OUTBRK News

It's June and that means it's time for our next OUTBRK Development Outlook!

Last month, we left off nearing the completion of our first in-game scenario. Today, we've got the scenario integrated and playable, and our team recently premiered a reveal video to show off all of the incredible progress. If you missed it, or want to re-watch the action, we’ve included a link and a breakdown further down the development outlook.


With weather, networking, world design and basic game systems all having received a first pass of implementation, we're now starting to test the OUTBRK game loop internally and bringing all of our features to a level where we will be comfortable to start private public testing. While we can't quite commit to a timeline, just know that it's getting closer!

DESTRUCTION ELEMENTS:

Having a dynamic world with destructible elements is an essential part of OUTBRK. We’re not quite ready to show everything in action, but here is an example of a residential house at different stages of destruction.



Players in OUTBRK will be able to take in the world around them as it is influenced by the strength of approaching storms. Trees on the horizon will begin to whip, rain shafts will cross the horizon and if you’ve picked the right storm and a tornado develops - the danger will step up a notch, ripping trees from the ground and damaging structures!


WEATHER SYSTEM AND TORNADO REVEAL:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The world of OUTBRK is coming to life. In a world of immense size, watch the sky become turbulent as you gear up to go chasing. Load up the car and travel across varied regions, each with their own flavor of environmental touches as you make your way to your target. From rolling hills, dense forests as well as rocky and arid regions - the clouds above you will become volatile as storms develop.

Listen as the wind blows through the trees and rain shafts dance in the distance. You can see beautiful storm structures as the anvils shoot up and across the sky. Storm chasers know and love this look - and here it is, recreated in OUTBRK.

Chasers in-game will need to plan their chase and stay up to date with the dynamic environment. Check the models to see where it will soon be most likely to see a supercell eat up rich ingredients and perhaps begin to rotate. Make split-second decisions on what cell to target; will you be tempted to follow your chasing instincts or will you race to the active warnings? Whichever you choose, keep an eye out for all types of hazards including hail, strong winds, debris and of course... tornadoes.

From stovepipes to wedges and ropes, the tornadoes in OUTBRK will almost never be the same as the last and it's up to you to decide how much you're willing to risk to get the pictures and probe data of a lifetime. The storms in OUTBRK will have realistic structure and for trained eyes, you'll be able to identify clear landmarks in the sky to immerse yourself in the chase experience.

Play your cards right and you’ll be able to chase another day as the storms move out of the target area - those who make the right calls will be able to say that they were there when the OUTBRK happened.


Stay tuned!

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Welcome back chasers! Our development team has been hard at work over the last few weeks and we’re making some significant progress with scenario integration, networking and with world building! We’re also just now wrapping up our month-long contest to name a convenience store chain in OUTBRK! The results were too close to call - literally! With the final vote count for each name tallying to 261 votes each! A complete tie! Our community team will be sure to keep tabs on all the great ideas for bringing both Mesomart and Weed Trimmer’s to life in the game!



While scenario development and integration has been a main focus, our networking team has made great strides as well. Our dedicated servers are ready for chaser convergence and now that our internal testing team can enter the world of OUTBRK together, we’ll be addressing some minor networking components to make sure everything is fluid and reliable.

LIGHTNING DEVELOPMENT:

Our lightning system is split up into 3 main categories: Targeted Strikes (including cloud to ground + positive strikes and cloud-to-cloud strikes), intra-cloud flashes, and anvil crawlers. Integrating them in the scenario meant telling the system what should go where and when it should happen, depending on the conditions but also on the storm's attributes. The generation of lightning strikes uses lightning probability to dictate which emitters out of thousands will strike at each frame and when it's happening between 2 frames. Our lightning system is so detailed, that depending on the conditions in the environment lightning strikes will have different colors. Lightning in a dry or dusty environment will look different than lightning within a thunderstorm.



The realism doesn’t stop there. Our in-game lightning is simulated very similar to how it happens in real life - with invisible “ions” connecting the strike to the ground or object that the main bolt will strike.

Lightning In Slow Motion:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

TORNADO SYSTEMS:

In order to assure OUTBRK is playable on as many machines as possible, our in-game model data is limited in resolution so there is a bit of a manual component to our tornado simulation. Tornadoes in OUTBRK are generated separately from the overall convection in-game - to do so otherwise, would require significantly more computing power. We’ve been hard at work tweaking tornado rendering and are very excited to be able to show off our work in the coming weeks - stay tuned!


NEXT STEPS:

As we get closer to our first “playable version” of the game, our development team will start turning their attention to overall gameplay components and quality of life improvements. We’ll be designing our in-game economy and we’ll be able to see what it feels like to chase a storm within OUTBRK, at full scale! We’ll be taking our time to tweak gameplay systems before beginning community play-tests! Stay tuned for more details on when/who/how. We are “weeks” away from this, not “months”!



Our team has made great progress over the last couple months, and we’re excited to be able to show off our work - so keep your eyes out for sneak peeks and previews over the weeks. We don’t have an exact timeline for release quite yet, but rest assured development is moving along well!

Rest up chasers, OUTBRK is coming!

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[h2]Welcome to the first OUTBRK Development Outlook here on Steam! [/h2]

While we're a day ahead for April, this is the first of many monthly updates regarding our progress in the development of OUTBRK. This also officially marks the launch of our Steam based communities, so make sure to Wishlist and follow us for more updates over the coming months. You can also engage with our community and developers on our social channels, links below. So without further ado let's dive right into The OUTBRK Development Outlook!

Recent Development:

We've been hard at work over the last several months building the massive world of OUTBRK, integrating new cloud shaders and weather systems, as well as seeing some significant progress from our networking team. We're very excited with the continued development and will have plenty to show off in the coming weeks and months.



David has been continuing to bring the massive 625km² OUTBRK world to life. The current focus is to create accurate samples of each environment to integrate into our envisioned world. Strong intentions for residential areas, dense commercial main streets and vast farmlands have been integrated in the game. Get a sneak peak of this work in our last world update!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Developing the weather systems and integrating a first complete storm scenario has been Marc's focus over the last several months. This colossal amount of work being the core of OUTBRK, we’re taking all the necessary steps to support a robust level of automation in order to accelerate the creation of subsequent weather scenarios. Within weeks, we will have our first full integration of all these systems that makes possible the translation of real world model data into real-time, in-game, convective systems.

On the networking side, since you should never chase alone, our external partners have been completing the foundational elements of our online architecture. Multiplayer replication (being able to see and interact with other chasers), Steam integration, dedicated servers and synchronization of weather and destruction has been completed.

Looking Ahead:

With the fundamental elements of the OUTBRK weather nearing completion, we'll be preparing to roll out private internal tests of our first playable scenario and making sure that everything with our new systems work appropriately in an online session. Our next focus will be the design and development of the OUTBRK chasing gameplay systems.

We're also announcing a community opportunity to name a convenience store chain in the world of OUTBRK! This chain of stores will be found in nearly each town in the world. Below is a Google Form where you can submit one answer - our development team will be picking their favorites to face off in a ladder-style community vote that will help carry us to our next Outlook Update!

Fill out the form from the link below, we're accepting submissions until Sunday at midnight and will have community voting in our Discord starting up next weekend!

Until next time, chasers - remember, it's only April (well, tomorrow it will be)! Things really ramp up over the next couple months...

OUTBRK: Name A Convenience Store Chain
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