Oct 13, 2023

Cartel Tycoon - Under Andr

Hola Capos!

Recently we conducted a Q&A Livestream on our Discord, and here are the highlights!

Unfortunately, the video footage from the stream was corrupted, so it became our first podcast! Enjoy! ːcartel_roflmaoː

Text version:
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How long did it take to make San Rafaela? We started working on San Rafaela almost 1.5 years ago! We actually found one of the first map drafts to show you! The goal of this map was to challenge not only the new players but the experts of our first map as well! We also wanted the map to look different from the first one, so we modeled new city buildings, new plants, trees, biomes, and water. So, yeah, we started thinking about San Rafaela even earlier but started making it 1.5 years ago.
Is Andrey a programmer? Nope, I’m just a community manager, but I’m learning a lot from my awesome colleagues! I’ll answer another question cause that was a pretty short answer!
I’m terrible at the game, can you teach me? All I can tell you is that I have over 300 hours in the game, and I sometimes feel like I’m playing for the first time. Trial and error are the best teachers in Cartel Tycoon! But with recent updates, we were closely looking for feedback from players who are just starting out - we wanted to make the game easier to get into, to make these first hours feel good for the player. So, if you’re having trouble with the game - tell us what systems aren’t explained enough, and we’ll take a look at them! In the meantime, you can talk to awesome players on this server, who, I feel like, sometimes know the game better than us.
How was it working with tinyBuild? Any interesting stories? It’s great! They supported us from the beginning, and we couldn't have made this game without them! As for interesting stories, we can show you the first teaser draft that we pitched the game with! Back then there were only five people on the team, and we all pitched in to make this teaser that started our journey with tinyBuild and Cartel Tycoon. It’s an exclusive, don’t show anyone else!
How is the art for this game made? It’s incredible! We agree it’s completely incredible! We have two 2D artists and four 3D artists! 2D artists are responsible for the UI and character designs and cinematics, while 3D artists are responsible for all of the 3D in the game - cars, trees, birds, buildings, the whole map! Our 2D character artist uses the IPad and Procreate as her main tools of trade, and for 3D we use 3DS Max and Blender! We will tell our artists that you love their work! A lot of work-in-progress visuals, early concepts, ideas, cinematics storyboards, and many more can be found in our official artbook. Oh, and as a bonus, I’ll show you early sketches of some of the cinematics!. For each character, there’s always a mood board reference board with all the ideas and elements that we’d like to incorporate. Each character has its own backstory that’s tightly connected with how it looks. So, it’s always a collaboration between artists, game designers, and writers.
We also had a lot of questions about the future of Cartel Tycoon. So we’re going to try to answer all of them at once. After the release of San Rafaela and multiple free updates for the game, we want to take a break from constant releases and focus on our long-term plans for the game - researching mod support, for example. We will, of course, continue releasing patches with bug fixes and small changes if needed. The next patch should be released in 2 weeks and will not only contain bug fixes but also some changes based on the feedback we got on Discord and from Steam reviews. But no big content drops are planned until the end of 2023.

We’re also taking a step back to look through all of the feedback provided to us and to calculate which requested features can be added to the game and which of the features require a new game of their own! For example, auto-buying from Area Depots and Villages. Next year Cartel Tycoon is also releasing on consoles, so we need to focus on helping and supporting the porting team to get the best version of Cartel Tycoon possible! We don’t have a concrete release date for the console edition yet, but we’re hoping for a spring release.

Another reason we’re slowing with the updates is that… we have new projects in development! We won’t share any details just yet but just wanted to let you know we’re cooking something up unrelated to Cartel Tycoon!
There were also a couple of questions about future DLCs. Right now, we don’t have plans for future DLCs, but we’re also juggling a couple of long-term ideas and are thinking of different ways of implementing them! We also don’t want to simply release a DLC with new characters without providing a free update for all of the Cartel Tycoon owners, and as we said above - we’re focusing on the long-term plans and ideas, so if we find an idea that warrants creating several new characters while also providing awesome content for all of the Cartel Tycoon owners - we’ll make a small DLC!

So, to sum it all up - we have plans for the long-term future of Cartel Tycoon, but we need to take a breather to focus on them fully. We’ve been releasing an update a month (well, almost) for 2 years now, so with the latest huge release behind our backs, we finally feel like the game is in a healthy position where we’re able to do that. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved further, no! We’re still taking your feedback to heart, and, in fact, pretty soon we should be adding one of the most requested features into the game!

We wanted to thank you for being with us through these eventful years and helping us make the game that we always wanted to make. And making it better along the way! We always try to thank you, and we’ll continue doing so!
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Oct 13, 2023

Dev Blog 05

Under Contract - Henley

Hello employees! We have been hard at work putting together everything we need for the second Department of Under Contract, and I wanna share our progress with you all! Just as a side note though, the team is kinda split between two major camps of work. The first is the programming and mechanics/systems development, and the second is narrative and art. The second Department is mostly a job for narrative and art, both take time to get right. So a new patch is due very soon to help you all with the wait which focuses on adding the “arcade mode” to the game with a very sizable sex gallery to unlock as you play through the new mode.

Okay! On with the progress!

Behind a Girl Boss is a bigger, badder, Girl Boss

Let’s introduce the new manager for the Finance Department. Her name is Sinder and she is going to be a whole lot of trouble. Overseeing the money-making schemes within the cultperation her job is to incentivize those under her to incentivize those under themselves. Souls are worth way more than any Monkey JPGs or Gumball Anime Tiddie GIFs, so when Richard is pushed into her domain, she can only take it personally.

Following her every move will be two new minions, both are still in development but here is a sneak peek of the first. They are designed to be twins, similar yet different. Unlike the nameless minions of the first department who were supposed to be numerous and uncountable, these two will be reappearing characters.

Help me, to help you, so you can help yourself…

The Finance Department is one big Pyramid scheme joke. Expect a lot of references to modern money-making. Dropshipping, Digital Coins, NFT’s, Shorting, etc. And as such the department layout is in the shape of a pyramid! Funny right? Also very original.

The 3D asset for the overworld is being crafted right now, so nothing super pretty to show so far.

Richard’s Shares

Those who have given Bliss the hard shafting will know of Richard’s new shares, these will play an important role in the future of the game. This will come into play as you level up your companions. For the time being the fate of the shares is the major focus for the Department 2 introduction. This has already been written, along with the video work for a new scene already completed.

Arcade and Stills

As I mentioned above, the next update to Under Contract will focus on the arcade mode which can be found on the main menu. This game mode is kinda an unlimited-style game, where levels can be played for as long as you like, doing so raises the level and the difficulty. Set your own high scores and play to find and grab as many “tokens” as possible. You can spend this currency in the “token shop”, here you can find 35 still sex images of all the current characters engaged in various hellish dickings.

As we add new characters to Under Contract they will also get their own stills in this mode to unlock. Here is a small sample of some of the images you can unlock via the system.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1972470/Under_Contract/

That’s all we have right now, as we build the new department things will naturally be dependent on our art teams to come together. We are estimating that we will have the first pass on art done in roughly 2 weeks. The first build won’t be a full department either, so we hope you all understand there is a bit of work ahead of us!

Oct 13, 2023

Designing New Creatures

The Riftbreaker - voidreaver

Hello Riftbreakers!

The development of the third World Expansion for The Riftbreaker is well underway. We stream our progress previews on Twitch from time to time, testing the new survival mode setup and the basics of the new biome’s gameplay - follow www.twitch.tv/exorstudios to catch us live! As you know from one of our previous articles, the development of an update or an expansion is a lengthy process. It’s full of trial and error and involves a lot of iterations over various elements we want to include in the game. Today, we would like to tell you what it looks like in the case of 3D graphics. We will take a look at a couple of new creature models, what they looked like initially, why they were rejected, and what kind of improvements our artists made to make them viable. Today we’re looking at the technical side of things only - these cute little creatures will get a proper introductory article when the time is right. With all that out of the way - let’s see what the process looks like.

Some of the new creatures are quite menacing, but aren't aggressive.

Please note that there is much more to creating new creatures than we can cover with just one article. After designing and modeling the creature, we need to create textures, animation rig, create animations themselves and program the unit’s behavior that will make use of those animations. After that, we add a whole bunch of effects. All blood splats, projectiles, and any other visuals produced by the creature are custom-made for that unit. Same goes for sound effects - they are all created on a per-unit basis. Then, after all the technicalities are done, we can finally playtest the game including the new unit, tweak its behavior and balance it in the context of gameplay as a whole. This article will only cover the process of getting from the concept phase to the final, high-poly model.

...unless you come too close for their comfort.

The work starts with the concept. During the pre-production phase, after we have decided on the general theme of the new biome, we run a series of design meetings where we come up with ideas for the fauna and flora you’re going to find in the area. While plants and other props are designed to support the general theme and serve as decoration, creatures need to fit both thematically and functionally. We gather tons of references, looking at our favorite works of science fiction, other games, and all other media that could be even remotely relevant to the theme of the biome. We come up with several designs and decide what kind of units we need for the new area when it comes to function. We usually need a light ground unit to appear in large numbers, a medium-sized ranged unit, a tank, and a couple of special units with unique mechanics. Our designs for the large tank and the small cannon-fodder came first.

Stickrids are so delicate you can just stomp them.

Fungor is the first of them. The initial design for the creature was to make a tall, menacing hybrid of an animal with a mushroom. Fungor’s design is supposed to make you ask yourself ‘what is going on here?’, as the creature tries to rip the mecha-suit apart and consume you with its giant jaws. Our artists came up with several propositions, trying to solve the issues of Fungor’s proportions, anatomy, movement, and attack mechanics. These are the first concepts they came up with.

Ahhh, sweet man-made horrors beyond comprehension. Everything immediately fell into place after these concepts were presented to the team. We chose elements that we liked from each version. What we wanted was a fungal abomination that moves in an upright position using massive tentacles. We also decided to add another tentacle to the back of the creature that it can use as a weird whip/hammer hybrid. With these assumptions, the artists got back to work. A couple of days later we got this beauty:

Fungor in its ‘rigging pose’ - all the appendages are extended as far as they go and add the animation rig to the model. Essentially, Fungor is T-posing here.

Designing Fungor was rather straightforward. There was no need to go back and do a couple of redesigns - when a clear vision clicked in our heads, it was only a matter of time before our art team could make it a reality. The scale, anatomy and form all match the desired function of the creature. However, things do not always go so smoothly. This little guy is called a Stickrid:

Hey, this is a Stickrid, too…

And this one as well…

The notes next to the arrow say: [top] the tail fin is helpful when living in a swamp. and [lower, next to the hand] fangs so that the creature can climb.

Here, we got three wildly different concepts. After some discussions and looking deep into the beautiful googly eyes of number 1 and number 3, we decided that number 2 was the only one we wanted to kill. However, number 2 had its fair share of problems. First of all - it resembled a spider a little bit too much and we are aware that not everyone would jam with this idea. Second - the spider-like anatomy meant that the creature’s body would be very low to the ground. In the case of the swamp biome, that’s not really what we wanted, as the critter would not be visible to the player most of the time. We decided to merge some ideas from number 1 and number 2 into one model and lengthen the legs. This way the creature would resemble a grasshopper more and its body would stick over the surface of the water.

Stickrids' design allows us to place them directly in bodies of water.

Another thing is the creature’s function. Even though it falls into the ‘cannon fodder’ category - it’s small and always comes at the player in relatively large numbers - it is different from the other small creatures in the game. Instead of melee attacks, Stickrid prefers ranged combat. It will run away from its target to a safe distance and try to take it down with a barrage of small projectiles. If you try to come closer, the creatures will scatter around, trying to keep their distance from you. This feature means that the creature needs to look like it’s able to launch projectiles. Unfortunately, this eliminates the cute number 3. Goodbye, Frogozaurus Rex.

This was the first attempt at merging the first two concepts. The legs have changed significantly, but we were still not very happy with the overall body shape. We decided that the abdomen, also known professionally as the ‘spider butt’ should be slimmed down. We thought that the creature would look beter in a ‘cigar’ shape.

After all of these changes we arrived at this concept. All our goals have been met:

It has an elongated body and no longer resembles a spider
Long legs ensure that the creature will not hide beneath the surface of the swamp
The gaping mouth is ready to shoot projectiles at you and your base
It’s not cute anymore and we have no problems killing it.

All that’s left is to add some detail and final polish to the model. Here’s the final version:

If you compare the last two versions of the Stickrid we presented, you will easily see the difference between the sketch and the final hi-poly model. When going for the ‘final quality’ model, artists pay a lot more attention to the anatomical details of the creatures they model. The legs have been beefed up, and their joints have been moved slightly to make the model more lifelike. The legs themselves no longer stick out of the abdomen. Now, both these elements flow naturally from one to another. Stickrid’s body has also become more compact, ensuring it behaves as intended in large groups, which is the intended use case. Apart from these touch-ups, the creature also received a lot more details. Ribbed carapace, sharp feet, and striped antennae on the head - we have to skip all these things when coming up with low-poly concepts.

One Stickrid is not that threatening...

Artists at EXOR have complete freedom when choosing references and style for their models. The design team only gives them broad descriptions of what kind of creature they think will work well gameplay-wise. Everything else is up to the artist. Our way of creating game art is not for everyone. Some people prefer to make models based on concept art, since that more-or-less guarantees that nothing they create goes unused. However, we believe that when artists can interpret the creature description freely and create something from the ground up is our strength. It always leads to interesting results and gives them a chance to put a personal touch on their work.

...but there is never just one!

So there we have it - an overview of the first steps that our models take, from the humble beginnings to the final hi-poly model. Let us know if you would like to hear about all the other stages of creature development - texturing, animations, particles, sounds, and everything else! We’ll gladly share more info on this. Remember to join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios for more news and daily changelogs. Also join our streams at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - we haven’t streamed our co-op progress for a while, so it might happen soon…

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

Oct 13, 2023

Coming next week: Treacherous Tides Update

Barotrauma - Vihis

Hello everyone!

The Treacherous Tides update will be releasing next week, so let’s take one last look at what you will find in it.

Overhauled traitor system
We wrote about the overhaul in more detail in our previous post. In a nutshell, look forward to playing with traitors even in the campaign game mode! Other notable changes include:

A new total of 27 traitor events, including multi-traitor events and event chains.
Many new traitor-specific items.
Traitor events will now use the scripted events system, making them more varied and easier to mod.

Storage and inventory changes
You can read more about these changes in this earlier post. Besides the previously mentioned, there will also be a new item called the backpack. It's a larger version of the toolbelt with a small movement penalty, available through the new assistant talent “Bag it up” and from vendors around the midpoint of a campaign.

And there’s more
The update also adds the usual list of bugfixes and other improvements, such as:

Circuit boxes, a new and tidier way to create complex wiring systems with components.
Improved alien ruins, adding a better sense of progression.
Enhanced alien artifact effects which make them riskier to transport and store.
Updated Berilia and R-29 submarines.
Animations for using devices on the sub. No more just standing there, menacingly.
Ammo indicator lights for turrets, making it easier to see when to reload.
Addressed the scarcity of lead, allowing fabrication of ammo with additional materials.
Skill loss on death can be adjusted or completely turned off in the server settings.
“Braindead” characters joining the server will immediately get control of their character back.
About 10 more pages of changelog, coming next week.

Read more about the upcoming update on our blog now and stay tuned for Treacherous Tides next week!

Oct 13, 2023

Experience a New Movement and Shooting Sensation! Patch 1.3

Bloodhound - Kruger & Flint Productions

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1926270/Bloodhound/

Hello again Demon Hunters! o/

Prepare to dive into a world of intensified action and demonic encounters with Bloodhound's latest update! Delve into the heart-pounding thrill of:

Enhanced camera movements for seamless walking, providing immersive exploration 🚶‍♂️
Smoother transitions during sprints, enhancing your speed and agility in combat 🏃‍♂️💨
Dynamically enhanced camera movements for lightning-fast dashes and strategic maneuvers ⚡
Improved shooting sensations across various weapons: Revolver, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Crossbow, Harpoon Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, Minigun, and Railgun, ensuring a satisfying combat experience 🔫🔥
Crisp hit impact sounds, ensuring every strike feels powerful and satisfying 💥
Enhanced combat immersion with 2D hit reaction sounds for select enemies, from Fanatic Cultists to Demon Berserkers, heightening the intensity of battles 🎶👿
Refined collision zones on Akt4_Map3 and Akt1_Map1, providing smoother navigation and challenging encounters 🗺️💥
Better path finding algorithm enhancement for Fallen Angel 🎮
Captivating storytelling through a captivating comic-style opening cutscene, setting the stage for your demonic adventures 🎬
Full control over your experience with 'Skip All Cutscene' and 'Skip Cutscene Page' options, conveniently accessible via ESC/space, allowing you to tailor your gameplay ⏭️
Seamless gameplay with a default FPS limit of 60 (opt for unlimited FPS in display settings), ensuring a smooth and responsive gaming experience 🕹️
Enhanced Minigun sound volumes, adding depth and intensity to your demon-slaying exploits 🔊
Other minor improvements and fixes.

Thank you for your unwavering support! Play fearlessly and embrace the challenge! 😈✨"

Check out our FREE DLC:

"Bring the Bloodhound world fully into the retro dimension 🕹️ and enjoy juicy old-style gameplay! o7. 🎉 Dive in and embrace the challenge! 🎮🔥"

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2535550/Juicy_Retro_Style__Bloodhound/

Join us and let the demonic adventures begin! 🎮🔥

Bloodhound Team
From Players for Players! o7