[Alersteam]

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Happy New Year!

Hey everyone!

We're often being asked about our team members, and gradually we share more about those who develop Exoplanet: First Contact. In one of our previous updates you could find out about our lead programmer and about his decision to develop a game using his own engine. Today, in the first part of our update our soundman Mark is going to tell you about new sound recording devices that will allow us to extend the possibilities of our sound design. If you're into tech and videos with unpacking you'll definitely enjoy this one! And of course, a
big thank you to our backers: without you our upgrades wouldn't be possible.

Watch the video on YouTube:

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We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Alersteam]

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Hello friends!

This year we're gonna try our best to keep you up to date and release updates more frequently. We’d like to tell you more about soundtrack and animal world of K’tharsis this time! Take a look at full update on Kickstarter.

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Don-Esteban]

Hi, I've got my backer rewards today.
The t-shirt is great! The poster is unfortunately a little bit crumpled due to post treatment, but it's in one peace and so it's ok.

[Alersteam]

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New Screenshots from Serene Valley location

We'd like to share some WIPs from upcoming alpha version and notice all our backers (again) that we're about to start the closed alpha testing. Only tiers with immediate access to alpha verion can take a pert. But if you're a journalist, game development industry specialist or blogger feel free to drop a message to pr[at]alersteam.com to join!

Click for the full-sized image!

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Alersteam]

Hi, I've got my backer rewards today.
The t-shirt is great! The poster is unfortunately a little bit crumpled due to post treatment, but it's in one peace and so it's ok.

Hi! Nice to hear! Don't you mind to share the pic of you wearing the T-shirt? How it's going with laundry?

[Alersteam]

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The indigenous people of K’Tharsis

We’d like to present you an updated version of the K'Tharsis' aboriginal representatives concept art. It's hard to overrate an importance of a race that is going to be interacted with very frequently during the playthrough, that's why much time was spent carefully designing them.
Though native population of K'Tharsis isn't very technologically advanced, it mastered the antigravium works long before first humans stepped on their land. They craft from it jewelry as well as more functional items, such as weapons.
As the worldwide practice shows, a contact with an alien civilization is rarely beneficial to the ecology and population of the less advanced civilization, and aborigines on K’Tharsis weren't an exception. Once lived in their own closed world, they got new neighbors, who slaughtered much of the tribes and enslaved the most remaining. Nevertheless, some of the nomadic tribes are still free and frequently raid humans.

Click for the full-sized image!

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Alersteam]

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One of the consequences of the human invasion is a brute-aborigine. It's a result of genetic mix of humans and of the natives, a huge and strong creature. Usually they're used in mines as unintelligent and submissive workers, though some brutes are both smart and strong, which makes their social status undoubtedly different.

Click for the full-sized image!

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Alersteam]

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Hi!
We're still working on optimization and can say the finish is close as never. That's a really big deal for modern projects, both indie and AAA. So now the build work much better and looks like Jack is not into break dancing anymore. We gonna miss that a little bit to be honest! The game itself now look more like release version, but it's still an early alpha!
Today we'd like to share some new screenshots and remind all our backers that alpha testing is coming. Also we'd like to remind all our developer friends and press that you can join the list by dropping the message to PR[at]alersteam.com

Click for the full-sized image!

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Alersteam]

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NICETIES OF ART DIRECTION

The visuals of Exoplanet: First Contact have changed significantly since the Kickstarter campaign. The world of K"Tharsis has become much more alive and interesting thanks to new types of plants, animals, rocks and other remarkable assets. Much of this progress wouldn"t be possible without our talented art director — Ivan Taranenko, who is going to tell you about his art career and his work on Exoplanet.

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I`m watching you freelancer

I was interested in drawing, as well as in video games since my childhood, but after graduating high school I didn"t even think about game development career and started studying software engineering in a university. After a while it became clear, that I"m not ready to dedicate my life to this particular profession and after getting my diploma I decided to try myself in advertisement by becoming a designer working for one of the agencies.

It is about that time that I became interested in graphics. A hobby grew into a passion and I realized that this is how I want to earn my livelihood.

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One of the best Exoplanet: First Contact concepts according to Ivan

After leaving the job in the agency, I started working as a 3D artist in a game development studio "Meridian"93" which was making desktop strategy games as well as freelancing for larger projects (such as Disciples III: Renaissance). This is where I honed my modelling skills, got familiar with animation and started to devote much more time to drawing, changing my line of work and after a while I became a lead artist.

Unfortunately, the studio stopped making strategy games and dived full-on into making casual ones, which I didn"t deem interesting and deserving of my attention so I have left the job and started thinking about my own project.

A couple of my friends joined me — a programmer and a level designer. Together we started working on a small indie game Bravada. We spent two years working on it, and even though at the end our expenses didn"t pay off, I have received priceless experience, learned a lot and got to know firsthand about many pitfalls and nuances of the industry.

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The next significant project for me was Legends of Eisenwald. Here as a freelancer I contributed to the interface of the game, the map and designed the final version of the logo.

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After Legends of Eisenwald I continued looking for a job and stumbled upon an ad on a forum which said that a small indie team is looking for an artist to work on rocks and cliffs. The project looked interesting, but unfortunately I didn"t have anything suitable for that job in my portfolio at the moment, so that same evening I drew a concept and responded. That"s how I became an artist working on Exoplanet: First Contact, and a few months later was promoted to an art director of the project.

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Terraform corporation reserves the right to interpret the word "pleasure" at its own discretion

Working on this game is incredibly interesting. I believe that we"re producing beautiful concepts, especially characters and weapons. The unusual setting of space western is also very close to my heart as well as the genre — despite my passion towards turn-based strategies (Disciples) and stealth-action titles (Deus Ex, Dishonored), roleplaying games were always number one for me.

When I was a kid, my friend got a first PlayStation and we spent a lot of time playing Tekken and Twisted Metal. But I truly started loving games after I found Final Fantasy VIII — I was astounded by its story and how it managed to evoke my emotions.

Then there were Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout, Fallout 2, Gothic — these games were masterpieces. And, of course Gothic II: Night of the Raven — this is probably the best Action RPG that I ever played.

This last decade changed a lot. We"ve got more powerful and functional engines, more polygons in the models, and the industry itself became more demanding towards highly qualified specialists. All this allowed to bring the visuals to a new level, which in turn affected the work of artists.

Dishonored"s incredible visual style, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt scenery that shock your imagination, colorful Uncharted 4 artbook, Metal Gear Solid art performed in sumi-e — all of these are wonderful sources of inspiration.

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Han Solo would like to get his attire back

But there is also a fly in the ointment. I believe that contemporary games have lost their adventurous spirit: developers copy themselves time after time, reproducing models of successful projects with minimal changes. Sure thing, in this business every mistake has a high cost, but I"m hopeful that at least some of the companies are going to find the strength to change this situation to the good and step away from boring templates. Meanwhile, this lack of adventurism is going to be compensated by indie developers, and I would like it very much if Exoplanet: First Contact becomes such a brave and interesting project. Visuals and appearance play a huge role and are my direct responsibilities as an art director.

Most importantly, the game must have a consistent visual style, otherwise it"s going to look like a patched blanket — unaesthetic and unprofessional. Therefore it is crucial to look after each concept, model and texture while improving the existing graphics and creating new concepts.

I spent a lot of time analyzing other games, looking for not only inspiration and references but for concrete technical solutions. As a perfectionist I believe in the ideal result, though I do understand that the process of improving certain things could be infinite. So I try my best to approach each task pragmatically, striving for the optimal combination of quality and spent time.

So how will the final Exoplanet: First Contact look? It"s important to note, that despite a lot of technical and budget limitations we strive towards realism in the game: that"s why we do not exaggerate proportions, especially in regards to weapons and characters.

Next we have landscape detalization. Gradually we add new types of plants, small stones — all this significantly affects location"s appearance. Painstaking work is carried out on the sky: the most attentive players are going to notice that we"ve changed the sandy color to standard white-blue tones.

Nevertheless, the color of the sky is going to change depending on the location. Currently, I plan to create a couple of concepts that are going to demonstrate how the game world is going to look in different times of day and various weather conditions, be it rain or a sand storm.

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We"ve also changed the water: our programmer made it look much more realistic, which is going to be even more noticeable with correct lighting.

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Correct lighting is one of the most important aspects, which is going to allow us to improve the visuals of the game significantly. Right now, Exoplanet doesn"t have the advanced dynamic lighting we want it to have, which notably lowers the beauty of the picture: for instance, objects in shadows seem to be flat and unrealistic. More innovative lighting techniques (skybox, ambient occlusion) are going to allow us to solve much of such problems, as well as unlocking the full potential of existing assets in the game.

Summarizing, it is important to note that such big project is a very ambitious goal for such a small indie company. But working with the team, I understood that people at Alersteam are passionately driven guys very much like myself: we understand each other well and are solving issues successfully. Everyone is eager to be the most use to the project as possible and are results-oriented. I believe that this approach will let us achieve our goal, no matter how ambitious.

IN CONCLUSION

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We"re always on the lookout for new ways to make our project known to even more people. And today we would like to make an important announcement: we"re partnering with www.grabthegames.com. Its owner Rafal has helped us already on numerous occasions and is a close friend of our team. Like all of us, Rafal believes in Exoplanet"s success and is going to help us however possible to reach even more players.

Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that you can get updates about Exoplanet development not only from Kickstarter but also from other sources, and more frequently. So please, feel free to subscribe to our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other official feeds, and of course don’t forget to check out our forums and participate in discussions — we’re trying to get the news out there daily.

Furthermore, each your like, share and repost helps us find new interested players, and we’re grateful to each and every one of you who recommends us to your friends.

Thanks a lot for your support.

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Learn more about Exoplanet: First Contact:

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[Flips]

Do you think, you will release it in 2017? If yes: first or second half?

[Seelenernter]

Interesting, interesting.

Totally forgot about that LEDsky project incident back in the day. Thought it died, tbh, as I don't visit this part of the forum that often anymore, after losing most of my faith in PB. Nice to see it's still vital!
Wondered why the graphics looked quite dated yet ambitious when I saw the KS, but that long lifespan explains it. (don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine for me)

As I already said in the official forum, I definitely look forward to see more of "Bravestarr meets Gothic".

[ERASER_M]

Early Access on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/

[LEDsky]

Do you think, you will release it in 2017? If yes: first or second half?

Most likely 1Q 2018. Doing things faster means loosing in quality of some important parts of the game. We better end up with a bit dated graphics than worse gameplay.

Interesting, interesting.

Totally forgot about that LEDsky project incident back in the day. Thought it died, tbh, as I don't visit this part of the forum that often anymore, after losing most of my faith in PB. Nice to see it's still vital!
Wondered why the graphics looked quite dated yet ambitious when I saw the KS, but that long lifespan explains it. (don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine for me)

As I already said in the official forum, I definitely look forward to see more of "Bravestarr meets Gothic".

We are alive and everything's going according to the plan, some steps were delayed though for thatэs a first game developed by our team and we constantly encounter new difficulties we never thought about. Nothing we cannot manage though. First step of reaching for the wider audience is done - we have entered Steam Early Access program. Our next goal is to make regular small and big updates and then a final release. So far so good - 10 of 11 user reviews are positive, even considering the state of the current build (alpha, bugs etc).

Early Access on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/

Thanks for linking our Steam page!
We are getting a lot of feedback from our players and part of the issues will be fixed in the december's patch. 1st big content update will come in january or in the first weeks of february.

[Gothaholic]

First step of reaching for the wider audience is done - we have entered Steam Early Access program.

will there be a non-Steam release? maybe via GoG?

[LEDsky]

will there be a non-Steam release? maybe via GoG?

Yes, at some point GOG should be an alternative to Steam as well as buying the game on our own site.

[Gothaholic]

great! and thanks for the info.

[Raubkopiesäbel]

Da es ziemlich ruhig hier geworden ist frag ich einfach mal nach.

Hat das schon wer gespielt und kann einen ersten Eindruck schildern? Und gibt es irgendwo schon Infos, wie weit sie noch von der Vollversion entfernt sind?

Gruß

[Soulo the Fallen]

Hello folks! After the long break Alersteam is here again and we are very excited to tell you the great news. During all this time we continued the development of Exoplanet: First Contact and many things have significantly changed since the last update of this thread.

The main thing is that we have created a brand new starting location instead of the Outcast Camp that you can find in the current build. Our intention with it was to make the initial area as much comfortable and comprehensible for the players as possible. We added new desert landscapes and reworked the models of the bitebugs, whose animations also have been improved. New characters and quests were added to the story to make the game’s plot deeper and more branched.

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We made a lot of improvements in terms of graphics, mechanics and level design. Please check out a video demonstrating the new aiming system that became now much more comfortable than it was.

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We rewrote many of the dialogues and reshaped the roles that old characters would play in a new storyline. The result is practically a new game, however many old features and overall space western style remained the same. The update is now going through the final stages of testing and soon will be available for purchasing on Steam.

We will keep the opportunity to play the current build for its owners - so, if you will purchase Exoplanet now, you can literally enjoy two similar but different games instead of one.

We would like you to join our Discord server to keep in touch with the development team: https://discordapp.com/invite/g587hrb

Our best wishes to you!