OUTBRK News

It’s the end of September and we’re here with another exciting OUTBRK Development Outlook. Our team has continued to check off several essential tasks and the Unity 2021 update is essentially complete - which will allow for us to proceed with several of the tasks necessary to get ready for additional community playtests and eventual Early Access!




As development has progressed, we’ve had a goal to improve the way that the players see the storm systems and elements. The Unity 2021 update allows us to have massive tornadoes naturally lit by the position of the sun, and have lightning strikes cast high resolution shadows in the world.





With a world as big as OUTBRK’s (625km²), there’s going to be a ton of ground to cover, literally! We’ve begun the next pass of improvements to the world and along with that and the Unity update comes higher quality ground textures. Here are 6 of the 28 different ground textures that will make up the terrain of OUTBRK.



These improvements to the world will help each biome feel different from the last while being gentle on performance for players.




In last month’s newsletter, we shared some work in progress on our mobile mesonets. Following some feedback by users, we created a new version with more updated instruments. Here is our current version :





With work on several of the critical game elements nearing completion, our team is getting ready to identify a broader range of scenarios to integrate into OUTBRK. So far, this process required a good bit of time, so we’ve limited integrating scenarios in our development version and while we have a short list of events now - we’ll be looking to our community for help compiling more scenarios. We know our diverse community will have some iconic chase days in mind - and we’ll be looking at bringing some of those to OUTBRK! Make sure to join our Discord where all of this will take place. We'll have a text channel with instructions in the coming weeks!

As always, stay up to date with the game’s development on our public Trello planning page!

https://trello.com/b/nsBmMfIa/outbrk-game

Until next time, chasers!

-The OUTBRK Team

Welcome back chasers! It's been busy as of late as our development team has been spearheading several large projects that are essential to our next steps. In our recent Outlooks, we've talked a lot about this work between vehicle models, UI development and most notably, the Unity 2021 engine upgrade.

Unity 2021 Update

While we've already talked about many of the benefits of the Unity 2021 upgrade, we're excited to share where we’re at in the update progress. As we’re writing this update, the core gameplay and the weather logic systems are fully updated. We’re currently working on updating the multiplayer servers and weather visuals to include all the new powerful technologies that we now have access to by updating Unity to the 2021 version. We should be able to share a visual comparison in the next development outlook.

Once the work on the engine upgrade is completed, we'll once again be back in a place where the game is playable end to end and we'll be looking into doing our next round of playtesting! A few months ago, we migrated our servers to allow for the capacity to have several active games, so we'll be looking to verify that this is the case and make sure the lobby system and matchmaking is working properly!

New Vehicle Accessories

On the modeling side, we've continued bringing vehicle customization attachments into the game. Including this cell phone signal booster and vehicle-mounted weather station! We'll have more to come in the future with this as well.




We are so excited to be where we are in the development process. While we are not in a place to announce specific timing, in terms of the development timeline, we are much closer to Early Access and eventual full release than we are to the start of development.

OUTBRK Soundtrack

In addition to the work on the game itself, we started working on the OUTBRK soundtrack. Here are a few pictures of a recording session for the game:



Podcast

Lastly, on September 21st, we will be recording a podcast episode for the Carolina Weather Group where we will be talking about the development progress of OUTBRK. We’ll let you know in our discord server when the episode will be available to listen to.


As always, stay up to date with our Trello page!

https://trello.com/b/nsBmMfIa/outbrk-game

Until next time, chasers!

-The OUTBRK Team

Welcome back chasers!

In this outlook, we're continuing to bring more vehicle models into the game, while also upgrading our editors and resources to Unity 2021! The migration process is a long and technical process, but very worthwhile!

NEW VEHICLES AND ACCESSORIES

We've now got our first hatchback sedan ready to head out for chase day! This inconspicuous grocery-getter might not be very hail resistant, but you can expect great gas mileage!



For those that don't care much about the gas mileage and want to bring a few friends, we've also got this passenger van well on its way into the game.



We're excited to be bringing these vehicles into the game. Each vehicle will have unique characteristics and will handle differently depending on road conditions and driving style. The variety of vehicles will suit different player strategies and intercept tactics out on the chase!

And how about protecting your new shiny ride from hail with one of these new roof add-on?



NEW GAME ASSETS

In the spirit of cars and bringing the world to life, we’re continuing to work on new assets to do just that!



UNITY 2021 UPGRADE

Outside of continuing to integrate new vehicles and props, we're also working on the aforementioned Unity 2021 upgrade. While this process involves some pretty time-consuming steps, we're excited to be able to take advantage of several things that Unity 2019 simply cannot do. There are many visual advantages - specifically with Real Time Global Illumination and enhanced capabilities for environmental lighting effects. Even outside of the visual advantages, the upgrade will make it much faster to deploy and work with game builds as we continue to work towards Early Access.

With many big steps being taken each week, we're getting closer to having our next playtests to help us prepare for Early Access.


As always, stay up to date with our Trello page!
https://trello.com/b/nsBmMfIa/outbrk-game


Until next time, chasers!

-The OUTBRK Team

Welcome back chasers, we've got another round of exciting updates to share with you all for this month's OUTBRK Development Outlook.

Over the last few months, our team has continued to work on key components of OUTBRK and we've been integrating much of the player feedback we received from our most recent playtest.

Last month, we shared some conceptual designs for the new in-game mini-map and the enhanced design of the full screen map and accompanying UI. This month, we're excited to show off the functionality as seen in-game!

IMPROVED MAP NAVIGATION AND CONTROLLER SUPPORT

You'll notice a new "Inspector" tool that will help players know what the different in-game points of interest are with helpful hints that will be displayed alongside the map.



That's not all, we've also continued to enhance how players can interact with the in-game radar and forecasting products. This is a huge step forward in enhancing the realism of OUTBRK. Seasoned storm chasers will appreciate just how realistic working with these products will look and feel. New to chasing and weather? No problem - we'll have tool tips and tutorials in-game to help players of all backgrounds feel comfortable navigating the weather mapping tools in OUTBRK.





Playing on a controller? All of these in-game clips were captured from controller based gameplay! We know that even for experienced PC players, some will prefer to play on a controller and we're excited to integrate more and more controller functionality.

NEW CARS AND ACCESSORIES

While we've continued working on these in-game UI elements, our modeling partners have been wrapping up work on several of the vehicle models that will be in-game. Many of the vehicles in OUTBRK were a result of the phenomenal Kickstarter supporters, including well-known storm chasers like Daniel Shaw and groups like LiveStormChasers.com !

Each vehicle will have unique handling physics that reflect differing vehicle characteristics!



(LiveStormChasers car is a 3D render provided by texturing artist, not in-game capture)





And of course, we're continuing to create vehicle accessories that players can earn with their in-game credits.



Our most recent stretch has been very important for our next steps in OUTBRK and we're continuing to integrate the key components that we will need in order to get ready to move forward with additional Playtests and eventually Early Access. While we don't have specific dates yet, we're getting closer and closer to knowing each day.

As always, stay up to date with our Trello page!


Until next time, chasers!

-The OUTBRK Team

Welcome back chasers! It's an exciting time for OUTBRK as we continue our work implementing much of the core feedback received from our most recent playtests. This newsletter will cover several of the improvements that we've made since then, and the majority of these modifications are a direct result of the feedback from it.

We know our community is increasingly curious about when our next playtests will be and when we may have an idea of the timing of Early Access, each step that we take gets us closer to knowing when these things will happen. Our internal team, as well as our outside partners, have been hard at work getting the core components of the game integrated to provide an engaging, fun, and stable experience for players. This includes items such as new car models, networking components and many key in-game features and their respective user-interface systems.


New Camera Gameplay / UI :
In our last playtest, we received very helpful feedback regarding the storm reporting features and how it interacts with the camera system in-game. Players in our playtest let us know that needing to exit the camera to then report storm features such as funnel clouds or debris was not efficient. Now, when players enter the camera and begin identifying key storm components, they will have the ability to report those storm structures right from the camera, earning them extra points. We'll also have some helpful hints on screen to help players of all knowledge levels know what they are capturing in their shots.



Accessibility / Controller Support :
When it comes to accessibility, we're working to design UI components that make it so even players who may have never played PC games before can interact with the world easily. We're integrating both keyboard based contextual labels as well as gamepad labels. Essential game controls will be accessible to players without ever having to enter a pause menu to review the game keybindings.


Alongside that work, we've also recently integrated our mini map. This was a highly requested feature from our playtests. With a massive world to explore, it's easy to get lost. While the full screen maps and forecasts products will remain accessible as needed, you'll notice our most recent design mockups now have a mini map!

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue our work! Let us know what you think about these most recent community feedback-driven features!


As we head into the peak of storm chase season, we hope to have some additional updates regarding our next playtests and eventually what our Early Access timing may look like. Many of the features that we continue to improve are foundational to the game experience. Game optimization and performance testing will be critical to getting ready for public Early Access.

Be sure to give a glance at our public Trello planification board to stay up to date with the OUTBRK’s development. We continue to remain transparent with our community and hope to have more exciting updates in the coming months!

To conclude this newsletter, here’s a picture of Marc storm chasing in Minnesota yesterday (photo credits ©lauramayabron.com) :



That is all for this month ! Stay safe, chasers !
-The OUTBRK Team