Hello everyone ! It’s time for another monthly development update! In this newsletter we’re going to show the latest gameplay developments, designs, and technological tests we’ve been doing!
Voice Chat
This month we did the first implementation of proximity voice chat and we started working on an in-car voice chat. You’ll be able to choose between 5 radio channel to talk with other players in the same game as you, here is how it looks in-game right now :
UI exploration (photoshop mock-ups)
As of right now, all the User Interfaces in OUTBRK are simple placeholders. We started working on the artistic direction for our game menus and collaborated with a UI artist to create some mockups. Keep in mind that these are only visual exploration, do not represent the final product and might represent features that might not be in the game at Early Access.
Playable Character
We’re starting to plan what is needed to have a more diverse cast of playable characters and support better animations and better clothes customisation. We’re still very early in the process but starting this important process is an important milestone in the project. Here is a short gif of some facial animation tests that were done in the Outbrk game editor:
Testing Team
We recently increased our testing team by about 10 new testers. This will help us investigate some issues that are harder to track and improve the stability of our game and matchmaking servers. We know a lot of people showed interest to help us test the game, but we are not looking for additional testers at the moment.
That's all for this development update ! Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/ Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey, and we can't wait to see you out on the stormy roads soon! Till next time, chasers.
-The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (May 2023)
Hello everyone ! It’s time for another monthly development update! In this newsletter we’re going to show the progress on the world building, showing our first prototype for multi vortex tornado, and talk a little bit about our testing process and next steps in development.
World Building
Two towns received additional polish in the forms of various detailing and points of interest. This town is named Kickstarter Village because one backer of our Kickstarter campaign that had pledged for the right to name a town never redeemed their prize. If it's you, please check your emails or contact us, we've been trying to reach you since the Kickstarter ended !
We also added interstate markers poles to improve the feeling of size and speed when driving long distances.
We greatly improved the look of our rocks to create a more believable landscape.
A new water technology was integrated to support surface reflection, better waves from the storm wind, and better visual realism if a player unfortunately ends their chase underwater.
Multi vortex tornado
We’re very happy to finally show the first preview of a multi vortex tornado prototype. Keep in mind that this is just a technical test and just preparing the terrain before we’re able to create a complete multi vortex tornado. This is not representative of the look of the final product.
More testing
Lastly, we built up a small team of testers to help us investigate and fix multiplayer issues. This allows us to rapidly improve our server stability and general multiplayer game flow. This step is crucial to increase our player capacity for the next round of playtest when time will come. We know we will have a lot of people asking to be part of this team of testers but we’re not looking for more testers at the moment.
That's all for this development update ! Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/
Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey, and we can't wait to see you out on the stormy roads soon!
Till next time, chasers.
-The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (April 2023)
Hello again, chasers! Spring is in full swing, and so is the development of OUTBRK! In this month's newsletter, we're excited to give you a sneak peek at some of the upcoming adjustments to our gameplay systems, including the Camera Module and the Weather Reporting Module. We'll also be showcasing a preview of the new Shop environment, which will be displayed in the background when players will browse the in-game shop for new cars and accessories. We are also introducing a new weather preview development tool to speed up the creation of in-game weather scenarios.
Gameplay Systems Adjustments
After gathering valuable feedback from our players during the playtest sessions, we're making some tweaks on our gameplay systems to improve the player engagement loop. The Camera Module is getting a refined interface to help with the understanding, and additional features to improve the gameplay loop. The major changes coming to the Camera Module are : All pictures taken now award points, instead of just the best one for each weather element. We also introduce a camera storage limit so each picture is more meaningful and balances the fact that we now reward each picture taken.
By introducing a camera storage limit, we felt the necessity to separate the weather reporting feature from the camera to not waste precious pictures only to create a new weather report.The standalone Weather Reporting Module gameplay loop will be much alike what is currently in-game when reporting with the camera, with a little bit of quality of life improvements : Opening the Weather Reporting Module will show the player getting out their cell phone. If a reportable element is present in the field of view, it will be targeted, and information about the element will be displayed on the cell phone. The player will be able to report the element if it is not already reported by another player.
Shop Environment Preview
Additionally to this, we’re also working on the Shop background environment that will be displayed when players will navigate menus to purchase new cars or accessories. There is still a lot of work for this environment to look as good as we want, but here is a work-in-progress preview :
New Weather Preview Tool
To streamline the process of creating new weather scenarios, we're developing a new preview tool that will help rapidly generate and fine-tune in-game storms. The pre-visualisation mode accurately displays scientific data in 3d, which allows us to verify our generated scenarios to accurately reproduce storm structures and storm evolution over time. This visualization also hints how detailed the data is and how far we will be able to go in improving our cloud rendering in the future.
As always, your support and feedback are invaluable to us as we continue to develop OUTBRK. Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here:
Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey, and we can't wait to see you out on the stormy roads soon! Till next time, chasers. -The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (March 2023)
Welcome back chasers! It's finally chase season, both in real life and in the OUTBRK world! This month's outlook will be highlighting the results of our two playtest sessions held on March 18th and 19th. We're also excited to show off a new vehicle, several customization items and world objects in their final stages of completion.
Playtest
Our recent playtest had around 100 players across two nights and several game servers running simultaneously. We also had a very special guest participating all weekend: Australian Storm Chaser Daniel Shaw! Did you see our recent highlight video on YouTube? Check it out below :
The most important conclusion we have come to from the feedback we collected is that no major revamp will be needed for our gameplay systems. They were understood, used and appreciated by the entirety of players. There will be some improvements and minor changes needed, but we’re confident we’re on the right track for a fun and unique storm chasing experience! From the player’s feedback, we’ve created tasks that we plan to complete in the upcoming month. You can see for yourself right here on our Trello: https://trello.com/b/nsBmMfIa/outbrk-game
Vehicle Customization and In-Game Models
Now that we've been able to test the customization and in-game experience with the Sedan, we're continuing our work to bring more vehicles into OUTBRK along with customization features. This month we received the finalized model for a new playable car and its unique LiveStormChasers.com skin. Here is it, alongside the default civilian version and a custom made hail guard to go with it :
We also commissioned the modeling of a very simple highway reflector to increase the realism and immersion while driving in the world of OUTBRK.
STEAM WISHLISTING
As we continue to make significant progress on the game, we’re excited to see a ton of players Wishlisting OUTBRK on Steam. Wishlisting is the best way to help OUTBRK currently, as we start to ramp up toward early access launch, having a lot of wishlists is the only way the game can break through Steam’s visibility algorithm and reach all the potential future chasers! Wishlist OUTBRK here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/
Never stop chasing! Till next time. -The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (February 2023)
Welcome back chasers! The month of February always flies by, but even so, we've made some solid progress this month on world detailing, adding in vehicle accessories, and what everybody is excited about, preparing for the upcoming larger-scale playtest!
We've been hinting at this playtest for about three months and we're excited to share that we're preparing to finalize sign-ups and logistics. We’ll be sharing more details in this newsletter!
WORLD DETAILING
The world of OUTBRK is massive with several distinct regions along with their unique biomes and assets that make the world expansive and believable. With a world that's larger than Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto V, and many more games, there's a tremendous amount of work to do.
Here are some screenshot of the work that has been completed this month :
As we look ahead to the next playtest, we're excited to have the sedan “Tradition” ready to chase in OUTBRK! Players have previously played only as the SUV and in our upcoming test we're excited to have players test out the Tradition for the first time.
This month we also integrated new hail cages models to fit all the cars we plan to have for early access. Here is what they look like in-game :
PLAYTEST SIGN-UP IS HERE !
As we mentioned already, we've been able to resolve the blockers that were still lingering from the Unity upgrade. We had been troubleshooting both some matchmaking/server joining errors and making sure that servers and game data are accurately in-sync for all players in-game.
We’re happy to finally announce that our next playtest will be held on March 18th and March 19th starting at 19h00 EST. All sign-up and additional information related to the playtest will be found in our dedicated Discord Channel. All the playtests will be coordinated only on Discord to facilitate the procedures.
And as a general reminder, this will be the structure of the playtests:
2 nights of playtest sessions.
50 players maximum in each “pool” of players.
Approximately 8-10 players per server as scheduled.
First round for those who have previously playtested.
Second round with any players who have not previously played. Priority will be given to kickstarter backers that could not participate in the session back and March 2022.
Our team is so excited for this next playtest. It will be the largest playtest we've held yet and we anticipate it to be invaluable for our planning in regard to next steps and of course, Early Access and release timelines!
Stay up to date with our Trello page and be sure to keep an eye on our Discord.
Until next time!
-The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (January 2023)
Welcome back chasers!
Last month we officially announced what our upcoming playtest structure will look like and touched on the next steps of scenario selection for OUTBRK.
In the background, we've been continuing to chip away at both the final pieces of the Unity 2021 upgrade and actively continuing to detail the environment.
New Hail Cages:
Our modeling partners have continued to create many of the vehicle accessories that players will be able to select from for their chase car. Just recently, a good chunk of work on the hail cages have been completed. Here are some work in progress screenshots:
World Design:
One of the core components of OUTBRK that sets the game apart from others is the incredible world size and diversity included in the different localities in the game. We're hand curating the various towns and points of interest that will make each region of the game feel unique and immersive.
We're now on our "third pass" of detailing. This includes adding small props on residential, commercial and industrial areas, adding rocks where the terrain elevation is steep enough, small revisions to the road networks, and terrain textures that help refining the different landscapes.
Towns will also have wayfinding signs at neighboring intersections to help players navigate the world while also adding a personalized touch to each town.
Next Playtest:
We know our fans are eager to get more information about the next playtest - we anticipate being able to officially start planning the logistics soon and will have news in the coming weeks to set the date and time of the event. The playtest has been on hold because of an issue preventing us from uploading builds on Steam - which is mandatory for online play. We believe we found the issue but we need to run a few more tests before confirming it. That being said, we were able to successfully join a multiplayer round for the first time since the Unity 2021 update and logged our review notes in this Trello task. We don’t judge any of these issues to be a blocker for the coming up playtest, so as soon as we validate that our Steam upload issue has been resolved, we will be starting planning the next playtest on our Discord server.
Need a reminder for the playtest format? Here you go!
2 nights of playtest sessions.
50 players maximum in each “pool” of players.
Approximately 8-10 players per server as scheduled.
First round for those who have previously playtested.
Second round with any players who have not previously played. Priority will be given to kickstarter backers that could not participate in the session back and March.
As always, stay up to date with our Trello page. We update the information often and remain committed to transparency as we get closer and closer to being able to plan the next steps for OUTBRK’s early access release.
Until next time, chasers!
The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (December 2022)
Welcome back and Happy Holidays Chasers!
Here we are, looking ahead to a new year, and we’re continuing to make progress on some of the things we need to complete before setting our sights to our next round, and biggest round of playtesting yet! The unfortunate timing of having a server machine go down did stagnate some progress, and of course was not kind to the pocketbooks, but we’re moving ahead once again.
Before The Next Playtest
We’ve just wrapped up troubleshooting and implementing a new and improved tool to make populating vegetation (trees, grass, bushes, etc) a much more quick and efficient process. Doing so has allowed us to move ahead in beginning to paint the environment and also generate the new vegetation we’ve been showing in the last few newsletters. We’ve already gotten a few world cells completed!
Here is a screenshot showing the new ground textures and vegetation in the Outbrk world. Keep in mind the screenshot was taken in the game editor and not representative of the final product :
You can follow the work on this task on our Trello board.
The Next Playtest
As we look ahead to the next playtest, we’re not able to pin the date down as of today, but we do know what it will look like. Our first kickstarter backers playtest consisted of 50 players. We’ll be reaching out to those players again to schedule an initial round of playtesting with just players who have previously had an opportunity to play the game.
We took feedback from our earlier playtests into heavy consideration as we’ve made many of the adjustments during our latest stretch of development.
A second round of playtest sessions will be scheduled around the same period for an additional 50 players that haven’t played the game yet! We’ll first prioritize Kickstarter Backers that were unable to participate in our playtest of last March, and fill up with a few randomly selected members of our discord community. More information on this second playtest and how to participate will come soon.
Here’s a quick summary:
2 nights of playtest sessions
50 players maximum in each “pool” of players
Approximately 8-10 players per server as scheduled
First round for those who have previously playtested
Second round extended to community members
We will prioritize Kickstarter Backers that missed the first playtest for the second round
If you missed the highlights from the first Kickstarter backers playtests we did back in March 2022, check this video out!
Scenario Selection
We recently had a channel active in our Discord for community members to suggest different iconic weather events that we should consider bringing to life in-game. We’ve taken some time to evaluate recommendations and have a short-list that we’re taking a deeper look into. While we won’t quite share it, we will tease some information about the next scenario type we’re looking to bring to the game.
Our current scenario in-game (bonus points to whoever knows it!) is what storm chasers would call “HP” or “high precipitation”. There’s heavy rain and an embedded hail core, nasty stuff! We’re looking at potential elevated “LP” (low precipitation) storms for our next scenario and have some great suggestions from the recommendations of our Discord Community!
We’ll have additional updates on timelines in the future, but we’re excited to share that we’ve made significant progress and essentially have completed all components of the Unity upgrade to once again have the game in end-to-end playable state for our next playtest!
Happy New Year, Chasers! - The OUTBRK Team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (November 2022)
Welcome back once again chasers!
It's been another solid month of progress on OUTBRK and we're excited to be getting closer to being ready to test out the new camera and storm reporting tool. While we've made good progress, we unfortunately saw our primary server machine experience a hardware failure, causing us to have to replace it in order to continue our current work. This did cause a slight delay in our work last month, but we’re back up and running now.
CAMERA AND REPORTING MODULES The new camera tool has been in the works for several months and was a direct result of player feedback from our last playtest. Our current direction with this tool has enhanced the immersion and in-game utility of the camera and we're excited to test it out in the future. You can see our streamlined flow of taking pictures and reporting a weather element on our in-game chaser network.
Camera :
Weather elements reporting :
END GAME SCREEN Players also requested the option to be able to save the in-game pictures taken to share with their friends and keep locally on their machine. We heard you, and we're working on that as a feature, too! Take a look at our new end game screen:
UNITY UPDATE The Unity 2021 upgrade has allowed us to take advantage of several robust upgrades with the new engine, but through the process, we've found several "must-fix" bugs, specifically with the dedicated server infrastructure and ultimately the multiplayer experience. With the complexity of our in-game weather and cloud systems, we've had to do a good bit of testing to get things working as they previously were on multiplayer servers. We've been able to identify the cause of basically all of the bugs and have already resolved the majority of them. For full details, check out this Trello thread.
VEGETATION Lastly, additional work has been done on our world building with the integration of our newest ground textures and vegetation assets. With the OUTBRK world both large and diverse in nature, making sure the environment in OUTBRK is immersive and realistic has been essential.
As we look ahead to the coming months, we're making steady progress and have more to share in the near future. As always, be sure to follow along with development on our Trello Page!
-The OUTBRK team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (October 2022)
With Marc taking some well deserved vacation this month, October was a little less packed with advancement on OUTBRK gameplay integration, however we’re wrapping up the last elements of the Unity 2021 upgrade on the server side, have added 20+ realistic ground textures to our terrain, added new streamlined vegetation assets and refocused the design of the camera and reporting systems. Ground Textures and New Vegetation
With the Unity 2021 upgrade, we’ve been able to leverage additional capabilities for environmental shaders and textures that will help make a massive map feel distinct and alive. We’re looking to make each biome feel unique and realistic, and a lot of that comes from the ground vegetation. A colossal amount of work has also been made for each of our vegetation assets to behave the same when affected by wind.
Here are some examples of what the vegetation used to look like, and how we’re able to improve it with the new editor update.
Old Vegetation New Vegetation
Development Focus and Next Playtest:
The latest stretch of OUTBRK development has been essential for readying the game for eventual Early Access release. From the get-go, we’ve been committed to being transparent through all stages of development. The last few months have contained substantial improvements to the game and we’re excited to be wrapping up several foundational components to the game so that we can start planning additional playtests.
For the people that follow our public development Trello board, here are the two tasks we need to finish before starting to plan the next sessions of playtesting with community members: New Camera Module: Following the last playtest’s feedback, we streamlined the camera and storm-element reporting process. We spent a bit of time in design to make sure that it will create a nice gaming experience and we’re now starting the integration in the game.
Must Fix Bugs Prior to Playtests: As we completed the Unity update, we found some bugs on systems that were previously working. This was expected, but we have to fix this regression before letting some players back into the game.
As always, our Discord is a great place to engage with our community and to learn more about where we’re at in Development. We’re getting ready to start going through scenarios that have been recommended to us, so if you’ve got an iconic severe weather day that needs to be in OUTBRK, be sure to let us know in the #outbrk-scenario-suggestion channel on Discord!
Stay tuned for the next Outlook, chasers! As always, be sure to follow along with development on our Trello Page!
(Marc on his hard-earned vacation!) The OUTBRK team
OUTBRK: Development Outlook (September 2022)
It’s the end of September and we’re here with another exciting OUTBRK Development Outlook. Our team has continued to check off several essential tasks and the Unity 2021 update is essentially complete - which will allow for us to proceed with several of the tasks necessary to get ready for additional community playtests and eventual Early Access!
IMPROVED VISUALS OF WEATHER ELEMENTS
As development has progressed, we’ve had a goal to improve the way that the players see the storm systems and elements. The Unity 2021 update allows us to have massive tornadoes naturally lit by the position of the sun, and have lightning strikes cast high resolution shadows in the world.
HIGH QUALITY GROUND TEXTURES
With a world as big as OUTBRK’s (625km²), there’s going to be a ton of ground to cover, literally! We’ve begun the next pass of improvements to the world and along with that and the Unity update comes higher quality ground textures. Here are 6 of the 28 different ground textures that will make up the terrain of OUTBRK.
These improvements to the world will help each biome feel different from the last while being gentle on performance for players.
IMPROVEMENT ON CAR ACCESSORIES
In last month’s newsletter, we shared some work in progress on our mobile mesonets. Following some feedback by users, we created a new version with more updated instruments. Here is our current version :
STORM SCENARIOS - WE NEED YOUR HELP!
With work on several of the critical game elements nearing completion, our team is getting ready to identify a broader range of scenarios to integrate into OUTBRK. So far, this process required a good bit of time, so we’ve limited integrating scenarios in our development version and while we have a short list of events now - we’ll be looking to our community for help compiling more scenarios. We know our diverse community will have some iconic chase days in mind - and we’ll be looking at bringing some of those to OUTBRK! Make sure to join our Discord where all of this will take place. We'll have a text channel with instructions in the coming weeks!
As always, stay up to date with the game’s development on our public Trello planning page!
