Exoplanet: First Contact News

Hello friends!

While we’re working on the next build, we’re excited to share some details about our roleplay approaches in the game and how we're implementing them.

You may know about the three pillars of a roleplay system: killing, stealing and talking. All of them are performed in our game. Let’s have a look at how you can solve problems and do quests using them!

[h2]Killing[/h2]

As a space western Exoplanet has a variety of weapons — and don’t hesitate to give them a try! Force is the most popular way of solving problems on K’Tharsis. And to give them a more cowboy look in future updates we’re planning to add new animations!



K’Tharsis is a cruel planet, so sometimes it may be much easier to intimidate NPCs, and if it doesn't work — be ready to face consequences! Some quests lead you to places where negotiations are not an option, so the choice is either stealth kill or plain aggression. And of course, from time to time you’ll have to pick sides — so be careful and make sure you understand what expects you when you choose who you want to fight!



[h2]Stealing[/h2]

Not everyone will do as you please and give you what you want. And if you say that it’s not the reason to grab your gun — you’re right. You can always use the system of stealing instead! So feel free to sneak among your enemies, take what you need, even from their pockets, and vanish into the vastness of K’Tharsian savannahs! By the way, we’ve improved our stealth mechanics — in the next update Jack will be able to hide in high grass!



[h2]Talking[/h2]

This way may come surprisingly effective! If you earn the trust of locals, you may discover more secrets of the planet, learn how to get to some stashes or just find out something new about K’Tharsis dramatic history.



Of course, you hardly ever play using only one style, and our system is designed in a way to reward flexible players by providing the richest experience. In the dialogues there are options for showing your knowledge of science or survival, being convincing and eloquent or even being intimidating enough for bloodthirsty Scalphunters. And if you feel that you’ve made the wrong choice picking up skills in the beginning of the game, don’t worry — there are a lot of options to learn what you want. Even A.N.N.A can help you there!



So don’t hesitate to try different styles of roleplay and share what you think — we still have a lot of work to do and your feedback will help us make it much better! To follow the changes, join our Discord channel, leave feedback, subscribe to our page on Steam and—the main thing—add the game to your wishlist!

Hello, friends!

We hope your year started really well — and we’re excited to tell you all about the new update. This year we’re planning to show more progress in the improvement of the game — we’ve analyzed the experience of the previous year and expect to considerably speed up the process of development. And now let’s see what improvements and changes await us in the update 0.72!

FOR THOSE WHO STILL PLAYING BUILD 0.71

Important reminder: with 0.72 all the saves from 0.71 might be broken, that's why we made an additional branch on Steam for those who still want to play 0.71. Right click on the game in your library, Properties, go to Betas tab and then choose update_071, no password required. This way you can continue your previous game if you want to.

[h2]GAMEPLAY[/h2]



We keep working on the fighting system and have added a knockdown animation into the game. Now Jack as well as NPCs will find themselves lying on the ground if they get some serious damage — for example, from a shotgun or a rifle. The same effect is caused by kabarogs’ attack — now you have one more reason not to let them come near you!



If you touch an anomaly you'll also be knocked down — and it will be completely unlucky if the enemy is somewhere near.



There was a lot of feedback that Jack’s running animation doesn’t look so well. We’ve made one more step to fixing it so don’t hesitate to tell us how you like a new variant!

[h2]LEVEL DESIGN[/h2]



We go on refining the quests so they would be not only interesting and diverse, but would tell players more about different aspects of life on planet K’Tharsis. That’s why, for example, we’ve changed the quest “Find Curious” a bit — now there is a new area for exploring. What do you think this place is and what is it telling about?



The bottom of the trench under the mining town has become much more interesting to explore. Now there’s the difference of heights and pieces of land — and, of course, alien bugs who were the fastest to appreciate the new landscape!



The Hermit’s zone has also changed — we’ve renewed the sanctuary of the sky demons, Now it significantly differs from other sacred places of abori, demonstrating the difference between cultures. The sanctuary reminds of the times when a lot of spaceships used to land on K’Tharsis. Nevertheless, this version is not final, so feel free to tell us what you think!

[h2]QUESTS[/h2]



There is a new event in the game! Now you can see the fight of two patrols — Sculphunters and Outcasts — in Lucky Hole! You can join one of the groups or wait until they finish their showdown or just wait until they finish each other!



Already existing quests have also improved. So, for example, Rusty is ready to teach Jack not only to fry meat — there are more recipes and more treats at the end of the quest. The quest about searching his friend has become more complicated and controversial. All the dialogues with Rusty were rewritten and have become more dynamic and easy to read, and the prize for completing the quest is much more valuable and will influence the opportunities in the game.



Jack will have more opportunities to interact with the gang of Dusty Devils. And our character will have to be much more attentive — we’ve remade the place of the ambush a bit and it’s become more dangerous!

[h2]GRAPHICS[/h2]



The interface of the game keeps changing. We’ve made new stylish context icons which appear when you have to open the door, talk to an NPC or, for example, crawl through the crevice. We’ve also simplified the system of loot, shortening it to one button “take all” — so give us feedback if it’s really more convenient.



The interaction with objects has also significantly simplified. Now when you bring the mouse to the object, the information about all possible interactions appears. This system is not final, so write in the comments how clear the tips are and if you can see them well enough.

[h2]OPTIMISATION[/h2]



We keep working on speeding up the game - and now the processes of loading a new gamу or the previous save have really improved. Thanks to reducing unnecessary processes, the loading will become 30% faster. But make sure to inform us if that’s not so!

That’s all for now. Hope you’ll like our update — and we’ll try to delight you with new improvements. Thanks for your support! Don’t hesitate to leave your feedback in the comments or in our Discord — and see you!

Hello, friends!

Merry Christmas from Alersteam! We want to thank you all for being so supportive, for your thorough feedback and motivating words. We wish you all the best moments and the most wonderful games in 2023!

By the way, Steam Winter Sale is still on so you can get our game with a 20% discount, the highest possible one up to the release. And we'll try to come up with new updates as soon as possible. Cheers!

Hello, friends!

Our new update is right here for the Steam Winter Sale! But before telling you about it, we want to thank you for being so active and supportive. Thanks to your prompt feedback we managed to correct a lot of bugs and flaws and also planned future improvements. We hope build 0.71 will make your gaming experience much better.

FOR THOSE WHO STILL PLAYING BUILD 0.70

Important reminder: with 0.71 all the saves from 0.70 might be broken, that's why we made an additional branch on Steam for those who still want to play 0.70. Right click on the game in your library, Properties, go to Betas tab and then choose update_070, no password required. This way you can continue your previous game if you want to.


[h2]GAMEPLAY[/h2]



First of all, according to your requests, we’ve improved the system of stealth. Earlier Jack could only crouch in this regime, and now he won’t have to hide his weapon — you can attack your enemy from stealth, shooting him in the back or hit him with a melee weapon if you feel confident.

One more important change is interaction with objects. We’ve added the system of suggestive focus which doesn’t require accurate pointing at the interactive object with a cursor, but highlights it when you approach. So collecting loot — especially small — is a much more enjoyable and much easier process now.



Tutorial has also considerably changed — some players complained that A.N.N.A is too intrusive — often takes the control from players and literally leads them by the hand. We made the tutorial shorter and more dynamic, and part of the dialogues is moved to the background now. Besides, now AI is mostly introduced by a golden icon in the top right corner, where you can also see tips on the character control. The icon can change colours depending on the mood — angry A.N.N.A turns red and the contented one becomes green. We’re planning even more changes for the tutorial in the future.

You've also informed us that it’s not that convenient to finish the enemies with the R key — and sometimes you can accidentally kill those you didn’t mean to. So we’ve changed it to the key X which used to hide the UI of the game for screenshots. Now you can hide the UI with Ctrl + F10.

[h2]QUESTS AND LEVEL DESIGN[/h2]



We’ve added thirteen new quests in our Major Update and managed to fix or rework each of them thanks to your feedback. Want to catch Eric Craven? Punish a couple of vandals? Deal with Outcasts' problems? Now nothing should stop you from this, but don’t hesitate to inform us if there’s an issue.



We’ve also fixed some bugs in our location and added some new species of mushrooms — ghostly, bitter and miner’s meat. The bitter and the miner’s meat are edible, and the variants of using the ghostly mushroom will appear in the game later — but if you’re too curious to wait, find everything out in our #devblog in Discord!

[h2]VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS[/h2]



We’ve managed to work with graphics and now many assets look way more natural, and the textures of small objects have improved. And we’ve also fixed the display of Jack’s first weapon — the stick. Now it looks more like a club which is credible enough to dare attack mobs with it.

The best is for last — we’ve made a new trailer! Regretfully, we didn’t have much time, so if you have favourite moments from the game that are worth showing — feel free to tell us.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

That’s all for now. Make sure to add Exoplanet: First Contact to your wishlist, or better yet, try to play it — now you have a great opportunity to get the game at a discount and play it on holidays! And we wish you a Merry Christmas and promise to go on delighting you with new content!

Hello, friends!

The Major Update 0.70 is already here and we’re waiting impatiently for your reviews. This is the biggest update in the entire history of the game, we have added a lot of absolutely different content, that’s why your feedback will be extremely useful. Don’t hesitate to inform us about bugs, we’ll try to fix them as fast as we can. You can do it in our Discord — we read all the comments attentively and are always willing to talk to players. Join in!

We have already told you a lot about some big changes in separate articles (you can find all the links below), but there are more of them. That’s why we’ll gladly tell you about everything you can see in the new version of the game. Are you ready?

[h2]0.70 CHANGELOG[/h2]

[h3]INTRO CINEMATIC[/h3]



First of all, we’ve finally added a proper cinematic introducing the character and telling about an unfortunate deal which led him to losing his ship and ending up on a far and unwelcome planet. By the way, the cinematic is also our first step to a full voiceover. Every character there has a voice, so make sure to leave your feedback — maybe we should use these actors for the full game.

[h3]UPDATED GAMEPLAY[/h3]



We have considerably improved the combat system. Added new combos both for the protagonist and his enemies, a possibility to block strikes, did some work on the hit system and melee combat. Don’t forget to watch your stamina!

A lot of new animations were also created — for example, the reaction of NPC changes depending on which part of the body was hit with a bullet. Jack also reacts now. If the character gets considerable damage, he will need time to recover.

One more important innovation is NPCs reacting to the character’s actions. Have you taken something that is not yours? Prepare to face the consequences! It can be a remark, a fine or even aggression — depends on your luck. This is the very first iteration of the system which we are going to improve gradually to make the world as immersive as possible.



Want Jack to be unique? It’s possible now. In the beginning of the game you can choose an archetype or create your own one to make your character perfect for your playstyle.

We’ve also fixed a lot of problems which significantly influenced gaming experience. Thanks to the new technical changes, Jack far less often falls through the textures or gets stuck in crevices, and also can’t pick objects through the walls.

[h3]THIRTEEN NEW QUESTS[/h3]

We’ve never put so much content into the game at once — now Jack can finish the story on The Edge. Every quest can be solved in several ways, and don’t forget that every choice has its consequences!



Besides, some quests were redesigned and got new alternative ways of solving them. Also there are real descriptions in the glossary instead of placeholders. We will keep improving them though.



[h3]UI 2.0[/h3]

As we started talking about the glossary, another important change is redesigning every screen in the game to create an integral interface which will underline the setting of the game and also be very convenient and informative for the player. In future it will also allow us to add gamepad support. Feel free to share your opinion about it to improve its design and to fix everything that doesn’t work well.



[h3]IMPROVED LEVEL DESIGN AND NEW PLACES[/h3]

The Edge has considerably changed in several months. We have remade Outcasts’ outpost, Scalphunters’ camp, Hermit’s and Eric Craven’s zones, significantly improved the beginning of the game and the abandoned ship, and also put a lot of improvements into other places to make exploring interesting.

The Paths of Ancient appeared in the game — a huge dungeon with quests and secrets that keeps mysteries of ancient abori.

The look of the game has also considerably changed thanks to multiple targeted changes, we have shown the progress of Exoplanet within a year in detail in the recent post.



First of all, we’ve added a lot of new textures, improved rocks and the skyline. A big update happened to water: we’ve transferred it to PBR and added caustics — now the light refracts on its surface creating intricate patterns.

We’ve also managed to create the effect of wet shores and add small puddles to The Edge which helped to make the area more visually interesting. We’ve also added new assets to add details to the world — for example, lianas.



A very important element of the new update is a new enemy — varlynx (earlier known as «alpha»). This is a dangerous beast, but there are only young species on The Edge, so Jack has a chance to win this fight.



The next thing worth mentioning is our work with light and colour correction. We did some work with the surface of the savannah and the desert. On different types of the ground you can see particles reflecting light at different angles. It’s especially well-seen on the sand — nights in the desert have become much more atmospheric.



There are new effects in the game now — vignettes and bloom. They are optional and can be turned off in the menu.



We have also added facial animations as a test to prepare the game for the voiceover. Please, share your impressions to help us improve it.

[h3]SOUND[/h3]

The final thing worth mentioning is the work with the sound. A plenty of effects were added or remade and their positioning was improved.

And of course, new music was added to the game. It is written by Adam Skorupa, who worked on The Witcher series, EVE Online, Call of Juarez, Painkiller and Ash of Gods. We’ve spreaded the tracks over the key zones of The Edge to improve their atmosphere and emphasise every faction’s originality.

Hope you’ll like the update! Make sure to share your feedback in our Discord, ask questions, suggest your ideas — we’ll answer each of you.

Have a nice game, space cowboys!