Please report any bugs or feedback to either the Steam or Lo-Fi forums
Fixes:
Towns can now be seen from miles away instead of popping into view at close range.
Disguise quality is now affected by your UNMODIFIED stealth skill. Before your disguise would be negatively affected by things like the armour you were wearing, but this was the disguise itself so wasn't quite as intended
COMMUNITY UPDATE #40
Hey everyone, happy new year to you all! Since the last update we’ve had a Christmas party, a Christmas break, a new year and a new national lockdown in the UK, so we’re all working from home again due to that pesky old C-word that we’d rather not mention. Regardless of being locked down, spirits are up and good progress is being made with Kenshi 2. Check it oooot:
The Official Kenshi Discord is here
We have launched an official Kenshi Discord server. We’re not looking to replace the community Discord in the slightest, and we have the utmost respect for its moderators and participants, thank you for being part of something very special! Instead, we’d like to create something complimentary: a place for mini updates from us and somewhere where you can quickly and easily have a direct line to Lo-Fi Games (though we do have a sequel to a certain game to make so forgive us if we’re not always too quick to respond).
We’re very keen to hear from you about what you’d like to see the Official Kenshi Discord look like, so do please jump in and let us know.
Giveaways! Ask the devs! Competitions!
From time to time we'll be hosting Steam key giveaways and competitions where we'll be asking the community to take part by sending questions for the devs and posting mods and screenshots. Keep an eye out for info on these in the Discord server.
An "ask the devs" channel has been added from the off where we'll pick our favourite questions from the fans to answer on a monthly basis.
A smidgin of Kenshi 2 content
Environmentalism
From Environment Artist Oliver Hatton: "At the moment we're putting together two adjoining biomes so we can get to see all the amazing buildings and characters in situ, doing their thing. This biome blending will also help us identify any problems that are bound to arise, things like town sizes, over-budget texture limits and so on.
The voxel terrain can be fun to work on, with overhangs and caves being possible and re-editing areas much more hands-on than with elevation maps."
And now towns and settlements are beginning to emerge on the map, we should begin to get a much clearer view of the world. It'll be like our own little working death valley where we can test out a lot of the pain and suffering to come."
Gates
Look, it's a gate! Here's a few words from Concept Artist Christopher Schlesag on how the design of the gate came to be:
"The design of the gate was mostly influenced by the architecture of the main faction, which was already established. It is visually very sturdy and has simple geometry. For these defensive walls I wanted to incorporate more metal in comparison to the civilian buildings, which gives an even more militaristic feel.
These are the highest and thickest walls you will encounter in the game. We wanted the walls to be customizable to an extent, so they will consist of optional place-able modules like bastions, towers, and anti-climb extensions that will give advantages in several areas. For example, placing a tower on your wall will not only provide cover from ranged attacks and protect from environmental effects, but also increase the number of turrets you can place on this part of the wall. How much extensions the walls and bastions of a town have will also be a great indicator for how dangerous the surrounding lands are. We are also working on resolving placement-issues the walls in Kenshi 1 had."
[previewyoutube="2FD5h1cZPLE;full"]
Some, er, mishaps along the way
We also thought you might like to see this happy little accident tentatively titled "I'm just going to spin my arms in the air as I run and if you get hit, it's your own fault!" (thanks Craig):
From Technical Artist Victor Goossens: "What was meant to be happening was literally that the guy was just supposed to be running somewhere, but some animations broke in a bind pose. To explain a bind pose: it’s the thing that an animation is relative to. So if, for instance, an animation was animated with an A-pose as bind-pose, but then the bind-pose in engine is a T-pose (arms are higher), the arms will tilt up when playing that animation in-engine.
I think at that point in time half of our various reference poses (we use a cool blending system under the hood) were borked, so animations ended up being... Magical.
We also had people growing and shrinking vertically as they breathed because of this…"
Unscoring the World of Kenshi
Here's a little something we thought you might appreciate seeing. Originally recorded back in 2017 at GDC (remember events?) and posted yesterday: "Kole Hicks & Chris Hunt share the details behind crafting the music and sound for the gritty, unforgiving, and indifferent world of Kenshi."
[previewyoutube="I2rmPPdrKfQ;full"]
Hello World, from Nat, Sarah and Dan
To attempt to prove that Kenshi isn’t made by an evil artificial intelligence, we’ve recently been giving our team the chance to let their personalities shine with profiles in community updates. This update is no exception, so here’s a few words from Nat, Sarah and Dan:
Natalie Mikkelson: Lead Narrative Designer
Hi, I’m Nat, and I’ve been with Lo-Fi for around 8 years now. Currently, I’m organising and writing base dialogue in and around our first Kenshi 2 faction, thinking up all the different ways we can troll y’all.
Life balance
Outside of work, I try to conserve my creative energy for Kenshi and not exhaust it on personal projects! So, because of that, my hobbies revolve more around physical stuff: weight training, calisthenics and pole. I just got over a 2 year back injury and lockdown has actually been quite useful for me to try and train back to where I was at before.
My hobby started all the way back when I was 20 years old. I jumped off a speedboat to swim in the sea, then found I didn’t have the strength to pull myself back up onto the boat to get out! I had to be hauled back up like some kind of sack of dead fish. It was since that day that I vowed to be strong enough to pull my own bodyweight up onto a speedboat, should I ever jump off one again. Simple goals!
I also study writing and game design in my spare time, that includes playing games as case studies (lately I’ve been *ahem* ‘studying’ Last of Us and Ghost of Tsushima). I tend to write up the stuff I learn and think about on my blog I feel like it cements stuff for me. I often work on so many different aspects of the game, it could be another 2 years before I work on the same type of thing again; I don't want to have forgotten the important lessons I learned the first time around!
I also volunteer at a charity I feel very passionate about, One25, a support service for women on the streets. I make sandwiches and drive the outreach van on night shifts. At Christmas time we give out little goody bags, cakes and make sure women have warm clothes and hats. We meet some lovely women having some hard times, and the charity does a hell of a lot of good, I’m super proud to work for them.
Sarah Keates, Studio Manager
Hi! I’m the Studio Manager for Lo-Fi Games. I came on board (lol) in April 2020 to help out with the ever-growing team we have in place for Kenshi 2. I am currently Working From Boat managing all things office/HR/finance/welfare/H&S/happiness from afar!
My day to day tasks are running all the things business related! Mostly keeping everyone communicating together, managing the finance and legal sides of the business, and making sure everyone is OK, especially while working from home. I have been given the secondary title ‘Chief of Happiness’. The team sometimes struggle with not being able to work together in a creative environment so we put lots of things in place to try and make that better, including gaming nights, monthly catch up meetings and happiness packs sent to everyone including snacks and beers.
My background is in managing game studios, music festivals and event build sites around the world and I am now bringing that experience to Lo-Fi to help create an exciting and engaging studio environment for the team. Now we just need Covid to go away so we can all go in and enjoy it!
Home Setup
As I’m currently "working from boat" I thought I would show you my tiny 12v setup! I have a mobile WiFi router which (depending on where I moor up) is pretty good (around 300mbs). My teeny keyboard is still ergonomic so works surprisingly well! The setup is great for admin and the online stuff for my job but not for mega gaming unfortunately!
Life Balance
My boat is on a canal to the south of Bath and I travel up and down it enjoying the countryside life. It takes a lot of work to keep the engine and boat going but going for walks then coming back to a fire and cosy living space is awesome!
During the winter I’ve been getting together with some fellow boaties and we play a lot of card and board games, like Pandemic, Munchkin, Exploding Kittens, Code Names, Backgammon and Chess. It’s a simple life but a beautiful one!
I also have a studio in Bristol where, alongside sketching and painting, I create interactive sculptures using a variety of materials and Arduinos. I love to see what happens when people interact with my designs. I usually design stuff that emulates natural phenomena such as bioluminescence in jellyfish or firing synapses in a brain. Sometimes these get featured in various festivals or National Trust gardens too!
Dan Page, Head of Marketing
This very update is being put together by a chap referring to himself in the third person by the name of Dan Page. He’s the new Head of Marketing at Lo-Fi Games, responsible for being the mouthpiece of Kenshi across English-speaking social media channels. Dan can also be found lurking around reddit and the Kenshi Community Discord.
In a clumsy switcheroo I’ll be changing perspective and referring to myself in the first person from hereon, which is actually how my mind works, usually.
Life balance
Music
I’m fairly obsessed with music and from time to time I do try to make a bit of it. You’d think lockdown would be the perfect time to do more of that but it’s not always been an easy thing to focus on. The only things I’ve made public recently are me jamming with the Behringer TD3 I bought last year and this little work in progress thing. That is not much output for a year, 2021 will be different (maybe)!
If you’ve any strange desire to find out a bit about what I listen to, have a look at my Bandcamp Collection and Wishlist here if you like.
Games
Lockdown has meant gaming for me: Persona 5, Cloudpunk, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Disco Elysium (so so good) and Ghost of Tsushima have been the games that have had me pretty absorbed.
A 2020 resolution was to finish more games. I can’t really remember how well I did with my backlog but I did fiiiiiiiiinally get round to finishing Spec Ops: The Line, which if you’ve never played is a beautiful modern study on the absolute horrors of war.
I’ve a pretty keen interest in VR, having previously run a coworking space called Bristol VR Lab, and put on a conference by the name of VR World Congress. I don’t really have the room for recommendations here but I do make them on the twitters quite often.
Board game-wise, I’ve been playing a lot of Codenames: Duet this year. Big recommend.
TV
I’ve watched a lot of telly of late but I think everyone has so I won’t go on about that much, other than to insist you watch Giri / Haji, a beautifully shot story of crime, friendship and family drama based across London and Tokyo. Seriously, watch it, though be warned, it’s not being renewed for a second season for some sad reason.
Home setup
In my office/studio I have a gaming PC with a 4K monitor, Fostex PM2 monitor speakers, a MicroKorg, the aforementioned Behringer TD3, an old Carillon MIDI controller I nicked from my friend and a little Akai LPD8. For console gaming and TV I have a PS4 with a 55” 4K HDR Sony Bravia and a Sony STR-DN 1080 7.2 amp and speakers that I recently bought and am loving. I also recently got myself an Oculus Quest 2 to add to my headset collection.
That's a Wrap
That's all for now folks. Stay safe out there, stay in touch, and don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. If you'd like to get these updates straight to your inbox then sign up to our mailing list here.
Kenshi 1.0.51
Kenshi update 1.0.51 is out now.
Please report any bugs or feedback to either the Steam or Lo-Fi forums
Fixes:
Fixed deleting saves from new save location
Fixed bar squads not spawning in Heng due to multiple towns in one zone
Fixed issue with initial player health if race was changed during character creation
Nominate Kenshi for the 'Labor of Love' Award!
After 12 long years of development, Kenshi was released 2 years ago and are now played by more than a million people. We continue to nurture and support the game and the growing Kenshi Community.
We hope you'll nominate us for the Labor of Love Award in this year's The Steam Awards.
COMMUNITY UPDATE: #39
Hi there, here comes another community update on Kenshi. In this update, we'll go over, a sneak peek on new modes to place interior objects and furniture in Kenshi 2, some news from the Studio, and more introduction to Lo-Fi's team members.
Interior Object and Furniture Placement Modes in Kenshi 2
One of the key elements of Kenshi is the Building feature; finding the right spot to build an outpost or buying some buildings as a base and filling the external and interior space with furniture and objects. Building feature continues to be the key element of Kenshi 2, with enhanced modes that enable players to build and place objects with ease.
In this update, we asked Craig (his profile below) about the new modes for interior object placement for Kenshi 2. You'll find below some sneak peek videos and descriptions on what we could expect from the feature.
Kenshi 2 will feature a number of tools to help placing objects indoors substantially easier. Let's start with the improvements made to the Kenshi 1 method of placing furniture, now called Free-Placement Mode.
As the name suggests, this mode allows you to place furniture at any valid location at whatever rotation the player sees fit. We've now added collision correction to this mode to allow players to place objects up against walls and other objects much easier. There's also an option to allow you to snap the rotation of your object against whatever you collide against, making alignment to walls and other pieces of furniture much easier.
[previewyoutube="hukTfrCorxg;full"]
For some objects, however, this mode is not exactly ideal. Say I want a neat line of hydroponic farms inside the building, we could try and line them up neatly by hand, which could take some time, or we could use the new Grid Snapping Mode for perfect alignment.
[previewyoutube="m57-N9ezWTA;full"]
But what if you want to align objects at an angle? What if you want some things aligned differently? Well, that's where our final new mode, Furniture Alignment Mode comes in handy. Now players can select any interior object and generate a grid to align to the building.
[previewyoutube="BgP7Nc09PJI;full"]
With these new tools, it'll be easier than ever to create interior layouts for Kenshi 2.
Below are the interior views of the building provided by Nicolò (his profile below). Furniture is still being modelled (no spoilers!) so you'll only see the shapes here, but the images demonstrate how the objects are placed against the curved walls and straight alignments such as shelves and internal walls.
News from the Studio: Another Lockdown and A Virtual Event
Starting 5 November, England has gone back into another lockdown for at least a month, which means everyone at Lo-Fi is now working from home. The lockdown can be difficult for some members who prefer to work in the Studio, but we're planning lots of online gaming sessions to keep our team from going stir crazy!
We are all embracing remote communication and online meetings during the lockdown, but our virtual experience reached new heights when we attended the China Game Fest in late October. Lo-Fi set up a virtual booth within the virtual conference centre where visitors walked around led by a friendly virtual escort. The event was visited by more than 50,000 visitors over the 3 days (23rd – 25th) with impressive media coverage in China.
Hello Everyone, from Chris, Nicolò and Craig!
In the last update, we introduced several new team members who have joined the Studio for the development of Kenshi 2. We'll continue the introduction of 3 members, old and new, on who they are, how they are set up at home, and what they are up to outside of work.
Chris Hunt – Head Developer and CEO
Home Setup
Life Balance Outside of games I have 2 major interests. The biggest is motorcycle adventures. I have a 1989 Kawasaki KLR which is basically the AK47 of bikes: simple and reliable. I can repair it by the side of the road in the middle of a desert with nothing but a spanner and some cable ties. I once rebuilt the carburetor in the darkness on a beach with a torch in my mouth, without knowing what a carburetor was. I once rode up a ski slope in the Pyrenees and camped at the top, and found the next morning that a gang of wild horses had beaten up and possibly molested my bike which made all the battery water drain out. I rode across half of Spain with no battery, making sure I only parked on the top of slopes so I could bump-start the engine again. I love it, these little things add the adventure and create memories.
I’ve since rebuilt and upgraded the bike from the ground up preparing for a big adventure that I wanted to do in summer 2020 but the virus ruined that, so we’ll see. My dream is to cross Mongolia.
I’m also building a 4x4 camper van to go snowboarding with, but that’s still in early stages. I was originally going to use an old army truck, but that proved way too impractical.
Snowboarding is my other love, but it’s a very season and weather dependent thing so I don’t get to do as much as I’d like, especially as I’m so fussy about snow conditions.
Nicolò Zubbini – Environment Artist
Hi, I'm Nicolò, an environment and hard surface artist. I specialise in architecture, but also work on natural and mechanical environment elements, and vehicle models. I have a passion for sci-fi, and any weathered and grungy setting.
I studied architecture, and have initially worked on architectural visualisation, followed by historical documentaries and hi-poly vfx environment. I started using Blender in 2008, and became passionate about its community and open source software. In 2012 I worked for the Blender Institute on the VFX open short movie, "Tears of Steel". More recently, I've been involved in game development, including Kenshi (for 2-3 months working for Sebastien Froncek, from whom I learnt a lot!)
Here are some of the works I've done for Kenshi (Warning! These are from Kenshi, NOT Kenshi 2! My work on Kenshi 2 appers in section above in ‘Interior Object and Furniture Placement Modes in Kenshi 2'). Please also note these are portfolio renders in Marmoset (a render engine for game assets), not in Ogre (Kenshi's actual game engine), so the models look a bit different from how they look in the game.
Having worked often with small indie teams, I have experience in level building, shading and light, using Unreal, Unity and other engines. I also do some scripting to automate my art workflow, using Python. For Kenshi 2, I'm working on buildings and related props, such as furniture.
Home Setup I've always worked remotely, and my home-studio setup is made up of a 'normal' mid-high tier gaming PC as a workstation, just with a colour-accurate monitor and a keyboard with custom layout and macro-pad. Most game development tools are Windows-centric, so my workstation runs Windows, but I also keep a reliable Linux PC on the 2nd monitor with KVM switch, acting as spare/backup and files/media server.
Life Balance In my free time … well, before 2020, I used to socialise more, like going to my favourite pub with friends and ride or work on my bicycle, but now I have more time to spend on my nerdier side: I guess I'll finish building my 3rd keyboard, start another career in Kerbal and find 10k pages of sci-fi saga to read.
Craig Tinney – Programming
Hello readers! I'm Craig, the newest addition to the Lo-Fi Games programming team. I've been helping to port Kenshi to Unreal Engine 4 for Kenshi 2 since I started back in April of this year. Since I joined Lo-Fi during the UK lockdown period, I've yet to actually work in the office with the rest of the team, and I've been communicating with everyone online. Safe to say at this point, I'm itching to meet everyone face to face! So far I've been involved with the new building placement tools mentioned in this post as well as general porting to unreal and a lot of things we're not quite ready to talk about yet (but they're really cool, honest!).
Life Balance Outside of work, I make my own games on a much smaller scale than Kenshi. Usually, I make things in Pico 8, which is just about the cutest game engine in the world and everyone should know about. If you fancy checking out my games, they're all available for free at https://ctinney94.itch.io/
Lately I've been trying to find some non-screen focused hobbies due to spending so much more time indoors this year. As a result, I've gotten into building terrain for tabletop games with my housemate. Check out these rocks we made!
I've also started to make tapes of some of my favourite albums since acquiring my Dad's old hifi stack.
Please do not judge me for this, 2020 has all affected us all differently.
That will be the end of this community update. We love to hear your thoughts, especially on new interior furniture and object placement modes in Kenshi 2. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for news if you haven’t already, and if you'd rather receive this blogpost in a non-Steam way, they are available on our website and via our mailing list.
Stay safe and keep well!
Kenshi 1.0.51 (Experimental Branch)
Out now on the experimental branch only. To opt in to the experimental version, right-click on Kenshi in your Steam games list -> properties -> betas tab -> then choose “experimental”. If opting in, please be aware of bugs and instability.
Please report any bugs or feedback to either the Steam or Lo-Fi forums
Fixed deleting saves from new save location
Fixed bar squads not spawning in Heng due to multiple towns in one zone
Fixed issue with initial player health if race was changed during character creation
August Community Update
Hi there, here comes another community update on Kenshi. In this update, we’ll go over the decisions and changes that were made on the Discord server, Kenshi's milestone, and introduction to Lo-Fi’s team members, followed by some visual sneak peeks on what to expect for Kenshi 2.
The Future of Discord Server
As some of you may have known, Caliburn (Sam) who has been keeping the community up to date and was leading Lo-Fi's marketing has moved on which resulted in some internal reshuffles that we hope have gone unnoticed.
The most significant decision that was made in the past weeks was the ownership of Kenshi's Community Discord server that has now gone back to the community led by Seth Knight who was voted to the admin role by the group of moderators. For those who have not been aware, there has been an ongoing discussion on Community Server's ownership and its purpose, but they are now set at rest, and the server is back in good hands.
Kenshi's Community Discord server has always been a place to share ideas, creation, and experiences of all things Kenshi by the community, however, it was not designed as a means to communicate with the developer. Now with the growing Lo-Fi team who are involved in different aspects of the game development, we have decided to set up a new official Discord server for the team to interact and receive feedback from the community. We will work closely with Seth and other moderators to ensure that the community's requests are reflected, and there will be more opportunity for us to work together on things such as online events. We will announce the launch of the official Discord server once it is ready.
Major Milestone
After 12+ years of development and less than 2 years of the official release, Kenshi has hit a milestone of 1 million global sales. We wouldn't have made it this far without the support of the community who's been there from the very early stage and have continued to come back to Kenshi throughout the years. Proceeds gained from Kenshi are now invested in developing Kenshi 2, with the expanded team of 15 and a new office in Bristol.
Keeping everyone safe is our priority with COVID, so we are taking time setting up the office with only those who are comfortable to come in for work. Considering where things are heading in the UK, it will be a while when we can fully kit the office and show some pictures in the blog, but we are fully intending to do so in the future!
Hello Everyone!
In the last update, we've introduced several new team members who have joined the studio for the development of Kenshi 2. We'll continue the introduction of 3 members this month on who they are and what they are up to outside of work.
Christopher Schlesag – Concept Designer & Illustrator
I'm Christopher, a concept designer and illustrator from Germany. I have been working on Kenshi 2 for the last 5 months and recently moved to Bristol to work at the Lo-Fi Games office. I'm involved in the creation of various visual elements of the project and strive to make the world of Kenshi more immersive with every design I create. The main focus of the last few months has been the design of various props; refining and improving the visual language set forth by Kenshi 1.
(Some of the light-fixtures I designed further below as a taste of what's to come)
Life Balance: Outside of work I spend a lot of time on things that keep one inspired, like traveling, reading, movies, or playing games (thou there isn't any traveling going on right now). But the majority of my free time is spent on improving my skills as an artist, and working on personal paintings.
(Image of my personal painting)
Above is a digital painting I did some time ago, I still have a long way to go before I can be content with this and other paintings, but if you're interested you can see more of them on my Instagram or Twitter. I only recently set up social media profiles, but I will post more of my creations in the future.
Paul Crilley – Writer
I’m Paul Crilley, and I’m a Scotsman who has been adrift in South Africa for twenty-something years (and I’m still not used to the heat or humidity). I recently joined the team to work as a writer on Kenshi 2 and am having an absolute blast.
Over the years I’ve worked in television, novels, computer games, and comics. My most recent series, Poison City, and the sequel Clockwork City, about a supernatural police force based in Durban, South Africa, has been optioned for television by Jerry Bruckheimer Productions and CBS. Whether it goes into production or not is another matter entirely.
I was one of the contract writers on Star Wars: The Old Republic back in the day. On the comics front, my most recent work was Star Wars Adventures, for IDW. I also planned out a comic book mini-series for IDW called, X-Files: Conspiracy. The mini-series brought together Mulder & Scully, The Crow, Ghostbusters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Transformers. I wrote 3 of the 6 issues of that series. I also adapted the characters I created for the Wizards of the Coast D&D setting Eberron (the fantasy detectives Abraxis Wren and Torin) for comics, also for IDW.
Home setup: My home setup is a mishmash of books, a cluttered desk, a whiteboard, and walls entirely covered in movie posters and old calendar pictures from over the years. (Lord of the Rings, Discworld, GoT, etc). I cannot stand bare walls and need to be surrounded by the clutter I have collected. I have a desktop PC for gaming, and the novel and scriptwriting work gets done of the MacBook.
Life Balance: It’s difficult finding a balance when you work from home. Nothing has changed during lockdown on that front, as I’ve worked from home my whole professional career. What *is* difficult is working from home while having a five-month baby demanding so much attention. I find that I get more work done at night. (I’ve always been a night owl.) So I do a few hours during the day in-between feedings and putting the little terror to sleep, but from 6pm onwards, when he’s down for the night, that’s when my writing day really starts. I usually go on till about 1 or 2 in the morning, with probably one brief feeding for the baby. I need to get back into gym again, as they only recently opened up again, but finding the time to do that is going to be a challenge.
Meg (Gumstar) – PR & Community Management
I'm Meg or Gumstar, and I've been working behind the scene for Kenshi on Japan for a few years. With the departure of Caliburn, I've stepped in to help out the team on PR & Community Management.
Life Balance: I live in London near several parks, and I walk or run every morning to breathe fresh air and declutter my mind. I've always been a city-dweller, but somehow this lockdown has made me crave for nature like never before. I've been observing a family of swans since early spring when the parent swans started to incubate. With 'The Ugly Duckling' being one of my favourite childhood tales, it’s been fascinating to see the development of cygnets, when they looked nothing like swans in spring to now when they are perfectly shaped grey swans. They'll soon shed their feathers and will become indistinguishable from their parents. As elegant as they are, I can't help but notice how they look like the distant cousins of certain Kenshi creatures when they thrust their heads into the water :)
Details, Details, Details
Kenshi 2 goes back 1,000 years from Kenshi 1, and it was undoubtedly a different world from what we are familiar with in Kenshi 1. Some inhabitants would have changed over the years accompanied by transformation in social and cultural dynamics, something that is inevitable given the timespan.
In the past updates, we've shown some concept art from Calum Alexander Watt representing some initial thoughts on the world of Kenshi 2. Now that we are further along in the world-building stage, Christopher, our Concept Artist and Illustrator has been busy working out the details on props that are used by Kenshi 2's inhabitants in their daily life, as in the external light fixtures below.
Kenshi 2 is developed with Unreal Engine, which allows further details in visual appearances and animation that would not have been possible in the technical setup used by Kenshi 1. We are happy to reveal an example of a creature that lived over 1,000 years with their uncanny survival instincts.
[previewyoutube="btGsK1ogv6I;full"]
We've been late with this month's update, but we love to hear your thoughts, especially on our visual reveals on Kenshi 2. As ever, you can join us on Twitter and Facebook, and if you'd rather receive this blogpost in a non-Steam way, they are available on our website and via our mailing list.
July Community Update
Hi all. As with previous posts, I’ll start by recapping a few things going on with the continued support for the first Kenshi. For this blog’s special section, we’re catching up with some of the team at Lo-fi to find out what’s keeping them sane in isolation before finally getting to development news on Kenshi 2.
Experiment recursion.
In the past month we’ve once again been making use of the experimental branch, most notably around an issue users reported with saved games following the latest windows update. Many players had stated they were unable to save, load, or experienced crashing when they tried. In Kenshi’s latest v1.0.50 update saves default to the Windows user directory, fixing any potential issues linked to system permissions. Please keep in mind that if you wish to edit a saved game the new location to check is [noparse]C:\Users\\AppData\Local\kenshi\save. [/noparse]
Defined interpretation.
Hinted above, after consulting with the forum mods we’ve made some overdue changes to bug reporting flow – namely better collating more widely popular bugs, cleaning up a number of older topics, and providing a more visible response to new ones. This will likely mean pushing for a stricter adherence to the bug reporting format as I work to ensure they can be reproduced and turn them into meaningful notes to the programming team to progress. The end goal here is to keep fixing issues for in Kenshi 1 in a more transparent way, giving users more feedback on if it’s feasibly possible to fix and where we’re at with their reports. For a more worded explanation of the changes check out the pinned topic here.
Hey, Fans!
In past blog posts we’ve mentioned hiring a number of new team members to expand the studio for Kenshi 2. Over the next few updates, since we’re focussed on an important Kenshi 2 subproject (details further down) I’m taking the opportunity to catch up with different team members and share a little bit of who they are, what they’re up to outside of the studio, and how they’re doing working from home.
Guy ‘Warls’ Warley – Concept Artist
I’m Guy, a concept designer with a background in graphic design, illustration and advertising. I joined the team in November 2019 and have been working on concepts for the architecture, furniture, and characters that inhabit the world of Kenshi 2.
Home setup:
For my home setup I recently purchased a Wacom Cintiq Pro 24, replacing my Wacom Intous 3. After spending 12 years with the Intuos 3 (which is still going strong) it’s a big upgrade. I initially thought it was going to take a lot of time to get used to the switch but I’m already really enjoying it and using it every day. The Cintiq is connected to my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) which works pretty well running things like Photoshop.
Thoughts on working on Kenshi from home:
I am quite used to working at home and have got into a good routine over the years. I do miss working in the office though, it’s much easier to talk through different areas of the project with everyone in the same room, much less typing!
Life balance:
I have been spending the lockdown back in my hometown near East Yorkshire by the coast. Running and walking are the main things keeping me going. I’m also doing some yoga in the mornings, I’m rubbish at it but enjoying it anyway.
In my free time I’ve been working on several of my own illustrations, such as the album covers for three different electronic artists that I finished recently.
I’m Victor, or Mr4Goosey. I’ve been doing indie-dev on my own projects for over half a decade, and I’ve spent part of that doing it for a living. I got fed up of running my own business and decided to look for a full-time job in the industry, leading me to Lo-Fi. I wanted to combine my love for making pretty things with interests in logic and programming, which is why I’m now a technical artist.
Home setup:
I’m running a custom PC with a Ryzen 7 2700X and a GTX1080. For peripherals, I’ve got a Decus mouse and a Razer Blackwidow (Green switches) both with lovely wrist-rests. Finally, for screens I’m running a 34” LG Ultra-wide which I’m looking to replace with something less bulky and a 27” AOC monitor on the side.
Thoughts on working on Kenshi from home:
Thanks to past projects I’m used to working from home, so it’s really not that special to me, ironically being in an office will take more getting used to. It’s nice to be in my own place and have access to my stuff, but when everything happens in the same room it’s easy to lose sight of the boundaries between work and life. It can also be hard to get to know the team properly when we’ve not properly met. All in all, I’m looking forward to being in-office; working from home feels less efficient and enjoyable than being together with people, plus it gets lonely and boring.
Life balance:
I’ve started another gamedev project in my spare time, though I’ve been trying to get away from my computer too. Out of my new interests the main one that helps is blacksmithing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a forge yet – that’ll probably have to wait until I’ve moved to the UK, but as I’m mostly focussed on armouring, I can do quite a lot anyway. It’s a steep learning curve, but it’s really cool to produce something like a piece of armour out of nothing.
I’m also just getting into electronics and robotics. It’s something I’ve been putting off for as long as I’ve been doing gamedev, but I’m hoping to get started on it properly now. First steps are reading up on basic electronics (I wouldn’t be able to give you a definition of a “servo”), because that’s the main part I’m lacking. I’m hoping I can get the hang of that then get properly stuck in!
Lastly, I’ve been doing more gamedev. I’ve recently started playing around with Phyronnaz’s Voxel Plugin for UE4, and I’m currently trying to make a small, relaxing game in which you build a low-poly eco dome with cute animals in it. Not sure exactly where it’ll be going, but I’m hoping to release it on Steam for a few bucks at some point in a similar vein to Islanders.
‘Boodals – Programmer
I’m Boodals, the programmer who was hired back in November. Up until now I've been working on remaking the GUIs from Kenshi 1 in Unreal Engine, but now that we've hired Craig, I can shift my efforts onto less urgent tasks, such as code cleanliness and stability. I won’t go into too much detail, but I'd call it more of a support role, making the other programming jobs easier and faster, and discouraging code which could be unstable.
Home setup:
Since we started working from home, I've been using my own PC for most tasks. We do all have laptops to work on, but I don’t have the desk space to fit mine. Using my PC also allows me to test the GUIs I previously spoke about on a 4k screen to make sure everything functions correctly at higher resolutions.
Thoughts on working on Kenshi from home:
Working from home is pretty great, mainly due to lie-ins and easy access to snacks (ha-ha), but it does come with its downsides. Not being able to quickly speak to other developers or show each other what we're working on makes it harder to get stuff done. We're exploring several apps and programs to minimize this, but you can't beat being in the same room.
Life balance:
Outside of work, the lockdown really hasn't affected me too much, as I'm one of the lucky ones who isn't bothered by being locked in. I moved house just before the lockdown started, so I've been hanging out with my new housemates and their cat, whom I pay tribute to in the form of pets every time I pass through Her domain (stairs, hallway, kitchen…)
Declarative prologue.
The team have been hugely busy this month working on a ‘vertical slice’ of Kenshi 2, which I have the pleasure of sharing snippets of today.
For those unaware of the terminology, a vertical slice is a portion of near-finished quality game which then allows a studio to visualise some of what they’re up to. It’s traditionally distinct from a prototype in that the quality is much higher leaving less room for flexibility but for us we’re blurring that line a bit and using it primarily as a tangible design tool. Internally nicknamed ‘Concrete Neon’, it’s about having a space to test and iterate on some of Kenshi 2’s ideas by taking them away from a design document and experiencing how they might actually be played.
Sharing some thoughts on our first major milestone, Chris compares Concrete Neon to founding Kenshi’s Holy Nation and his hands on approach to game design: “Anyone who played the [Kenshi 1 early access] map in it's earliest incarnation will remember that only a small area around the holy nation was active, the rest was greyed-out and you couldn't go there, because it wasn't finished. This gives us a test bed to get everything working early on so we can play the game and experiment. I'm not a very formal designer, my technique is iterative because my ‘special skill’ is playing a game for a while and then going "hunger needs to be 0.8x slower and strength needs to raise 1.12x faster instead of 1.08x". It's also better that way because I can approach the design as a player rather than as a game designer. I don't like game designers.”
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This month’s blog post was intended for last so ran a little late, but we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments – with so many players following different game development projects it’s a great place to reflect. As ever you can join us on Twitter and Facebook where we still have an upcoming creator competition to announce once we’ve worked out the prizes... If you’d like a none-Steam way to keep up with the studio, blogs are available on our website and via our mailing list.
Cheers,
Kenshi v1.0.50
Update 1.0.50 is out now! This moves a number of fixes including the new option to change saved game location to the main branch. We'll be continuing to monitor the quality over the next few weeks so please include feedback below.
Features:
Due to recent windows updates causing even more save issues when the game is installed in the C:/Program Files/ folder, Saves can now optionally be stored in the user directory instead of the install path. It can be set in the options. (Default save location is now: C:\Users\\AppData\Local\kenshi\save)
Added Stun Recovery Rate and Robot First Aid Speed constants to FCS
A crash fix for rare situations resulting from missing meshes
Kenshi 1.0.50 (Experimental Branch)
Out now on the experimental branch only. To opt in to the experimental version, right-click on Kenshi in your Steam games list -> properties -> betas tab -> then choose “experimental”. If opting in, please be aware of bugs and instability.
Please report any bugs or feedback to either the Steam or Lo-Fi forums
Bug fixes:
Fix for Stun damage recovery rate being 10x too slow
A crash fix for rare situations resulting from missing meshes
