- XENOGROVE Update Released & Plans for the Future - 30 June 2019
A new update for pre-release XENOGROVE players has been released. SIZE: This build, primarily, is a move to a new build pipeline which will result in faster and smaller builds. The new build now has a total size of about 2 GB, 1/2 of the previous builds and nearly a quarter of builds a couple months old! WEAPON PARTS: Some new weapon parts have been added, primarly GOLD parts which are better versions of standard weapon parts that drop at the Avant-Garde tier. We have also added CURSED parts, which excel in a particular area while having major weaknesses or even actively negative effects! TUTORIAL: The tutorial has been cleaned up and it should be a bit easier to follow the story and the mechanics of the game. Additionally, you no longer need to defeat Gogogox to unlock the mount. The mount will now be available at the Stablemaster upon visiting OZRYN, even for the first time. As you ma…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 26 March 2019
An update for XENOGROVE has been released. VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS: There have been extensive shader reworks for performance and visuals all around. Rocks and Mushrooms now have better subsurface scattering effects. Foliage no longer shows black squares when far away, and the black outline effect outlines them as a group instead of as a whole. Two new post process visual effects have been written, one that adds interesting color tinting based on the angle of the surface, and another that mimicks indirect lighting (right now this only works close to the ground). The shader for the shield dome has been rewritten to not have as much of a performance hit. The shader for water surfaces has been rewritten for performance. DUNGEON THEME: The ice dungeon theme that has been in testing is now the default theme for dungeons. This should look more organic and varied compared to the prior theme. BUG FI…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 14 March 2019
An update for Xenogrove has been released. USER EXPERIENCE: Many changes have been made to make the game more straightforward and less confusing. Examples of the kinds of changes made: -When rescuing villagers, your score for that dungeon now increases at that moment instead of being tallied when you finish the dungeon (which meant dying would essentially undo the villagers you'd saved) -The "Continue" button on the main menu will search the save files to make sure it always loads the most recent save file (in terms of real-world date and time) -The Continue Button is greyed out if you haven't actually started the game yet (so only "New Game" is available) -Certain confusing areas in the overworld and have been streamlined to make it easier to understand how to get somewhere or new paths to those places have been opened up -It should no longer be possible to die in the tutorial -You sho…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 28 February 2019
An update for XENOGROVE has been released. World Polish: Certain areas needing some TLC have been cleaned up, like the Lake town and the small lake west of the hub. Anti-Cheese: Countermeasures have been deployed to prevent players from simply standing on the ledge out of harm's way when fighting Gogogox. Debuffs: Receivers with special projectiles that caused debuffs, such as the Shell Core which causes damage over time, have been fixed and debuffs now apply correctly to enemies. Loot Table Cleanup: Certain parts leftover from early prototype builds have been removed from the loot table. UI Improvements: Map markers have had their font changed, so they should be much easier to read. There is also now an indicator above the ammo panel that has a control prompt for switching your weapon. Visual Effects: A new post process effect is being tested that should result in more vivid colors and…
- XENOGROVE Hotfix Released - 22 February 2019
A hotfix for XENOGROVE has been released. -Stone Core and Shell Core not properly apply damage over time and knock back enemies, respectively. -holes that could be tough to get out of have been patched in the hub area. -Terraformer Parts that you can prematurely pick up are no longer laying around near the actual terraformer for debug purposes. This hotfix also includes a number of things that were originally intended for the next patch: -The Savannah has more consistent foliage -The Mountain Region has a new (untested) dungeon called "The Labyrinth" -The Lake Town has had some visual improvements with paths on the ground and improved shadowing. -Some load time improvements As always, let us know how you're feeling in the comments below. See you out there! -Jon Sayer, Systems Developer
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 19 February 2019
An update for XENOGROVE has been released. This is a big one! VISUAL AND LIGHTING OVERHAUL: Lighting should now be more natural looking overall. Dungeons now have discrete lighting themes that can be applied to individual dungeons or visual styles (more on this later). Many shaders for mushrooms and rocks have implemented Ambient Occlusion effects to give more natural looking lighting. Small microfoliage has been added in certain areas to flesh out the scene. A number of visual theme prototypes for dungeons have been added. You can see these, if you so choose, in testing dungeons outside of the central town (OZRYN) OPTIMIZATIONS: The rock shader has been reworked in a way to offer a slight speedup compared to previous versions. FINAL BOSS: The final boss's laser has been reworked. Instead of firing a spinning laser, the boss summons Cavies that shoot lasers in 4 directions. DYNAMIC WEAP…
- Stay tuned - the next build is coming soon! - 15 February 2019
Hello all, I know it's been a bit longer than usual for a build to come up, but fear not, it's on the way shortly. Development has been extremely active and this next update will be a lot bigger than previous ones, hence the wait. We think it will be more than worth the wait. See you out there! -Jon Sayer
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 6 February 2019
An update for XENOGROVE has been released. VENDORS: In every major town, there is now a vendor that will sell an assortment of weapon parts of varying themes. We have also upgraded the Vendor screen to be much more useful and informative, giving more info on the parts being sold. In addition to regular materials, enemies now have a high chance to drop Pearls, the standard currency used by Vendors all over the planet. Loot dropped by enemies now have different appearances based on what they are. If they are materials/currencies, the dropped loot will use the icon for that currency. If it's a weapon part, it will show the standard bag icon. WORLD PROGRESSION: The town in the Lava area has had even more touchup work, and is now very close to being complete. All major towns now start much more barren, and rapidly expand and flesh out as you rescue villagers in that region. Villagers you res…
- XENOGROVE Hotfix Released - 29 January 2019
A hotfix for XENOGROVE has been released to address issues in yesterday's pre-release build. -Fixed an issue where your second weapon would not load -Fixed an issue where the main menu and other UI elements would be blurry -Fixed an issue where Fish enemies would slowly drift upward until they were well outside of reasonable engagement ranges See you out there!
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 29 January 2019
An update for XENOGROVE has been released. New Area Polish: -The lava river leading to lava town now has correct collision -It is no longer necessary to take the lava river to reach the town -The expanded Savannah area now has foliage Weapon Balance: Recoil and drift are now calculated differently: -If you rapidly fire a weapon while it is still recoiling, the weapon will now start to drift more aggressively out of control. This also applies to automatic weapons, so stability and recoil control balanced against fire rate is now an important consideration. -Weapons drift less at lower stability ratings, but lower stability ratings incur a much greater penalty to control when rapid-firing. This rebalance should allow for weapons to feel more controllable while still keeping recoil control and stability into consideration while choosing your weapon parts. Weapon Switching: -You can now car…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 24 January 2019
An update for pre-release Xenogrove players has been released. MOUNT REWORK: Significant portions of mount physics have been reworked for more natural riding. The mount will conform to the surface better and allow for a smoother less bumpy ride. AUDIO: Certain gameplay-essential sounds are no longer streamed from disk and instead are loaded and kept in memory on startup so they are always available to play when needed. Many other sounds (such as ambiences) still stream in order to reduce memory usage and the initial loading time. The mount now has more sound attached to it; a wind noise that plays relative to the velocity of the mount, and a throttle noise relative to the amount of throttle and current velocity. Additionally, bouncing sounds when the mount impacts a surface are scaled in volume relative to the force of the hit, and are checked against a number of conditions to prevent r…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 18 January 2019
An update for XENOGROVE has been released. BUG FIXES: Audio volume sliders now work correctly. Steed bouncing sounds now work. There is a known issues where they will frequently fire at certain angles. Landscapes no longer have low-precision collision and do not switch LODs as often resulting in less jittery "popping" in their geometry. ENEMY IMPROVEMENTS: Mushroom enemies no longer get stuck on ledges. Vutaris worms now navigate to the player correctly and do not fall off of ledges nearly as easily. Vutaris perform their attack as three different close range hits, so you have the opportunity to escape without taking full damage. NEW PARTS: Guass Rail and Rotating Rapid Barrels have been added to the Legendary loot pool. The Mosryen Summoner is now Avant-Garde and is no longer obtainable from random chests. (it is still obtainable through the appropriate means) USER EXPERIENCE IMPROVEME…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 15 January 2019
A new update for Xenogrove has been released. In this update: FULL CONTROLLER SUPPORT: Using a virtual cursor you can control with your gamepad, you should now be able to play the entire game with the gamepad. NEW TEXTURES: Kelly has provided new handpainted textures used in the open world, which are A) Awesome, B) Make the open world easier to read visually, and C) More consistent with the 2d art. NEW DUNGEON: Replaced an accidental duplicate dungeon (Vutaris Valley) with a new dungeon, The Climb. The Climb is a platforming focused dungeon accessible in the north end of the Savannah facing the Mountain. OPEN WORLD EDITS: There have been extensive edits to the open world to clean up certain rough areas and fill out areas that didn't have much in them. Most of the work was focused on the southern regions and the northern hills. Filling out the world is still WIP and will be a persistent…
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 13 January 2019
A new update has been released for pre-release Xenogrove players. In this update: -The workbench section of the tutorial has been slightly reworked to be more clear and stable -Punchier visual feedback effects for firing weapons -More sound feedback for certain weapon parts -Building the Terraformer parts for the Mountain and Lake regions now requires beating a regional bossfight. -Terraformer part costs have been rebalanced to encourage more exploration while not encouraging farming As always, let us know how it is in the comments below. Hope to see you out there! -Jon Sayer Systems Developer
- XENOGROVE Update Released - 9 January 2019
Tonight another pre-release update rolls out. In this update there is: -Shortened names for the control prompts in the UI -A toggle for gamepad control prompts in the settings menu -Test dungeon for new visual themes outside of the hub town in the center of the world -More responsive enemy AI. Most enemies now attack when you are within a range and within Line-of-sight of them. This is to allow player to develop more advanced tactics for handling certain enemies. Feel free to leave any feedback in the comments below. Hope to see you out there! -Jon Sayer Systems Developer
