Exoplanet: First Contact News

Hello, friends! We are not only filling the game with interesting content, but also working on its look and feel. Additionally we removed some major problems which, according to your feedback, considerably spoiled the impression of the game. Telling you about every improvement step by step below.



The biggest work was done with the fighting system. We have improved the control of the system of hits both in melee fighting and in gunfight. But we’ll talk about it later—in a separate article dedicated to gameplay.

The next important change has become a system of layers. It opens many interesting possibilities and has also let us reduce the amount of the situations where the player falls through the textures or gets stuck in the crevices.

We have also got rid of our old approach to the focus on the objects and now it’s impossible to pick objects through the walls—the bug that you used to report many times. It has also partially decided the problem of pixel-hunting, though we’re going to go on improving the system.



A lot of work was carried out with water. Now it looks more believable—we’ve transferred it to PBR and got rid of some annoying problems like glowing in the dark or unnatural flow. The water also has different levels of transparency depending on the depth, surface of the bottom and turbidity. It will result in the spreading of the light according to the time and in the behaviour of shadows.



These improvements have also let us create the effect of the wet shores and add puddles to the Edge which made the location much more interesting. More improvements are coming soon: we’re planning to change the system of swimming and add the reaction to the character’s or NPCs’ presence in the water.



We have done some work with the surfaces of the savannah and the desert. Now you can see particles reflecting the light under different angles on different types of the ground. It’s especially visible on the sand—nights in the desert have become much more atmospheric.



We have also coped with the problem which appeared with the textures of the rocks—in a definite lighting its texture seemed grainy. We have worked with the surfaces and now the rocks look natural at any time of the day.



Meantime the key raffle in our Discord goes on and we want to congratulate the winners of this week:

@Felov
@Vague-Snowy
@punggol
@juice
@pitt-CH

Have a nice game, folks!

We remind you that you also have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel in Discord—you will automatically become a participant of weekly raffles up to the release of the Update 0.70.

That’s all for now. Leave your feedback, follow the news of the development on Steam and make sure to drop by our #devblog in Discord.

See you next week!

Hello, folks!

We go on putting a lot of effort into making the Edge as diverse as possible and working on the improvement of level design. We have already remade Outpost of the Outcast—and now we want to meet you with the renewed Sculphunters camp, talk about some targeted changes and also show brand new areas.



We have completely changed the design of Scalphunters' camp—starting with the look of their tents and finishing by the position of the objects. Now in the camp it’s not only much more convenient to navigate and accomplish quests, but its visual is much closer to the envisioned look of the tribe.



One of the biggest changes in the level design is the appearance of the area Paths of the Ancient. It’s a huge dungeon with its quests and secret places. There will be a great number of possibilities for exploration and of course fights with dangerous monsters who guard them. You can get there with the help of the Herbalist—so don’t say no when he asks you for help.



The zone of the Hermit will also considerably change—besides the newly planted grass and redesigned waterfalls, we’ve created a road to the ancient abori sanctuary of the Sky Demons bypassing the broken bridge. Maybe that’s where you can find the answers to many mysteries of the abori race.



We have completely changed the area where Eric Kraven hides with his gang. He is a dangerous bandit whose posters are in the abandoned mining town Lucky Hole. If you aren’t scared to face him and his thugs, you can get a pretty good reward. The zone not far from the abori cemetery was also broadened—you can investigate it and even have a real massacre in one of the quests about which we’ll tell you in other updates.



Besides, we’ve put decorative changes into the tombs, added some details into the Outpost which help with navigation and tell more about the personality of its inhabitants and worked on the zone where Curious hides—an abori-child who escaped from Scalphunters—and made it more interesting for investigation and more visually pleasant.

That’s all for now, but we’ll go on sharing our progress in our Discord. And we also remind you about our weekly raffle where you can get a free key. We congratulate the winners of this week:

@泡泡
@死神修仙
@titomalkavian
@hwdp
@Almas_Almuhametov

Have a nice game, friends!

See you next week—and for now share your impressions and give your feedback in the comments, try to conquer cruel K’Tharsis and drop by our devblog in Discord.

See you at The Edge, cowboys!

Hello, friends!

We have already told you a lot about our work on the new interface which will be available in the new build. And today we’d like to share our recent progress with you. We really care about your opinion, so don’t hesitate to leave feedback in the comments!



First of all, we’ve remade the trading window. It caused a lot of discussions, because we decided to change the existing interface completely and make a more immersive variant which suits a role-play game in the open world much better.



Of course, we did attempt to remake an old version with an exchange. A full-screen interface let us fit all the necessary elements but impacted the atmosphere in a negative way. Which window do you like more?



One more important change — The Edge will get a beautiful new map! We’ve completely remade an old draft version and did a great deal of job with the style, colours and landmarks. Now the map has a clear division of the desert and savannah biomes, you can see all the topography, and there are marks of settlements and other important and interesting zones where you can get a quest or find something handy.



The next thing we’ve worked with is a journal. Now the list of the quests looks much neater and the blocks of texts separated from each other are much more convenient for reading. Besides, we’ve added a glossary from which you can get some information about the world of the game.



The window of the skills has completely changed. We wanted to make the character’s level up more convenient and clear, that’s why we’ve added tooltips for every active button.



The crafting window was completely transformed. We’ve removed everything that was unnecessary and added the characteristics of the created object. New recipes will appear in the game very soon for the craft to become a more important part of the game.

You can learn more about the important changes in our previous post and also track them and give feedback in our channel in Discord. Join in, we’re having a weekly rifle where you can get a free key. And we congratulate the winners of this week:

@Hex7ech
@parkchaung
@mirey
@Arhangel
@фф

Good luck on the vastness of K’Tharsis, folks!

That’s all for now—share your feedback in the comments, try to conquer the cruel K’Tharsis and peer into our Devblog in Discord!

See you in space, cowboys!

Hello, friends!

We go on telling you about the changes that await you in the Major Update 0.70—and today we’d like to show you how the process of creating the character will change.

A lot of players keep asking us about the possibility of creating their own character, but as soon as Exoplanet is a story-driven RPG, there can be only one character. Jack Sharp.



Nevertheless, in the beginning we were planning to customize the character depending on his background — an eye patch for an ex-pirate, scars on an ex-soldier's face and so on. But at this stage of development such visual changes would demand a lot of time for their creation and the adaptation of the cutscenes for each character. That’s why at the moment we’ve stopped at the creation of archetypes.



This is an extremely important gameplay option which allows you to create a unique character from the very beginning of the game, putting several points into the skills which suit your style of playing. Every skill has an explanation—which bonuses it gives and what it influences, that’s why there won’t be any problems during the creation of the archetype.



If you don’t like to spend time on the learning of skills and distribution of points and want to start playing as soon as possible, we’ve considered some ready solutions which you can use.

Meanwhile, the key raffle in our Discord goes on and we want to congratulate the winners of this week:

@Vitalii_Pitomets
@Bhai
@rod
@Forsj
@icosinus

Have a nice game, guys!

We remind you that you have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel. And if you’re not a winner this time, don’t worry — you’ll automatically become a participant of the next weekly raffles up to the release of the major update 0.70.

That’s all for now. Leave your feedback, follow the news of development in Steam and make sure to drop by to our #devblog in Discord.

See you next week!

Hello, space cowboys!

As we’ve promised, we’re starting to tell you about the tastiest changes which are waiting for you in the major update 0.70. And the first one is intro cinematic.



Jack Sharp’s story will finally be introduced not only by a small description on the load screen, but by a proper dramatic cinematic. We’ve put a lot of effort into it, to show how a self-confident captain Jack Sharp found himself in a desert on an unknown planet without a ship and without any chance to get out from there.



In the intro you will also meet Smiley who hired Jack to take his cargo to the far away planet K’Tharsis distant from the Core Worlds.

By the way, the characters in the cinematic have voices—it’s our first test of a comprehensive voiceover, so don’t hesitate to leave feedback about the voices—maybe we should use these actors for the voiceover inside the game.



In the cinematic there are a couple of surprises for the most attentive watchers—references to our favourite series. Can you find them?

And finally we want to congratulate the winners who got the keys in our weekly raffle in Discord:

@maloon
@Markb
@! apple bum
@ookaminoken
@isinusx

Have a nice game, guys!



We remind you that you still have a chance to get a free key if you join our channel in Discord. And if you’re not lucky for the first time, don’t worry, you’ll automatically become a participant of the next weekly raffles up to the release of the major update 0.70.

Don’t forget to peer into our #devblog in Discord to get the freshest news from the development process and leave your feedback!

See you on K’Tharsis!