INDUSTRIA 2 News

Hey everyone!

It's time for another update on what's happening behind the scenes. Since this year started, we have been hard at work to get our new enemies designed, modeled, textured, animated and moving around the world of INDUSTRIA 2. The other thing we spent some time on, was refining our environment art workflows.

Since we started, we often came back to Half-Life: Alyx and their environment design workflows. We are a young studio, learning a lot as we make this second game. So to learn good environment art, we came to the conclusion to look at games who did it right. For us long term Valve game fans, it was an easy choice: Half-Life: Alyx offers a super transparent look behind the asset creation process through the workshop tools everyone can use. Here we learned how to create efficient assets, the right amount of detail and smart material usage.

Valve used something called “Hotspot” texturing. Maybe you have heard about it already if you're into game development. If not, it's a simple, yet efficient way to texture any object quickly, with just a handful, sometimes just one texture map. Normally, you create unique textures for your models, resulting in hundreds, sometimes thousands of unique materials in the game. Hotspots solve this manual labor (and performance issue) by automatically picking the right part of a large texture map for the right polygon. What comes out is a pretty satisfying looking asset, featuring edge wear. That way, a whole train carriage can use the same 2 materials like the tracks it stands on, or the metal railings or pipes on the wall.



To get enough visual variety, we added a color wheel option per model as well as a vertex painting shader, so we can paint rust, dirt or color layers on top of the metal, wood or plaster. Since we are using Unreal Engine 5, we can't use the wonderful tools Valve built for their Hammer Editor. But we can try to get close with the tools Unreal provides, as well as some improvisation. We are super pleased with the look of INDUSTRIA 2. It's much more streamlined and optimized then what we achieved in the first game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEWGzTg8tw

The other big thing we did in January was getting our final new enemies into the game. This is probably the 6th generation of enemies since we started INDUSTRIA back in 2015 and definitely the most complex we ever made. It started with designing them based on concept art and really finishing the lore behind those enemies, so they fit into the universe properly. We call them the “Hollows”, a machine built worker unit, maintaining the ATLAS fluid network all over the country.



The main feature here was to make a disgusting looking machine, really blurring the line between organic and machine built. It's supposed to be this dirty, oily, creepy AI controlled humanoid wandering through the world of INDUSTRIA. You should almost feel sorry for it when it stumbles through dark corridors. Until it wants to rip you apart.

For this task, we knew that variety was key. Variety in their looks, in their states, in their animations and in their sound design. We want vivid shot reactions on different body parts, as well as satisfying feedback when hitting them with bullets or melee. Our animator Ben has to undergo a long process of creating enough animations and stances so that, even when there are three of these beasts walking towards you, they all look unique and characterful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qokmVSGYwKM

Their foot placement also is a huge task to get right. You probably all know how it looks, when characters in games have feet sliding all over the scene. Getting this right is super hard, but we are trying to improve on that front compared to the first game. Going forward, we are trying to give them even more creepy-vibes, by controlling where they turn their heads, for example when reacting to their buddies dying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54ujiljBv8c

All in all, character animation as well as good AI is one of the hardest things to get right and one of those subjects, where you can spend weeks and months to make it look satisfying. We don't have unlimited time, so we won't have AAA quality characters. But in the end, we are neither AAA, nor AA and still just a tiny indie team scattered around the globe trying to make something awesome with the limited resources we have available.

We hope you like what you saw and wish all of you a wonderful February.

Until the next dev update!
The Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2154070/INDUSTRIA_2/

Happy New Year everyone!

This is David, from the bleakmill team.

To conclude the year 2024 here at bleakmill, we wanted to give you a little update on what we have been up to in the last months. Mainly, we want to fill you in on the outcome of the first internal playtest we did with about 20 players and long term community members this December.

When we started making INDUSTRIA 2, we knew that we would need in depth playtesting to make sure the game is, in its core, fun and entertaining. Especially because we planned to make a few changes to the combat and AI systems from the prequel. In INDUSTRIA, the combat mainly results in the enemies seeing the player, followed by an endless chase until either the enemy or the player is dead. Even though there were quite a few complex systems working together in the background, the outcome was mostly “okay” combat.



One of INDUSTRIA 2’s main goals is to change this. Now we have a task based AI system at work, with enemies being able to lose the player, fall back in alert states or complete complex chains of tasks, which can range from opening a door, to using items and playing specific animations. We also feature a stealth system, as well as a crafting system, to allow for more dynamic gameplay and more player choice. Weapons can be upgraded with stats and attachments, and the looting has been overhauled completely.

In short, the whole core loop was upgraded with countless systems so it can stand on its own legs.

Because of all these changes, it was crucial we test them with a mix of the prequels playtesters, and people who have never played any INDUSTRIA game yet. The test was running for one week and we could not be more happy about the results: no issue people reported was unknown or something we didn't see coming. The main feedback we got was valuable comments on controls, movement and the inventory. For most players, playing Nora felt a little bit slow and clunky. This was because we deliberately slowed player movement down, to really let people sink into the world.



INDUSTRIA 2 really is the opposite from a movement shooter. But we may have exaggerated a little bit. It also didn’t help that the enemies moved quicker than Nora herself, resulting in an unfair perception, as the big metal robots were faster than Nora. The inventory feedback was also very valuable, as it's going to be the heart of the core loop. Here you can swap your 2 active slots with other weapons from your stash, and craft firebombs, explosives, traps and bandages from components you find in the world. Currently, the inventory sometimes clips into foliage, or nearby objects. Also, when crouching, the inventory opens into the floor, blocking half of it with level geometry.

In stressy situations (which are super fun), this can lead to frustrating moments of being unable to change weapons quickly. Apart from the core loop feedback, people really liked the atmosphere and general tone of INDUSTRIA 2, which made us very happy. We are super grateful for all this feedback, suggestions and ideas, because they shed light on INDUSTRIA 2 from a completely fresh perspective that we - who are working on Nora's second adventure every day - can easily overlook. And thus make the game an even gaming experience!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

All in all, it was a super successful first playtest and we really can't wait to do the next one in 2025. We believe that these playtests should be a fundamental part of the development cycle and finally, we found a good internal pipeline to deliver these tests with much less hussle compared with the INDUSTRIA 1 days. If you are interested in joining the next INDUSTRIA 2 playtest, feel free to join our Discord server and follow INDUSTRIA 2 here on Steam and on Twitter to keep up to date.

We hope you all have a wonderful and peaceful year 2025.

Best,
David & the bleakmill team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2154070/INDUSTRIA_2/

Hey hey everyone!

Since the release of INDUSTRIA 2 is still quite some time away we skip gamescom 2024. We are making great progress and are super happy with how our baby is developing, but give us a little more time. After all, good things take time, right?

BUT we don't want to leave you here without at least a few new insights!

Almost 2 months ago, we published a 2-minute gameplay trailer that showed the first gameplay after the announcement of the game in March. We've now added (mysteriously missing) 6 minutes so that you can now watch a total of 8 minutes gameplay from INDUSTRIA 2. Among other things, it includes combat against the arachnid Atlas enemies, more inventory management, physics-based puzzles, and a Molotov cocktail. Enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh-TLBO_ZS0

We recently showed you a lot of rocky underground material from INDUSTRIA 2. But of course you will also be out and about in the - more or less - fresh air. So here's a little preview of where else Nora will be hanging out:



And that's it for today, friends. Thank you for your interest and attention, and for joining us again (or for the first time) on this second journey!

If you want to stay up to date and follow our development process further, follow and wishlist INDUSTRIA 2 here on Steam, join our Discord community and follow us on Twitter.

Have a great day and talk soon!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2154070/INDUSTRIA_2/

Hey everyone!

Today we want to share exciting new gameplay for INDUSTRIA 2! In fact, the first ever gameplay teaser so far. You can watch the gameplay right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJlPJYXPU9E
For this gameplay presentation, we prepared a number of cool new features, such as our new diegetic inventory, two new enemy types (one of which is human???) and player choice, slightly reminiscent of stealth/immersive sim games. Lets start with the inventory.




INDUSTRIA 2 is all about immersion. Apart from super detailed sound design, loads of atmosphere and detailed environments, we had one more nut to crack: UI. In the first game, we already tried to be as minimalistic as possible, but in the sequel, we finally have the skills to really pull it off, like we always imagined it. The inventory is the toughest case, as selecting weapons/tools, crafting and item management needs a lot of buttons to press, eg a lot of player input, normally solved through text UI elements.

For INDUSTRIA 2 we're going for a fully diegetic inventory, placed directly on the floor in front of the player. The game does not pause, so you gotta be careful when you choose to open it as your vulnerable while managing your items. Naturally, the game environment will light the unrolled bag, but it also has a little lamp attached in case your finding yourself in a dark place (which there is plenty of).

At the bottom, you can see two active weapon slots, scrollable without opening the inventory, and three active tool slots, for molotov cocktails and world items (also scrollable). You will only need to open the inventory, when swapping your two active weapons with two of the four stored weapons. Or if you want to swap the stack of grenades, with a stack of bandages. We are still playtesting this thing, but its already a lot of fun. Let us know what you think.




In the gameplay teaser, you can also see these new spider type enemies, rushing the GDR Agents (red dudes) as soon as Nora shoots this weird tripod thingy. The GDR agents (more on them another time) set those tripods up to stop the spider enemies attacking them. Essentially, you can see two factions fighting each other, which is a concept we always wanted to introduce in the first game, but never were able to make it happen.

Now its working though, and wow, this really adds so much to the game world. Nothing better than making two rivaling enemy factions distract each other, so we can play this area save. Talking about player choice: yes, this area could also be played differently, by attacking the agents straight and not even destroy the tripod (we call them Disruptors btw).

We hope these things excite you just as much as they excite us. INDUSTRIA 2 is shaping up to be so much more complex on a game design level, we get happy everytime we open the editor.

Have a great day and talk soon!
David & the Bleakmill Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2154070/INDUSTRIA_2/

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