The Riftbreaker News

Hello everyone!

We have a new update for Alpha 2 ready and published. There are a few gameplay improvements and a large number of maintenance fixes. A huge thank you goes out to all of our Riftbreaker testers for their relentless hunt for bugs. As usual, we will send out a new batch of alpha keys after the stream today (it's live now! https://www.mixer.com/exor_studios ).



We are currently working on a number of large gameplay changes which makes maintaining a stable branch of the game very time-consuming. We are working on a new weapons system (randomized properties, augmentations, special characteristics), an improved resource system (so it's clearer where tanzanite, hazenite etc. come from and what they are needed for) and a complete overhaul of the inventory screen. To make these changes happen we have to break the game first and we don't want to slow down development to keep it functional during that period. As a result, we are planning to slow down the pace of updates to the Alpha build for some time. This may be a month or two. Either way, we'll keep you informed on the progress as we move forward. Your feedback is crucial to us at all times, so keep those suggestions, as well as bug reports, coming!



The full changelog for this update can be found below:

• Added Ashley and Mr Riggs's dialogue warnings about incoming weather events
  
• Cheaper repairs - repair price factor changed from 25% to 20% of the base building cost.
  
• Improved display of damage numbers
  
• Better scale and movement for damage numbers.
  
• Critical hits without bigger visual scale.
  
• Less "floaty", whatever that means...
  
• Damage numbers have constant width to avoid moving left/right.
  
• Flora collector added to research
  
• Added smoke trail for sniper rifle bullets
  
• All key shortcuts can now be remapped (this one is for you AZERTY users)
  
• Changed weather damage announcement minimum interval time to 30s from 10s
  
• Moved dynamic vegetation to advanced graphics tab
  
• Improved localization for building speed multiplier option - was building speed
  
• Bigger explosion power for acid bulbs (only visual) - because bigger explosions are better explosions :)
  
• Fixed Riftbreaker logo animation loop
  
• Fixed capital letters in the controls screen
  
• Fixed invisible menu items
  
• Fixed misc GUI nad menu problems
  
• Fixed main menu invisible buttons issue
  
• Fixed false mouse cursor movement blocking keyboard/pad menu navigation
  
• Fixed WeatherState sounds not stopping on game restart/load
  
• Fixed incorrect positions of some entities after game load
  
• Fixed playing dead animation when an enemy unit has already died (no zombies in this game, sorry)
  
• Fixed changing dead enemies to "wrecks" after save/load
  
• Fixed time of day override weather blending - windyboys won't start to turn super fast any more
  
• Fixed flame towers constantly shooting at dead enemies after save/load
  
• Fixed scroll bar in load menu
  
• Fixed double buildings on building upgrade
  
• Fixed floors removing buildings
  
• Fixed missing energy lines when selling/destroying buildings
  
• Fixed repair tower drones destroy on building upgrade
  
• Fixed collisions for mushroom_big_01.ent prop type
  
• Fixed buildings working for a few seconds after being built, even without supplies (the hunt for zombies continues!)
  
• Fixed a crash when the game was saved while a flame tower was shooting
  
• Fixed a number of crash bugs ( die zombies, die!)
  
• Multiple repair drone fixes
  

Useful links:
Quest Form: https://forms.gle/HKs1pUMqmTeLMPbt7
www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.mixer.com/exor_studios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

Hi there, fellow Riftbreakers!

One of the pillars of The Riftbreaker project has always been Community-Driven Development. It means that we keep in touch with our community at all times, informing you what is going on in the studio, as well as listening to the feedback you keep providing. We can’t even begin to tell you how grateful we are for that. Your ideas, comments and opinions have already made many elements of the game better, from minuscule UI changes to Ashley’s backstory itself.



Now, it is your opportunity to impact another aspect of The Riftbreaker. Most of you have already got to know the Survival Mode in some form, either by watching streams or playing it by yourself. The time has come to flesh out the Campaign Mode. Our vision for this has been thoroughly described in this article. We expect that it will take quite a long time to reach its final form, so there is plenty of time to come up with ideas and propose changes. Let’s dive into the world of game design.



There are two approaches when it comes to designing your campaign - top-down or bottom-up. The former puts the story first, adapting the entire mechanical side of the game to fit the narrative. The latter puts the emphasis on engaging and meaningful mechanics that can hold their own even without the story. For this project, we decided to take the second approach. The depth of our game mechanics gives us plenty of options to avoid falling into unneeded grind.



The Riftbreaker is not going to become a ‘FedEx’ game. You won’t be forced to constantly find MacGuffins and bring them home. We want to offer a variety of activities in the game world with a natural variety to them. Some tasks will focus on high-octane action, while others are going to be more subtle. This contrast reflects Ashley’s role as a combination of both a scientist and a commando. We don’t want to reveal too much, but here are a couple of ideas for missions in the game:

• An earthquake is coming and there is a chance it will obliterate your base. Scan the geological structure of the area and place seismic stabilizers in suitable spots to minimize the effects.
  
• Find a rare creature, isolate it and stun it in order to research it.
  
• Lure a group of useful creatures and start herding them.
  

Quests like these mixed with our traditional ‘blow up half of the planet’ missions should give you a nice variety and keep you entertained. However, something is missing here…

Your input. Do you have a cool idea for a mission? Something that has never been done before? Or perhaps something that you’ve seen in another game, but would like to see our take on it? We would like to hear those ideas!

Don’t worry about lore or rewards for completing the mission. The bottom-up approach gives us a lot of flexibility - the quests become puzzle pieces that we can easily fit into any part of the game.

Focus on the mechanics, similarly to the examples we gave you above - what the player is supposed to do.

Don’t be afraid to break the rules. Sometimes encouraging the player to make-do without an ability they relied on for a long time can lead to interesting situations.

Go crazy! If some things turn out to be too difficult to implement for us, we can always find a way around.

What’s in it for you? Eternal fame and glory. Your name in the Community Section of the game Credits. A special place in Void’s heart.* And for the best of you - SWAG. (as soon as the postal services start working again).

*While supplies last.

WHERE DO I SIGN? To keep everything in one place we have opened up a google form. Simply provide your nickname and tell us your idea for the next Riftbreaker mission.



We promise to discuss all the ideas internally and take everything into consideration. We’re sure you’re full of great concepts, and while we can’t promise to fit everything into the game, there’s a good chance that you will leave a mark on the game for posterity.



Useful links:
Quest Form: https://forms.gle/HKs1pUMqmTeLMPbt7
www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.mixer.com/exor_studios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Hello!

The past couple of days were a blast! We are stunned by your overwhelmingly positive reception of The Riftbreaker Gameplay Trailer and the start of the Closed Alpha Test. We would like to extend a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone involved. Your level of enthusiasm for the game keeps us motivated in these difficult times.



Speaking of difficult times - a short update on what’s happening in the studio. Some of you who attend the streams regularly might have noticed that the scenery has changed from the EXOR office to Void’s bedroom some time ago. That’s because we decided to move all EXOR employees to home-office mode. Nobody forced us to do so - it was a decision based on our safety, safety of our families and the people around us. Be responsible, do the right thing, stay at home if you can.



That being said, our work doesn’t stop and we’re back with regular devlogs this week! Apart from fixing bugs, we do not stop working on new features. The one we would like to present to you today is something we’ve been asked about for quite some time. Everyone, meet the drones!

Just look at them go!

Drones are fully autonomous devices, designed to carry out simple, mechanical tasks. You could say that most of the buildings in The Riftbreaker do that - Carbonium Factories automatically collect and process Carbonium Ore, Armories produce ammunition, etc. However, by using drones you do not have to stick to only one specific spot in order to carry out a job. You can cover a much larger area by putting these little robots to good use. There are various types of drones available in The Riftbreaker, each specialized in doing something slightly different.

It's the acid rain again! Scramble, boys, we've got work to do!

The most basic variant will take care of repairing damaged structures in your base. These drones are stationed within the Repair Facility. When the Facility detects a building that’s out of shape within its operation radius, it will send out a drone to fix the problem at the cost of some building materials. There are also drones that will collect rare minerals for you. Their home base is the Crystal Collector building. These robots will scan all the crystalline structures within their range and extract everything that Ashley can use for crafting. We also have drones that take care of planting plants, harvesting them, and each type comes with its own base station, too! Plenty of buildings to build, plenty of drones to fly around!

Spinoff ideas: Mr. Riggs' Garden Adventure, Farming with Mr. Riggs, Mr. Riggs in the land of cabbage...

Of course, autonomous work comes at a cost. In this case, all buildings that serve as drone hubs need a significant amount of energy to operate, as well as AI cores. This puts even more emphasis on keeping your AI hubs operational, as their state will not only affect your defenses now, but also other operations carried out within the base. Carefully balancing the amount of AI devoted to defensive systems and base maintenance will be tricky, but you will be rewarded with a base that functions similarly to a living organism.

Naturally, our drones are still at an early phase. Things will change and new functionalities will be added. What kind of drones would you like us to implement? Let us know in the comments and on our Discord, where you can also sign up for the Alpha! Some of our community members are already testing the drones out!



Speaking of Alpha, we’ve had a little maintenance patch roll out this morning. Here’s the changelog for that one!

Alpha 2 - Update 3, Stable Build 116 - Changelog (March 25th, 2020)
- Fixed crashes related to the repair tower
- Fixed a crash on map save + restart combination
- Fixed a crash in the flame tower when loading a save created while the flamer tower is shooting

Once again thank you for reporting all of these problems and sending the crash reports using the built-in crash reporting tool. This saves us a lot of time and enables us to fix these issues relatively quickly.

The next scheduled maintenance update will be coming sometime next week.

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

Hi everyone!

1. We're live now at www.mixer.com/exor_studios

2. Thank you for all the feedback on the Alpha build of The Riftbreaker! Here's a list of what we managed to track down thanks to your help:

[h2]Alpha 2 - Update 2 Changelog (March 24th, 2020)[/h2]

• Added: Tutorial textbox how to resize floor tile now appears (but only once per playthrough)
  
• Change: Temporary Rift portals are green now to be more distinct from the regular ones
  
• Change: Portal icons on the minimap are now triangles
  
• Change: Drones can now fly over world-blockers
  
• Change: Sandbox description now informs you of the existence of the F11 Sandbox Control Panel
  
• Change: Mr. Riggs now has a small Uranium Storage built-in
  
• Fix: Uranium added to Solid Material Storage Level 2 and 3
  
• Fix: Missing particle effect for Uranium damage added
  
• Fix: Speed bonus items now work as intended
  
• Fix: Movement controls can be remapped (in case you were using an AZERTY keyboard)
  
• Fix: Pipes can now be targeted and destroyed by enemies
  
• Fix: Research and building names shortened not to collide with progress bar in research
  
• Fix: Smaller fire effect for acid bulbs
  
• Fix: There are no more 1px holes between the building menu icons
  
• Fix: Removed all enemy waves from HQ upgrade events on sandbox difficulty
  
• Fix: Drone buildings now properly display their influence radius
  
• Fix: Entities should now appear in the correct places after loading the game from a save file
  
• Fix: Debris no longer burns in sludge forever
  
• Fix: Multiple small localization fixes
  
• Fix: Multiple Crash-to-desktop bugs
  

These changes are now live!

We are planning the next maintenance patch for the pre-Alpha 2 build to be ready early next week. Thanks to your continued support we are finding a lot of bugs, rebalancing various game systems and introducing numerous improvements.

If you would like to help us shape the game and join the Alpha, go to our Discord:



Oh, and we forgot to mention that we're sending out a new batch of pre-Alpha keys today. Want more info? Check the stream out (we're live right now!) ;)