Hi everyone! Well-rested and pumped up for what’s to come, we are back from our holiday break! We hope you also had a chance to get some much-needed rest amidst all the chaos of the past year. Even though we spoke about our plans for 2021 already, we would like to bring you up to speed with what’s happening in the studio at the moment and what our short-term goals are. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/a81d1c4864b96f31980762744fa7848bce25a37c.jpg[/img] [b]First of all, the work on the campaign mode for The Riftbreaker is going really well.[/b] We keep improving on our initial design and introduce new ways to interact with the game world. It is an iterative process. It means that we prepare a prototype of a mission or a mechanic, play the game with that prototype enabled, take note of what is working and what isn’t, and then make changes. We even came up with some cool ideas on how to improve the campaign experience over the holiday break, but they have to remain a secret for now. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/fef9b59a8c76a1ab021b5203e32bebeaf3579cf3.jpg[/img] [b]We are also expanding some of the game mechanics.[/b] Those of you who follow our Discord and the daily changelogs (www.discord.gg/exorstudios) already know about the new types of defensive towers that we added. The Riftbreaker arsenal now allows Ashley to make use of Minigun Towers, Laser Towers, Heavy Artillery… These new toys will most likely get their own spotlight article in a couple of weeks, but if you can’t wait to find out about them you should join our streams at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios. [url=https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios][img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/f0ec4006cadc3d25dbcea98e6a287efcdb3f178a.png[/img][/url] That is actually the next thing we want to talk about - streams. [b]Starting this week, we will stream twice a week[/b] - that doesn’t change. However, we received some signals that our usual time schedule - Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 PM CET - could be improved. We are aware that we won’t be able to suit everyone, given how many people in various timezones follow us, but we could try to change the date of at least one stream per week. We’re waiting for your suggestions in the comments and on the Discord! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/d1d72ae4266a36711a4a6eef5ee1fccb32e2f3ef.jpg[/img] [b]Our regular development updates are also coming back this week,[/b] so you can expect articles about the latest improvements we made to The Riftbreaker at least twice a week. One of the articles coming in the next couple of days is a deep dive into the raytraced ambient occlusion technique that we introduced with our DirectX 12 patch. There are a lot of interesting details in that one, so stay tuned! If you have some ideas or suggestions on article topics, please let us know. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/ccb17fc22042eae64a0e2e5c0f8df239bec6f4e3.jpg[/img] There we go - we’re all up to speed with what’s going on. If you have any additional questions, suggestions, or requests, post them in the comments or on our Discord. We will make sure you get your answers as soon as possible. Happy New Year folks, it’s the final stretch! EXOR Studios