OUTBRK News

Hello everyone ! It’s time for another monthly development update! In this newsletter we’re going to show the latest gameplay developments, designs, and technological tests we’ve been doing!



This month we did the first implementation of proximity voice chat and we started working on an in-car voice chat. You’ll be able to choose between 5 radio channel to talk with other players in the same game as you, here is how it looks in-game right now :




As of right now, all the User Interfaces in OUTBRK are simple placeholders. We started working on the artistic direction for our game menus and collaborated with a UI artist to create some mockups. Keep in mind that these are only visual exploration, do not represent the final product and might represent features that might not be in the game at Early Access.




We’re starting to plan what is needed to have a more diverse cast of playable characters and support better animations and better clothes customisation. We’re still very early in the process but starting this important process is an important milestone in the project. Here is a short gif of some facial animation tests that were done in the Outbrk game editor:




We recently increased our testing team by about 10 new testers. This will help us investigate some issues that are harder to track and improve the stability of our game and matchmaking servers. We know a lot of people showed interest to help us test the game, but we are not looking for additional testers at the moment.


That's all for this development update ! Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/
Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey, and we can't wait to see you out on the stormy roads soon!
Till next time, chasers.

-The OUTBRK Team

Hello everyone ! It’s time for another monthly development update! In this newsletter we’re going to show the progress on the world building, showing our first prototype for multi vortex tornado, and talk a little bit about our testing process and next steps in development.


Two towns received additional polish in the forms of various detailing and points of interest.

This town is named Kickstarter Village because one backer of our Kickstarter campaign that had pledged for the right to name a town never redeemed their prize. If it's you, please check your emails or contact us, we've been trying to reach you since the Kickstarter ended !


We also added interstate markers poles to improve the feeling of size and speed when driving long distances.


We greatly improved the look of our rocks to create a more believable landscape.


A new water technology was integrated to support surface reflection, better waves from the storm wind, and better visual realism if a player unfortunately ends their chase underwater.



We’re very happy to finally show the first preview of a multi vortex tornado prototype. Keep in mind that this is just a technical test and just preparing the terrain before we’re able to create a complete multi vortex tornado. This is not representative of the look of the final product.



Lastly, we built up a small team of testers to help us investigate and fix multiplayer issues. This allows us to rapidly improve our server stability and general multiplayer game flow. This step is crucial to increase our player capacity for the next round of playtest when time will come.
We know we will have a lot of people asking to be part of this team of testers but we’re not looking for more testers at the moment.

That's all for this development update ! Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/

Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey, and we can't wait to see you out on the stormy roads soon!

Till next time, chasers.

-The OUTBRK Team

Hello again, chasers! Spring is in full swing, and so is the development of OUTBRK! In this month's newsletter, we're excited to give you a sneak peek at some of the upcoming adjustments to our gameplay systems, including the Camera Module and the Weather Reporting Module. We'll also be showcasing a preview of the new Shop environment, which will be displayed in the background when players will browse the in-game shop for new cars and accessories. We are also introducing a new weather preview development tool to speed up the creation of in-game weather scenarios.



After gathering valuable feedback from our players during the playtest sessions, we're making some tweaks on our gameplay systems to improve the player engagement loop.
The Camera Module is getting a refined interface to help with the understanding, and additional features to improve the gameplay loop. The major changes coming to the Camera Module are : All pictures taken now award points, instead of just the best one for each weather element. We also introduce a camera storage limit so each picture is more meaningful and balances the fact that we now reward each picture taken.

By introducing a camera storage limit, we felt the necessity to separate the weather reporting feature from the camera to not waste precious pictures only to create a new weather report.The standalone Weather Reporting Module gameplay loop will be much alike what is currently in-game when reporting with the camera, with a little bit of quality of life improvements : Opening the Weather Reporting Module will show the player getting out their cell phone. If a reportable element is present in the field of view, it will be targeted, and information about the element will be displayed on the cell phone. The player will be able to report the element if it is not already reported by another player.



Additionally to this, we’re also working on the Shop background environment that will be displayed when players will navigate menus to purchase new cars or accessories. There is still a lot of work for this environment to look as good as we want, but here is a work-in-progress preview :





To streamline the process of creating new weather scenarios, we're developing a new preview tool that will help rapidly generate and fine-tune in-game storms. The pre-visualisation mode accurately displays scientific data in 3d, which allows us to verify our generated scenarios to accurately reproduce storm structures and storm evolution over time. This visualization also hints how detailed the data is and how far we will be able to go in improving our cloud rendering in the future.



As always, your support and feedback are invaluable to us as we continue to develop OUTBRK. Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/

Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey, and we can't wait to see you out on the stormy roads soon!
Till next time, chasers.
-The OUTBRK Team

Welcome back chasers! It's finally chase season, both in real life and in the OUTBRK world! This month's outlook will be highlighting the results of our two playtest sessions held on March 18th and 19th. We're also excited to show off a new vehicle, several customization items and world objects in their final stages of completion.


Our recent playtest had around 100 players across two nights and several game servers running simultaneously. We also had a very special guest participating all weekend: Australian Storm Chaser Daniel Shaw! Did you see our recent highlight video on YouTube? Check it out below :

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The most important conclusion we have come to from the feedback we collected is that no major revamp will be needed for our gameplay systems. They were understood, used and appreciated by the entirety of players. There will be some improvements and minor changes needed, but we’re confident we’re on the right track for a fun and unique storm chasing experience!
From the player’s feedback, we’ve created tasks that we plan to complete in the upcoming month. You can see for yourself right here on our Trello: https://trello.com/b/nsBmMfIa/outbrk-game


Now that we've been able to test the customization and in-game experience with the Sedan, we're continuing our work to bring more vehicles into OUTBRK along with customization features.
This month we received the finalized model for a new playable car and its unique LiveStormChasers.com skin. Here is it, alongside the default civilian version and a custom made hail guard to go with it :



We also commissioned the modeling of a very simple highway reflector to increase the realism and immersion while driving in the world of OUTBRK.




As we continue to make significant progress on the game, we’re excited to see a ton of players Wishlisting OUTBRK on Steam. Wishlisting is the best way to help OUTBRK currently, as we start to ramp up toward early access launch, having a lot of wishlists is the only way the game can break through Steam’s visibility algorithm and reach all the potential future chasers!
Wishlist OUTBRK here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/

Never stop chasing! Till next time.
-The OUTBRK Team

Welcome back chasers! The month of February always flies by, but even so, we've made some solid progress this month on world detailing, adding in vehicle accessories, and what everybody is excited about, preparing for the upcoming larger-scale playtest!

We've been hinting at this playtest for about three months and we're excited to share that we're preparing to finalize sign-ups and logistics. We’ll be sharing more details in this newsletter!



The world of OUTBRK is massive with several distinct regions along with their unique biomes and assets that make the world expansive and believable. With a world that's larger than Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto V, and many more games, there's a tremendous amount of work to do.

Here are some screenshot of the work that has been completed this month :


You can follow the progress on this Trello Task.



As we look ahead to the next playtest, we're excited to have the sedan “Tradition” ready to chase in OUTBRK! Players have previously played only as the SUV and in our upcoming test we're excited to have players test out the Tradition for the first time.



This month we also integrated new hail cages models to fit all the cars we plan to have for early access. Here is what they look like in-game :





As we mentioned already, we've been able to resolve the blockers that were still lingering from the Unity upgrade. We had been troubleshooting both some matchmaking/server joining errors and making sure that servers and game data are accurately in-sync for all players in-game.

We’re happy to finally announce that our next playtest will be held on March 18th and March 19th starting at 19h00 EST. All sign-up and additional information related to the playtest will be found in our dedicated Discord Channel.
All the playtests will be coordinated only on Discord to facilitate the procedures.

And as a general reminder, this will be the structure of the playtests:

• 2 nights of playtest sessions.
  
• 50 players maximum in each “pool” of players.
  
• Approximately 8-10 players per server as scheduled.
  
• First round for those who have previously playtested.
  
• Second round with any players who have not previously played. Priority will be given to kickstarter backers that could not participate in the session back and March 2022.
  

Our team is so excited for this next playtest. It will be the largest playtest we've held yet and we anticipate it to be invaluable for our planning in regard to next steps and of course, Early Access and release timelines!

Stay up to date with our Trello page and be sure to keep an eye on our Discord.

Until next time!

-The OUTBRK Team