Hey folks!
We have some exciting news on the development front. As some of you already know we’ve been very busy preparing for full launch, with an array of new features, content and changes scheduled. There’s a lot to do, but it’s totally worth it! The changes we’ve made add so much more to the game, and we can’t wait to share them with you.
But before we talk about updates, we’d like to give you a heads up on an upcoming price change:
NEW PRICE COMING SOON
As we’re nearing our full release we will be increasing the price of MarZ Rising from 14.99 € / 14.99 $ to 19.99 € / 21.99 $. This reflects the extra time and content we have put into the game since the beginning of Early Access. We wanted to welcome new players with a 10% launch discount, but because of Steam’s rules about pricing we need to change the price ahead of launch day to do this. Therefore, we will submit the new prizes to Steam on Sunday the 3rd of March, while we’re still in Early Access. So if you still want to get the game at the lower Early Access price, now would be a good time to do so 🙂
Now for the latest game news:
MARSFORM
Today we wanted to give you a taste of the Marsform map editor, which will be integrated into MarZ Rising upon full release.With this new tool you’ll be able to create your own individual (and suitably hellish) Mars maps.
The development of Marsform started in early 2018 and while it was just a proof of concept at the beginning, it became a tool to create custom maps for MarZ Rising. So the editor grew, and we felt that we should implement it into the game with Steam workshop integration. Our main goal for Marsform was to make it as intuitive and easy as possible, so that users can plunge directly into the map making process. To create a playable map there are a few steps to follow, which are quite simple.
Let’s have a closer look at the scope of Marsform.
PROCEDURAL GENERATION
Starting a new map, Marsform allows you to create a base terrain procedural. That way you’ll have a strong starting point. Procedural generation allows you to generate realistic or stylized looking terrains. If you prefer to start your map from zero, you can just start sculpting.
SCULPTING TOOLS
We have integrated a variety of terrain sculpting tools into the editor which will help you modify the terrain as you like. Add valleys, hills, mountains, and canyons. Just let your creativity flow!
MATERIALS AND LIGHT
You can choose between 6 different material presets and 3 different light settings to create the perfect mood for your map.
SPAWNERS
Every map needs at least one spawn-point in order to make it playable. Additionally, every spawn-point can have multiple way-points to define the exact path for the enemies. There’s also a path width setting for every way-point, which allows you to create wide or narrow enemy route depending on your terrain.
FOG OF WAR
You can hide spawners and also parts of pathes by painting fog of war. It works pretty much as the sculpt tools, you can set the density and color and paint the fog directly on to your terrain.
PUBLISH & PLAY
Once happy with your map you can publish it to Steam workshop and/or play it in skirmish mode. \o/
We’re sure Marsform will add plenty of additional replayability to the game. Also the creation process of a map is so much fun, we reckon that alone can keep you busy for hours! We’re also hoping to see hundreds of new challenging maps in Steam Workshop, and play some of your creations ourselves.
Stay tuned, any support is very much appreciated!
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels:
Alright, back to work.
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
Development News 15022019
Hello dear community, we have news from the development front to share with you. Today we’d like to introduce you to a whole new game mode coming with the full release: OUTBREAK
New game mode: Outbreak
The outbreak mode is a completely new game mode within skirmish mode. In this mode, the zombies do not approach in waves, but gather to an immense horde to storm the base all at once!
To prepare for this dangerous crowd the mission starts with an extended planning phase that will allow you to build your base, gather resources, explore towers, and so forth. When the time is up, the second defense phase starts. Then it shows if the planning turns out to be good and the base resists the hordes of wild beasts. This new challenging mode will be especially fun for those who prefer to have a more relaxing build phase at the beginning before all hell let loose.
Barricades
Since the base really has to endure a lot in outbreak mode, you can build barricades to improve the defense. They can be used to fortify your towers and buildings or just to slow down enemies. Enemies will of course try to destroy them should they get in their way.
And since we are already there, Skirmish mode will get a nice overwork. After reworking our balancing and UI/UX, setting up procedurally generated waves will be even more fun.
Upcoming price increase
As we’re nearing our full release we will be increasing the price of our game to 19.99 € / 21.99 $ to reflect the extra time and effort we have put into the game since the beginning of Early access. We wanted to welcome new players with a 10% launch discount, and because of Steam’s rules about pricing we need to change the price ahead of launch day to do this. Therefore, the price increase will take place on the 4th of March while we’re still in Early Access. So if you want to get a great deal you now have the chance to do so and buy the game before the 4th of March!
There’s currently a lot going on regarding development and we can’t wait to share all the new stuff with you. We’re also very thankful for our community which contributed some awesome ideas to the game. Stay tuned for more exciting news from the development front and as always share the news, tell your friends – any support is very much appreciated! If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
Development News 01022019
Hello dear community! As promised we’re now starting the news series from the development front. As we’re heading towards the full release we plan to add plenty of new exciting features you can already look forward to. We are currently working full throttle rebalancing things due to new features. This post is all about one of the big upcoming new features: tower specializations. With these new bonus upgrades, the towers will be given a S.U.P.E.R.B.O.O.S.T. \o/
Tower Specializations
Thanks to new tower specializations each tower will get another 2 expansion stages, which can be unlocked after tier-3. This way all towers receive a unique bonus feature and the possibility of being equipped with an automatic repair drone. But this comes of course with a cost. The specialization upgrades can only be unlocked by building an additional uplink building – a new building, which of course cost resources, uses one energy hub slot and requires a crew member to work.
Tower specializations are definitely adding a new layer of depth and will significantly change things from a gameplay perspective, especially in the later stages of missions. Let’s have a closer look at each of them:
Minigun
The special upgrade of the machine gun tower adds a very strong minigun with a super high fire rate to it. It’s great fun blasting all those zombies away!
Mortar
The rocket tower gets a nice long-range mortar installed. While being quite slow, it is very effective against larger groups further away.
Prism
The prism upgrade causes the laser tower’s beam to split into multiple smaller beams which allows it to target multiple zombies at once.
Teleport
With this nice new feature a tesla tower can teleport zombies a few meters back from their current position. This buys more time and makes the tesla tower even more effective, especially in combination with other towers.
Mines
The special upgrade for the drones tower adds mines around the tower. These mines are quite harmful and are automatically re-spawned after detonation. Nice!
Repair-Drone
In addition to the tower specializations we’re also implementing repair-drones. The repair-drone can be built for each tower and automatically repairs a damaged tower, even while being attacked and without exposing its function.
Uplink
And last but not least the new uplink building which needs to be built in order to unlock all those new special upgrades, including the repair-drone.
Localisation
Additionally we’re happy to announce that we’ve localized all text and the game will support 8 different languages at full release, which are English, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish and Simplified Chinese.
So heartfelt thanks to our localization partners Level Up Translation & Riotloc Studio who both did an awesome job and helped to provide an authentic version for all languages.
That’s all for today. We hope you like what you have seen! Stay tuned for more exciting news from the development front and as always share the news, tell your friends – any support is very much appreciated!
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
New update 18012019
Hope you guys have had a great start to 2019!
We’re starting this new year with an update which adds new stuff and optimizations based on feedback we’ve had recently from you, our community. This update especially improves our crew behaviour, as well as the amount of clicking needed in the game, some optimizations and small fixes here and there. Let’s have a closer look:
Crew optimizations
We’ve worked on some crew optimizations which includes:
Group selection and movement It is now possible to move a selected group.
Group selection shortcuts It is now possible to assign a selected group to a shortcut. By default this is set to LEFTSHIFT and numbers 5 to 9. You can of course configure this in the options by yourself.
Group selection healing When you have a group selected and you click on the lander, the crew member with the lowest health will be sent to the lander for healing first.
Crew risk The possibility of a crew being attacked by an enemy is higher.
Lander improvements Crew members won’t jump directly into the lander when they are sent next to it.
Tower enemy prioritisation
We’ve reworked the tower enemy prioritization and in this context we’ve also fixed some targeting bugs. Towers are constantly checking for enemy prioritization based on attacking/not attacking, strong/weak and max health/low health – this makes them more effective.
Rocket tower - "feel"
We’ve worked on the balancing and the overall “feel” when a rocket tower shoots. The rocket tower feels much more powerful now.
Shortcuts
In order to reduce the click amount in the game we’ve added additional shortcuts you can set to speed up your base building. It is now possible to select buildings directly by pressing a shortcut. All shortcuts for each building can be set in the options menu. We’ve also added direct ring menu shortcuts which can be pressed as soon as your mouse is over a building. If you wanted to upgrade a building before, you had to click on the building first and then select the upgrade button in the ring menu. Now it’s possible to simply hover over a building, press the direct upgrade command and the building gets upgraded. Please be aware that for compatibility reasons, those shortcuts needs to be set by yourself in the options menu as they are set to none by default.
What's next
So what’s next you might ask? As we’re working full steam on our full release, we plan to reduce the regular update amount to fully concentrate on the development of the new features. So pretty much like the calm before the storm 😉 We will of course keep you all updated on what we’re working on, and what you can expect for the full release. Let us know in the forum if you have any great suggestions and feedback for the game.
As always share the news, tell your friends – any support is very much appreciated!
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
Changelog
New: Crew group movement
New: Crew group assign to shortcuts
New: Select building shortcuts
New: Direct ring menu shortcuts
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Optimized: Better crew move next to lander precision
Optimized: Group selection click on lander, send crew with lowest health first
Optimized: Better tower targeting
Optimized: Better rocket tower feel
Optimized Demo: Endscreen demo video – audio fade in
-------------------------------
Bugfix: (hopefully fixed) Fixed a bug where sometimes the level got stucked at the end
Bugfix: Tower targeting bugs
Bugfix: Some smaller bugfixes
Demo now available
The European Santa came yesterday and brought a free demo for all of you. We’re happy to announce a new update which introduces a new German voice for captain Tobin, and a free demo available for download right now!
New German voice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwU-M-f7pE
Due to a lot of the feedback we got regarding the German voice of captain Tobin, we have replaced it with a new one. May we present to you Matthias Weidenhöfer! He’s quite a well-known German TV actor and played in a German TV Show called Tatort.
Check out this awesome video of him recording some samples!
Demo now available
It’s happening! We have released a free demo so everyone can now enjoy the first 3 missions of our campaign. The demo doesn’t have any time restrictions and should give you a nice glimpse of what the game has to offer. But remember, only the full game includes all the awesomeness!
Official Discord server
We have finally created an official MarZ Rising Discord server. A bit late to the party, but better late then never, right? 🙂
Discord allows us to build up a community and is also a great hub for everything related to the game. Come by and say hi, we'd love to see you there!
https://discord.gg/p5Bb5AK
What's next?
We’re working full steam on the full release, working on the map editor, implementing Steam Workshop, balancing the outbreak mode for skirmish, preparing the localization files, adding more features aaand polishing.
As always share the news, tell your friends – any support is very much appreciated! 🙂
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
CHANGELOG
New: German voice for cpt. Tobin
New: Demo version
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Bugfix: Some smaller bugfixes
Skirmish Update
Another big, fresh and free update for MarZ Rising is finally here. The long awaited skirmish mode brings a whole lot of re-playability, fun experiences and new challenges to MarZ Rising. To celebrate this new update, we’ve cooked up a nice trailer! Crank up the volume to 11 and check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36BQLjmVmmM
SKIRMISH MODE
In Skirmish mode, you can experience all campaign maps with new challenges. Customize the game and experiment with what you can stand. Each type of enemy can be set by a weight, which defines the spawn probability.
So if you want to play a game only against walkers, simply set the weight of the walker to 100 and every other enemy type to 0. If you feel lucky, you can generate the weights randomly according to three difficulties. The system behind the skirmish mode always makes sure that the spawn count of enemies is fair. That means that the spawn count of boss enemies won’t ever be as high as for weaker enemy types. Additionally you can set the Zombie masses, from tiny to huge, and the interval timings between waves. Long intervals means the game play session becomes longer and also a bit less frantic.
All the enemy wave settings are being generated by a random seed which can be set as well. Furthermore you can also set your start resources, difficulty level and – insert drum roll – game modes. We plan to add one additional game mode to skirmish upon our full release called outbreak. This game mode will spawn, unlike the wave mode, all enemies at once. You will have enough time to build up your defense base and you’ll have the possibility to build barricades as well. Outbreak will be a fast and fun game mode for sure!
TWITCH MODE
Along with the skirmish mode, we have implemented something very entertaining for Twitch streamers.
The Twitch mode is an additional mode where viewers have the possibility to vote for different actions which can sabotage or support a streamer’s current game. Twitch mode works in the campaign as well as in the skirmish mode.
Vote to build a wave From time to time, viewers can vote for enemies to build up an extra challenging wave. The enemies will be tagged with the viewers names according to who voted for them.
Call for support Streamers can call the community for help every now and then. Calling for help brings up an additional poll where viewers are able to vote for additional building materials, 3 extra crew members, one free nuke or just nothing… You know where this is going, right? 😉
Additional actions Every time-based action in Twitch mode can be accelerated by special commands. For example, a research in the tech center can be accelerated by typing #research, or reinforcement can be accelerated by typing #reinforce in the chat.
BLOOD PARTICLE FX
We have improved some blood particle effects as well as the machinegun shoot particle effects. Firing on zombies feels so much more satisfying now!
PRICE INCREASE
This is something no one really likes to hear, right? Fear not, the current price won’t change in Early Access. But, based on all the new features we’ve added since September 2017 and the additional features which will come (map editor), we will raise the price upon full release to 24.99€. This is a heads up for all of you who are considering buying MarZ Rising but haven’t taken the plunge just yet. We will make an additional announcement regarding the price increase right before full release.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Our next steps will be to fully concentrate on our full release. This means, we will work on further polishing, bug fixing and additional features. The full release version will contain a very nice map editor where you can create your own maps. The map editor will allow you to sculpt your terrain, place enemy spawn points and more. All created maps can be played in the skirmish mode and shared via Steam workshop. Of course we’ll make sure that the editor will be nicely integrated into the game.
We also like to mention that we have fixed some additional bugs thanks to your (community) bug reports! Keep them coming! And please let us know your thoughts on the new skirmish mode too. Any feedback is very welcome and can be discussed with us in the Steam forums.
As always share the news, tell your friends – any support is very much appreciated! 🙂
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
CHANGELOG
NEW: Skirmish mode
NEW: Twitch mode
NEW: Blood particle effects
-------------------------------
Bugfix: Smaller bugfixes
Skirmish Update - Available on November 7
We have great news for you: New & free SKIRMISH UPDATE will be available on the 7th of November!
That means from next week you can freely customize the game and experiment with what you can stand. Choose from one of the campaign maps, set your preferred enemy types, adjust the enemy waves, define your start resources and off you go. The long awaited skirmish mode will let you play with all kinds of different settings, play against only one type of enemy, or against an enormous amount of enemy hordes. Based on your settings, a game is being generated procedurally, so every play session will be different.
On top of that the update introduces a second, new Twitch mode. Viewers can participate in the game and vote to either sabotage the Twitcher by building a horrible enemy wave or support them by voting for help.
We are currently polishing the last details and can’t wait to release this new update. We are super excited to hear if you like the modes as much as we do!
Stay tuned and be ready!
Over and out
Marc + Miriam
October Update
A new update from Mars is here! This update brings you shiny (Steam) achievements, a new profile page and more. It also comes up with some internal changes which makes everything ready for our next major update – skirmish mode!
Profile page
The new profile page can be viewed in the mission menu and gives you a great overview about your current progress. It shows up your mission stats, collected perks and earned achievements.
Achievements
The hunt for achievements has begun! We’ve implemented a broad range of achievements. Some are quite easy to get while others are not. Let’s see if you’ll manage to get all of them.
Screenshot mode
It is now possible to completely hide the in game UI by pressing the F2 key. This allows you to create some nice looking screenshots! And of course: We’d love to see them in the shared screenshot section at our Steam Community Hub! <3
New voice over
We’ve replaced our english Captain Tobin voice with a new one! Our new voice actor Stephen Shivers, did a really great job. The fact that he’s a native english speaker really pushes the overall quality of the game. For all our german users out there, don’t worry, there’s also a new german voice over in the making and coming with the next update.
21:9 Support
Upon requests we’ve added 21:9 resolution support. This one is kind of difficult for us to test, so should there be any issues please let us know.
Engine upgrade
We’ve finally managed to upgrade our project to a new engine version. this should fix some minor graphical bugs and improves overall stability.
Besides of all those new stuff and changes we’ve made some smaller bug fixes as well and did some polishing work here and there. We’re also preparing and working full steam on the skirmish mode which will be our next big update! This will be really exciting for us and of course for you as well!
As always share the news, tell your friends. Any support is very appreciated! 🙂
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
CHANGELOG
New: Achievements
New: Profile page
New: 21:9 Support
New: English voice for cpt. Tobin
New: Setcard FX
New: Smooth Camera
New: Screenshot mode
——————————
Changed: Unity Engine version
——————————
Bugfix: Extractor truck behaviour
Bugfix: Voice outro stop bug
Bugfix: In some situation, energy hubs did not free up slot when selling buildings.
Several smaller bugfixes and code optimizations
The Rising - Update
Our new and long awaited update – THE RISING – is finally here! We’ve reached a big milestone in the production of MarZ Rising. Since September 2017 we’ve added plenty of new features, worked on the story campaign, added new levels, fixed a whole lot of bugs, did plenty of optimizations, changed balancing…. It’s just crazy to see how the game progressed during this time! And you have contributed a big part to this progress. So, THANK YOU! Now finally, we’re proud to say that the story campaign including 20 missions is finished. Woah!
NEW Mission 19 - Terminal Velocity
You’re one step closer to the truth! Don’t let you fool you by the fact that there’s only one path. You definitely have to prove your skills!
NEW Mission 20 - The Rising
The final level of the campaign! It definitely holds some surprises for you. The last mission of the campaign uncovers the mystery behind the zombie epidemic. We don’t want to spoil too much, but one’s for sure, you’ll be amazed! Technically and artistically it was a challenge, but we’ve managed it.
NEW Outro Cutscene
Of course there’s no campaign without a nice outro cutscene right? We’ve got you covered! Maybe you’ve already discovered a hint in the announcement gif. We’d love to show you everything but that would just spoil too much. See it for yourself.
NEW Difficulty Levels
Good news everyone! MarZ Rising now includes three different difficulty levels. The difficulty level can be selected before starting a new mission. The current difficulty level is now the “challenging” level. So there’s one easier and one harder level – for anyone who really seeks the challenge!
NEW Configurable Shortcuts
We’ve recently received a lot of requests for adding the possibility of changing shortcuts. Well, we’ve added that as well to the update. Go to the options menu and click on configure shortcuts.
NEW Monolith Scanning
The monolith also got some love and received a new scanning device. Additionally it is now possible to select your crew during a scanning process. The research time has been divided into three parts, so when moving a crew away from the monolith the time will be set back to it’s last reached time checkpoint.
NEW Perk - Duck And Cover
A new perk unlocks after completing mission 19. This is more of a “negative” perk. It adds a new challenge to the game by spawning a meteorite shower randomly. The meteorite shower damages everything that’s in the way… even enemies. 😉
NEW Perk - Hell Yeah!
We wanted to make something very special for the last perk which unlocks after you have completed the campaign. Kind of a reward for everyone who made it. We had this idea before but it never made it beyond the conceptual stage. Until now! So what this perk does is, it allows you to take place inside of a machinegun tower and control it in first person view! Quite awesome huh? Hell yeah!
What's Next?
So you might ask what’s next? MarZ Rising still stays in Early Access because we’re not done yet! We’re already working on two exciting new features effecting a lot of replayability. First we’ll add a skirmish mode to the game allowing you to play every map (except mission 20) with different game settings and randomly generated enemy waves. We’ll make sure that you can edit most of those settings. You want to play only against crawlers, or only against crashers, try it out! Additionally we plan to implement a level editor allowing you to create your own maps for the skirmish mode. On top of that we plan to add steam workshop integration, additional localization, achievements, profile page etc. So as you can see, we still have plenty to do, but we’re getting there.
Alright, so what are you waiting for? Tell your friends, and grab the latest update! 🙂
If you want to stay updated about further development of the game you can also follow us on our social media channels here:
Thank you and have fun playing!
Miriam & Marc
Over and out!
CHANGELOG
New: Final campaign!
New: mission 19 – Terminal velocity
New: mission 20 – The rising
New: Outro
New: Difficulty levels
New: Configurable shortcuts
New: Perk – Duck and cover
New: Perk – Hell yeah!
New: UI mission select: Added intro and outro
——————————
Changed: Added monolith scanning device
Changed: Crew which analyzes monolith can now be selected
Changed: Monolith analyzing time is divided into three parts
——————————
Bugfix: Extractor truck won’t get stuck anymore
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where paths randomly got deactivated
Bugfix: No more enemies running in circles
Bugfix: Fixed bug where Borderzone dismantle task did not close properly
Bugfix: Armory techtree UI updates faster
Bugfix: Crew who analyzes monolith is not selectable anymore
Bugfix: Fixed bug in mission 15 where paths didn’t get rebuilded
Bugfix: Fixed coffee time perk
Bugfix: Fixed turbo perk, selecting in-game wont enable it
Bugfix: Fixed bug where shocker secondary attack won’t get freezed by freezeray
Bugfix: Fixed bug where mutated could not attack monolith
Bugfix: Fixed reflection probe bake bug after returning from options menu
Bugfix: Fixed bug where the wrong story dialog would be loaded in some levels
Several smaller bugfixes and code optimizations
Development news
This is just a short heads-up to let you guys know that we're very active working on MarZ Rising, although it was a bit quiet the last few weeks. We're back from vacation, our energy bars has been refilled and we're now working full steam on the next update. So here's a sneak peek about what's coming by the next update.
Final campaign:
Yes, we did it! The final campaign is near completion and it will bring you the final pieces of the story. Mission 20 was quite a challenge in regards of development, and it will unleash some surprises for you. In regards to the final campaign we've also created a nice outro cutscene including voices and music. We're very proud of how it turned out, and we really hope you'll like it.
Custom key-bindings:
Due to a lot of requests we've implemented the possibility to change key-bindings.
Difficulty levels:
Yes you read it right! Difficulty levels! We're very excited about this. We've managed to integrate difficulty levels to the game. So before starting a mission you can select a difficulty level to play. Probably a game changer for many of you!
We're now testing and finalizing everything to the detail.
For us this new update is a big milestone. It also means that after releasing it, we'll work on the long awaited skirmish mode and level editor and we honestly can't wait for it! :)
