The Riftbreaker News

The animated version of our official logo.

If you ask gamers about the most important thing for them when looking for a new game, you will get a variety of answers. Graphics, gameplay, similarity to previously played games, length of the game… All these things matter. However, before a player has the chance to determine whether any given title fits their criteria, they have to discover the game first. In today’s world, we are constantly bombarded with information. Game developers have no guarantee that whatever information about their game will ever reach anyone.

Luckily, digital storefronts offer discovery queues, where potential users can find new games. In order to make the most of it, the developers have to make sure that their logo and main art are as eye-catching and convey as much information as possible. This week we are going to tell you about our approach to visual representation - creating logos, key art and making sure that they fall in line with the overall visual style of the game.



Let’s start with the logo. It is one of the most important assets for any product. Thanks to a good logo, users can identify the product at a glance. Apart from containing the name of the game, it should also contain something unique. A symbol, that you will be able to use to create recognizable icons. Our logo has gone through several iterations before we arrived at the final version. Let’s take a look at it and discuss its elements.

Look at the detail hidden within the Rift symbol.

First - the font. It is thick and outlined in order to improve visibility and readability when it’s displayed in small size or visible from a distance (this is relevant when you’re attending game shows). In the middle of the logo you can see our main symbol - the stylized letter A. It symbolizes the Rift portal, one of the main aspects of the gameplay and game lore. The rest of the letters are not filled with a solid color, but a metallic material instead to emphasize the building and tech aspects of the gameplay. The tear marks foreshadow that apart from building and exploration, there will also be a lot of fighting in the game. That’s a lot of information packed in the logo alone.

The full version of the art is much larger for the purposes of cropping the image for different uses.

Now it’s time to analyze the main art. Ashley and Mr. Riggs are the centerpieces of this one. They stand on top of the hill, planning their next move on their mission to prepare Galatea 37 for colonization. While Ashley is looking at her holographic HUD, Mr. Riggs stands right beside her, ready for action. It shows you the dynamic between the two characters. One is the brains of the operation, while the other is the protector. You can easily guess that you will be taking control of them while playing. The background elements also convey important information about the Riftbreaker. You can see two moons in the sky, making it certain that the planet you are looking at is not Earth. In the distance, hidden within the lush, exotic vegetation, you can spot the outpost that Ashley and Mr. Riggs set up before their excursion.

Final version of the key art.

When we combine the logo and the key art, your subconscious gives you an idea what the game might be about, making it much more likely that you will check out more information about it. Did we succeed? Would you like to learn more about our creative process and art direction? Let us know in the comments and on our Discord server! - www.discord.gg/exorstudios

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Hi!

Over the past year, we showed you quite a lot of footage from our early builds of The Riftbreaker. We wrote dozens of articles describing the game mechanics and the creative process behind some of the game elements. Numerous streams took place, hosted by us and by our friendly streamers from all over the world, showing you the core gameplay loop of the Survival Mode. However, The Riftbreaker is not going to be limited to Survival only. Story Campaign will be a substantial part of the game. Today we would like to share a bit more information about The Riftbreaker's campaign. The main story revolves around Ashley and Mr. Riggs on Galatea 37. During their mission, they will have to establish a field base and open a two-way portal back to Earth for the purposes of colonizing the planet. Mind you, everything you read beyond this point is an initial vision and subject to change during development. You have been warned :)



In the Story Campaign players are going to establish a main base that they will have to maintain and keep expanding throughout the game. It will serve as the main hub for research and defense. The discoveries you make over the course of the campaign will enable you to build new structures and upgrade the existing ones to better withstand the hazards of Galatea 37. After some time, it will become possible for you to scan distant areas for objects of interest and travel there. You never know what you might find! Exploration of areas further from your main base will be encouraged by resource distribution. You will not be able to obtain all the necessary materials in the starting area alone, so ready your map and compass for a tour of Galatea 37! While exploring the various biomes you will find unique resources and minerals needed to get one step further towards establishing a permanent colony.



Galatea 37 is not the most welcoming place. The wildlife and environmental hazards won’t make the job of resource collection any easier for you. You can’t expect to simply mine the ingredients for your next big invention in peace. In order to succeed, you will have to build outposts. Similarly to your main base, outposts will require you to create and maintain energy infrastructure, build factories, refineries and storage buildings. The main purpose of establishing outposts is to protect your precious mining equipment while it’s working on gathering all the rare minerals you can find. Once you build enough defenses you can leave the outpost running on its own and simply come back to collect the cargo periodically. Ideally, towards the end of the campaign, you will have many bases in all corners of the planet working around the clock.



Many elements of the Story Campaign Mode will be randomized. The maps will be generated automatically and the mission objectives will change. You will never know for sure what happens next, which does not mean the gameplay will be unpredictable. It will be possible to complete the Story in a couple of different ways and you will be able to plan ahead for your endgame. That being said, we hope the randomization and the element of surprise will give the game a lot of replayability. We expect the pace of gameplay to be different as well. While in Survival Mode downloading new blueprints is a matter of minutes, it does not have to be the same way in Campaign. Researching new technologies might take longer, as well as require you to find some additional resources on (or beneath!) the surface of Galatea 37.

That’s it for now. We will reveal more details about the Campaign Mode as we design and develop it. As always we await your ideas and feedback on our Discord server - www.discord.gg/exorstudios. Visit us there and sign up for the closed alpha - the applications are still open.

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www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

Hello!

We’re very happy to see you all again! After a much-needed break, we are back at the EXOR Studios office, full of strength, inspiration, and energy to continue working on The Riftbreaker. 2020 is going to be an exciting year, and even though there is still a lot to do on the horizon, we are optimistic about the challenges ahead.

The year 2019 set the bar very high for us - the reception of the early materials about The Riftbreaker was overwhelmingly positive. Many of you showed your appreciation for our transparent development approach and regular updates on the things happening in the studio. You can expect even more of that this year. Our development streams were popular as well, developing a tight-knit community (and giving birth to some 5/7 quality memes). We are really grateful for your presence there.



2019 also surprised us with another award to add to our resume! Thanks to the engagement from our fans we were voted into the Top 10 of Upcoming Indie Games on IndieDB! We reached the 7th place overall. Thank you for your votes and for placing your trust in us. We won't disappoint you!



We also opened sign-up for the Closed Alpha of The Riftbreaker. The application form received hundreds of entries (and it’s still available through our Discord server - https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios). The beginning of the test is going to be a huge step for us, as we have never done that before. We are currently working on robust solutions to make reporting bugs and giving feedback as effortless as possible for you.

The test version is going to be equipped with an automated crashdump sender. During a large-scale test, it is inevitable that some users will encounter scenarios that will cause the game to crash. The tool we are working on will automatically send us all the necessary information to identify the cause of the issue. This way we can immediately start working on the solutions to the problems you might encounter in the game. There will also be a form for you to give us feedback and report smaller issues.



Developing these tools will take us some time, so we need to ask you for patience. To make the wait a little easier on you we’re going to release an all-new gameplay trailer soon. It will feature some never-seen-before gameplay footage. Moreover, later this week, we are going to share our vision for the Campaign Mode in The Riftbreaker. This mode is our next milestone for the game and it will be our focus for the foreseeable future.

All the best in 2020!

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Hello!

The Christmas season is drawing near. It is one of the very few moments in a year when we stop development and have a break from working on our games. It has been a wonderful year for us at EXOR Studios, so let’s recap what we managed to accomplish during the past 12 months.

• We released two titles on the Nintendo Switch - X-Morph: Defense and Zombie Driver: Immortal Edition. Working on a completely new platform was an interesting experience with its own set of challenges we had to overcome and we believe it has made us into better developers overall.
  
• We announced The Riftbreaker!
• We visited multiple trade shows over the world. In chronological order: GDC 19 in San Francisco, PAX East in Boston, E3 in Los Angeles, Gamescom 19 in Cologne, PAX West in Seattle and finally PGA 19 in Poznań.
  
• We won prizes for the Best Indie Game of PGA 2019 and the Best Indie Booth of PGA 2019.
  
• We celebrated 10 years of Zombie Driver, giving away over 850.000 copies of the game on Steam.
  
• We started distributing The Riftbreaker preview build to people outside the studio.
• We met a lot of amazing people, both IRL and online, including our lovely Discord community!
  

None of those things would have been possible without your help, so thank you for being there for us and supporting us every day. We are going to take a break now. Development updates and streams will continue in early January, but you can reach us almost all the time through Discord and social media. We will keep on checking those, just not as often as usual. Remember to sign up for the closed test through our Discord server - www.discord.gg/exorstudios

In the meantime, we wish you Merry Christmas and an amazing holiday season!

EXOR Studios

Hi everyone!

We have one final announcement to make this year and it’s a big one.

The Riftbreaker Closed Alpha/Beta Test Applications are now open! You can find the registration form on our Discord server:

www.discord.gg/exorstudios

As we promised, we are going to give you a chance to get your hands on the game early and help us with your feedback and ideas. You are going to get access to the stable build of the game through Steam. It will contain all the elements you’ve seen on our streams so far - the introductory mission and the survival mode. Your task? Play the game, have fun, break everything! We want you to help us find bugs and give feedback on the gameplay itself. The build you get is going to be periodically updated as we add new elements into the game.

Occasionally, we might send you emails or contact you on Discord with a couple of questions to answer about the game. Although providing answers to those questions won’t be obligatory, if you do not wish to be messaged by us in any form, we would advise you not to sign up.

There are a couple of things you need to know before we hand the game off to you. In order to participate in testing, you must be a member of our Discord server. Additionally, the most active Discord users will have priority when it comes to key distribution. The keys are going to be sent out in waves, but there are no numbers available on that yet. We will inform you when & how many keys went out to the public. We can’t guarantee that everyone will be chosen, but we will do our best to include as many of you as we can.

If you are interested in joining us on this adventure then head on over to our Discord to sign up:
www.discord.gg/exorstudios

See you soon!
EXOR Studios

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