor that produces massive amounts of energy. As long as the building is supplied with enough fuel, it keeps on working, unaffected by the time of day or weather conditions. It is a perfect power source for all the systems that need to stay online all the time, such as AI cores and defensive towers. Be careful, though - if something bad happens to the Power Plant, it could be disastrous for your entire base.


Not great, not terrible.

Nuclear power in The Riftbreaker comes at a significant cost. It requires you to download relevant blueprints, build specialized structures that cost a lot of resources, and find a rare mineral. However, the upside of building one is great, most likely allowing you to decommission most of the other Power Plants in your base. It’s one of the big payoffs in the game, and there are more to come! Join our Discord to get to know about them first, and perhaps try them out in the alpha soon! www.discord.gg/exorstudios

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Not much is known about Galatea 37. Long-distance scans revealed that the planet is habitable, has several climate zones and large deposits of resources that can be utilized by humans. That’s not much, especially given the fact that you’re supposed to jump through a rift to that planet. It means that you will have to explore and learn everything on your own - and the planet holds many secrets, both above and below the surface. One of the tools that will help you find what is hidden underground is our new treasure detector.


Sometimes you will find a bunch of rare crystals...

The detector is a tool that you can craft in the Armory and equip in one of Mr. Riggs’ hands. You can then use it to search for hidden objects of interest underground. It is activated by holding the button corresponding to the right or left hand, just like a weapon. When the detector is on, it generates audiovisual cues that increase in frequency the closer you are to a place where you can start digging.

There are many things to be found beneath the surface of Galatea 37, however, you never know exactly what you are going to discover. The detector only indicates the location where something can be dug up. Sometimes, you will get lucky and uncover a deposit of carbonium right next to your headquarters. Other times, you might help a geothermal vent break the surface, which you can later utilize as an effective power source. You can also find pieces of rare minerals. It almost seems like the detector is a gift that keeps on giving, right?


...other times a deposit of uranium...

There’s a catch. As you know (or rather don’t know) no records of Galatean wildlife are available. We don’t know what species of creatures inhabit this planet, what their habitats are and how they behave. Sometimes, instead of digging up a space equivalent of a pirate treasure chest, you might discover an unknown creature, or even worse - an entrance to an entire hive. A hive that is home to very hostile species. A hive, the ceiling of which you have just drilled through…

Using the detector gives the players incentives to leave the base and start exploring the rich world of Galatea 37. We want to reward players for taking the risk of leaving the safety of their outposts and make the time investment worthwhile. Even if the exploration ends with digging up a burrowed monster, we will reward the effort with some sweet loot. It’s very likely that the range of possible outcomes will expand as the project evolves further. The design space for this item is very broad and we want to make the most of it.


...and sometimes you'll trigger a geological event! (Excuse the inconsistency regarding the marked spot and the vent itself. Firmware update to the detector will solve the issue).

What kind of hidden things would you like to add to the list? Let us know in the comments and on our Discord server (where you can also sign up for the alpha!). www.discord.gg/exorstudios

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Hey there!

We would like to thank you for all the feedback and the positive reception of The Riftbreaker. It’s great to see so many people joining us on our journey every day. Today, instead of our traditional Friday devlog, we would like to present to you an updated version of our official FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). It has been updated with all the latest information available on the project.

If you happen to have any additional questions, leave a comment or catch us on Discord.

What kind of game is The Riftbreaker?
The Riftbreaker is a base building game with elements of action RPG, exploration and survival.

Is this similar to Factorio and They Are Billions?
A little bit. Both these games served as an inspiration for us, with a little bit of Diablo sprinkled in as well. The list of our inspirations is quite extensive.

What platforms will it be available on?
PC, Playstation and Xbox. Nintendo Switch is not planned at the moment, but it’s not out of the question.

Can I play using a gamepad/mouse/keyboard?
We designed the controls with both keyboard + mouse and gamepads in mind.

When will it be released?
Our current prediction is late 2020. This might change, of course.

Is the release date October 21st?
No. It’s been a running joke in our community because of what Voidreaver said on one of our streams. Here’s the clip - https://www.twitch.tv/exorstudios/clip/FunnyCreativeWolfDoggo

Is it free to play?
No. The Riftbreaker is a premium game, you’ll need to buy it in order to play.

Will it cost $60?
We don’t know the exact price but it will be lower than $60.



Is this Unity/Godot/Unreal?
None of the above. The Riftbreaker runs on our own engine called The Schmetterling.

...but why?
When we were starting out we couldn’t afford a good engine and the free tools were not as good as they are today. We decided to create our own tech and simply kept expanding on it.

How is it that your engine is called The Schmetterling, which is a German word, although you are a Polish studio?
There are two stories behind this. The first one is that it's 'lightweight, beautiful and fast' - just like a butterfly (Schmetterling is a butterfly in German). The second (and the true one) is that the lead programmer thought that the word sounds funny, and we decided to just roll with it.

What are the system requirements for the game?
We don’t have the exact specs yet, but we will do our best to optimize the game well and make it run smoothly on most PCs, not just the high-end ones.

Will there be microtransactions?
Definitely not. There might be DLCs offering additional content, but no microtransactions that allow you to gain an advantage in the game or progress more quickly.

Is there an alpha/beta I can join?
We are planning to launch an alpha test very soon. You can find the link to the application form on our Discord in the #faq channel.

Alpha keys when?
We don’t know exactly. We are planning to release closed Alpha keys in small batches over time. We are currently preparing crash and bug reporting tools for the game. This way you will be able to easily send us feedback, and we will solve your problems a lot faster. We are also finishing a large portion of new gameplay features that we’d like to be included in the nearest update.

Are there any keys out yet?
Yes, a select group of streamers and influencers received a chance to have an early first look at the game. A few people from our Discord community received access as well.

When I get access to Alpha, is the game mine to keep forever?
Unfortunately, no. The test keys will be deactivated before launch. We may decide to gift full game keys to the most active members of the closed testing phase.



Where can I see the unedited gameplay?
We stream from our office twice a week. Tuesdays at 3 PM CET we are live on Mixer. Thursdays, 3 PM CET - Twitch. Follow us to get notifications - www.mixer.com/exor_studios and www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - you can also watch VODs if you can’t watch us live.

Can I stream the game?
Of course! We even have special features to integrate the game with your Mixer/Twitch chat. Simply let us know about your channel in the Alpha application.

What game modes are there in the game?
We are planning a story campaign, a survival mode, and a sandbox mode.

Is there multiplayer?
Not at the moment. We are going to release the game with singleplayer only. After that, we will start working on online coop. We are a small team and need to set priorities - hope you understand. ;)

How long is the game going to be?
We don’t know the exact length of the Story Campaign. A typical Survival Mode run lasts about 60-120 minutes, and you can additionally tweak that number using the custom difficulty settings.

Can I pilot a different Mech?
No. Mr. Riggs is the only Mech in the game, but we are thinking about adding some customization options for you.

Can I change the character I play?
No. Ashley is the only playable character in The Riftbreaker.

Can I upgrade the Mech?
Yes! Researching new technologies and tools to equip Mr. Riggs with will be a major aspect of the game. You can expect a lot of options in that regard.



Can I travel to different planets?
No. The action of The Riftbreaker takes place on Galatea 37, a planet in the distant reaches of the Milky Way. Your task is to prepare it for human colonization, so it will be the only planet you see in the game. There will be plenty of places to visit, so do not worry.

Is there only one map we can play on?
No. The levels are procedurally generated, so each playthrough is going to be different.

Do you visit different places during the campaign?
Yes, the campaign will require you to discover and visit a lot of new biomes. They are treated as separate maps, though, and will be separated by loading screens.

Can we automate things or use drones?
Most of the basic operations, such as resource collection and ammo production do not require any action from the player. You just need to build factories and you’re set. We are also going to give you the option of using drones for some more advanced things.

Can I build an army of automated units to defend my base?
No. In The Riftbreaker you use a variety of defensive towers and Mr. Riggs himself to defeat your enemies. There is no option to build or control other units.

Will there be mods?
We are not going to obfuscate the game file structure at all, so you are free to tweak the parameters any way you want. We will give you access to most or all of our internal game development tools

If you can think of any additional questions we can add to this FAQ, let us know.

Visit us on our social media!

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Setting up the lighting for the scene plays a major role in constructing the proper atmosphere for the level. It determines how the shadows work, how the light bounces off various surfaces and a ton of other small details that make up the majority of the game’s look and feel. Today we would like to tell you what kind of tools are available to us in The Riftbreaker when it comes to lighting effects. We will also tell you what settings we can change and what it takes to make the most of our game.


There are many ways to set up the directional light, but some of them are slightly... off. The color picker works instantly and we can fix our mistakes on the fly.

We illuminate the game scene using one powerful light source - directional light. Since the action in The Riftbreaker takes place on the surface of the planet Galatea 37, the light usually tries to simulate the behavior of the Sun. ‘Simulate’ is the key word here, because the directional light is always on (with the exception of the night, obviously). The parameters of the light make all the difference here. We can create and save separate presets for the sunrise, the day, the sunset and the night. Blending them with each other over time gives us the day and night cycle, that we discussed earlier.


Thanks to fog we can easily change the mood of the scene.

There are several parameters of the directional light that we can change. The most obvious one is the color. We can pick any color available in the RGB palette in order to change the mood of the scene. The light at dusk has to be different than at midday and this is the setting that makes it possible. We can also adjust the look of the scene by changing the parameters of the fog. Fog allows us to better simulate the effects of light dispersal and how it affects the objects on the scene. We can change the fog’s color, density and the distance at which it becomes visible.


We own the sun.

Over the course of the day, the source of directional light travels across the sky, changing its position as if Galatea 37 really revolved around a star. However, in real life, the sun appears to be in various parts of the sky, depending on your geographic position. If we set up just one orbit for all the maps to use, we would get the same results all the time. That is why we have introduced a set of sliders that change the simulated latitude and longitude of the map’s location. Instead of moving the planet around the star, we do it the other way around. In your face, Copernicus!


See how much of a difference the skybox light makes.

Following the trend of trying to copy the way nature works, we also added a skybox that affects the ambient lighting on the scene. A single directional source of light would essentially leave everything on the unlit side in complete darkness, just like a spotlight in a dark room. The skybox simulates how the atmosphere disperses the light and adds some delicate lighting to the whole scene. The nature of that light will depend on the skybox texture itself and 2 parameters that we control - how much light is emitted, and how much is reflected by the props.


Adding dynamic lights makes the night sceneries much more lively.

On top of our main light source, we can also add smaller, dynamic lights to the scene. They come in two flavors - point lights (they emit light in all directions like a lightbulb - our Base Lamp is an example of one) and spotlights, which are cone-shaped. They are highly customizable. We can change their color, intensity and add custom affectors (conditions that change their behavior, such as light fading in under a fire source, simulating the growth of flames). Spotlights can also add shadows, but it comes with a high performance cost, so we decided to use it only on Mr. Riggs’ spotlights.

That’s the lighting in The Riftbreaker in a nutshell. Naturally, setting everything up just right requires a lot of trial and error, but when you do something you love it’s not that big of a deal. The end effect makes up for all the hours of work! We hope you enjoyed this article. Leave a comment on what you would like to read about in the future. You can do it either here or on our Discord - www.discord.gg/exorstudios

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Designing quests for a video game is never easy. In a perfect world, all the tasks you give to the player would be unique and offer completely new experiences. Realistically, however, the designers don’t always have enough time or means to craft such experiences all the time. Sometimes this results in a lot of ‘generic’ missions being given to the player, such as ‘Bring X items to person Y’, or ‘Kill X monsters’. Such filler missions are sometimes necessary, but the mistake some designers make is settling for this type of mission as the bread and butter of their games.



To avoid pointless grind and repetition in The Riftbreaker, we decided to employ a slightly adapted SMART technique. It is a method for setting personal or professional goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-constrained. This technique helps people easily set well-constructed personal goals, such as ‘I’m going to learn 5 new Spanish words this week’. The same method can be also useful in game design. Today we are going to tell you how these principles guide us while preparing the Campaign Mode for The Riftbreaker. Let’s explore this concept, letter by letter.



S for Specific - The instructions for each mission that we give to the player have to be very clear and give them immediate knowledge of what they are expected to do. If we gave you an objective such as ‘Fortify your base’, you wouldn’t be entirely sure what to do and what counts as fortifying the base. The objective itself is not wrong but lacks information. We can fix it by saying, for example, ‘Fortify your base by building 8 Sentinel Towers.’ When we add this info, our expectations are clear, and so is the path to completing the mission.



M for Measurable - The benefit of completing the objective has to be easily measurable for the player. The Riftbreaker is not an old-school RPG game, where sometimes you are forced to collect 70 kilos of cabbage for a random peasant in order to get 100 XP. Every time you do something, you need to feel the purpose of it. Various metrics can be employed to measure the benefit of completing a quest. The rewards don’t always have to be grand to be measurable and noticeable enough. If you fortify your base before an attack comes, your precious buildings are less likely to be destroyed. If you clear out a nest of monsters, they won’t attack you as often.



A for Achievable - Giving the player a mission that is impossible to complete will lead to frustration, and that’s what we have to avoid. Some games have managed to use impossible quests and pulled off great plot twists by doing so (the first fight with Desann in Jedi Outcast - never forget), but it’s a one-trick pony. You can’t base your game on such missions. All objectives in The Riftbreaker will be possible to complete without jumping through impossible hurdles. If we tell you to build something, we will be sure to give you enough resources. If we tell you to kill something, it will be possible to do so.



R for Realistic - Sometimes, even though the mission follows the previous principles, its expectations can be set too high. A mission such as ‘Build 400 Wind Turbines’ (cheers, dualanalogs!) will most likely result in a quick Alt + F4, followed by pressing the ‘uninstall’ button - even if the player has enough resources to complete the objective. The pacing of missions must leave the player satisfied with their progress, and that is achieved by setting realistic goals.



T - for Time-constrained - This one is optional. Some missions benefit greatly by adding a timer into the mix. The sense of urgency when you have just 2 minutes to prepare for a massive attack is immense. However, that is not the only way you can introduce time constraints to your missions. The Riftbreaker features day and night cycle, which allows us to add dynamics to the wildlife. Some species of flora and fauna will only be discoverable at night, while others will come out when the sun comes up. We can give the player a mission to obtain a sample of a nocturnal creature for research. This naturally constrains the win condition to nighttime only.



The SMART method is just a guideline and it is overruled by the most important principle of them all - BREAK THE RULES! Slightly bending the expectations or twisting the rules can be a lot more fun. Game creators have the power to breathe life into new worlds. Why limit your creativity? We always try to lead the players into unexpected and interesting scenarios, and that’s what you can be sure you will find in The Riftbreaker.

Let us know in the comments what kind of missions you would like to see in the game - we’re always open to suggestions. Join our Discord to discuss everything related to EXOR Studios - www.discord.gg/exorstudios

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Hello everyone!

We often get questions about our sources of inspiration for The Riftbreaker. If you want to know what games inspired us in terms of mechanics, graphics and design - today’s article is for you. We play a lot of games in our free time and our tastes vary from person to person, so there are a lot of titles that we could mention. With that being said, we are going to try to keep the list short, limiting ourselves to the most relevant titles. This should give you an insight into what games we like and, perhaps, what you should play next. ;)



One of the most important aspects of The Riftbreaker’s gameplay is base building. While it could be easy to draw parallels to Factorio, truth be told, that is only a part of the story. We have sunk countless hours in classic RTS games, where base-building and resource management have been the focal point. Total Annihilation, Command & Conquer and Supreme Commander all spring to mind here. Factorio got our attention quite late in the design phase. It showed us that making the base work similar to a living organism, with all the interconnected systems relying on each other facilitates creativity, and that’s what we wanted for The Riftbreaker. What can we say - we love strategy games, especially the ones that support various play styles.



When it comes to combat, there are loads of titles that influenced our game. We loved the mecha-combat against the alien hordes in Alienation, along with the loot and inventory system. Many of us are also fans of action RPG games, such as Diablo, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn and the Van Helsing series. The twin-stick shooter aspect of the game has been decided very early on, as it’s a very intuitive control scheme that works really well for single-character combat. It also supports both the keyboard + mouse combo and gamepads, which is very important for us. In order to make the game more sci-fi and less fantasy, we dropped the level and experience elements from those games, changing them to tech instead. That’s what gave birth to The Riftbreaker combat system.



As for the visual side of The Riftbreaker, all of the games above had their influence on what we wanted the game to look like. One game that we can add to that list is Starcraft. The way that buildings, units and the elements of the background interact with each other is great for the fast-paced, competitive aspect of the Blizzard RTS. However, its visual style is more cartoonish than what we are aiming for, so even though The Riftbreaker looks a little similar, it’s a different beast. We learned many things from Starcraft and you can see that in The Riftbreaker, but our influences are much broader, reaching beyond the world of gaming. Notable examples here are the Halo series, Peter Jackson’s Avatar, as well as nature itself.

This list is not comprehensive, of course. We play various games every day and you can find similarities everywhere. The most important thing is that we spend a lot of time giving The Riftbreaker an identity of its own. We aren’t afraid to look to other great games for inspiration, we try to evolve and innovate on the ideas that made those titles influential. We want the Riftbreaker to be a unique experience worth your attention and time, not just a blend of elements that worked elsewhere. We hope you’ll find out about it hands-on sooner rather than later!

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Our past couple of streams from The Riftbreaker featured some modifications to the regular gameplay you might have seen earlier. Apart from customizable difficulty settings, we have also introduced some changes to the way the game plays out. We do that using our mission flow system - it is a set of logic instructions that the game carries out once certain conditions are met. In today’s article, we’re going to show you how it works.

Due to resolution constraints the first and last graph in this article are illegible, but the rest of the images can be read if you use the zoom option in your browser (Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Up in Chrome by default) it will be a lot easier. You can also download the images to view them in full resolution.


Complete view of the mission flow for our survival mission.

We set up the mission flow using a visual editor that represents all the operations in the form of color-coded blocks. Each block contains a set of instructions for the game. They can range from displaying an objective to spawning a massive attack wave. It all depends on the designer. All the events that happen in-game that are not controlled by the AI have to be scripted this way. One could say that it slightly resembles writing a simple computer program, although take that with a grain of salt - you won’t run Doom in The Riftbreaker. ;)



In order to make it a little easier to understand, we’re going to take our survival mission flow as an example. The blocks can be ordered in any way you want, but we like setting them up in such a way that you read them from left to right. We start with the Event Start block. It is our entry point and the start of the mission - the game starts following the instructions. Then, we display the controls screen and spawn the player in. After Mr. Riggs lands, three things happen in parallel. First - we hear the dialogue between Ashley and the AI. Second, the player is given a basic loadout of items and resources. Lastly - the game checks if it is in sandbox mode - if that is true, the player won’t get any objectives and no enemy waves will ever attack.



If the game difficulty is set to a different setting than sandbox, the game will follow the graph further and start giving the player objectives. Pictured above is one of the first objectives in the game - build a Carbonium Factory. As you can see, this graph is separate from the main mission flow. How is it possible that the game knows it should carry out this set of instructions? Well, each of the green ‘Event Graph’ blocks can have an underlying set of operations. Once the mission flow reaches such a block, the instructions within are carried out before progressing further. Here you can see that the game displays dialogues, gives the player an objective and waits for the Carbonium Factory to be built. Once it’s done, the graph reaches the ‘End Event’ block and the whole mission carries on.



Attack waves are also spawned using this method. In survival mode, it happens every couple of minutes. Once it is time for the game to annihilate your beautiful base it will read the data stored in a block just like the one pictured above. This block tells the game which direction it should spawn the enemies from (we don’t specify spawn points, that is up to the random algorithm), what kind of creatures should spawn and in what numbers. Naturally, it’s never just one wave.

Here’s what the entire final wave looks like:


There are about 6000 creatures packed up in those blocks!

Which translates into situations like this one:



Our editor allows us to prepare all kinds of events in the game. We can control the camera, the weather, add events that trigger once you reach a certain spot and much more. We will put them to good use in the Campaign Mode, which is closer and closer every day! It’s also worth noting that we are considering launching the game with access to our map and mission editor, so you will be able to utilize these tools as well. If you would like to learn more about The Riftbreaker join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios

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