We have been spending our time lately putting the finishing touches on the first World Expansion for The Riftbreaker - Metal Terror. We are extremely grateful for your patience and feedback on the Experimental version of the update. This World Expansion is not just an additional Campaign branch. It is going to be the most extensive update the game has received thus far, addressing many issues that you have been reporting to us in addition to introducing new content.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/
Coming next month!

Today, we would like to show you a little bit of what goes on behind the curtain while working on the new game content. We’re going to focus on something that doesn’t often receive a lot of attention (and it definitely should!) - the audio design. More specifically, we’ll take a look at voice acting and the process of creating voiceovers from scratch. You’re also going to learn how we gave Mr. Riggs his signature voice and how you can replicate that on your own. Read on, maybe you will get inspired and try audio design on your own?


What would Mr. Riggs say in this situation?

Everything starts with an empty spreadsheet. We come up with a rudimentary list of dialog lines that our heroes are going to deliver during a specific point during gameplay. The list is just a collection of writing prompts and is not that complex. It can really boil down to something like this:


To let the game understand which part of the dialog it should play, we assign a string name to each line. String names are important for two reasons: once the game gets the instruction to play one such line it will:
1) play the associated voiceover audio file,
2) show the text for that line on the screen, taking the language settings of the game into account.

After adding the string names to the table, it looks like this:


From this point onwards we will refer to the voiceover lines by their string names, as it makes it easier for us to locate the corresponding files and texts.

We have reached arguably the toughest point in the voiceover creation process. It is now time to write the actual voice lines. In true indie fashion, we do this ourselves, influenced by all the science fiction we have consumed in our lifetimes. The process involves copious amounts of tea, several sleepless nights, and a healthy dose of self-doubt sprinkled with bouts of anxiety. Sometime later, the first iteration of the script is born.


We will have you visit some weird sceneries in the Metal Terror World Expansion. Be ready!

It is one thing to read the text from a spreadsheet. Hearing it in the game is a different kettle of fish. It might turn out that some lines come out completely wrong within the context of the gameplay. This is why we record prototype versions of dialogs ourselves. Well, ‘we’ is a slight exaggeration. One person does all the voices, which is not ideal. Listening to monologues imitating a real conversation is not the best way to test things. That’s where the magic of Digital Audio Workstation comes in.


Obviously, it would be easier to record Mr. Riggs himself, but he gets a bit shy in front of the mic. Also the mic is unplugged, which makes recording difficult.

To make it easier to differentiate between the ‘actors’ we apply some effects to the lines spoken by Mr. Riggs. We do that in Cockos Reaper. Their built-in library of VST effects is just enough to get the job done.

First, let’s listen to the raw audio. [CLICK ME]

To achieve the robotic sound of Mr. Riggs, we copy the original track two more times and play them all at the same time. Without any effects, this would just result in the sound being louder. We apply different effects to each track.

Track 1 is pitch-shifted by -2 semitones. It makes the voice slightly deeper and unnatural.

Track 2 is delayed by 11 milliseconds, giving the shaky, ‘metallic’ feeling of multiple voices speaking at the same time.

Track 3 is where we have most of the effects running: It is pitch-shifted by -4 semitones, delayed by 25 milliseconds, and has a bit of distortion on top. This adds the ‘grit’ and imitates an imperfect speech synthesizer (which shouldn’t be a thing in the distant future but hey, robots sounding not robotic are creepy).

Played together, they sound like this.

Much better than listening to one guy having a conversation with himself, isn’t it? We play through the entire game with the placeholder voiceovers and make necessary changes. After the script is finalized, we send it to voice actors playing the roles of our characters:

Francesca Meaux as Ashley
Ryan Laughton as Mr. Riggs
Tori Kamal as Colonel Norstrom

(They are available for hire, too, so if you need voice actors, we can totally recommend these fine people!)


The new World Expansion content will allow you to make your bases more flashy than ever.

The same effects that we used during our in-house recording sessions are applied to their voices, with just a couple of small tweaks.

Once that is done, we replace our glorious homemade audio with the real deal.

By the way, have you ever wondered what Ashley would sound like in the role of Mr. Riggs?

As you can see, it’s not really that difficult to play around with sound. There are plenty of free tools to get you started - Audacity, for example. It has all the basic effects you would need to make your first steps into the world of sound design. Who knows - maybe this is the thing that you will do for a living one day?

We’re going back to work on the World Expansion and Co-Op (we’ve had some sneak peeks during our streams this week). We hope you enjoyed this article. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out either here or through our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios.

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

We know that you’re waiting for news regarding the Metal Terror World Expansion. It’s coming next month. We are going to reveal the date once we are 100% sure that we are ready with everything to give you the best possible experience. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of the new tech that you helped us design during two competitions that we held a couple of months ago.

You know we love explosions and destruction on a massive scale. When the Orbital Bombardment won the first design competition, we were very happy, because it meant that we could create another devastating weapon that you can use to smash your enemies to pieces. In fact, we even made two variants for you to choose from - an Orbital Laser, as well as an actual, explosive bombardment. Let’s start with the former.


It's quite rare to find a stationary target in The Riftbreaker, but when you do, this item will slay.

The principle behind the Orbital Laser is very simple. You point at a location of your choice, press the button, and a powerful laser beam will strike that spot with surgical accuracy. However, in the dynamic world of Galatea 37, there are hardly any immobile targets. Usually, it is either Mr. Riggs chasing the enemies or the other way around. That is why we decided to make the Laser move in a very predictable way - once the Laser strikes, it will move away from Mr. Riggs, opposite the direction he was facing while ordering the strike. This way, you can easily take down enemy artillery, or pave your way through the middle of an alien horde.


This is what the old Orbital Bombardment looked like. Luckily, you prompted us to make changes to it.

The Orbital Bombardment is quite different. You still only have to choose a single spot as a target, but instead of focusing on that point, the Bombardment obliterates everything in a large radius. The affected area, the strength of the projectiles, as well as the number of shells fired go up with each level.


The new and improved bombardment will get rid of most of your problems. And if it doesn't the Laser will.

The Orbital Bombardment benefitted a lot from being accessible to testers on our optional Experimental branch. When we initially shipped the update, the two skills did not differ much from each other - they were essentially the same weapon, just with a different damage type. After a lot of discussions with the community, we came to the conclusion that this skill should be something more powerful. Something that you could compare to an ultimate skill in MOBA games. That is why we increased the damage, explosion radius, number of shells, and the affected area. All of that is offset by a long cooldown, but it will destroy anything in its path.


The Bioscanner Turret does its job quickly and efficiently, leaving you to reap the rewards.

The last community-designed item that made its way into the game with the World Expansion update is the Bioscanner Sentry. This consumable takes care of scanning the world for you. Some players do not enjoy manually scanning all the Galatean species in search of samples for the database. With the Sentry, you can just set it up and forget it ever existed, while more knowledge drips into your database. It is well worth it, as gaining familiarity levels gives Mr. Riggs permanent bonuses!

This is not the final form of all these items. They are likely to undergo further changes as more feedback rolls in. If you’d like to check these items out, along with other changes, then join our experimental branch. You can find the instructions in the previous article.

We also would like to know what kind of other things you would like us to introduce. We have already held a vote on a 'random encounter'. What else would you like to have an immediate influence on? More weapons? More items? New creatures? Side missions? Or something else entirely? Let us know! Slowly, but surely we will introduce your ideas into the game.

EXOR Studios

- Fixed false-positive error that blocked loading Save Game files from the previous experimental branch update. Save game data was unaffected by this error. We apologize for the resulting problems and frustration!

Thank you for all the feedback on the new features introduced in our latest Experimenta Update. We’re glad you’re enjoying the exploration of the new biome and discovering new strategies to fight hordes of the Metal Terror creatures. Today, we are releasing an update to solve some of the most prevalent problems and add a bit more polish to the game.

Additionally, we would like you to know that we heard all the feedback regarding the balance aspects of the new biome. We know that Wigmites (AKA deathsquitoes) are a bit strong. We know that Octabits are the most effective battering rams in the galaxy. It’s also quite clear that the final wave on all difficulties might have been overwhelming. We will address these issues as well.

• Hedroner Morphium: Hitpoints reduced to 750 from 1000.
  
• Gamepad Controls: Build Mode selector speed reduced for easier control and fine-tuning.
  
• Morphium Tower: Added attack animation.
  
• Metallic Survival: increased the amount of carbonium in resource veins by ~50%, increased the number and density of cobalt veins by ~50%.
  
• Bioanomalies reworked: You now have a much higher chance of getting something useful out of the Bionanomalies - a craftable item blueprint or a skin. They have priority over decorative buildings. Item quality will progress the way it should - you will not get an Extreme Power Jump variant before getting all the lower quality ones. A lot of new items added to the drop list. After researching Resource Handling you are guaranteed to get some of that resource from the first Bioanomaly you open. Additionally, you will get more useful resources (ironium and carbonium).
  
• Metallic sound added to influence area spread.
  
• Metallic Survival: final wave strength decreased on all difficulty levels.
  
• Biofactories and creature nests are now accompanied by alpha and ultra strains of creatures on Hard and Brutal difficulties respectively.
  
• Alpha and ultra variants of creature eggs added.
  
• Biofactories have been given proper destruction levels.
  
• Better support for vegetation packing and unpacking under buildings, influence area and floors.
  
• Energy Walls now display the amount of damage they deal to enemies in retaliation for melee attacks.
  
• The marker for the Power Switch tool has an orange color now.
  
• Updated Lightning Tower models.
  
• Updated Orbital Bombardment and Orbital Laser effects and damage patterns to give these items more OOOOOMPH. Thanks for all the suggestions!

• Fixed losing unique game unlockables (items, survival biome access) on application restart.
  
• The game will no longer crash after choosing map size other than default in the Custom Game mode.
  
• The game will no longer display the incorrect information about modified content on a clean game install.
  
• Power Jump: the game will no longer crash if a save taken mid-jump is loaded.
  
• Orbital Bombardment explosion shockwave effects will no longer spawn sideways.
  
• Lightning Gun: Fixed equip sound.
  
• Settings: the Max Framerate option slider will no longer display the value as a percentage.
  
• The game will no longer crash when turning buildings off.
  
• Fixed an obscure crash in the Research screen.
  
• Fixed a crash on time conversion in the Load Game screen.
  
• Consumable turrets and Mini Miner no longer use the building action menu.
  
• The debug_recreate_buildings command will no longer destroy ghost buildings.
  
• Fixed Z-fighting on bioscannable objects that resulted in graphical glitches.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the weather parameters not to return to proper values after weather events.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when highlighting units.
  
• Removed unnecessary forcefield stat from some items.
  
• Decompressor no longer displays previous icons after changing liquid type.
  
• Fixed a case when an entity was not removed after its destruction.
  
• Minimap: fix minimap edge markers after loading game save
  
• Fixed a crash caused by an error in localization.
  
• Fixed an obscure GUI realted crash. (_NotifyListenerOnDestroyEnd() message)
  
• Fixed energy damage effects. (lightnings not appearing)
  
• Heavy Plasma Cannon shield will no longer show up immediately after pulling the trigger.
  
• Fixed grenade aiming marker on liquid pools.
  
• Orbital Laser and Orbital Bombardment now have correct icons and display on the hotkey toolbar.
  
• Fixed Liquid Compressors Research item. It should now be available in the Campaign Mode, as well as Survival.

If reading all this has awoken a sudden need in your soul to play the Experimental Branch, here are the instructions:

- create a backup copy of your save folder (Documents/The Riftbreaker)
- disable Steam Cloud save backup
- go to your Steam Library
- right-click on The Riftbreaker
- select 'Properties,’ then 'Betas,’ and use the following password: IknowWhatImDoing

After that, you will be able to choose 'experimental' from the drop-down menu. Download the update, play the game and let us know if you encounter any issues.

EXOR Studios

We have just released a major experimental update for The Riftbreaker. It contains the entire free portion of the World Expansion that we originally planned to release on this day. It is the largest update since the launch of the game both in terms of new content and gameplay changes. Some of these new features have been in development for months and we can't wait to hear your feedback about them. Due to the size and complexity of the update, we decided that we have to run it through an "experimental" phase before rolling it out to everyone. Our recent decision to delay the open release of the expansion allowed us to keep all of the features that we originally planned to include, however, some of them are still in an unfinished state in this early experimental release.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/

We would also like to warn you that the new Metallic Valley biome content that is contained within this update contains some spoilers for the story that will be included in the Metal Terror DLC. This is especially true if you're a modder and want to browse through all of the content files that are included within.

After joining the experimental branch and updating the game, you will be able to play Survival Mode on the new biome - the Metallic Valley. It is an entirely new area of the planet that features new enemies, new plant species, and even a new resource type. You will also gain access to new weapons, technologies, and buildings to use in all your survival runs.



Additionally, this update introduces loads of changes when it comes to the Survival Mode itself. The starting load-outs for each biome are now better suited for the kinds of enemies that you will be facing. We also grant you more basic technologies at the beginning of the game to allow you to be more flexible with the technologies you choose for your Survival run, as you are going to have more time to do the research you actually want to use in the late game. Moreover, the research items from the Alien Research tab of the tech tree no longer require the Laboratory in Survival Mode. You can start downloading them as soon as you get your first Communications Hub.



The experimental branch might contain severe errors and bugs. It's possible that the game will crash and you will lose your progress. If you are not sure if you want to accept that risk, we recommend waiting until the patch is confirmed to be stable and until it arrives on the main branch.

1. create a backup copy of your save folder (Documents/The Riftbreaker)
   
2. disable Steam Cloud save backup
   
3. go to your Steam Library
   
4. right-click on The Riftbreaker
   
5. select 'Properties,’ then 'Betas,’ and use the following password: IknowWhatImDoing

After that, you will be able to choose 'experimental' from the drop-down menu. Download the update, play the game and let us know if you encounter any issues. We also have a channel on our Discord: #rb-experimental-feedback - we highly encourage you to join in and share your feedback.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Saves that you create on the Experimental Branch WILL NOT be compatible with older versions of the game like the current, default branch of the game. They will be compatible with future versions of the game. Please manually backup your save files if you plan on reverting to the default branch of the game.

• Welcome to the Metallic Valley! Enjoy playing Survival Mode in this new biome - learn all the new tricks, discover the new creatures, and harness the power of Morphium.
  
• Speaking of Morphium - it is a brand-new liquid resource. It is found only in the Metallic Valley and can serve as a power source and a building block (of sorts).
  
• Several new species of creatures have been added:
  
• Wingmite - a deadly, lightning-quick flying creature that swarms the player and uses melee attacks.
  
  
  
  
• Bradron - a slower flying unit, capable of attacking from a distance with a powerful laser beam. It can also disable some of Mr. Riggs' equipment with an EMP blast.
  
  
  
  
• Octabit - battering ram in the form of a weird, creepy, self-replicating cube. Will explode on contact. It can split into smaller versions of itself if destroyed.
  
  
  
  
• Flurian - an enormous creature with a plasma grenade launcher fused within its body. Will try to rip you apart in close quarters using its giant, metallic claws.
  
  
  
  
• Idapian, Brabit, and Stonger - new neutral, ambient creatures. Real cuties.
  
  
  

• Quality of Life update: we have added Mass Upgrade, Repair, and Deconstruction tools. We have devoted an entire article to them, so click the link to learn more.
  
  
  
  
• A new tool has been added to the building menu: the Power Switch. It allows you to quickly power buildings on or off, a handy feature when dealing with a power grid that is under heavy load. As with the other tools, you can increase the size of the brush.

• New buildings: Liquid Compressor and Liquid Decompressor. You can provide the Compressor with any liquid resource to, well, compress it. That will allow you to transport that liquid over a large distance without using any pipelines. All you need to do is to build a Decompressor wherever you want to use the liquid you provided to the Compressor. Best of all - this works between maps as well! Magma Power Plants in the Jungle? You bet!
  
• New building: Morphium Power Plant. This building requires only morphium to operate. In return for supplying it with enough of that resource, it will reward you with a nice and steady stream of power. Great for setting up resource outposts.
  
• New building: Energy Walls. These are slightly more expensive than the regular walls. However, they are pretty great against melee attackers, as they deal damage in retaliation to being hit.
  
  
  
  
• New Defenisve Tower: Morphium Tower. Boost your defenses with alien technology from beyond time! The tower commands the influence area around itself to form massive spikes that shred the enemies to pieces. Additionally, it does not require any power or AI hubs to operate - you only need to supply it with Morphium. Oh, and it can be placed on liquids and it generates shields for buildings around itself, too.
  
• New Defensive Tower: Lightning Tower. This energy-based weapon will be a shockingly good addition to your arsenal. Yeah, I know, I'll see myself out.
  
  
  
  
• New weapon: Lightning Gun. You can now cosplay as Emperor Palpatine. Unlimited power.
  
  
  
  
• New weapon: Heavy Plasma Cannon. Shoots powerful plasma projectiles with high splash damage potential. The alternative fire mode changes the weapon into a portable shield, protecting you from projectiles.
  
  
  
  
• New melee weapon: Laser Sword. It deals a bit less damage than its regular counterpart but can attack at a much faster rate.
  
• New melee weapon: Chainsaw. Rip and Tear until it is done.
  
• New skills: Orbital Bombardment and Orbital Laser added. These are the winning design of one of our previous competitions.
  
  
  
  
• New consumable: Bioscanner Turret - another winner of our design competition. This consumable item can be deployed anywhere you find something interesting. It will scan all objects of interest within its range for as long as its battery lasts.
  
• New consumable: Mini Miner. This consumable item can be placed on any ore deposit. It will mine resources for a short amount of time and automatically transport them to your storage.

• Flying units can now navigate across bodies of water, as well as canyons and small rock formations. You thought you were safe setting up that base between a lake and a canyon? Think again!
  
  
  
  
• Added liquid splash effects. When a physical object drops into a liquid pool it will now result in a splash. Purely visual.
  
• Introducing 'Alien Influence System' - Whenever you place any of the alien-tech-based buildings in your base, it is going to surround the ground around itself with metallic, self-replicating plates. This is only a visual effect.
  
• For all you crazy modders out there: we have added support for the creation of non-square maps. This can help make your missions more special, giving them a completely different feel than a standard survival or campaign mission.
  
• We have added several new options to the gameplay settings menu: you can now adjust the amount of debris, parts, decals, and other effects. Turning these down will reduce the overall 'chaos' on the screen during battles. It can also positively affect your performance.
  
• Added a set of new, hi-tech decorative structures to give your bases a nice, futuristic look.

Major Survival Mode rebalance/rework:

• In order to give ourselves the flexibility necessary to introduce meaningful changes, the research trees for Survival and Campaign are now completely separate.
  
• The player is now awarded more completed research items at the beginning of a Survival run: Liquid Resources Handling Level 1, Tower Ammunition Handling Level 1, Alien Research, all resource handling tech, and the entire tier one of Mech Upgrade Tree. Previously, after getting access to Communication Hubs, you would have to churn through some basic research options that you had no real use for (looking at you, cobalt handling) in order to gain access to technologies further down the line.
  
• Each Survival Mode Biome now has a slightly different starting loadout for the Mech. We wanted to give you early access to weapons and tech that will give you a fighting chance against those biomes' enemies.
  
• The Alien Research tech tree no longer requires a Laboratory to be built in Survival Mode. This means that you can start researching those technologies right away, giving you access to more tech to fit your strategy and playstyle. Yay nukes!
  
• Volcanic Biome Survival maps have been tweaked to feature a little bit more of open spaces to reduce the 'tightness' of the map.
  
• Volcanic Biome: big Magnetic Boulders now have a reduced amount of hitpoints for easier removal. Cryo Stations building time decreased.
  
• Geoscanner and Bioscanner are now available in Survival from the start.
  
• Changed most of the map tiles - increased the number of resource spawn points, player spawn points, and objective spawn points, plus some tweaks to prefabs and unit spawn points.

• We introduced some changes to how building repairs work. Instead of being instant, a repair job will now take up to 10 seconds, depending on the amount of missing hit points. You pay the cost of the repair upfront, all at once. If a building takes damage while it is being repaired, the process is stopped. These changes were introduced to offset the ability to mass repair buildings in combat situations. It also opens up the road to adding a “repair all” button in the future.

• We have introduced several significant balance changes based on the data available to us:
  
• Plasma Towers damage has been reduced across all levels. Its splash damage has also been reduced.
  
• Railgun Tower now has less damage per shot on higher levels but also a slightly higher fire rate to maintain the DPS level.
  
• Minigun Tower damage has been reduced across all levels.
  
• In order to eliminate energy spikes during combat situations, we have eliminated the energy cost per shot in energy-based towers. Instead, they consume a constant amount of power each second. Make sure to revise your existing power grids.
  
• We rebalanced the ammo production rate of Armory and Tower Ammo Factories to be more reasonable. The previous increase rate was a tad too low.
  
• Melee weapons have been rebalanced slightly. The spear’s effectiveness has been reduced by making the hitbox a bit more narrow (but just a little), and higher levels of melee weapons increase in scale much more than they used to.
  
• Plasma Gun damage, fire rate, and splash damage have all been reduced.
  
• Grenade Launcher ammo cost has been increased to avoid the 'infinite ammo' scenario that would happen at lower levels if a player built six Ammo Storage buildings. Shooting only one Grenade Launcher would consume less ammo than the Armory would produce.
  
• Pipelines’ hitpoints increased.

• The maximum number of Outposts you can control during one Campaign Mode run has been increased to 10.
  
• Added the Super Moon event to both Campaign and Survival modes. It can allow your solar panels to work at night.
  
• Various Campaign Mode difficulty tweaks.
  
• The lights on all plasma projectiles have been slightly increased.
  
• Localized events, such as tornadoes, can now affect only part of the map when it comes to wind speed. That means only the wind turbines within a certain radius from a localized event will be affected by it.
  
• Lesigian is now able to travel across liquid pools and rock formations.
  
• Aiming priorities changed for Sentry Guns. They will no longer try to shoot down air units.
  
• We added a little effect that spawns at the end of the laser beam to mark its maximum range. Previously, beams would just end abruptly. Now they’ve got a nice little flare at the end.
  
• Bioanomalies now have a bigger chance of containing something useful. Skins appear more often, too.
  
• Changed the attack wave spawned when Bioanomalies are opened. It's a big one. Really. You have been warned. We want to make opening a Bioanomaly a conscious decision you have to prepare for. This change is currently implemented only in the Metallic Valley biome.
  
• The Power Jump flight pattern has been changed to make it feel a lot more powerful.

• Additional tweaks to underground mushroom detection. It should now feel more reliable and less based on luck.
  
• The Geoscanner now reveals underground mushrooms more effectively.
  
• Drilling animation begins faster and is quicker itself, resulting in a shorter time needed to defuse an underground fungal death trap.

• We have completely reworked our audio system. Previously, it had the tendency to get a bit overwhelmed when there were a lot of things happening at once. Some sounds would get cut in half, and others wouldn't start playing back at all. All sounds should playback properly and stick to their limits with the new system.

The amount of fixes and smaller changes within this build is too long to list. We have fixed a number of obscure crash bugs, power grid problems, gameplay glitches, and UI bugs. However, this update is sure to introduce new problems in its experimental form. We encourage you to report everything that you notice and we’ll work hard to ensure a polished final release for this update.

• Morphium Shader - the current look of the Morphium liquid is temporary, we are working on a nicer visual effect, but it wasn’t ready to be included in this build yet
  
• Morphium Tower - the current visual effects for this tower are unfinished. Attack animation is disabled and the spikes themselves are a placeholder model.
  
• Compressor/Decompressor - the visual effects for these buildings are unfinished. We’d also love to hear your feedback in regards to the economy balance of this building in Campaign Mode. It is one of the most significant new gameplay mechanics and we’re sure it will need additional polish and bug hunting in complex scenarios.
  
• Chainsaw - this weapon is currently not functional and can only be unlocked using cheats. It is work in progress both in terms of visuals and functioning.
  
• Laser sword - the visual effects and balancing for this weapon is still work in progress
  
• Lightning Tower and Lightning Gun - the balancing for this weapon is not finished, however, feedback is welcome at this point.
  
• Metallic Valley Bioanomalies - some of the destruction models are missing and their animation isn’t final. Their attack wave strength is also not fully balanced yet.
  
• Metallic Valley Biofactories - their destruction levels aren’t finalized yet.
  
• Morphium Power Plant - visual effects for this building are still work in progress
  
• Liquid splash effects - there is still a number of bugs in regards to this feature. We’re working on it.
  
• Weather event lighting - some of the weather events may temporarily change the biome lighting
  
• Flying unit navigation - this is a huge new feature and may still contain some bugs. This should be very rare but if you encounter some units stuck on the map - it would be great if you could send us a screenshot of that exact spot.
  
• Survival Mode balancing - the changes that we’ve introduced have changed this mode dramatically. We’d love to hear your feedback about the game’s pacing and difficulty in this mode.
  
• Online Multiplayer mode refactoring - while it is not possible to play the game in multiplayer yet, we’ve already refactored large portions of the game code to enable this in the future. We may have introduced unknown and obscure bugs in the process. This also highlights the need to test this update on the experimental branch before an “official” release.
  
• All of the new in-game text hasn’t been translated into languages other than English.
  
• Only Standard sized maps currently work in Survival in Custom Game - choosing a different size will cause the game to crash.

We hope that you will check out this Experimental Update, as we would like to hear your feedback on the changes we made. We plan to make this update public along with the release of the Metal Terror Expansion, so there is plenty of time to fix all the issues you find. We also expect to publish some additional updates in the meantime, containing some of the most requested QoL features.

Visit us on Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and share your thoughts!

EXOR Studios

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/

The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror is a very large expansion, introducing several new creature species, an entirely new resource type, dozens of research items, and weapons. Adding such an amount of new features and making sure they all interact with each other in an intended way is a complex and lengthy process. While testing the new campaign portion, we discovered several major issues. Among many others: saves would get corrupted, the game is not fully stable yet, and the game flow is not properly balanced, resulting in a bad experience on difficulties other than normal. Given the fact that we need to be absolutely sure that the Expansion is accessible from any point in the Main Campaign (as long as the conditions are met), and on any difficulty level, the amount of work required increases tenfold. While it seemed likely that we could fix most of those issues on time, we couldn’t guarantee that the game would be in the shape that it should be.


One of the new weapons that are joining the game with this update: Lightning Gun. Pictured in both Standard and Extreme versions. You figure out which is which.

We have put a lot of effort into making sure that The Riftbreaker is as enjoyable as possible. That requires a lot of testing and bug fixing, but the end result is well worth it. We do not want to rush and abandon this principle. We do not want to risk releasing an unfinished product purely on the feeling that ‘we might be able to make it’. That is not good enough. That is no way to treat the community, who have trusted and supported us since day one.


Lightning Gun's more stationary counterpart: Lightning Tower. Combine them with Energy Walls and you're good to go.

We are going to use this additional time to make sure that your adventure in the Metallic Valley is going to be as smooth as possible. The extra weeks are also going to allow us to fix some other, smaller issues that you’ve been reporting to us.

We are aware that it’s been quite a long time since the last major update for The Riftbreaker was released. We do not want to keep you waiting much longer, so on May 30th, the original release date that we have announced, we are going to publish the World Expansion Update to the experimental branch of the game. The update will contain most of the new features and will allow you to try out the Metallic Valley Survival map. More information, including a detailed changelog, will be made available on the 30th of May as well.

Please accept our most sincere apologies for the delay.

EXOR Studios

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/



The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror allows you to explore an entirely new area of Galatea 37 - the Metallic Valley. This previously unexplored biome holds many secrets. You will encounter creature species, unlike anything you’ve seen before. You will gather information about the strange ways that the local flora has adapted to the conditions of this biome. You will conduct research on anomalous objects that might open the door to unlocking powerful technological advancements. However, some of the things that you find there might send a shiver down your spine.



The World Expansion Update has two components; a huge free content update and a story driven paid DLC - The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror. Here is a short summary of what both of them include:

• An entirely new Biome to explore - the Metallic Valley.
  
• A new Survival Mode scenario, taking place in the new biome.
  
• Several new species of creatures, ranging from harmless herbivores to bloodthirsty predators, looking for territorial domination.
  
• New technologies: harness the power of Morphium, a mysterious resource that seems to break the laws of physics.
  
• New weapons: defend your base with new varieties of defensive towers. Take the fight to the aliens with Lightning Guns, Heavy Plasma Cannons, and even a Chainsaw.
  
• Introducing the winners of our Community Design Contests: the Orbital Strike Cannon and Bioscanner Turret!
  
• Rebalanced Survival Mode experience - unlock more technologies, explore different builds, and gain access to Alien Technology without even building a Lab!
  
• A lot of quality of life improvements: mass repair and upgrade tools, more intelligent floor building utility.
  
• …and many more! The full update details will be revealed in the Patch Notes, arriving on May 30th!

• Discover the strange history of the Metallic Valley in an entirely new branch of the Story Campaign, spanning over several hours of gameplay.
  
• Establish an Outpost in a brand-new area of the planet - if you dare.
  
• Scan, analyze, and catalog the unique fauna and flora of the new biome.
  
• Face several new enemy species, each posing a different kind of challenge.
  
• Research new additions to the technology tree, utilizing the curiosities you discover in the new biome: buildings, weapons, and equipment.
  
• Solve the mystery that remained hidden for millennia.
  
• The Story portion of this Expansion is integrated with the Main Campaign from the base edition of The Riftbreaker. The new branch and the contents of the expansion will unlock as you progress through the game. If you have previously completed The Riftbreaker Story Campaign, you can continue your adventure where you left off. The additional part of the Story will unlock immediately, giving you the option to explore the new part of the world.

We want to give everyone something new with this update. All players will gain access to the new content in Survival Mode and the Sandbox Mode. Everyone will also be able to utilize the new assets in the Riftbreaker Editor Suite to create custom maps and campaigns. Purchasing the Expansion will in turn allow you to play through the new portion of the Story Campaign and make use of the new technologies in the Campaign Mode.



The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror will release on Monday, May 30th, 2022 at $9.99. More news, including sneak peeks at some of the new features, coming in the next weeks!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/

EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!



A couple of weeks ago, while attending PAX East, we had the immense pleasure of meeting a lot of our fans and other developers. It was a wonderful experience - to be back at a convention after such a long time. We came back home having made a lot of new friends - some of whom we would like to tell you about today. We are talking about the developers from Kool2Play, creators of a top-down twin-stick shooter Uragun. We had a blast playing their game, and we think you will enjoy it as well. Let’s dive into the details!



Uragun puts you into the shoes (feet?) of a deadly, but friendly Mech. The Mech was inoperable for a very long time and booted back up only to find a world that is much different than the last image ingrained in its circuits. All humans seem to be long gone and your planet has been taken over by a corrupted and hostile AI. At this point it is clear what has to be done: find your missing pilot, figure out what happened and melt down everything that stands in your way.



While playing Uragun you will complete several handcrafted missions, each designed to pose a different challenge than the previous one. The dynamic combat system will encourage you to dispose of your enemies in a spectacular fashion. The enemies will attack you from various angles, requiring you to constantly move around and explore new strategies. This beautiful tour of destruction will take you in various places around the entire globe.



As you progress in the game, you will get the chance to try out a variety of weapons and upgrades. Equip two of them at a time and try to find the perfect combination to suit both your playstyle and the threats you are going to face. Miniguns, rocket launchers, plasma discs - you have an entire arsenal at your disposal. The Mech is also capable of carrying out specials called Heat attacks. These devastating skills will be the key to getting out in one piece out of the most sticky situations.



When we tried Uragun for the first time we thought “Wow, this looks like a mix of The Riftbreaker and X-Morph: Defense”! It turned out to be a lot of fun too. Uragun is an Early Access release, too - meaning that its contents are going to expand a lot and the game is only going to get better. We would like to encourage you to give this one a shot. For a limited time, we are offering two bundle deals: you can get Uragun and The Riftbreaker, or Uragun and X-Morph: Defense at a 20% discount. Check out the bundle here:

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/26129/The_Riftbreaker_x_Uragun_Bundle/



We are also going to host a special stream, playing Uragun live on our Twitch channel. It’s going to take place on Friday, at 3 PM CEST, over at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

A couple of weeks ago we opened up a competition for new random encounter designs that you would like to see in The Riftbreaker. To say that you stepped up to the challenge would be an understatement - some of your designs could easily get their own storylines! After much deliberation and reading through all your ideas several times, our top five picks are here!

Please note that given the complex nature of your designs we might not be able to implement them exactly the way you designed them. We might have to change them quite a lot to fit our in-game systems, but we will do our best! Also, the screenshots do not represent the event in question - they're just here to reduce the 'wall of text' feeling.



CANDIDATE A - WILDFIRE - as suggested by Enderseye

One of Galatea’s many forests has caught fire and it’s spreading quickly! There is no point fighting it - you have no means of stopping this force of nature. Luckily for you - Mr. Riggs’ armor and all your structures are fire-resistant. Unluckily for everybody and everything else - the rest of Galatea 37 is not. The fire will consume everything in its path, making creatures flee in terror as they seek shelter - and you know what happens when creatures are afraid… On the bright side: nature rebuilds quickly and the affected area will come back to its former glory in no time.

Effects and rewards: Firestorm visuals - orange fog, clouds of ash covering the sky. Reduced output from renewable energy sources. Panicked creatures start attacking the base. Lots of loot left lying around after the destruction of the flora. Increased plant regrowth speed soon after the event is over.



CANDIDATE B - SPACE LOCUST - as suggested by: Pok1990

Your visit to Galatea 37 has coincided with the hatching season of a very peculiar species of insects. These small, locust-like creatures only live for a short amount of time. Their one goal is to find a good spot to lay eggs and make sure their species survives another cycle. Not all of them will make it to their destination, but they have numbers on their side: they are billions.

Effects and rewards: the massive swarm blocks out the sun completely as they fly across the sky. However, since some of the creatures die mid-flight, you are rewarded with a rain of animal biomass, boosting your biomass power plants like nothing else. Plus it’s super creepy.



CANDIDATE C - FLASH FREEZE - as suggested by: Thachicken

A sudden temperature drop surprises Ashley and Mr. Riggs at night. As a result, the structures inside your base have some difficulty operating. Target tracking by defensive towers is slowed down. Gates work slower than usual. Buildings require more power to keep operating, and your energy storage drains more quickly than usual. However, Mr. Riggs is unaffected, and the Galatean creatures don’t like the cold - they are slower and much weaker than usual.
Effects and rewards: Frost visuals - you can hear creaking and see little specks of ice reflect light everywhere. The ground is more brittle, allowing you to find underground treasures more easily.



CANDIDATE D - SWARM - as suggested by James Arlwind

This one is pretty straightforward: an enormous horde of small creatures is migrating through the area where your base is situated. They are smaller and weaker than most creatures you come across, but the sheer number makes this a huge threat to your mission. Prepare to fight.

Effects and rewards: Mr. Riggs gives the player a warning about the incoming horde. You only have a couple of minutes to prepare your defenses. After that, an incredibly large group of small creatures will commence the attack. There might be a lot of them, but they are smaller and weaker than usual, giving you a fighting chance. Plus, think about all the specimens, resources and other loot that you can get from them!



CANDIDATE E - IT’S RAINING EGG - as suggested by WirawanMYT

Galatea has seen an uptick when it comes to weather activity. Violent winds sweep across the surface, picking up small objects… Well, alien eggs count as small objects, too. ‘Eggs’ will rain from the sky in certain areas. If you let them survive long enough, creatures from other biomes will hatch - perhaps even in the middle of your base!

Effects and rewards: Highly increased wind power output. Violent winds and tornados. Eggs. Everywhere. You can call that an express biomass delivery.

Which one do you like the best? Cast your votes here: https://forms.gle/8jX5hZcoB5rgszxB6

Again, please bear in mind that these are just ideas - the final implementation of these random encounters might be a lot different from what we presented here.

There were plenty of other designs that we loved, but which we couldn’t possibly make a reality at the moment - but perhaps they may come to reality one day!

We will close the vote on the 11th of May, at 12 PM CEST.

Have a good weekend!
EXOR Studios

Before we began the work on our first world expansion we asked you what kind of new skills and weapons you would like to be added to The Riftbreaker arsenal. The winners of those two events - the Orbital Strike Cannon and the Bioscanner Turret (names subject to change) - will make their way into the game with the release of the Expansion update. Today we want to give you a chance to influence the shape of the world of Galatea 37 once more.



The winner of one of the previous fan voting competitions: Orbital Strike Cannon! Coming to you with the World Expansion update.

Before you answer that question, let us explain what we mean by ‘random encounters’. We use that simplified name for the entire group of events that pop up every now and again when you’re playing the game. They range from weather events, like rain, hailstorms, tornados, or fog, to actual cosmic cataclysms like meteor showers or ion storms. This group of events also contains other events, like large creatures or nests appearing somewhere on the map.


The Orbital Strike Cannon also gets an explosive variation, because why not?

These events take place in between the attack waves. Their aim is to slightly alter the way you play the game by changing the environmental conditions and nudging you to change your plans. While it is possible to ignore those events, most of them come with benefits and you only have a limited window to take advantage of them. For example, the rain stops your solar panels from producing electricity but boosts the wind turbines. The ion storm blocks your minimap but increases the power output of all power plants. The resource comet might hit your base, but it will bring in plenty of resources with it.


The Orbital Strikes are just an excuse for us to give you more tools for effective deforestation of Galatea 37.

Do not limit your creativity. Your random encounters can test the players’ skills for extra rewards, throw a wrench in their plans, or attempt to facilitate an unconventional approach to gameplay.

You can submit your ideas in the comment section of this article and the #rb-encounters channel of our Discord server (www.discord.gg/exorstudios). Use the following template:

Suggested name:
Effect:
Potential rewards:
Visuals:

Here’s an example to get you started:

Suggested name: Travelling magnetic anomaly
Effect: Magnetic singularity travels at a constant speed in a straight line through the map. As it goes through the map, it attracts the creatures it encounters - they start running after it. If the group reaches the player base, it will result a mini attack wave. The anomaly turns off all equipment in its radius. The player can only destroy it using energy-based weapons.
Potential rewards: The explosion results in a temporary boost to energy production. The singularity drops high-quality mods.
Visuals: A small bright object that refracts the light around itself.

We are waiting for your entries until Wednesday, the 27th of April 2022, 11 AM CEST. After that, we are going to shortlist our favorites and let you vote for the winner!

Can’t wait to hear your ideas!
EXOR Studios