The Riftbreaker News

One of the features of The Riftbreaker we are most proud of is definitely pitting the player against massive hordes of hostile creatures inhabiting Galatea 37. Every now and again, a large group of various beasts will try to wipe the player’s base off the surface of the planet. The looming threat of a concentrated attack motivates the player to fortify their base and look for new ways of protecting their assets. It is possible to meet other groups of alien creatures, too. They simply go on about their lives, spread across multiple regions of Galatea 37, and are a vital component of the game world.

Hammeroceroses might look threatening, but they are not hunters. They will let Jurvines live in peace alongside them.

The ‘ambient creatures’ as we call them are important for several reasons. First of all, they introduce a danger element to the exploration portion of the game. Before you set up your base and fortify your perimeter, you need to find a suitable spot - preferably one that is easy to defend and rich in resources. Small groups of creatures you meet along the way will make this task more difficult. Given your limited resources at the start, you might fall victim to the wildlife. This encourages the player to be cautious and tactical in their approach and not simply roam around, guns blazing.

In fact, as long as there's enough food for everyone, all creatures can live in prefect harmony!

There are many environmental zones to explore on Galatea 37. It is crucial for us that these are different from each other not only when it comes to visuals, but also gameplay mechanics. Ambient creatures help with that. The first time you set foot in a new biome, you will inevitably meet new species of indigenous creatures, informing you that this is an entirely new region and that the rules might have changed. After hours spent in the previous region, the player might think they already know every secret the game world holds. When they meet new creatures that force them to change their tactics, they might reevaluate that. ;)

Always expect the unexpected while exploring the world.

Ambient groups of creatures also allow you to observe the animal behaviors in the wild. During an attack wave, you will only see a massive horde attacking your defenses and there will be no time to think and observe individual species. While exploring the regions of Galatea 37, you will encounter the same creatures in a non-agitated state. This will give you an opportunity to learn their natural behavior, preferred locations, strong and weak spots, and might even allow to find a use for them. Remember - knowledge is key!

Even the angriest, meanest, creepiest creatures need a bit of a break! Observe and learn!

Although combat is definitely the most spectacular aspect of The Riftbreaker gameplay, we don’t want the game to be one-dimensional and focused solely on that. The introduction of ambient creatures allows us to achieve that. There will be plenty of species for you to find and research. Will you catch them all? ;) Join the Discord and the streams to learn how!



Useful links:
www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.mixer.com/exor_studios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

As weeks go by, we are closer and closer to achieving our vision of presenting the players with a carefully crafted, realistic, living world in the Riftbreaker. As we add new features and redesign the ones that did not quite reach the level of quality we aim for, we’re also working on adding new living beings into the game. Some of you might have even seen it hopping around the Galatean plains already during our streams - it’s the Jurvine (some call it the Boingy Bongo).

Jurvines typically run away from danger. You'll have trouble catching them at Mr. Riggs' regular speed.

The cycle of life on Galatea 37 is very similar to that on Earth. The creatures and plants live, consume to stay alive and when they die they become food for other forms of life. There are both herbivores and carnivores. Predators and their prey. The Jurvine is a peaceful herbivore. It lives in packs and single specimens are hardly ever observed. Jurvines can usually be found around areas that can mask them from predators’ eyesight, such as high grass.

They live in large groups, often hiding in the grass. Their numbers can surprise you sometimes!

Jurvines do not create nests. They live in a ‘nomadic’ sort of way, migrating from one feeding ground to another, not to overstay their welcome and become a target of a hungry Canoptrix pack. They move around on their very muscular legs, that they use to jump. Similarly to our regular kangaroos from earth (regular kangaroos from earth is a great band name, tbh), they are able to cover a very long distance in a short time and even outrun Mr. Riggs.

You can utilize the biomass they drop to produce energy, but think whether it is the right thing to do. Also, don't make other creatures angry in the process.

The wandering nature of Jurvines makes them an important part of the ecosystem of Galatea 37. By traveling all the time, they spread seeds and pollen of the plants they come in contact with. Their lean meat is also very nutritious to all the carnivorous species, making them valuable prey. It is possible for Ashley to make use of that in energy production, as Jurvines drop a lot of biomass that can later be used in the Animal Biomass Power Plant. Whether it is the right thing to do is for you to decide.



Many new creatures of various types are being added to the game as we speak. That is not the only thing that is changing, as we work on many things in parallel. The best way to keep up with the development of The Riftbreaker is by joining our Discord. We publish daily changelogs and answer your questions every day. You can also join our development streams every Tuesday and Thursday.

See you there!

Useful links:
www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.mixer.com/exor_studios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

Around this time we were supposed to be taking part in the Digital Dragons Indie Showcase, unfortunately, 2020 had other plans for all of us. Luckily, the lovely folks at Digital Dragons teamed up with the lovely folks at Valve to create an amazing online event for all of us!

Digital Dragons Indie Celebration is a competition for indies from all over the world, who lost the opportunity to reach people at gaming events due to the pandemic. It is a chance for you to take a look at a curated list of very promising, upcoming indie games, play demos, watch streams and discover some hidden gems. The event starts today and lasts until Friday. You can find it here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/digitaldragons

Over 150 games entered the competition, and the jury selected their top 50. The great news is - The Riftbreaker is included! We will compete with some heavy-hitters for prestigious awards. You can help us with winning one of them by voting on us in the Community Vote Award - the survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8BJ67VM

Your help is greatly appreciated! Take some time and browse through the event on Steam. There are some great games there that we’re eager to play ourselves.



Useful links:
www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.mixer.com/exor_studios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

https://www.mixer.com/exor_studios

Hello!

This article will speak a little more about the time-consuming nature of creating models for the game. We touched on it in the previous article. You can now catch up on it in a video form:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In our devlogs we usually talk about the development of The Riftbreaker specifically. The contents of the articles are accurate, but relevant mostly only to this one production. Today’s topic is a little different. We’re going to talk about a very important aspect of creating 3D video game assets in general: polygon counts.

Most of you know that computer graphics use polygons as ‘building blocks’ - two-dimensional, primitive shapes, that connect with each other to form three-dimensional objects on the computer screen. Even though our machines get more powerful every year, we still have to limit the number of polygons on the screen at one time, and this is what today’s article is about. We’re still going to base it on our process, but many things here are common for artists in the game development industry.

Did someone ask for artillery monsters? Software: Zbrush.

Every prop, building or creature that we make starts as a concept sketch. Based on that sketch, a 3D artist prepares a blockout - a simple version of the model that is supposed to show the general shape of the model they’re working on in three dimensions. Once that is approved, they start the sculpting process. Using specialized modelling software, artists turn the simple blocks into very detailed models, even down to things that are barely visible. This process adds a lot of complexity and the polygon count skyrockets into millions. A so-called hi-poly model is born.

A rock like this might look simple enough, but there is a lot of things that we can optimize here!

These kinds of models are, unfortunately, not very useful in our world. We have thousands of objects on the screen at a time. If every one of them had such a high polygon count, no GPU in the world could render it in real-time. We have to adapt each model by lowering the polygon count, through the process called retopology. The artist reduces the complexity of the model, substituting detailed portions of it with simpler shapes. It doesn’t mean that all the painstakingly-crafted detail is lost, though.

This is what a normal map looks like. (It was made for the rock from the previous example. See if you can decipher what goes where :D ) It isn't pretty and only barely human-readable, but it does a great job saving our GPUs the hassle of rendering a LOT of unnecessary polygons.

When you think about it, all the creases, wrinkles, scales, screws that you see on 3D objects are a result of a difference in height in relation to the base plane. It is possible to recreate that without increasing the polygon count using normal mapping. Normal mapping is a technique that allows us to imitate the lighting of little bumps and dents, but on a flat surface. A normal map is a regular RGB texture, but the game engine does not take the RGB values to represent color - in reality, those values store the coordinates of the original polygons. The lighting reacts with the normal map the same way it would with physical models.

Stages of preparing a building model to be put into the game.

We try to lower the polygon count as much as we can, reducing the initial millions to mere thousands. This allows us to render all the game objects in real-time. So, there you go - all (almost…) these steps need to be done before we can put a new model into the game. We hope the article was interesting to you, and if you would like to learn about any other aspects of game developments, feel free to ask us on our Discord!



Useful links:
www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.mixer.com/exor_studios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios