Jan 26, 2024

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

In our Roadmap Update published last week, we revealed some extensive changes and reworks that we are either planning or developing as we speak. One of those changes is connected to the loot system in The Riftbreaker. While loot rewards are quite generous in our game, offering fountains of rare resources, high-quality mods, and unique unlockables, we felt that they could be upgraded. In this article, we will show you what we’re planning to upgrade in World Expansion III.

Better be prepared to open one of these!

Bioanomalies are the main source of loot in The Riftbreaker. They are the unique, interactable objects that you can find scattered across each map. Opening one of these objects will shower you with a randomized mixture of resources, mods, and unlockables that persist through your Riftbreaker runs. However, there is a price to pay. Coming into contact with Bioanomalies triggers an additional attack wave, which is often much stronger than what you might encounter in the wild. Still, if your economy needs a boost or if you’re looking for some additional decorations, Bioanomalies have done the job quite well, offering a reward for exploring the map.

If you do come prepared, great riches await!

With the introduction of World Expansion III, we are going to give you more incentives to travel around Galatea 37 and look for treasure. The large Bioanomalies you already know are getting smaller but more common counterparts. Bioanomalies were quite limited in numbers, with only a couple of them spawning on each map. The new containers won’t stick to the same rules. In fact, we plan to make them appear on most of the map tiles! What is more, opening them will not trigger any sort of a special attack wave. Sure, the creatures in the immediate vicinity might get angry at you for interfering with nature, but apart from that, you should be safe.

We do not have a name for them yet - could you help us with that? Let us know in the comments what we should call these.

The new, smaller loot containers will not be as densely packed with resources as the old ones, but the sheer number of them available on each map should more than make up for that. You will also be more eager to open one of these, as you will not have to fight an entire army to get your rewards. Apart from the standard assortment of resources, you will also be able to find mods and unlockables inside of these containers - although at a lower ratio than in the case of Bioanomalies. The rewards inside will be especially valuable in the case of Survival Mode, where every piece of Carbonium matters. However, we think that they will be an interesting proposition in Campaign mode, too, since you will get a chance to get good mods, unlock an upgrade, or even find a new weapon.

These little containers are scattered across the entire map. If you look for them, you are guaranteed to have all the resources you could ever need and possibly more!

Yes - you read that right. Starting with World Expansion III, ready-made weapons will join the pool of loot rewards. The range of weapons that you will be able to find will depend on your progress in the research tree. However, every once in a while, you will find a weapon that is slightly above the maximum level you could craft, boosting your firepower significantly. Weapons you find will also have the chance to get unique properties, often much better than what you could craft yourself. This way, we can reward you for taking your time and scouting the entire play area. Even if the weapon you find doesn’t fit your playstyle, you can always deconstruct it and earn some valuable resources. Naturally, we will need some help playtesting this feature. You can expect an experimental update sometime before the official launch of the update. Remember, all of the aforementioned changes are subject to change based on your feedback during the experimental phase of the update. Our primary goal is to make the game better, and we are always open to feedback and further refinement of features that are found lacking.

Poogrets are some of the most unique creatures we've made.

The mini-bioanomalies are not the only new sources of loot we will add in World Expansion III. Various biomes of Galatea 37 will receive additional, region-specific loot caches. We’re going to start with the Swamp biome, where you will be able to find piles of… fertilizer left behind by the goofy Poogret species of neutral creatures. Turns out that these cute but definitely not smart creatures consume a lot of valuable resources when they feed. Those resources can be later retrieved by digging in their feces. Luckily, you do not need to use your own hands, as Mr. Riggs will happily do the dirty work for you.

Poogrets play a vital role in the ecosystem of the Swamp. They will also play a vital role in World Expansion III - but more on that another time.

The purpose of all these changes and additions is to give you more chances to find valuable rewards while exploring the planet. We hope that the new rewards will encourage you to check every corner of the map for hidden resources and other goodies. As we mentioned earlier, these changes will be available on our experimental branch first, so join our Discord server at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to be the first in line for the latest news.

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

Jan 19, 2024

Roadmap Update - January 2024

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

With the holiday season firmly behind us, it is time to outline EXOR Studios' plans for the year 2024. We have plenty of exciting things scheduled for this year, including some of the biggest updates we have ever developed. This article will tell you what we plan to release in the coming months and the extent of changes you can expect. But first, let’s take a look at the freshly updated 2024 Riftbreaker Roadmap.

WORLD EXPANSION III

The first major release in 2024 will be the World Expansion III. Just like in the case of Metal Terror and Into the Dark in the prior years, WE III is going to consist of two parts: a free content update for all our players and an optional, paid DLC with a new Story Campaign branch. Here is all the information we can give you about the update at this point.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506610/The_Riftbreaker_World_Expansion_III/

World Expansion III update will introduce an entirely new biome for you to explore: the Swamp. While swamps on Earth are rather uninviting and gloomy most of the time, Galatean Swamps are rich, colorful, and teeming with life. The unique creatures inhabiting these lands display adaptations never seen before in other Galatean species. The plant life is extraordinary as well, with several new species, including aggressive, predatory plants capable of attacking everything that moves. However, fungi are the true rulers of this land, as can be seen in the artwork we prepared for this biome.

You will get the chance to discover the Swamp together with Ashley and Mr. Riggs in the brand-new Story Campaign DLC. Over the course of its several missions, you will get to know what led to the discovery of this biome. Ashley will face a new kind of challenge as she discovers that the Swamp is just a shadow of its former self. Our heroes are going to restore the natural beauty and peace to this place. You will also get to experience an all-new mission variant, taking place on a map that expands further as you complete your objectives.

All our players will be able to explore the Swamp in the new Survival Mode map, which will arrive as a free content update. However, the update is not just a new map. In fact, it is a massive upgrade and a rework of many game systems you had issues with. All of the following aspects of the game will receive an upgrade, which will be free for everyone to enjoy as a part of World Expansion III.

Exploring the new biome means more opportunities for research, and that can only mean one thing - shiny new technologies for you to develop and use! You will be able to craft plenty of gear pieces to adapt your mech to the threats of the Swamps. Your base will get a makeover as well, as we’re adding several types of defensive towers into the mix. You’ll also get an opportunity to improve your economy as we introduce new ways to power your base and utilize the resources you’ve gathered.

However, in order to fit all of these new tech items into our research tree, we needed to implement a radical rework. There was simply no room left to add any more nodes, and we were not happy with the legibility of our system in the first place. This is why World Expansion III will mark the release of our brand-new research tree. Instead of three tabs separating the research categories, the new system will feature only one large and scrollable tree. We are working on making the new tech tree as easy to use as possible, which is a great challenge, given its size. However, it is a necessary step to move forward. We will try to make the transition as smooth as possible. And that is just the first of the many reworks we’re planning.

We are experimenting with associating resource costs to individual research items. In the early stages, these costs will be symbolic at best. We do not want to hinder your progress by putting prohibitive price tags on basic technologies. However, more advanced and non-mandatory tech upgrades will require you to save up a bit of cash. We want you to be more mindful of the research and make conscious decisions about the research priorities during your campaigns. This approach will also give you a reason to build up a stronger economy and expand your outposts beyond the bare necessities. As we said, though, this is an experiment and we will see whether it makes it beyond the prototype phase.

Another area of the game that is going to see significant changes with the release of World Expansion III is the balance of weapons. The majority of Superior and Extreme quality weapons show significant balance problems. They are either overpowered, making them a must-have choice, or severely underpowered, rendering them useless against late-game enemies. We will try to fix this situation by flattening their power level a little bit. We will reduce the number of special properties that weapons receive during crafting. While it will slightly reduce the DPS of Superior and Extreme quality weapons, you will be able to add special properties later with the use of the revamped mod system.

Weapon Mods in The Riftbreaker were previously divided into two distinct categories: property enablers and property bonuses. If you had a +1 Piercing Mod, you could only use it in a weapon that had the piercing property, or you had to first insert a mod that enabled piercing for that item. The system was confusing and caused your mod collection to grow to an unreasonable size. After WE III update, all mods will enable their corresponding property on a weapon, saving you a mod slot in a weapon that was previously blocked by an enabler.

This simplification will make the system more welcoming and easily understandable. Mods will also be grouped in the inventory by type, reducing the size of the list significantly. We will also change the inventory screen to let you clearly see all the stats and properties of your guns and upgrades. The redesigned layout will allow you to check all the important stats at a glance and easily compare two items in your inventory.

The loot system is getting a major overhaul as well. Previously, we followed the logic of “a wild animal can’t drop a minigun for you.” We now realize it was an unnecessary limitation and did not reward you enough for dealing with increasingly difficult attack waves. With the new system in place, not only will you get the chance to find powerful weapons in the wild (sometimes beyond the level you’ve researched). You will also get more chances to find rewards scattered across the map in miniature versions of bioanomalies you already know. We hope to give you an incentive to explore each map and allow you more chances to find something exciting and useful.

EXPANDED STORY CAMPAIGN

All of the features and changes above are under development already. We’re introducing these reworks to lay the foundation for the endgame expansion, another free content update we are planning to release this year. We want to give you an optional goal to strive for after you have finished the Story Campaign mode. This part is not in the works yet (not everything, at least), but the refresh of the elements we mentioned before will give us a good start. Please bear in mind that the following are our plans, and they are subject to change as we make progress toward the release of the endgame update (or updates - with so many things getting reworked, it might turn out to be impossible to release it all at once).

The core of the endgame update is the ability to generate additional, randomized missions on the Orbital Scanner screen. You will be able to choose the biome you want to explore further and play an additional mission taking place on a new map. These maps will sometimes utilize a brand-new type of map tile we call “encounter tiles.” Encounter tiles feature unique spots that will serve as the main point of the mission. They will vary in purpose and character, giving the additional missions an aura of mystery and encouraging you to explore the secrets of the planet.

Another problem we would like to solve with the endgame update is outpost attacks. In the current version of the game, once you set up your outpost and leave the map, nothing can ever happen to that base unless you come back. It is not what we originally intended, and we would love to change that in a future update. Our plan is to allow outposts to be attacked when you’re not around. You will receive a warning about an incoming horde drawing near one of your bases. If you choose to ignore the danger, your remote base will get destroyed or severely damaged. However, you will have a couple of minutes to travel there and help defend your facilities. Hopefully, this will make the game more dynamic and exciting in the long run.

We would also like to add more variety to the sub-objectives you receive while on your missions. There are only a couple of them in the game at the moment: destroy a nest, hunt down a boss creature, or clear an infestation of acidic yeast. We’ve had more objectives planned and prototyped but simply did not have time to flesh them out before the release of the game. Now, with much more experience, knowledge, and your suggestions pouring in for years, we believe we can finally make this system worthwhile and less repetitive than it is currently.

Completing the activities in the endgame will bring you closer to an all-new alternate ending to the game. The details of this will remain a secret for now. All we can say is that it will require you to stay on Galatea 37 a little bit longer than expected, but with your help, the planet may yet become the second home for humanity.

CO-OP MULTIPLAYER

The final thing on our roadmap for 2024 is the Co-Op Multiplayer. As you know, we have been working on this for a long time and even started a closed beta program a couple of months ago. While the beta tests were limited to PVP only, they have provided us with heaps of much-needed data to improve the game's netcode. The progress we managed to achieve in the past couple of months, thanks to your help, has been significant. We have been able to complete a Survival Mode mission in co-op on stream for the first time! Here’s the full, unedited VOD from that stream:

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As you can see, while things are far from perfect, we have made considerable progress. We’re able to consistently clear Survival runs. Now, it’s only a matter of getting the performance to an acceptable level. Once we do that, we think that we are going to be able to expand our closed beta from Deathmatch to full Co-Op. From that point onwards, we will start introducing multiplayer-centric changes, like adjustments to the difficulty level, more interaction options between the players, additional challenges, and more. If you want to be a part of this, make sure to sign up for the closed beta here:

{LINK REMOVED}

We do not have any estimates when it comes to the release date. Our progress has been quick lately, and it feels like, for the first time, we can finally see the end in sight. Still, we can’t predict what challenges lie ahead and prefer to be flexible. We will keep you informed throughout the year. The closed beta will receive updates frequently, and we will keep collecting data from your runs to see where our game is lacking. We will invite more and more people to test with us and stream live gameplay on a regular basis. If there is anything we can do to improve communication with you on the multiplayer front - please let us know.

So that’s it - our roadmap for 2024. If everything goes according to our plans, by the end of the year, The Riftbreaker is going to be almost a completely new experience. We’re always eager to hear your suggestions and learn what we can improve, so join us at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to let us know what you think!

This is going to be a good year!
EXOR Studios

Jan 12, 2024

Skin Design Competition Winners Announcement

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

Just before the holiday season, we announced a Skin Design Contest. We asked you to come up with ideas for new designs for Mr. Riggs’ paint scheme. We received some great entries - you should all be proud of yourselves. However, we only have three spots for our winners. In this article we will highlight the winners, selected by our jury panel, consisting of the EXOR graphics designers. Congratulations!

The first winner is itsthompson88 with the Graffiti Mech skin.

Steam doesn't always want to zoom in after clicking on the image. You can find the original submission link right here:
https://imgur.com/a/P3ubSpP

This design made the cut for obvious reasons - it is a real, game-ready skin! itsthompson88 clearly put a lot of effort into it. The graffiti theme plays along very nicely with the purple and blue color palette. The giant skull on the windscreen is also a nice touch that we used ourselves in a couple of spots. Overall, we felt that this was the most complete skin and that it wouldn’t feel out of place among the designs available in the game. Good job!

The second winner is Cat on a phone.

Click on any of the images to view them in a larger window. Alternatively, you can find the original submission link right here:
https://imgur.com/a/GIR8EVh

There are a couple of potentially great designs here. Sure, you need to use your imagination to fully envision what the author wanted to show, but that’s not the point. The idea of Mr. Riggs dressed up as a cow made us laugh. The neon camo paint scheme made us think of the 80s glam metal image. The liquid metal skins could look great if they were animated and changed colors in real-time. It’s hard to even choose one here. Well done!

The last trophy goes out to akee3, the man who took down every competition we held so far!

Click the image to view it in a larger window. Alternatively, you can find the original submission link right here:
https://www.clickasnap.com/profile/akeeman

Akee’s entries bend the rules a little bit when it comes to not changing Mr. Riggs’ geometry. However, we decided to accept these because the slight modifications in the shape of the Mech are not the most important thing here. These designs stand out thanks to the great color combinations, unique patterns, and clever use of materials. The combinations of metal, plastic, glass, carbon fiber, and rubber look great here. We can’t wait to see what they might look like in the game.

The winners receive a set of Steam keys for all EXOR Studios games, as well as a care package with EXOR Studios merch, including a Mr. Riggs plushie (you can mod it and make your skin come to plush life!). Additionally, we will use your designs to create new skins for The Riftbreaker - they will arrive with the next World Expansion.

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you, everyone, for taking part in our little contest. We have direct contact to itsthompson88 and akee3, but no way to reach Cat on a phone. Please shoot me an email with your contact information to piotr.bomak [at] exorstudios.com.

Be on the lookout for future contests!
EXOR Studios

Dec 22, 2023

2023 in Review

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

2023 has gone by in a blink of an eye. The Riftbreaker is two years old now, but your passion for the game has not disappeared - not in the slightest. You keep us motivated to keep making the game better and better. We have compiled some facts and stats about EXOR and The Riftbreaker to summarize our work. Let’s take a look at what we managed to achieve over the course of the past twelve months and talk about our plans for the next year.

We have released four major updates for the game:

World Expansion II update - it accompanied the release of the Into the Dark DLC. This update allowed you to explore the Crystal Caverns biome, spanning for miles beneath the surface of Galatea 37. The new rock-digging mechanics allowed you to build bases deep underground while facing relentless attacks from the unwelcoming inhabitants of the limestone caves.

Building a giant base beneath the surface of the planet is a challenge, but try that while repelling relentless attacks from hordes of aliens!
Summer Update - It added 156 new decorative items in several sizes and styles, all available for free and awarded to players for their in-game progress. They allow you to customize the looks of your Riftbreaker bases.

Our screenshot contest asked you to put those assets to good use. Here's a great example by acideiffel!
Halloween Update - Added the Halloween seasonal event, fixed several major bugs, as well as brought the Prologue version of the game to parity with the main release.

Any ideas for new seasonal events in the Riftbreaker?
The Riftbreaker Multiplayer Closed Beta - It’s not an update, strictly speaking. However, we feel that it is an important milestone. We started conducting connectivity tests with players around the world. Our goal is clear - co-op multiplayer.

The closed PVP test will evolve into a co-op test over time.

Now, a bunch of statistics:

Apart from the major updates, we have also released 11 maintenance updates, stability updates, and hotfixes, bringing up the total number of releases to 14 in 2023 alone. Adding experimental branch releases increases this number to 30 for Steam alone.
Adding other platforms to the mix, we have published 71 versions of the game altogether. That gives us an average of one game update every 5.14 days. We were busy!
To maintain compatibility with saved games, each patch that we publish has to successfully complete not only a QA pass but also a series of automated save tests. This year, our save samples package has grown from 135 to 163 tests to accommodate the new Story Campaign from Into the Dark DLC. A full run takes 3 hours on average to complete. We ran the save test gauntlet 476 times this year, summing up to 1428 hours, or 59.5 days, or 85680 minutes of automated testing, give or take. You can watch all 9 Star Wars movies back-to-back 56 times in that time.
The Riftbreaker repository revision number at the beginning of the year was 34431. As of the time of writing this article, the number is 42130, only counting the main branch. That gives us 7699 contributions to the game’s content alone. The programmers additionally work on The Schmetterling Engine, which uses a separate repository. They started the year on revision 25931 and finished on revision 28922. That is an additional 2991 contributions, bringing the total number up to 10690. That gives us an average of 29 commits a day. An average member of EXOR contributed 712 times.
We streamed the development version of the game on our Twitch channel 80 times this year, and you watched for 5660 minutes, sending over 36500 chat messages. Most of them were stronger attack votes.
We published 72 news articles on Steam, ranging from simple patch notes to detailed breakdowns of the new rendering techniques. These articles amassed about 20.041.000 impressions (times they showed up in various places around Steam for you). That gives us an average of 278.000 views per article. That’s over 5.5 times the capacity of the Polish National Stadium in Warsaw.
This year, we officially added integrated modding support for the game, implementing an in-game mod browser. Mods can be hosted on Steam Workshop and mod.io. Our users have published 481 mods for the game. To promote modding in our community, we ran a community modding contest with high-end PC gear on the line. Our champions received customized gaming PCs with Riftbreaker artwork printed on the case.

The main prizes in the modding contest went to Frognik and WirawanMYT. Congratulations once again!
We released a substantial number of updates this year. However, the majority of our work has been focused on co-op multiplayer. We have released four Status Report articles - over 12000 words summarizing our progress and describing the issues we had to face. You can read them all here:
We’re still a long way from releasing the co-op version to you, but we have made a major step towards it. We started a closed multiplayer beta, utilizing our ‘accidentally developed’ PVP mode to diagnose issues with our net code. Thanks to the data we have already gathered during the beta, we have managed to clear many bottlenecks in network transfers. Each step forward brings us closer to the real deal - fully online co-op mode. We have over 300 testers now, but we still need more - you can sign up for the test here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/780310/view/3803913612004075220?l=english

What we wanted to improve:

Last year, we drew a couple of conclusions from our work, based on your feedback and our own experience. In 2023, we decided to put the theory into practice. Let’s see how that worked out!

We told you that we started testing our networking by playing PVP and that it happened by complete accident. You understood that and accepted our reasoning. It goes to show how far you can go when you actually take the time to talk to your fans.

The first lesson was about communicating with players clearly. We like to think that we have done a decent job with that. This year, we have not introduced groundbreaking changes to existing mechanics, so we did not have to explain nerfs or buffs and our reasoning behind them. However, we did have a chance to apply the conclusions from this lesson by telling you about the PVP mode. We stated that it’s used for testing only and won’t replace the co-op mode, ever. Your positive reactions to that news proved that being transparent on this topic was the correct approach.

The lessons we learned while developing Metal Terror allowed us to manage our resources better in the case of Into the Dark. We like how this expansion turned out.

The second lesson was about giving ourselves the time we need to complete tasks. We’ve given ourselves more time with Into the Dark and released it in good shape. It took exactly as much time to develop as Metal Terror did, as the two expansions were very similar in scope. The third World Expansion is going to be bigger, so we know we need to give ourselves a longer development window this time.

One of the first drafts of the cave excavation mechanic vs the final product. Showing off work-in-progress allowed us to gat your feedback early and make necessary changes ahead of release. Thank you!

The third thing we learned last year was to show off our work ahead of time, even if it’s not finished. We decided to take a much more open approach to development and reported on our progress every single week. You enjoyed our previews and shared a lot of feedback, which positively affected the final result. We even started publishing daily, unfiltered, and unmodified change logs from our development repository on our Discord. You can expect us to continue previewing upcoming releases - it benefits all of us.

As for the fourth lesson, we applied its results immediately last year. We learned that players are much more likely to share their feedback when it doesn’t require too much effort. For that reason, we launched our suggestion board, which you can find here: https://riftbreaker.featureupvote.com. You continue putting up great ideas there, and we’re thankful for that.

All of our articles about co-op were smash hits, despite being difficult content-wise.

The last lesson was perhaps the most important one. We learned that we shouldn’t stop ourselves from sharing information on some topics, even if they might be difficult. This year, we wrote several large technical articles, ranging from discussing the new rendering methods to discussing our progress on the co-op front. All of those articles have been met with your positive reception. It’s been a gratifying process for all the people involved in writing those articles. We will keep delivering more in-depth news, with the first ones scheduled to be released early next year.

We think that by applying what we learned last year, we have managed to keep you informed, entertained, and engaged. Still, we know that even hundreds of news articles will never replace new content releases.

Here’s what we’re planning to do in 2024:

The first thing on our to-do list is World Expansion III. It’s a bigger expansion than the previous ones. As we stated earlier, we expect it to take a bit more time to develop, but it is going to change The Riftbreaker on many levels.
- The main component of this expansion is the brand-new Swamp biome. The Swamp will pose an interesting challenge when it comes to base-building, as the available terrain space is going to be limited by the numerous puddles, ponds, lakes, and rivers.
  
  The base building in swamps is going to pose a challenge because of the limited dry land. However, you will be able to utilize a lot of liquids to generate power for your outposts!
- Creatures inhabiting the biome have adapted to living in semi-aquatic conditions, and it won’t be a problem for them to barge into your base across a lake. You will have to place defenses in a much more strategic way.
  
  Creatures that can traverse liquids might be a strategic disadvantage. But look at those water ripples!
- Not only will the creatures try to get rid of you, but there are several types of carnivorous (mechavorous?) plants as well. Identifying them from a distance will be an important skill to master.
- We know that liquid surfaces in The Riftbreaker left a lot to be desired. With an introduction of such a liquid-rich biome, we gave our water shaders a revamp, giving all liquids a new and, hopefully, much better look.
- Introducing new elements into the already densely-packed Riftbreaker tech tree is a challenge. In order to facilitate the addition of new technologies, we will redesign the current tech trees.
- Keeping tabs on balance after adding several new weapons and enemy types once more would also be very difficult. Some weapons fell into obscurity by prohibitive costs or simply because they lacked effectiveness. We will introduce a major rebalance of most weapons to make all of them useful once more.
  
  While we don't have the images for the reworks mentioned above, we do have some new artwork prepared for World Expansion III. Enjoy!
- Much, much more, laying foundations for…
The Campaign Endgame rework update. The massive changes coming with World Expansion III will lay the foundations for the endgame rework. You will get the ability to take part in more planetary missions after the end of the Story Campaign and set up new outposts. The reworked loot algorithm will keep you hunting for better loot and more resources. We will share more information about this as the update starts taking shape. Here’s what we can tell you now:
- Improved world exploration - Galatea 37 will become a much more exciting place with our new additions. You will find much more objects of interest (and great power) on the surface of the planet. Smaller loot caches will join the bioanomalies you already know. They will be more common but also filled with resources, mods, and unlockables. Power Wells will grant you massive, temporary buffs capable of turning the tide in battle.
  
  The new loot caches are smaller and not protected as heavily, but will still surprise you with fountains of sweet loot.
  
  A wall of Krocoon Ultras is not a problem with the new QUAD DAMAGE power well, which gives you, well, quad damage for 60 seconds (WIP, changes pending)
  
  Another great example - Loot Chance Boost power well, turning regular canoptrix into loot pinatas!
- New, elite creatures - The ‘boss’ variants of creatures you could meet in the wild were much stronger, but not very special. The elites we’re cooking for you will have additional properties and attack capabilities, making them much more formidable and will test your combat skills to the maximum.
- Redesigned inventory screen - we heard your feedback about the inventory and your difficulties figuring out the properties of your weapons. With the new version, we will try to remedy these problems and make the navigation simpler and more intuitive.
  
  The new inventory screen will make it easier to directly compare the items you have equipped with those in your inventory
- Reworked weapon mod system - The distinction we had between mods that enable certain properties (eg. Homing Projectiles Enabled) and those that improve them wasn’t a hit. The new system removes the “Enable” mods altogether. That gives you more clarity and more room for OP mods in your best weapons. The mod list has also been redesigned, grouping mods that affect the same property together with each other.
  
  The mods are now grouped by type, making it a lot easier to scroll through the list. This is not the end of improvements when it comes to mod system.
- …and much more. We will keep you posted, but check our stream periodically to see glimpses of the new systems and reworks of the old ones.

Apart from the updates mentioned above, we are going to continue our work on the co-op multiplayer mode. Since we started our closed beta test on a very limited PVP build, we have been receiving reports on the game’s performance on various types of Internet connections. We also ran tests with people situated all around the world. These tests, running on a lightweight build, revealed to us which areas of the networking code we need to work on. Since then, we have managed to clear a couple of roadblocks, but our work is far from over.

In 2024 we will continue distributing access keys to The Riftbreaker Multiplayer Beta. As the net code improves, we will gradually increase the feature set of the beta until we reach the point where you will be able to play a real Survival Mode session with each other over the web. There’s still a long way to go, but we think that with the knowledge we have now, the reworked codebase of the game, and your support, we can do it. Every week new people join the beta. We stream the gameplay to show the progress we’re making regularly. More status reports are coming. Let’s get it done.

And that’s a wrap - our 2023 in review. Fingers crossed for 2024 - we hope it’s going to be at least as good as 2023 has been.

EXOR Studios

Dec 8, 2023

What it's like to be an indie developer

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

We often emphasize that EXOR Studios is an indie developer and The Riftbreaker - is an indie game. Indie is short for ‘independent.’ As a company, we are self-funded; all our ventures are financed by our previous games, and we do our own publishing. Such a business model comes with many advantages and just as many, if not more, drawbacks. Today, we are going to tell you why we decided to go this route, despite the many risks, and what it means to be an indie developer in the gaming industry. We will also give you examples of how these aspects relate to EXOR Studios’ past and current projects.

Switching to the self-emplyed indie lifestyle was a giant leap of faith. In the end it was worth it, but we earned a couple of grey hairs along the way.

CREATIVE FREEDOM

One of the things that led the founders to create EXOR Studios was the full creative freedom that being an indie developer offered. The founding seven members of EXOR moved on from modding and into the game development industry by joining a larger company that did ‘work for hire’. They often developed ports of well-known games from bigger platforms for mobile devices. While that experience was very valuable, they had to follow strict guidelines and were not in creative control of their work. The year 2007 was also on the brink of the industry shift, in the form of digital games distribution. Skipping box printing and retail distribution allowed developers more opportunities to get their games out into the hands of players worldwide.

The entry barrier into the industry was significantly lowered, and small studios like EXOR, or even individual developers, could try their hand at releasing a video game. This allowed them to publish smaller-scope but still ambitious projects that would most likely get rejected by most publishers. It gave those developers a chance to try out their ideas in the wild, gain valuable experience, and build their portfolio. It also meant that they could finally make games they truly wanted to make. No more work for hire, spinoffs, or tie-ins. The freedom to make the games you want to play is the biggest advantage of being an indie developer.

You need a lot of time to test your game properly. Luckily, when you're independent, you can decide a lot of deadlines for yourself. If you miss with you shot, though, everything can explode, just like the base in the gif above.

DEADLINES ARE SELF-IMPOSED

Lately, there have been many games that released… undercooked. They could have used a couple of months of final playtests, polish, and bugfixing. Unfortunately, developers often have to release games in an incomplete state because they need to meet deadlines. In case of AAA titles, a release date is sacred - the entire marketing machine is built around the game’s release date and moving it is almost impossible. A lot of people rely on you doing your job in time, which builds pressure. Being an indie developer gives you the ability to set those deadlines for yourself. You know your abilities and limitations, so you can make an educated guess on how much time you need to bring the project to a close. It’s likely you will hit delays and roadblocks, but without a parent company breathing down your neck.

Players kept asking us for the release date of The Riftbreaker for about a year after we released the Prologue version. “Come on, guys, the game is ready. What are you waiting for?” We knew that the game wasn’t good enough yet. We decided to put off the announcement of the release date until we had a beta. We then took that version and polished it until it was worthy to be released to the general public. It paid off in the end. We believe it’s going to work like that for co-op as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/780310/view/3734104644163035438?l=english
We've got an entire article on the tools we use to make games, check it out if you're interested!

DO YOUR WORK HOWEVER YOU LIKE

We’re all different and have varied preferences when it comes to pretty much everything. That includes game development tools, which can vary wildly from one another, even if they serve the same purpose. Artists have their preferences when it comes to 3D modeling software, and programmers have their favorite IDEs. While it’s possible that a developer could adapt to new tools quickly, nothing will beat the comfort of working with a piece of software that you have been using for years. Working as an indie developer, in most cases, you can choose what programs you want to use for the job. You can even decide which engine you want to use to create your game. In larger studios, it is much more likely that the toolset is going to be ‘forced’ on you, which can lead to a lengthy adaptation period, especially if the technology is proprietary.

Our artists have been working in various 3D software, but when the Blender revolution came around, we gladly made the switch. Blender’s personalization options, its expandability using various plugins, and its intuitive interface made the transition smooth. We never looked back. However, it was only four people. Imagine forcing 100 artists to do the same. We can almost guarantee it would take a lot of time and effort.

No story here. Just a gif to break the wall of text :)

DO YOUR OWN BUSINESS

Being an indie dev doesn’t mean that you are cut off from the business world altogether. There is no escaping that. Still, you are granted a much bigger degree of freedom when it comes to making decisions for your game and company. You can decide which platforms your game is going to be released on, what kind of marketing campaign you want to run, and who you want to work with. You do not answer to shareholders or the publisher. However, this is a double-edged sword. The responsibility for all these decisions is yours and yours alone. If you fail, you may go out of business before you can even realize what is going on. On the other hand - if everything goes right, you will reap the rewards.

One such example from the history of The Riftbreaker was our Game Pass deal. In exchange for The Riftbreaker being available in Game Pass on day one, we received extra time we could spend on polishing the game and bringing it to the best shape it could be. Without securing those extra funds, the whole story might have unraveled in a different way.

What we mentioned above are not all benefits of working as an independent developer. In general, you could sum it all up in one word: freedom. This freedom, however, comes at significant costs. Let’s talk about some of these costs now.

Mr. Riggs wanted to get heard, too. Perhaps he should start a podcast?

IT’S DIFFICULT TO GET HEARD

To say that the gaming market is saturated is an understatement. Dozens of games, big and small, are released every day. Players spend thousands of hours playing the giant titles that adorn the front pages of YouTube and Twitch. New AAA titles run marketing campaigns that reach beyond the internet and bombard potential players with information about newly released projects. Your game has to be really special to turn the heads of players around the world. The odds are stacked against you, but as successful indies have proven time and again - the challenge is not insurmountable. If your game is good, players will spread the word around.

Before the word about The Riftbreaker started making rounds around the web, we sent out hundreds, if not thousands, of emails, asking everyone and their dog to cover our game. Over 95% of those emails never even got a reply. Only after the demo version hit it big during the Steam Next Fest we started getting some coverage offers - some of them even coming from the people we tried to contact earlier. It’s a tough world out there.

You need to be able to adapt to difficulties and bad conditions, even if it means coding on a 19-inch CRT monitor.

NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP YOU

Well, not literally, but without a large team behind you and resources from your publisher and/or stakeholders, you will face unexpected problems on your own. If there are technical problems, you might not even have a second tech person on the team to ask for help. You have to figure out legal matters and taxes all by yourself instead of having a dedicated team behind you. The same goes for marketing. If your PC breaks in the middle of the project, you’d better have a backup one ready for action because you are your own IT department. All kinds of things can go south while making a game, and you will be on your own, so be prepared for that.

At the beginning of 2020, we had to make the decision to allow people to work from home. Even though we had a VPN set up that theoretically allowed us all to work remotely, no one had tested it on such a scale and with that many people. The transition wasn’t without issues and took quite a lot of valuable development time.

Next goal: online co-op. We will get there, we promise you that. Our beta tests have proven very vauable so far.

HOPE YOU’RE HERE FOR THE LONG RUN

Working on a smaller-scale project with a small, independent team does not mean there isn’t a lot of work. On the contrary - you will have much more work on your hands than in the case of a large team. In big studios, work is often divided into very specialized areas. One person is responsible for models of rocks. Another person does trees. Yet another person does gun models. There are separate job positions for AI, graphics, gameplay, and cinematics programmers. These kinds of lists can go on and on. In the case of independent developers, all these jobs often fall into the hands of one single person. One day, you might work on graphics, do some gameplay design in the next couple of days, and finish off the week by fixing a leaking kitchen sink. While undoubtedly exciting, jumping from one job to another is not the most efficient way of working and will likely make development slower than you would like.

Some of you probably learned about The Riftbreaker because one of the YouTubers you follow has covered the game at some point. We had to arrange most of such videos ourselves - we looked for relevant influencers, sent them review copies of the game, negotiated with those who wanted to do a paid video, and analyzed our actions to determine what worked and what didn’t. That took away time from other things we could be doing then. However, this work was necessary to get the word about the game out to people. It simply cost more than just money.

Our trophy cabinet. The road to each one of these memorabilia took a lot of work and taught us a great deal. We hope to learn even more along the way!

CONCLUSION

Indie game development is not a career that you can easily get in and out of to get some experience. It has to be a passion project, born out of a lifelong desire to make games you want to make and not obey any conventional rules. If you’re not fully convinced that this is what you want to do, you might go mad. However, the freedom to make your vision come true, limited only by your own abilities, makes it all worth it.

If you have any questions about indie dev life, or game development in general, ask in the comment section. We’re always on the lookout for new topics to share some behind-the-scenes knowledge about The Riftbreaker, EXOR Studios, and the gaming industry. You can also contact us directly through Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and during our streams every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CET over on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios.

See you there!
EXOR Studios

Dec 7, 2023

Mod Spotlight Livestream! European City by Molch!

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have always been huge proponents of modding and designed our games with modders in mind. The Riftbreaker’s data files are not obfuscated or encrypted, and our asset packs are simple zip files you can browse at will. We also gave you access to our custom-made Riftbreaker World Editor suite - the set of tools that we used to create The Riftbreaker’s campaign, databases, maps, and a lot of other things. Once in a while, a modder comes along and does something truly remarkable with these tools. Once again, that person is Molch, the author of the Arctic Map and Rift City mods. This time, Molch decided to recreate a typical European City as a map for The Riftbreaker. In fact, Molch has astounded us all with creativity, the level of detail, and some features that we didn’t even think were possible.

Mr. Riggs taking a peaceful stroll through the streets, bashing some cars along the way.

As mentioned earlier, Molch has already created one city map for The Riftbreaker. We described it at length in this article. This time, however, he went to the next level. The Riftbreaker does not contain great city-building assets by default. Most of the props and entities in the game are either plants, rocks, or futuristic sci-fi buildings. To get access to more buildings that fit a regular city map, he would either need to make them from scratch or port them from our previous games - Zombie Driver or X-Morph: Defense. Molch chose the second option. However, converting assets from our older games to work with The Riftbreaker is not a simple process. For our latest game we introduced Physics Based Rendering, or PBR for short. PBR aims to simulate the way that materials reflect light by giving them properties like roughness or metalness. Molch needed to rework all the materials to make the old props compatible with the new game. We have no idea how long it must have taken, but we’re sure it was a lengthy process.

You can destroy buildings chunk by chunk. Even though they won't collapse, it's still impressive!

Porting the assets from X-Morph: Defense and Zombie Driver had a fun little side effect - most of the props that we made for those games are destructible. When Molch ported these assets, he maintained that property, so everything you see around the city can be blown up if you have enough firepower! What is more - the buildings from X-Morph have had their interiors modeled as well, so when you blow holes through their walls, you can see the degree of your destruction by taking a detailed look at the ravaged remains of what used to be cozy apartments, shops, and offices. Another cute little detail is that our camera object culling system can show you what is inside those buildings when you get close to the wall with your Mech. Apart from all the buildings, trashcans, benches, and decorations, there are also plenty of cars around the city - some based on quite well-known models. You can destroy them, too, obviously!

Nobody can prevent you from going on a motor oil-fueled rampage!

With all these new models now available to him, Molch did a stellar job arranging them into a typical European city landscape. Wandering around the streets of the city, you are going to stumble upon typical elements of such a place. There is a town square with a small local market set up. There are little side streets with shops and other facilities. Parks and gardens add little bits of greenery every now and again, where people can enjoy recreational activities. There are even two football fields for the sports fans out there. The highway running through the city is blocked by an accident scene, and the local police force and paramedics are there to help the victims. It’s crazy how many little stories you can tell with just a couple of well-placed props. However, the city lacked something to make it more lively - humans.

Pedestrians invading the football pitch, players T-posing in an act of protest.

To be honest, we still have no idea how the madman did it, but there are actual people walking around the map! We don’t know where the models are from, what script they’re running, or whether they are a brand new idea from Molch. All we know is that we absolutely love this feature. Pedestrians walking around the city are up to scale - considering Mr. Riggs is 4.5 meters tall, the humans reach somewhere up to his upper legs. They do not seem out of place and give you a feeling of how truly gigantic Mr. Riggs is. While we do not have any evidence for our claims, it would seem that more pedestrians spawn during the day than during the night, which is a great touch as well. Oh, humans are ‘destructible’ as well; do what you like with that knowledge.

If you look closely, you will see the policemen interviewing one of the drivers!

Apart from looking great, the European City mod by Molch is a complete map that allows you to play Survival Mode without any issues. It currently uses the Crystal Caverns creature set and Survival mission rules. You will find a multitude of resource deposits scattered across the map, and the urban environment will create a fun challenge for your base-building skills. You will have to beware, though, as there are plenty of powerful creatures prowling the streets of the city (which doesn’t seem to phase the civilians too much). Bring your best gear when you go exploring, or be prepared for the walk of shame, trying to recover your lost weapons.

What a nice park! And the structure at the top looks strangely familiar. Download the map to see it for yourself!

We will do a playthrough of this map during our live stream today, so join us on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios at 3 PM CET (yes, right now) and watch Void get annihilated by familiar creatures in the unfamiliar landscape. If you want to make maps like that yourself, join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and learn from other modders. Our community is growing stronger every day and both EXOR Staff and other modders will help you get started.

Mr. Riggs found the solution to the crowded car park problem.

See you soon!
EXOR Studios

Dec 1, 2023

Design a skin contest!

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have yet another competition for you! This time we ask you to unleash your creativity and give Mr. Riggs a nice, fresh coat of paint.

Plenty of skins to choose from already, but we can always do better. On a side note - we will change the way skin selection works.

We know that players love skins for their in-game characters. It allows them to express their personality and add a degree of customization into the game. Even if you can’t change the color scheme of individual items without modding game files, pre-determined skins still offer an alternative choice. While working on The Riftbreaker some of the most fun things we did was coming up with new skins. Some were inspired by our favorite games (bonus points if you can spot them), while others were completely outlandish ideas we thought could be funny (Mr. Piggs and Caticord immediately spring to mind).

Gold skin is unlocked by completing the game's main campaign. It is one of our favorites. Simple, but effective!

Now we want to hear (and see) what you can come up with! The rules are quite simple:

Come up with a design for a new skin for Mr. Riggs. Look for inspiration in pop culture, your favorite games, series, or your own imagination. Simply design what seems fun to you!
Needless to say, but we will say it anyway - your entry must be in good taste and do not break Steam Terms of Service. No gore, adult-rated material, or mocking anyone's ethnicity, religious or political beliefs.
Create a visualization of your skin idea. Use Paint, Photoshop, or any other image editing software to modify any of the existing Riftbreaker artworks. Alternatively, you can sketch your design by hand and scan it. You don’t have to make a working in-game skin - just a simple image is fine, but bonus points if you do decide to make a working skin 🙂
Do not change Mr. Riggs’ model geometry. You can change everything else. You want to have a giant screen in place of the cockpit visor? Okay! You want to turn the Mech into glass? Also cool! You can go absolutely wild, but the geometry of the mech must stay the same.

That’s all! Now, let’s talk about prizes.

The authors of the three designs we like the most will receive:

Steam keys for all EXOR Studios games. You can use them yourself or gift to someone else.
A care package full of EXOR studios gadgets, including a Mr. Riggs plushie.

Last but not least important - we are going to try to turn the top three designs into actual in-game skins. This will only happen if the authors give us explicit permission to use the design in-game and if it does not break any copyrights or trademarks, so go easy on logos.

Upload the visualization of your design to any image-sharing site and submit your entry in this thread for everyone to see here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/780310/discussions/0/4040354734340685476/

The contest will run until January 10th, 2024. We will announce the winners by January 12th, 2024..

One of the earliest mods for our game - Holy Skin by SenorRagequit. Be the light that shines in the darkness!

The legal stuff:

[expand type=The legal stuff:]
You must be aged 18 or over at the time of entry in order to enter this competition. No purchase is necessary. You must enter the contest yourself. You must comply with the laws that apply to you in the location where you access the competition from. If any laws applicable to you restrict or prohibit you from entering the competition, you must comply with those legal restrictions or, if applicable, refrain from entering the competition. Prizes are not negotiable, exchangeable, or transferable and have no cash alternative. Physical prizes can only be delivered to locations covered by UPS. If a delivery destination is not covered by UPS, then it will not be sent out by EXOR.

The winner(s) will be selected by a panel of judges based on creativity, originality and the highest quality. The decision of the panel is final.

The Organiser does not claim any rights of ownership in your competition entry. By submitting your entry, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and irrevocable right to use, display, publish, transmit, copy, edit, alter, store, re-format, and sub-license the competition entry and any accompanying materials for our marketing or other commercial purposes.
[/expand]

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

EXOR Studios

Nov 24, 2023

What we do to stay up to date

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

The game development industry is a fast-paced environment. It combines the elements of software engineering, art, and entertainment. All three of those fields are constantly on the lookout for innovation and new creative solutions. As a result, the game industry changes rapidly, and keeping up with all the latest developments is almost impossible. Still, we do our best to keep up with the news and are constantly looking for new tech to put in our games to improve your experience. In this article, we will show you what we do to stay up to date with our ever-changing industry.

The media in this article will serve as examples of techniques we decided to add on the basis of what we learned over time - either by playing or listening to what others have to say. Remember when rocks obscured the vision of your mech during gameplay?

The most obvious and the most important thing is playing new games. EXOR Studios is a team of fifteen people with wildly different tastes. There are no two people in our office who are exactly alike when it comes to gaming habits. Some of us have 8000 hours in Counter-Strike, while others prefer spending 200 hours grinding 100% in Starfield. Most of us have a dedicated gaming rig at home but only have the time to game on the Steam Deck. Some people jump on an opportunity to play the latest AAA titles as early as possible, while others wait for a few patches to come out first. The point is that our experiences vary wildly, allowing us to learn about new gaming trends from various sources.

We sought a solution in other hack'n'slash games. After all - Diablo and similar have been dealing with it for ages. The answer to our problems was a camera object culler that 'cuts out a hole' in props that you can see through. Most action RPGs use a similar technique!

While we obviously enjoy playing games, we try to learn as much as we can while playing. Naturally, we tend to focus on our area of expertise within the studio. Designers analyze the ins and outs of economy, combat, and other game systems. Programmers try to notice possible optimizations and techniques used by other developers that could work for EXOR games. Artists stop and analyze props, the composition of the scenes and try to understand what makes animations tick. By observing the work of others, we can learn what works and what doesn’t. We try to understand why developers make their choices and how they affect the overall experience.

When creating the destructible rocks of the Crystal Caverns biome, we took inspiration from the tried and tested voxel-based games that allow you to dig in the ground freely, like Minecraft. We divided the destructible walls into chunks. Then, we iterated on the size of those chunks and the speed of digging to allow a smooth experience. What you see above is a very early version.

Recently, we have been looking into changing the loot distribution algorithm in The Riftbreaker. We spent countless hours playing various parts of Diablo, Path of Exile, and Grim Dawn, among many other hack’n’slash games, to figure out what we could do better. We analyzed how often a player gets a chance to loot something valuable. We compared the crafting-oriented systems with trading-oriented systems, as well as those where no trading or crafting is present.

After hours of playtests and design meetings that totally did not involve any shouting and contravening examples from various games, we arrived at this version of rock-digging. Much better!

We’ve drawn a couple of conclusions from these observations. First - we need to give you as many chances to find something good as possible. For that reason, we’ve designed additional, smaller loot containers to work in tandem with our Bioanomalies. This will encourage you to explore the world since you will get plenty of rewards for doing so. Second - we probably shouldn’t worry about real-world logic as much as we do. If a rat can drop a Mighty Greatsword of Slaying +14 in some games, why shouldn’t you be able to find an awesome weapon in a bioanomaly? You will see the results of our work when we launch World Expansion III - we believe you will like it.

At times we work on cutting-edge techniques that do not have many examples to follow. When we introduced ray-traced shadows in 2020 there weren't many other titles on the market with this feature. Luckily, ray-tracing is not a new technique and we could learn from good, old analog books.

Sometimes, observation alone is not enough. Luckily, a lot of talented developers share their knowledge on the internet in the form of articles on various websites, their own blogs, or YouTube videos. While many sites aggregate such pieces, such as gamedeveloper.com or various subreddits, it is not always easy to find something interesting to you. That is why we often have to take a shot in the dark and simply google phrases such as “loot system in game X” or “raytracing implementation in Y.” You would be surprised how often it is possible to find a complex analysis of such topics on some obscure sites that see two visits per year. We treasure them!

Using what we learned, we not only developed ray-traced shadows, but also highly detailed, pixel-perfect raytraced ambient occlusion. It utilizes the same acceleration structure we prepare for RT shadows, so the additional rendering cost is negligible.

One recent example is our Volumetric Lighting implementation. While researching the topic, we supplied our own observations and past knowledge with publications found online. The first one was an amazingly comprehensive presentation by Bartłomiej Wroński from Siggraph 2014 entitled “Volumetric Fog: Unified compute shader based solution to atmospheric scattering.” Another useful presentation came from Sebastien Hillaire: “Physically Based and Unified Volumetric Rendering in Frostbite.”

Volumetric Lighting is exactly what we needed to 'glue' the world together. It allows us to simulate the way the light interacts with aerosols, giving the scene a much more natural look.

The authors of these presentations detailed how they achieved realistic Volumetric Lighting in the AAA projects they worked on. Thanks to the data and observations from these documents, we avoided many pitfalls and achieved great results. For example, we learned what kind of resolution we should aim for when creating the light scattering map, and that the quality increase is negligible above a certain point. We also learned efficient ways of getting rid of the aliasing artifacts using jitter - a solution that’s very simple but not easy to come across!

The new lighting method opened up a whole new world for us when it comes to map construction.

Doing your own research will only take you so far - not all knowledge can be shared as an article or a video essay. However, you can fill in the gaps during developer conferences. They are (usually) multi-day events during which people from various studios give talks about their games, the technology they use, or even the organization of work within their company. Listening to talks from both veterans and newcomers to the industry can be very inspiring and allows you to draw conclusions you can later implement in your own work.

One of the new, subtle improvements we're introducing for the new biome is the behavior of liquids and the simulations of waves on their surfaces. It's still work in progress, but you can see a nice wake behind Mr. Riggs that displaces the algae on the surface of this small lake.

Still, the most important part of attending industry events is networking. You can meet your old friends and trash-talk them for not having dynamic shadows in their game (cheers, Robert!). You can also make new friends and learn that they are facing the exact same issues as you - crucial software crashing, illogical technical requirements, trouble with implementing network play (wink, wink), etc. Getting to know these people gives you a chance to learn something you haven’t discovered yet and perhaps brainstorm a solution to your problems together. Such relations are truly invaluable.

Our new system takes into account individual vertices coming into contact with water, which means that each of Fungor's tentacles creates its own ripple and wake as it moves around.

If you are a developer or would like to start your career in game development, here’s the TL;DR:

Talk to other people in the industry, learn what they do, and keep an open mind. You don’t have to go to conferences to do that - Reddit, Discord servers, and various forums can help you with that.
Read technical articles and watch technical breakdowns of your favorite games. Not what you like, and challenge yourself to try new things in your work.
Play—a lot. Nothing beats a hands-on experience with games, both old and new. Try to understand why they did things the way they did.

The waves are not physically simulated but still do a good job in creating an impression of movement on the surface. Here, there are dozens of Stickrid legs interacting with the surface and causing ripples and waves to appear.

It’s impossible to always be the first to know all the novelties in the game development world. However, you can always try to learn as much as possible about what seems interesting to you and hone your skills. It will pay off in the long run. You can always talk to us and ask questions about gamedev on our Discord - www.discord.gg/exorstudios - we’re always happy to share what we have learned so far on our 15+ years-long journey.

EXOR Studios

PS. We started streaming our tests of the multiplayer mode together with our viewers! Join us on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CET to watch developers being beaten at their own game!