The Riftbreaker News

A couple of weeks ago, with the launch of our Summer Update, we announced a screenshot competition. We asked you to utilize the newly added decorative structures to enhance the looks of your Riftbreaker bases. It is time to announce the winners of our competition.

Congratulations to acideiffel and Kanna Kamui!

[h3]We will go over their entries and explain why these awesome people deserved the win.[/h3]

[h2]acideiffel[/h2]



The first thing that stood out to us about acideiffel's screenshots was how aesthetically pleasing they all are. That is in large part thanks to the use of colors - the base is clearly divided into sectors that make use of decorations with one chosen color and the appropriate lights.



Looking at the base in broad daylight allowed us to pick up on the details that hid in the darkness a little bit. One such example is the use of various types of flooring to mark the pathways around the base.



If you take a look at each of these screenshots, you will notice that all of them are labeled with the name of the area you're looking at. acideiffel took the time to come up with the tiniest bit of a backstory to help his base become something more than a collection of buildings.



One more detail that grabbed our attention was the use of walls. Gates are fixed in an 'airlock' type design. Single energy wall segments are used to mark the entrances to the base more clearly and also surround the entire 'science' section of the base. Also pay attention to the pipe layout around the functional Rift Station. acideiffel didn't choose form over function - instead, they merged them.



A closer look at the 'top secret' section also reveals the great use of lights around the base. Street lamps illuminate the pathways, as they should, and neon walls add delicate accents to what would be an otherwise regular 'street'.



The last screenshot shows that even though acideiffel didn't always have a choice when it came to lighting, as some plants decided to interfere with the harmony of Station 'Ari'. Instead of simply paving them over, they are skillfully composed into the residential area of the base.

Overall, the attention to detail and the artistic vision were the deciding factors. Thank you, acideiffel, great job!

[h2]Kanna Kamui[/h2]



Kanna Kamui took a different approach to this competition. Instead of trying to decorate an existing base with new structures, they decided to start with a clean slate and create something artistic. Here's a pixel art depiction of Mr. Riggs, composed almost entirely of floor tiles.



Taking a closer look at some of the details of this construction reveals that even though Mr. Riggs is the focal point here, the outside of the 'canvas area' is decorated with billboards, vending machines and other objects. We also appreciate the traps set up around the fence to keep the masses of visitors at bay!



Going a bit further, we can see that planning and executing this design required a lot of thought and care. All the different types of flooring play their role in the grand scheme of things, and crystals add accents where needed.



Going a bit further we arrive at the next hurdle Kanna Kamui had to get over - the design is not symmetrical. The left and right arms are different from each other, which essentially doubled the amount of work necessary to pull this off.



Finally, we arrive at the head, where we can see the reflector beams made of large crystal structures. A holographic statue of Mr. Riggs is the final touch in this Temple of Yellow Mech.



We also know that Galatean nature did not make this easy for you. Congratulations on your win, Kanna Kamui!

Our winners will receive a package filled with EXOR Studios gadgets, including a plushie Mr. Riggs.



Thank you to everyone who participated in this contest! We hope you enjoyed it. We have got more contests to come, so keep an eye out for more news!

EXOR Studios

Our team is back from a short holiday break. We are back in the office, with our minds fresh and clear, ready to continue making steps towards our goal - the co-op multiplayer release.



We hope you have had some time to toy around with the new decorations that came with the Summer Update for The Riftbreaker. Before we left for the holiday, we announced a screenshot contest. We asked you to decorate your bases with the new buildings for a chance to receive one of the limited Mr. Riggs plushies. However, the holiday spirit got to our heads, and we forgot to remind you about the contest.



[h3]Therefore, we’re extending the Screenshot Contest deadline until Monday, September 11th, 2023.[/h3]

This gives you an additional week and a half to arrange your base in the fanciest way possible and submit your idea for the contest. Let’s recap the contest rules:

[h3]To enter:[/h3]

• Update your copy of The Riftbreaker to the latest version.
  
• Get access to some of the new decorations from this update. Follow the tips from the article to get them more easily.
  
• Give your base a makeover using the new structures and props.
  
• Make a screenshot or a video, upload it anywhere you like and post it in this thread for everyone to see: https://steamcommunity.com/app/780310/discussions/0/6960928795821616200/
  

[h3]The three best and most creative screenshots we receive will receive an EXOR Studios care package filled with EXOR Studios goodies and a Mr. Riggs plushie![/h3]



Legal stuff:
[expand]
You must be aged 18 or over at the time of entry in order to enter this competition. No purchase is necessary. You must enter the contest yourself. You must comply with the laws that apply to you in the location where you access the competition from. If any laws applicable to you restrict or prohibit you from entering the competition, you must comply with those legal restrictions or, if applicable, refrain from entering the competition. Prizes are not negotiable, exchangeable, or transferable and have no cash alternative. Physical prizes can only be delivered to locations covered by UPS. If a delivery destination is not covered by UPS, then it will not be sent out by EXOR.

The winner(s) will be selected by a panel of judges based on creativity, originality and the highest quality. The decision of the panel is final.

The Organiser does not claim any rights of ownership in your competition entry. By submitting your entry, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and irrevocable right to use, display, publish, transmit, copy, edit, alter, store, re-format, and sub-license the competition entry and any accompanying materials for our marketing or other commercial purposes.
[/expand]

Next week, we are back with streams, developer diaries, and behind-the-scenes materials showing off all the upcoming goodness we have been developing for you. Until then, have fun and enjoy the last days of summer!

EXOR Studios

We have just published a small maintenance update to fix additional problems with the new gates. Thank you for letting us know about these issues.

[h3]The Riftbreaker Maintenance Update, August 30th, 2023. DATA: 480 EXE: 881 Changelog:[/h3]

• Fixed problems with Crystal Gate collision models.
  
• Crystal gates now have less hit points so that they can explode more frequently.
  
• Fixed additional problems with gate models and animation states.
  
• Energy Gate upgrade to level 2 will no longer cause regular Gate Level 2 to appear.
  

EXOR Studios

If you hang around with us on Discord or Twitch, you might have seen what we’ve been up to for the past couple of weeks. Our work on the co-op multiplayer has led us to accidentally come up with a 90s deathmatch-style PvP mode for the game. What started as a joke quickly turned into one of the most valuable multiplayer development tools in our catalog. In this short article, we will tell you how exactly this game mode came into existence, what we use it for, and what we plan to do with it moving forward.



It all started on a beautiful July morning. Two of our programmers, Łukasz and Marcin, were working on optimizing the client-server communication protocols for co-op play. They were playing on a locally-hosted server, introducing changes to the game’s code and testing them in action on the fly. What seemed like a regular day at the office quickly turned into something they couldn’t have predicted. As luck would have it, Marcin had equipped his Mr. Riggs avatar with the Debug Rifle - a development weapon that EXOR Staff use to test various aspects of the game. It also turns out to be one of the two weapons in the game with friendly fire capability. A momentary lapse in concentration from Marcin led to tragedy - a stray shot from his Debug Rifle wiped Łukasz’s a**...ekhm mech from existence. And then it happened again. And again.

After a couple of unsuccessful tests that ended with his mech blowing up, Łukasz decided to take matters into his own hands and teach his friend a lesson he would not forget. Unbeknownst to Marcin, he equipped his mech with a Debug Rifle of his own and gave him a taste of his own medicine. Imagine Marcin’s shock when his own a**...ekhm mech exploded due to a shot from a Debug Rifle from his friend. Anger, shock, and disbelief raged inside his confused mind. There was only one way this could end - a 1 vs 1 duel, with nothing but honor on the line…



Jokes and bad storytelling aside, this is more or less what led our two colleagues to the question: ‘How long would it take us to turn friendly fire on for all weapons in the game’? It turned out to be trivial, and in less than an hour, they could fight each other as much as they wanted. Then, they invited other programmers to join them for a match. One thing led to another, someone implemented a kill counter, and another person quickly developed a multiplayer arena-style map, and that was it - a working prototype of a deathmatch PvP game mode in The Riftbreaker.



It might seem like a useless ‘side quest’ and a waste of time, but in our eyes, it’s a valuable asset. Stripping the game down to its bare bones - running around an alien world in a mech - gave us a tool that we can use to test the connectivity and stability of the server over time. As you could see during our on-stream playthroughs, the biggest issue with The Riftbreaker co-op was the server performance decrease over time. The longer we played the game, the worse the performance would become. Whenever we tried to fix the issue, it turned out that we were fixing only some symptoms of bigger problems buried beneath. This is where our ‘accidental PvP mode’ became more than just a silly joke. In simple PvP deathmatch we don’t have to transfer and calculate an entire base and a few thousand angry monsters. It opens up more subjects that we can start working on in parallel like lobbies, matchmaking, nat-punching, movement prediction, player to player interactions etc.



The Deathmatch server only takes a couple of seconds to set up and it’s just as fast when you’re loading into the game. Instead of waiting a minute for the server to load and another minute to join it, you can have the game up and running in 20 seconds, more or less. It doesn’t seem like much, but since programmers launch and exit the game several dozen times a day, this saves a lot of time. It’s not a miracle drug that solves all problems, though - you still have to recompile the code every time you make changes to it. However, it is much easier to ask a couple of people to test something in a 5-minute PvP match instead of a lengthy and slower-paced Co-Op run.

When we showed live gameplay from this mode some of the viewers were rightfully concerned that we would abandon the development of the co-op mode in favor of the PvP mode. We would like to stress that this is not the case. Co-Op mode for The Riftbreaker is our number one priority. The deathmatch mode that we developed is only a byproduct of testing the game’s features. It is not the intended gameplay experience for The Riftbreaker and we will not spend any considerable amount of time polishing it further. However, since it’s more-or-less playable we have a few questions for you.



The PvP Deathmatch will not be an officially recognized or supported way of playing the game. This makes us wonder - is it worth it to make this game mode public at all? It’s not as strange a question as it might seem at first. This kind of online gameplay was very popular in the 90s. Nowadays, once the novelty wears off, it gets stale quite quickly. To give it a more contemporary feeling, we would need to add some progression rewards, killstreak systems, and set up real match rules. That’s a lot of features already, but their implementation would come at the cost of Co-Op development time, which is not acceptable.



If you think we should make it public, we will try to release it as soon as possible. It could be available as a mod you can download from Steam Workshop and Mod.io. We could distribute it as-is and without any further support or development. However, it would be absolutely free for you to modify and customize further. Here’s where the second question comes in: Would you be interested in modding this type of game mode? As in the case of other mods, we would offer help on our Discord, and we’re eager to hear what kind of support you would like to get from us. Still, Deathmatch would have to rely on you for any kind of improvements, as we’re focused on the Co-Op part of the game.

[h3]What are your general thoughts on this?[/h3]

If you would like to always stay up-to-date with the latest developments when it comes to The Riftbreaker multiplayer, make sure to join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios. We do impromptu streams whenever we test something in voice channels on our servers. You’re welcome to join in and have a chat with us! We also stream twice a week on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios, showing off either regular gameplay or experimental previews of things we work on.

See you there!
EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have just published a patch that fixes the problem that rendered players unable to unlock Laser and Crystal Gates through 'legal' means. We also fixed their problems with localizations and textures. There are no other changes in this build.

EXOR Studios