The Riftbreaker News

Hello again!

We hope that the Building Trailer that we showed you a couple of days ago left you wanting more… Because we’ve got more!

During the ‘quiet and busy’ period of the last 2-3 months, we added a lot of new elements into the game, as well as gave the existing ones a little bit more polish. One of the things you might have seen already is the Acid Biome. We played it a couple of times during our streams, but it was just a couple of tiles and it didn’t have its own identity. As the new props poured in and our prefab system started working, we could finally give this biome some much-needed love and attention. You can see it in the video below. There are more interesting things there, too!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Grenades are now a thing in The Riftbreaker and they come in many flavors! First of all, we have the classic, hand-thrown grenades. Operating them is pretty simple - you point where you want to throw them with the crosshair and press the button. Mr. Riggs will lob the grenade to that area. If an enemy is hit, it will explode on the spot. If you miss, the grenade will keep on rolling for a while and explode eventually.



We also have a grenade launcher ready! You can craft it just like any other weapon, at four quality levels that will affect the properties of the weapon. The way you use the grenade launcher is a little different. Holding the fire key will project a crosshair on the ground that moves away from you as you hold the trigger. Once you release the trigger, the launcher will fire. It’s a little more tricky, but the special properties and modability of the weapon make up for that.



Now it is time for the cherry on the top of this explosive cake. X-Morph: Defense veterans might recognize this weapon - Gravity Grenades. When it comes to technique, they are just like regular grenades - you point where you want to throw them. The difference is that they explode immediately upon landing, creating a small black hole that will damage and suck in all debris in its radius. The effects can be quite spectacular, especially if you combine a couple of them together!



Join our Discord not to miss any news or streams! We are 10.000 strong already and active participation in our discussions can net you access to the Alpha version - not to mention that your feedback will help us shape the game!

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Hello!

It is time to unveil yet another secret that we have been working on for the past couple of months!



The gameplay of The Riftbreaker is centered around establishing and maintaining huge bases around Galatea 37. The planet holds a lot of potential and it is up to you to make best use of it. Nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction when all the infrastructure you have carefully been setting up clicks together and the entire base comes to life at one moment. Base building is a test for creative thinking and problem-solving - and it’s also a lot of fun. That’s what we wanted to convey in this brand-new building trailer!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
There are quite a few things in the trailer that might be entirely new to some of our players, so let’s go over them one by one.



Decorations - A few updates ago we introduced new variations of floors, as well as lights in many different colors. We have a lot more to offer, including flags, statues and potted plants. However, before we let you play with them, we need to solve the issue of having A LOT of buildings in one category. Still, they are ready, they are coming your way and we cannot wait to see what you manage to do with them!



Planetary Scanner - This building was in the game for a very long time but it lacked any functionality. With our work on the Campaign Mode progressing very well it has finally received its purpose. The building scans the surface of Galatea 37, looking for anomalies and pinpointing coordinates for long-range jumps. In those areas, Ashley and Mr. Riggs will encounter various tasks that will deal with exploration, base building or gathering research samples. That brings us to the next point…



Magma and Acid biomes - We have presented these to you before, and although we haven’t let anyone have a go at them they will be a vital piece of the Campaign. In the final form, there will be a lot of differences between each biome. They will have creatures, resources and weather events that are characteristic of that biome only. This is just a little sneak peek, though. They are still very much work in progress.



Lots of mentions of the elusive Campaign Mode here… Let’s just say that we are VERY close to officially entering Alpha status (in our terminology Alpha means that the game is feature complete, playable from start to finish and there are a lot of placeholder assets in the game). Fun times are coming! We are going to publish even more material this week, so stay tuned and join our Discord not to miss a thing!

Cheers!
EXOR Studios

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Hello!



It’s been quite some time since we last published a development update. In fact, in the last real article, we promised that regular devlogs were coming back. However, a lot of new online events have been taking place in the absence of all the gaming shows this year. With most of them requiring some form of exclusive assets we simply did not have enough time to cover everything that has been happening in the studio.

With that being said, we are nearing the end of the festival season, with the final couple of events happening this week. First of all, we are going to be a part of the Indie Arena Booth for Gamescom Online 2020. As a part of the event, we’re going to hold an AMA and a bonus live stream. Secondly, we have been selected to be the Polish representative in the Europlay competition that takes place on Friday. It’s essentially a gaming counterpart to the Eurovision song contest. We’re going to need your help to win, but that comes on Friday.

In the meantime, our programmers and artists have been working on lots of sweet stuff that you might have already read about in our Discord daily changelogs. Today, we unveil one of those super-secret developments - a new creature, straight from our nightmares to your computer screens. Meet Baxmoth!



Baxmoth is a very interesting and dangerous creature. You can encounter it almost anywhere on Galatea 37, as long as there are enough flowers there to keep Baxmoth alive - its diet consists solely of flower nectar. Seeing one in the wild is quite terrifying. The large body of the creature is covered with a thick carapace and sits atop six long, blade-like legs. This would be enough to deter any Riftbreaker from interacting with this monstrosity, but it gets worse. The Baxmoth is not just a single, hideous creature. It is a hive on a stick (or six sticks, to be precise).



The disgusting abdomen of this creature houses a colony of flying drones. Their job is to scout the area in search of nectar, which they collect and bring back ‘home’ to share with their host. They are also Baxmoth’s main protection mechanism, as the drone swarm can easily incapacitate any hostile creature that threatens the wellbeing of the hive. It is not yet known, whether Baxmoths and their drones are the same species, or two different ones living in symbiosis, but you will have plenty of opportunities to find that out yourselves during your research on Galatea 37. The Baxmoth will be one of the creatures that come to your base during attack waves.



As we mentioned many times during our streams and on our Discord, creating a 3D model for a new enemy is the easiest part of the entire process. All aspects of the Baxmoth, apart from its appearance, are still work-in-progress. That means we still need to prepare proper animations, behavior, sounds and tens of other small things before we will be able to put this creature into a public build of the game. However, here’s a little sneak peek for you.



Swarms of little flying creatures are also a great stress test for the navigation system in The Riftbreaker. Here’s 10.000 drones navigating the map all at once!



There is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to implementing new enemies, but we are on the right track. Our schedules are filled with various tasks meant to bring even more creatures to life and we are going to show them off with increasing frequency, so stay tuned.



Finally, we have pushed an update to The Riftbreaker Alpha, as well as The Riftbreaker: Prologue. It contains stability fixes, as well as a couple of features that should make our modders’ lives a little easier. If you would like to join our wonderful modding community, visit our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios - the results of their work is incredible, given the limited nature of the Alpha and the Prologue!



The full changelog for this patch:

[h2]Changelog for Stable Build 195 on 2020.08.26:[/h2]

• Fixed miscellaneous crashes when closing the application
  
• Fixed memory corruption that was causing random crashes
  
• Fixed a few obscure crash bugs
  
• Improved loading time - optimized underground treasure generation algorithm
  
• [Modding] Added a user-friendly warning message when trying to start a mission that doesn't exist
  
• [Modding] Fixed overlaying loose files over .zip archives
  
• Audio: limited submit sample rate to 200kHz
  

There has also been one more patch last week, but we didn’t have the time to issue a changelog on that, so here it is now:

[h2]Changelog for Stable Build 191 on 2020.08.21:[/h2]

• Audio: limited submix sample rate to 200kHz
  
• disable IME on win32 platform (potential fix for some users' with IME enabled for input being stuck)
  
• Mouse: fixed window size
  
• Fixed MouseWin32 cursor container integrity
  
• Multiple misc crash fixes:
  
• fix crash in AugmentsMenuScreen
  
• fix crash in OnBuildingSellEvent
  
• fix reattaching bounds to building
  
• fix crash in CustomizeControlsMenuScreen
  

See you soon!