Dev Updates

  • The Delay and The Road Ahead
    Aloha Thrivers. Last week, when we announced that we’re shifting our release date to January 18 2024, we also mentioned that we were going to shed some light on why and to bring as much clarity and transparency as possible to what led to that decision. The Road Ahead We had a meeting, going through […]
  • August Update – Making a Trailer and Improving Performance
    Aloha Thrivers! Since the last update, we have been working nonstop on your feedback, prioritizing performance optimization for Early Access so that the game runs better and smoother. While this might slow down the implementation of some cool features, we all agree it’s the number one thing we have to focus on right now. We’ve […]
  • It’s Unreal – 5.1 IS HERE!
    Aloha Thrivers, We’re SO excited to share that after many months of work, we’re finally shipping the Unreal Engine 5 Upgrade to your PCs! We want our community to join the newest version of the game sooner rather than later, but we know this was a big lift and have found even more bugs than […]
  • May Update: New Armor, Weapons, and Status of UE 5.1 Upgrade
    Aloha Thrivers, If you caught our last update you already know we’re upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.1. We’ve been working on this since the beginning of the year but only spilled the beans back in April. We’ve got some more beauty shots included when you scroll down that are our ‘proof of UE5 life’ since we’re […]
  • April’s Community Q&A
    Hello Thrivers, Over the past few weeks, we asked you to send us some questions through a form shared in our discord server. Today we are answering them! Our plan with Fractured Veil is to maintain transparency as much as possible and always bring you along with our development journey. Let’s start with the development […]
  • 2023 Roadmap Deep Dive
    Aloha Thrivers, Earlier this month we released our biggest development update of the year, talking about our upgrade plan for UE5 and the 2023 roadmap. Our main objective is to make the development process of Fractured Veil as transparent as possible, while correctly setting some expectations with our community (that’s you!) about our early access […]
  • Making the switch to UE 5.1 and the Road Ahead
    Aloha Thrivers! This month’s update took us a bit longer – but for a good reason! We’re finally ready to share some exciting news with everyone and show off some of the things we have been working on since the beginning of the year. NEW & Improved Unreal Engine 5.1 Here We Come! You might […]
  • Alpha, Kickstarter Success and Dungeons
    Aloha Thrivers! We’re getting ready to expand our Alpha and bring in more players soon. We’ve already brought in about 1k players over the course of 6 months from our Kickstarter, with the last batch added a month ago. As with everything game dev related, there were a few hiccups and unexpected issues but for the […]
  • Welcome To Maui Wave 4!
    Aloha Thrivers! The day is finally here – we’ve sent out all of the keys to Wave 4 of our Kickstarter backers. Testing the performance of the game more than ever before, we’re ready to show Lahaina’s newest residents everything we’ve added to the game! Once everyone in wave 4 has gotten to have an […]
  • Version 0.1.2265: Wave 3, Updates, and Improvements
    Aloha Thrivers! We have huge news: We have sent out Keys to Wave 3 of our Kickstarter Backers! This is the biggest wave yet, and we can’t wait to show Lahaina’s freshest faces everything we’ve added to the game! We’ll host some “Welcome To Maui” and other special sessions to go over the basics and […]
  • Version 0.1.2219: Server Travel, Map Improvements, and the Return of the Drone
    Aloha Thrivers! We’ve made many gameplay improvements with the help of the first two waves of Kickstarter backers and testers. We’ve finished Veil travel! With the system in place, players will eventually be able to travel to other servers and alternate versions of Maui soon. It opens the door for us to create different biomes […]
  • Join Us At the Steam Survival Fest!
    Aloha Thrivers! We couldn’t be more excited to announce that we will be part of Steam’s upcoming Survival Fest!  We’ll be spending a week celebrating the struggle to survive, but it wouldn’t be the same without you. The festival runs August 1-8, so make some room on your calendar. Learn more about our deadly paradise, […]
  • Version 0.1.2147: Talents, Siege Updates, and Renovations
    Aloha Thrivers! We’ve made some huge changes to the game with the help of our first 2 waves of Kickstarter backers and testers. FRV’s starting area, the Thorcon Power Plant, got a huge facelift and content update. The main room is filled with vendors buying and selling everything a player needs to survive, and the […]
  • Starting Area Facelift and Dungeon Renovation Preview
    Aloha, Thrivers! We let Wave 2 into FRV back in April and they have been a huge help testing the game and working with us as we build out all the new features we have in store for Wave 3. We have a lot planned for the next round of our Kickstarter backers like talents, […]
  • Version 0.1.2029: New Construction UI, Environment Updates and EOS Integration
    Aloha Thrivers! Last week we let our Wave 2 backers in and took another big step forward to getting all of our Kickstarter supporters into the game. We’ve always taken pride in being a community-driven game and having Wave 2 exploring Maui has been a huge help. Thanks to all the new eyes we’ve fixed […]
  • Version 0.1.2008 Patch [Major] – New Construction Pieces, Tools, and Wave 2
    Aloha Thrivers! Alpha Keys for Wave 2 backers of our Kickstarter campaign will be sent out Monday and we couldn’t be more excited! We know this wave took a little longer than expected but we’re overjoyed to finally open the game up to the next round of players. We’ll be hosting play sessions next week […]
  • Version 0.1.1923 Patch [Major] – 4.27 Engine Upgrade and Content Update
    Aloha, Thrivers! The Kickstarter campaign was an amazing experience for us and we can’t thank our backers enough! Your support allows us to speed up development time and take on a number of big projects that we’ve been eager to build all at once. Since the campaign ended we’ve been mostly heads-down working on our first major […]
  • December Update
    Aloha Thrivers!  If you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to the past month, we’ve covered a lot of it here: plans for the rest of the year. We focused so much on getting everything ready for the Kickstarter this summer that our team didn’t take any downtime. We’re all going to take some much-needed rest […]
  • Our Plans For The Rest of the Year
    Aloha Thrivers! First and foremost we want to thank our great community once again for helping us reach our Kickstarter goal and unlocking a stretch goal. We couldn’t have done it without you and we can’t wait to show you how your support will directly impact the development of the game. This was the first […]
  • Version 0.1.1682 Patch [Major] – Updates, Fixes, and Improvements
    Aloha Thrivers! Mahalo to our community for helping us reach our Kickstarter goal! The love and support you’ve shown us over the past weeks has been overwhelming and we couldn’t be more thankful. We wanted to make sure to squeeze in a few more fixes and improvements before the Kickstarter ended. Read below to see […]
  • Version 0.1.1674 Patch [Major] – Updates, Fixes, and Improvements
    Aloha Thrivers! We can’t thank our community enough for helping us reach our Kickstarter goal! We’re overwhelmed by the love and support you’ve shown us over the past 3 weeks but there’s still 5 days before the end of the campaign. Huge thanks once again to everyone who helped us get this far. We are so […]
  • Version 0.1.1655 Patch [Major] – Updates, Fixes, and Improvements
    Aloha Thrivers! A huge thanks to our amazing community – our Kickstarter campaign is 100% funded! You’ve blown us away with the love and support you’ve shown in these last 2 weeks. Thanks to all of you, we are one giant step closer to making Fractured Veil the survival game that we’ve ALL dreamt of! We can’t […]
  • Version 0.1.1636 Patch [Major] – Siege Improvements and Player Shots and Fixes
    Aloha Thrivers! With your amazing help and support our Kickstarter campaign has already reached 78% of our goal but we need to keep the momentum going all the way to the finish line. One thing we’ve heard from the community is that you want options focused on Steam keys and quick access. We heard you loud and […]
  • Version 0.1.1612 Patch [Major] – Veil Updates, Mutant Improvements, and Player Shots
    Aloha Thrivers!  Our Kickstarter Campaign began this week and we couldn’t be more excited and humbled by all the love and support the community has shown us.  We’ve always counted on you to help us create the survival game of our dreams and with your backing we’re one step closer to making that goal a […]
  • September Dev Update – Improvements, Bug Fixes, and Play Shots
    Aloha Thrivers! We’re back with another update as it’s been super busy over here getting ready for our Kickstarter campaign on September 7. In addition to a bunch of updates and bug fixes, we thought we’d show off the big collection of screenshots that players have submitted to us. They built and defended dozens of bases, killed […]
  • August Update – Part II
    Aloha Thrivers, This is part two of our jammed pack update make sure to head over to our Steam page to see part one. Our Kickstarter Campaign is just around the corner and we’re excited to share where we see the game heading with the backing of your support. In the meantime, we’ve added a huge amount […]
  • August Update – Part I
    Aloha Thrivers! We’ve been hard at work updating the game and integrating your suggestions. Our Kickstarter Campaign is just around the corner and we’re excited to share where we see the game heading with the backing of your support. In the meantime, we’ve added a huge amount of new content and upgrades to keep the momentum going. […]
  • July Development Update and New Content
    Aloha Thrivers! We’re excited to share our progress and the latest updates in the game. We worked on vendors, a new beach area, an overhaul of the foliage and the neighborhood around the Comm Tower, storm effects and lots more. Your feedback is very important to us so keep it coming!  If you’re interested in […]
  • May Development Update and New Content
    Aloha Thrivers! We’re back with another update and are happy to share that this month we made some customization improvements based on your feedback, added some new vendors, and made Maui a little more deadly in some areas and harder to survive.  If you’re interested in telling us what you think about the latest updates […]
  • April Development Update and New Content
    Aloha Thrivers! Spring is in the air and we’re hard at work helping the flowers and mutants bloom across the island. We’ve spent a lot of hours on playtests and tweaking gameplay based on your feedback last month, but we’ve still had time to include a bunch of new content for you!  Your feedback is […]
  • Weapon Updates and Bug Fixes
    Our persistence work continued this week making sure that all your stuff sticks around where you left it after you log out to play in the real world again. In addition to inventory and containers we focused on making improvements to weapons and totems.  We’ve received a lot of feedback about a handful of totem […]
  • Crafting Improvements, Bug Fixes, and Persistence Updates
    From the very beginning, we’ve tried to add little touches to the world that remind players of the thriving Lahaina that existed before the Fracture. There’s no doubt that the forests and beaches frame the setting in the game, but the buildings and dilapidated neighborhoods help tell the story of the people who didn’t make […]
  • Bug Fixes and Weapon Updates
    They say the best defense is a good offense but sometimes a strategic retreat is the only option if you want to survive the deadly wilds of Lahaina. With some feedback from players in our test sessions, we made a few improvements to movement and medical gear in the game. Items now apply a speed […]
  • Crafting Updates and Bug Fixes
    Everyone likes crafting gear in a survival game and our players are no different. After listening to some suggestions about item quality and the speed it takes to make some gear by hand we decided to introduce a valuable tool in the crafting system, a crafting bench.  The bench will unlock higher tiered items like […]
  • Bug Fixes and Persistence Updates
    With almost as many ways to pick up, interact with, and store items as there are mutants on the island, nailing down inventory and item persistence has been one of our biggest tasks and our main focus. We know how important it is to be able to return to your bases and access inventory so […]
  • Bug Fixes, Crafting and AI Updates
    We made several adjustments to a wide variety of systems to kick off the new year. After gathering your feedback and crunching the numbers we changed the amount of time it takes to research items and craft them without the use of a crafting bench. Converted items (127->energy, ore->iron…) take a bit longer to process […]
  • Inventory and AI Improvements
    We say it all the time but player feedback is hugely important to our development process. Many of our decisions and designs are guided with the help of our testers telling us what’s working and what needs some of our attention. This week was no different as we started to work on a few AI […]
  • Siege and Inventory Improvements
    The feedback we gather during our test sessions is invaluable to us and vital to our development process. It helps us uncover bugs and figure out what systems need tweaking. After listening to what you had to say this week we made some improvements to the siege system.  We set up small, medium, and large […]
  • Bug Fixes, Gun and Inventory Improvements
    Our playtest sessions are the best way for us to hear directly from our community, but not the only way (see #suggestions in our discord). However, since players have our attention and our ears once a week, we make sure to take note of things that keep coming up. Guns and ammo in the game […]
  • Melee, Looting, and Totem Improvements
    This week we’re continuing to make improvements based on player feedback and finished work on a handful of systems to make gameplay more fun. First thing on our list was looting.  We know how important it can be to grab the goods quickly off a body when you’re in the middle of a fight. However, […]
  • Smelters, Fixes, and Persistence Updates
    Input from our community is an invaluable part of our development process. We rely on our players to not only help find bugs and figure out what isn’t working but also provide suggestions about what they’d like to see down the road. This week we spent most of our time going over your feedback, improving […]
  • AI, Vendor, and Crafting Updates
    We’ve said this before, but we really want to hear from our community. To prove it, this week we spent a lot of dev time fixing bugs found in our test sessions and making improvements based solely on player feedback. After our latest run through the caves, we made some updates to how AI move […]
  • Vendors, Crafting, and Inventory Updates
    There’s been a vendor without any inventory parked in the Thorcon Power Plant for a while now, just watching testers come and go.  Over the past few weeks we made some major updates to our crafting system and approved Mr. Mixer Head’s permit (after he squared up with his registration fees of course).  Players can […]
  • Mine and River Updates
    During the playtest, a lucky few might discover a new mine on the island. Along with the Thorcon basement, the sewers, and the cave complex, the mine will offer those brave enough a unique area to explore while fighting for loot. We’ve already made big improvements to the water, weather, and waves in the game and we’re […]
  • Choose Your Own Barricade
    While we’ve spent a lot of time thinking of ways to encourage people to play together, this week we’ve come up with a few ways to keep them apart. We’ve added three different types of barricades to the crafting menu to help players protect themselves and their constructions. Our first offering is your standard wooden […]
  • Expanding the Neighborhood
    For all of the #builders in our community, we’re happy to report that we’re continuing to make improvements to our construction system. A number of you suggested we add stairs that you could use with half walls in your structures. Well, it may take you twice as long to get your steps in but we […]
  • Roadside Attractions
    The end of our systems update is in sight and we know how eager many of you are to get in the game. We appreciate your patience! We’ll be handing out new testing keys again soon. As always, a big mahalo to our current testers who help us find bugs and provide great ideas for […]
  • Construction System and Material Updates
    The end of our system updates is right around the corner. In truth, we’ll be testing and building for many months to come but the window allowing us to let new testers in the game is almost open. As always, a big mahalo to our testers who help us find bugs and provide great ideas […]
  • Beach Improvements and Upgrades
    The end of our refactor is almost here. It’s true that we will be in a state of testing and building for months to come but we are narrowing in on a window when we can open the game up to new testers again. Mahalo to our current testers who help us find what needs […]
  • Caves, Shelters, and Sub-Basements
    It’s taken longer than we expected to get some of our major system updates done and to be honest, once they are finished, the world is still under construction. We’ll be testing features and new systems for many months ahead, but hopefully we’re narrowing in on the window when we can open up the game […]
  • Weather Upgrades and Improvements
    There’s only a couple of weeks of rebuilding and updating work to be done before we’re ready to hand out keys again. We know that many of you are eager to explore the wilds of Lahaina and we appreciate your patience while we make some of our foundational systems better. Mahalo to our testers who […]
  • Veilstation Upgrades
    We’re still in refactor mode for a few weeks. As a result, we won’t be giving out new beta keys for a little while yet. By focusing on rebuilding game systems we hope to provide the best experience possible for our new players. We know that lots of you are excited to jump in the […]
  • Shorelines and Shipwrecks
    We won’t be giving out new beta keys for a few weeks yet because we’re rebuilding game systems to make sure everything is stable and fun. By focusing on UI improvements, persistence, and stability we hope to provide the best experience possible for our new players. We know that lots of you are excited to […]
  • Drone Music and Player Fixes
    We are currently focusing on UI improvements, persistence, and stability while we rebuild game systems in order to provide the best experience possible for all of our new players. While we focus on this refactoring, we won’t be giving out new beta keys for the next few weeks. We understand that many of you are […]
  • Persistence and Spawning Improvements
    We know there are a lot of new people who are excited to jump in the game, but before we welcome you to Lahaina for the first time with a beta key, we want to fix some things first. We are going to take a few weeks to focus on refactoring, persistence, and stability in […]
  • Player Fixes and Props
    A big mahalo to all of our awesome testers for helping us make Fractured Veil better! Here’s a list of everything they suggested during last week’s play session that we’ve fixed or improved. Zaccsi – No collision on fishing huts. Aazlor and Zaccsi – Floating grass. Chests take too long loading inventory. Steelcrusher – Thorcon […]
  • Harvesting Improvements and Tool Updates
    If you want to see your ideas in Fractured Veil head over to our Discord server and go to the #assign-roles channel. We’ll give you a key and get you set up in the game. Mahalo to all of our great testers for their help making the game better! Here’s a list of everything we’ve […]
  • Road Work and Game Fixes
    If you’d like to travel to Lahaina in the year 2120 and test your survival skills while helping us make the game more fun to play we’d love to have you. Click the link to join our discord and go to the #assign-roles channel. We’ll give you a key and get you set up in […]
  • Safe Zone Updates and Fixes
    If you’d like to travel to Lahaina in the year 2120 and test your survival skills while helping us make the game more fun to play we’d love to have you. Click the link to join our discord and go to the #assign-roles channel. We’ll give you a key and get you set up in […]
  • Reading the Signs
    Our test sessions are a lot of fun! If you’d like to travel to Lahaina in the year 2120 and try out your survival skills while helping us test the game we’d love to have you. Click the link to join our discord and we’ll give you a key and get you set up in […]
  • Speed Adjustments and Base Upgrades
    If you’d like to try out your survival skills and help us test out the game we’d love to have you join one of our testing sessions. Click the link to join our discord and ask in our “testers” channel. We’ll give you a key and get you set up in the game. See you […]
  • Loot and Danger Zones
    We’d love for you to test your survival skills in our version of West Maui and help us make the game better while fighting the horrors of the jungle. If you’d like to join one of our testing sessions just join our discord and ask in our “testers” channel. See you there! We got things […]
  • Weapon Paint Overs and Mutant Steering
    Would you like to run around the wilds of Lahaina, build bases, shoot mutants, and help us work out the kinks? We’d love to have you in one of our testing sessions. Just join our discord and ask in our “testers” channel. See you there! As sprint 45 winds down and the team adjusts to […]
  • Building Homes At Home
    This week the team spent their time working from home improving homes in the game and the construction system overall. We improved placement rules for all construction pieces and foundation placement checks. We fixed round stone foundations having the wrong health, and as cool as it was, we made sure foundation pieces could no longer […]
  • The Bridges of Maui County
    A new sprint has started and for the next month we’ll be focusing on performance, usability, and playtest integrations. We’ll also spend some time finishing up the player construction system, AI sieging, the diorama system and integrating steam friends and player surveys to help us gather feedback. Things got started with some AI fixes. We […]
  • Stone Walls and Siege Improvements
    With sprint 44 coming to an end this week, we’ve been focusing on nabbing bugs and adding a bit of polish to existing systems. The team has added new upgrade and repair tools so players can fix their damaged buildings in style. We also created new loot tables, groups, and container assets so the loot […]
  • Building Better Explosions
    We started the week off by fixing some bugs with the player construction system. We corrected a problem where building foundations could be placed overlapping other existing building objects and fixed a bug with half and third wall icons being inverted. The team also improved how the Siege Manager tracks how long a base has […]
  • Wooden Bases and AI Fixes
    We kicked off the week by working on everyone’s favorite thing, loot! The team implemented the spawning of containers with items in them and new loot tables sure to make all that harvesting, running, fighting and surviving worth it. We also added animation retargeting support to the male and female character meshes, retargeting support to […]
  • Stone Walls and Clothing Improvements
    Sprint 44 started this week and for the next month we will be updating the map, finishing up a few art issues, and fixing bugs in preparation for our first set of players. The major goals of this sprint are completing our player construction and AI sieging systems, updating player animations and the diorama system, […]
  • The Right Tool For The Job
    Sprint 43 comes to an end this week and we’re busy adding some polish to a few items, finishing up some design work on our player construction system, and nabbing bugs as they arise. The team made some party improvements to start things off. We added player kicking support to parties so you aren’t stuck […]
  • Wood, Walls, and Weapons
    We added lots of new player animations this week covering all the busy work you might find yourself doing after the collapse of civilization. Crafting, starting a fire, setting a broken arm, and even wrapping a sucking chest wound all have a unique look and action now. While we were making things look more realistic […]
  • Phantom Totems and Ocean Fires
    We continued our progress on our siege system this week with some major improvements. We smoothed out some problems with spawn points and AI pathing to ensure that the mutant hordes don’t get bunched up and nobody feels left out of the carnage just because they appeared on top of a nearby tree. We added […]
  • Base Boxes and Siege Improvements
    This is the first full week of sprint 43 and we have a lot planned. The big items on our list are improvements to our player construction system, diorama updates and completing the AI sieging system. We will also be working on fixing up older features, performance improvements, building crash logging systems, and fixing up […]
  • Setting Up A Siege
    This week the team made numerous AI improvements, worked on the siege system, and added many performance bot updates. We made some adjustments to the AI’s FOV and aggro distance to make sure the horrors of the jungle are properly stirred to action by player activities. We added sound types that will allow AI to […]
  • Map Updates and UI Improvements
    Many of us have been traveling over the holidays visiting friends and family but between unwrapping presents and ushering in the New Year we’ve still managed to get some work done. We optimized bear and wolf replication and set up AI fading for virtually all the creatures and beasts you may run across in the […]
  • Homes and Hazards for the Holidays
    With the holidays fast approaching the team was focused this week on fixing bugs and finishing up projects before leaving and joining the great travel queue wherever they call home. AI got a little attention first. To fix some of the issues we ran into last week with mutants hurling missile weapons behind their backs […]
  • Posters, Rivers, and Trick Shots
    A new sprint started this week and for the next 30 days we’ll be focusing on updating the map, creating bots for testing, AI sieging, and fixing persistence. We also plan on adding some polish to the player construction system, updating older features, and of course plugging away at the bug list. We tackled a […]
  • Swimming Improvements and AI Steering
    Despite some of us still fighting off the lingering effects of a turkey coma, we got right back where we left off this week working on AI steering, tackling bugs, and polishing our player construction system. We made many tracking/pathing improvements to our heavy hitters. Steering for our mutant overlord Big Bob and the island’s […]
  • Bring on the Bots
    The team continued the bug hunt this week focusing on fixing several combat-related issues. We nabbed a problem with hit indicators only showing up when hitting a headshot and fixed a bug with compound bow arrows bouncing strangely off the terrain. There’s no doubt that it looked cool but we want players focused on survival […]
  • Mutant Movements and Hunting Bugs
    This week marks the beginning of sprint 41. Over the next month, we’ll be focused on creating testing bots, fixing persistence, and working through a hefty backlog of bugs preparing for our first set of players. A map update, polishing the player construction system, some drone work, and a crash logging system is also planned. […]
  • Mutant Grunts and Other Audio Improvements
    Sprint 40 comes to an end this week and the team is wrapping up new systems, adding some polish, and nabbing bugs as they arise. Much of our time has focused on AI improvements. Future Maui’s monsters now move better in a group and keep pace with leaders in our effort to “Leave No Mutant […]
  • Steering Creatures In the Right Direction
    We continued our work on AI steering this week, making sure our beasts and terrors move more naturally while chasing players and avoiding those straight-line paths that make them too easy to hit. AI can now “head track” their targets if their targets are behind them and rotate in place if their target is within […]
  • Teaching Wolves To Run
    This week we continued our progress on the player building system and made some big additions. We fixed rotation snap points for floors and foundations so walls will always face outwards or inwards because walls are most useful when they are at right angles. We added window planks to the construction menu and added glass […]
  • Respawning Rooms and Thatch Buildings
    This is the first full week of sprint 40 and we will be working on finishing our investor trailer, improving the drone and performance, making another audio pass across the map, polishing up some older features, and adding posters and some personal touches to buildings and roadways. Our main goals will be building on the […]
  • Building Bases and Tearing Them Down
    We’re wrapping up sprint 39 this week and the team is busy fixing last-minute bugs and adding a bit of polish to existing systems while we finish editing our game trailer. Our main focus has been on finishing up the player construction system. We have different materials in the game now for all construction pieces, […]
  • Torch Tricks and Construction Sounds
    We spent a lot of time this week fine tuning our player construction system and fixing bugs. The team worked through some issues with construction persistence not loading health values properly, and a problem with triangular pieces not playing well with square pieces when putting together your cataclysm cabana. We discovered that foundations and foundation […]
  • Buildings, Bugs, and Boxes
    We continued to make improvements to the new player construction system this week. Nothing strengthens the bonds of a team like base building. It’s great to have a place to put your stuff, rest your weary bones, plan raids, and avoid having your face eaten off while you sleep. We fixed a few mesh bugs […]
  • Drone Flying Lessons
    This week marks the beginning of sprint 39 and we have a lot planned. Our goals for the next 30 days include finishing the game trailer, adding posters and other unique touches to buildings, improving performance, and updating the drone. We’ll also be working on adding more new audio, improving older features, implementing a crash […]
  • Opening Doors and Shooting Buildings
    Work continued this week on our player construction system. We cleaned up some collision issues so the panels of your dream apocalypse bungalow can go in smoothly, without any gaps that an industrious mutant could squeeze through. We also fixed a bug with repair prices not being correct for construction pieces. The team started adding […]
  • Raising Roofs
    We continued work on our building system this week, adding different textures to represent different types of building materials and fixing any collision problems. We’ve worked out a recycling system for any unwanted materials to make redecorating your cataclysm cabana a breeze, and we’re still working on some performance issues. We did a little testing […]
  • Audio Improvements and Breaking Windows
    We started the week by making a big audio pass over a wide variety of game interactions and systems. There are new sounds for menu navigation, eating fruit, meat, and canned foods, crafting, adding an attachment to weapons, holding your breath while aiming, and felling a tree. In addition, we’ve made a few updates to […]
  • Building a Building System
    This is the first full week of Sprint 38 and we have a lot of big features coming in the next 30 days. In addition to finishing our game trailer, we’re working on a player construction system and Steam integration. We’re also completing the first pass of the map and preparing for our first round […]
  • Gunfire and Floating Mutants
    Sprint 37 is coming to an end and we’re busy adding a bit of polish to the island, squashing bugs as they appear, and finishing up our game trailer. We ran into a bit of a floating problem this week with both rivers and dead AI occasionally refusing to obey the laws of gravity. Mutants […]
  • Setting the Scenery
    This week the team is finishing up our game trailer and adding a bit of polish to several systems before we start sharing the fruits of our labor to a wider audience. The autonomous drones that patrol the island and stream gameplay live have great new controls that help us direct them to specific events […]
  • Rivers, Creeks, and Streams
    This week the team remained focused on filming our trailer and improving some of our automated systems. We’ve added many personal touches to the numerous ruins that dot the landscape to help indirectly tell the story of the people who once lived in Lahaina and the world before the Fracture. In addition, we began work […]
  • Decorating Disaster
    We’ve continued to add some polish to the drone and procedural building system this week ahead of putting together our game trailer. We’ve added more controls to the drone for spotting people and things of interest and staying on target long enough to capture anything worth capturing. These new controls will help us guide these […]
  • Building Broken Neighborhoods
    We just started a new sprint, and in addition to adding a few more features to our drones and automated systems, the team is focusing on designing a construction system and making a trailer for the game. A number of weapon upgrades and fixes were completed this week. We added unequip and throw sounds to […]
  • Thunder, Lightning, and Elevators
    With sprint 36 coming to an end, everyone is fixing bugs as they appear and wrapping up new systems. We’ve fixed an issue causing environmental decals to be drawn on players. It made great camouflage in some cases but looked too weird to keep. We addressed an issue where players could get stuck on the […]
  • There’s a Mutant on the Roof
    The Team continued work on AI improvements this week, and we ran into an interesting bug during one of our play sessions. While running around testing out some of the new behaviors and tactics we’ve taught the mutants, we discovered one poor fractured soul who had the misfortune of spawning on top of a hut. […]
  • Creating a Pack Mentality
    The team has been focused on AI improvements and has made quite a few this week. We want the animals in Fractured Veil to act as naturally as possible, and our mutants as smart as they are ugly. We started the improvements with animals. Deer now make use of our dynamic AI grouping system. When […]
  • Building a Safe Zone
    A new sprint started this week and we’ll be focusing on finishing up a few systems that didn’t quite get finished from the previous sprint, more drone improvements, audio support across the map, building out five more world tiles, quests, and a number of AI updates. The team fixed a handful of drone bugs and […]
  • The Sounds of Survival
    It’s the last week of the current sprint, and we’re working hard finishing up goals and adding a bit of polish to current systems. We’ve fixed a bug that was causing footsteps to play the wrong sound or no sound at all, so there won’t be any ultra-light-steppers in the game anymore. We’ve also added […]
  • Floating Fences and GPU Giveaways
    The team spent a good portion of the extended holiday weekend fixing bugs and smoothing out systems in the game. We cleared the ziplines so players won’t get stuck in the sections that come too close to trees with no escape other than waiting to die of thirst. We nabbed a bug that wouldn’t spawn […]
  • Blazing Trails
    This week we made some headway on improving craftable items. We’ve added color-coded outlines to items based on their quality, and an item’s durability now scales with its quality. We added damage and fire rate updates to items based on their quality, and updated UI widgets to properly display these new stats. We updated audio […]
  • The Cannibals Are Coming
    This week the team made some improvements to our cannibal mutants. An important part of the ecosystem, the cannibals help keep the landscape clean of player bodies. Without their bone crunching work, the beautiful wilds of Lahaina would soon be filled with piles of ganked characters after a few bloody play sessions. You’ll have to […]
  • Tower Updates and UI Improvements
    We’ve kept our ears to the grindstone this week and have added a ton of new audio in the game. We’ve added new sounds for jumping, and harvesting, as well as increased the ambient noise along the beach. Players will be able to hear when they’re starving or dehydrated, and firing or interacting with weapons […]
  • Having “The Talk” With the Drones
    As we approach the end of sprint 34 the team continues making audio updates. We’ve added new tree falling sounds, audio support to doors in the game’s social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant, and gave the noise produced by the drone engines some tweaks as they change speed. In addition, we made a list of […]
  • Sounds Like a Drone
    This week the team made a number of player improvements. We are almost done with our pass through updating the player health system. We still have UI work to do, but we hope the new system will be more straightforward, and provide players better clarity as to what is happening to their newly restored bodies. […]
  • Building a Better Bob and Handing Out Beta Keys
    The team is in the middle of a huge audio and lighting pass. We’ve made some improvements to torch and campfire lighting and we’ve added slightly darker borders around crosshairs to help players see better when aiming at bright objects. We’re working on directional sound improvements so players can figure out where bullets are coming […]
  • Polish and Performance Improvements
    Sprint 34 began this week and like the previous sprint, we will be spending a lot of the next 30 days focusing on polishing up current features, and hunting down any remaining bugs that are having a negative effect on gameplay. Specifically we will be improving AI capabilities and actions, adding more world spaces, adding […]
  • Character Customization and Thudding Clubs
    The team is finishing up our big optimization and performance push, and moving into character customization work this week. Our first step was to introduce a female player model to the game. Right now it works just like it does in nature. You randomly spawn in as male or female, and in the future we […]
  • Performance Improvements and Weapon Noises
    As we approach the weekend, we’re wrapping up our huge optimization and performance push. The landscape is still undergoing changes as we work on our new distributed foliage system. The backends and game inventory have gone through a huge refactoring as well. The performance improvements should make our testing sessions more enjoyable for everyone, and […]
  • Bringing Back The Noise
    Our drone work continued this week, while we add that last bit of polish to the autonomous cameras that fly around Lahaina filming the action. In addition to smoothing out their flight patterns, teaching them what’s worth filming, and improving their HUD, we fixed a bug that would occasionally see them spawn under the map. […]
  • Working on the Drone and Slicing the SSHAM
    The first full week of Sprint 33 is wrapping up and we have a lot planned for the next 30 days. We’ll be focusing on: polishing up current systems and features, adding better player communication so you can coordinate with your group better, and getting things ready for our first set of players. We’ll also […]
  • Performance Improvements and Completing Packages
    This week the team remains focused on performance improvements across the board, and work on tools and systems to make the game experience as smooth and engaging as possible. First, we tackled houses and building interiors. We’ve reimported all of the houses on the map and improved the LOD on the procedural house meshes to […]
  • Power Plant Makeover
    The team is making some improvements to the various ruins across the entire map. We’re regenerating every structure made with our procedural building tool to add a new automated furniture feature. Instead of the barren husks that have dotted the map in the past, players can expect now to find the finest furnishings inside houses […]
  • Foliage and Food Fights
    This is the first full week of sprint 32 and we have a lot planned for the next 30 days. Our main focus will be finishing up player persistence and polishing current features for our first set of test players right around the corner. We’ll be adding better player communications, a few more drone improvements, […]
  • Building Better Group AI
    As the week winds down we’re completing work on a few items from the game’s fictional companies. Soon the map will be littered with branded items that remind players of the thriving Lahaina that existed before The Great Fracture. Players will be able to slaughter their thirst by discovering old cans of Manimal. They’ll marvel […]
  • Drone Fixes and New Animations
    To start out the week the team made a few campfire improvements. Everyone knows how busy a House leader can be running through the jungle, and keeping their members alive all day. Cooking for all of them takes time and can be a hassle. However, now thanks to the amazing new meat stacking feature we […]
  • Building a Better Jungle
    The team continued work on our autonomous eyes-in-the-skies this week, and made some great progress. The drones now have fuel and refueling logic. Sometime soon they will occasionally need to make trips to a refueling area, giving players brief windows of anonymity. We added Kantan Charts so they will be able to display graphs in […]
  • Drone Tracking and Lighting Improvements
    We’ve continued our road work this week, improving the roads most traveled and connecting hidden trails. Using the existing network of Lahaina streets as a guideline, we want to ensure that players move throughout the map and avoid bottlenecks. We’re taking some time to make the neighborhood ruins a little bit nicer too. The team […]
  • Lighting the Sky and Chopping Down Trees
    We’re well into sprint 31, and there is a lot planned. This sprint will focus on: Harvesting improvements, finishing up crafting tier 4 (including new ore resources and resource refining), advanced terrain work, filling out more world spaces, adding two new AI types, some drone refinements, completing player persistence, and more. You can always see […]
  • Contests and Camera Drones
    The team finished up a lot of drone work, and made a bunch of improvements to the autonomous cameras that record the game action high above Lahaina. We’ve added improved decision logic to help them decide what’s worth following and what isn’t. We added a time limit to how long a drone can be in […]
  • Building Better Roads
    As the week and sprint 30 come to an end, we looked at a number of decals and concept art for the Thorcon Power Plant and the surrounding areas. As the social hub of the game, we discussed at length what survivors of The Great Fracture would have done to the area, and how they […]
  • Spears, Clubs, and Drones
    Between parties, presents, and cups of cheer we’ve been working away at completing our sprint 30 goals, and have made some great improvements. The ingame drones in particular got a lot of love over the holidays. Our eyes in the sky have much better: pathing across the island, smoother rotations as they turn, better lighting, […]
  • Creating a Social Hub For the Holidays
    Sprint 30 has just begun, but this is the last full week before the holidays, and all the travel they bring. Here’s a look at what we’ve accomplished so far, and what we have planned for the rest of the sprint. We’ll be focusing a lot of time on our resource and crafting system tier […]
  • Building a Mutant Chain of Command
    This week marked the end of the old sprint and the beginning of the new. The teams pushed to finish up some last minute details, and start on their new goals. One of the most important tasks recently has been creating a new commander type AI for bosses as well as unique NPC’s in the […]
  • Drone Improvements and Weapon Upgrades
    Sprint 29 is coming to an end this week, and we’re finishing up a number of improvements to our drones. Our goal is have a number of autonomous eyes in the sky that stream live footage of the island, broadcasting a number of things ranging from: beauty shots of the landscape, animals in the jungle, […]
  • Resource and Animal Management
    Still fighting off turkey hangovers, and the colds you always get at group events, we dug back in this week where we left off before the holiday. A lot of material and lighting work was done on the landscape as the team builds out the areas between the game’s main hubs, as well as along […]
  • Environmental Work and Lighting the Dark Places
    It’s Thanksgiving week, and that means for many of us our heads are filled with thoughts of delicious food, and being trapped in conversations with those weird relatives you only see on the holidays. Nonetheless, there’s still plenty of work to do in the game, and we’ve been busy. The web team has been focused […]
  • Graphics Card Giveaway and Weapon Fixes
    The team is busy decorating the interior of the Thorcon Power Plant this week to get it ready for players, and the holidays. We looked over some concept art again, and picked out the bits we liked for the game’s social hub. We talked about the proper set decoration to give the interior the feel […]
  • Drone Cameras and Interviews
    This is the first full week of sprint 29 and the team fixed a number of bugs while finishing up some polish work over the weekend. Some of this work led to a number of temporary hitches that were just too good not to share. First, for a short period of time the Lahaina beach […]
  • Building a Social Hub and Hunting Bugs
    Nearing the end of the week and the current sprint, the team is focused on fixing as many bugs as possible, and adding some last minute polish to already existing systems. We uncovered a number of bugs and pain points while running around the wilds of Lahaina that have been resolved. We fixed a bug […]
  • Torches and Teaser Videos
    With sprint 28 wrapping up in a few days, everyone is finishing up goals and hunting down any remaining bugs. Terry continues working through trueSky issues, cooks, and crashes. We’ve worked through many of our recent weather and lighting problems and are focusing on making the water look perfect. We’ve fixed our fog and disappearing […]
  • Meet the Mutants
    The art team has been busy this week stylizing a bunch of items in the game and roughing up buildings. We looked at a number of different flare gun models, building interiors, and lots more loot. We discussed improving the pipeline for these themed items and building performance. The team has made great strides in […]
  • New Animations and Ranged AI Improvements
    To get the week started, the team added some animation improvements. Players shooting at an enemy on a sloped surface, such as a staircase, look significantly better now. They take a more natural stance, and move with the target, instead of the jerky right angle motions they had before. We made some improvements to spear […]
  • Painting the Power Plant
    As we approach the end of the week the team completed some lighting work. We’ve put a lot of thought into nighttime lighting in the game. We want to make sure that buildings, trails, and other points of interest are noticeable at night, but we don’t want to shred the cover of darkness for players […]
  • Directing Drones and Seeking Shelter
    As the week gets started the web team continues the front page facelift, and navigation update. Jesse has completed images for all of our social networks, and is working on a few custom overlays for streamers, as well as layouts for upcoming contests and announcements. We’re combining site navigation all in one place to streamline […]
  • Marketing, Badges, and Bob
    As the week comes to an end, the web team continues to work on our achievement system. Jesse is finishing up some wireframes for Jared to hook up and is busy designing badges befitting each achievement. We talked a bit about giving extra rewards to players who join or start Houses, fill out their account […]
  • Slapping on a Fresh Coat of Moss
    The web team started off the week with a bunch of refactoring to help clean things up a bit before continuing work on the achievement system. We have the first iteration, with a handful of achievements almost ready to deploy. Jesse is still working on badges and layouts for the final product, and we looked […]
  • Banks and Branded Loot
    This week kicked off the beginning of sprint 28. The team was busy finishing up final goals from the last sprint, and fixing any lingering bugs. The main focus of 28 will be: completing our UE 4.20.2 update, updating crafting, and tightening up the game’s resource loop. We also plan to: build out the areas […]
  • Building Decals and Disappearing Skies
    The team has made a number of inventory improvements this week. We have a completely new ui on your inventory screen. Things have been streamlined and rearranged to make better use of space, and make it easier for players to quickly change gear and grab items. Information about each item is easier to pull up, […]
  • Videos and Voices
    To get the week started we had a lengthy conversation about game videos. We have some landscape and test footage, as well as a few bloopers, but we need to make quite a few more. We looked at what we already have in the folder, and talked about what aspects of the game we wanted […]
  • Upgrades, Updates, and Points of Interest
    As the week comes to an end, the team remains focused on the upgrade to UE 4.20.2, and is making good progress. We’re also upgrading trueSky, to fix some lingering fog and cloud issues, and moving all of our audio over to the latest version of Wwise. With all these different updates and upgrades, Terry […]
  • Front Page Fixes and AI Improvements
    The web team started off the week by releasing a whole new navigation system on the front page. Everything a visitor needs can be found on our much cleaner left-side navigation now. The group did lots of refactoring work and are busy hunting down any new bugs that pop up. Jesse added some new loading […]
  • The Distribution of Loot
    The team is finishing out the week by focusing on a few ui improvements. Currently, it can be hard to see in the heat of battle what items you have selected or equipped from your inventory. The last thing we want is players mistakenly splashing mutants with a canteen, instead of filling them full of […]
  • Grungy Buildings and Ricocheting Bullets
    While Terry kicked off the week poking the monster that is the UE 4.20.2 upgrade and updating trueSKY, the rest of the team was busy switching over audio to Wwise. We’ve made a number of audio improvements across the board. The amount of noise a player makes when doing various activities has been adjusted (there’s […]
  • Bigger Buildings and New Mutants
    Sprint 27 is here and in addition to covering a few goals carried over from 26, our biggest tasks are: upgrading to UE 4.20.2, speeding up iteration time, upgrading trueSky to fix some of our lingering weather issues, and addressing any bugs from the last sprint. We made a big push to get our first […]
  • Time To Go On A Quest
    This week the team started off by circling back to refine and build out a number of player and social features. We’re looking into ways to highlight our affiliate program, and improve its usability. We looked at how a few other games use theirs, and discussed at some length what would work best for us. […]
  • Opening Doors and Finishing Quests
    As the week nears the end, the team is making a big push to tackle some of our lingering performance issues. We’ve already stripped the entire map of vegetation, and did some major material upgrades to make things less resource intensive, but there are still a few areas for improvement. One of the biggest, is […]
  • Dangerous Canned Goods and Bug Hunting
    With sprint 26 coming to an end this week, the teams are busy adding the finishing touches to a number of tasks, and hunting down some remaining bugs. The web team has corrected a number of issues on the page that have been hurting our SEO, and have implemented some improvements to give us a […]
  • Lighting Paths and Cloudy Skies
    The web team continues to dig into the player profile page making improvements, and streamlining the friends and referral process. Jesse put on his research hat this week, and looked into a number of other games, picking out what works, and what seems confusing. Using that knowledge we looked at a number of wireframes, and […]
  • Casting an Appropriate Level of Light On things
    The team started off the week with some work on smoothing out the flight plan of the Veil News Network (VNN) drone. The game’s eye in the sky broadcasts a live feed of what’s going on in the game, highlighting different areas of the map, and capturing player activity. We’re also working on an “Art […]
  • Finding Friends and Mutant Makeovers
    Since our first type of mutant, the Trophy Hunters, are prowling the forests looking for parts to add to their collections, we decided to give them a little individuality. They already have a couple different types with special abilities, such as one who has ranged attacks, but until now all basic types look the same. […]
  • Ziplines, Buildings, and Bears
    The team made some good progress on streamlining crafting and improving ui this week. We added some improvements to how drag and drop works, highlighting items selected, and fixing a bug that offset where your gear got dropped in your inventory. We cleaned up some of the navigation on the crafting page to make things […]
  • Towers, Trails, and Tarnished Buildings
    The team has been putting a lot of work into our creature AI this week. We’re making improvements to both animals and monsters after discovering that we’re having a little trouble with AI senses. Our Trophy Hunters in particular aren’t acting like keen predators, tracking down players to collect grisly souvenirs like they should. Instead, […]
  • Building Roads and Aging Buildings
    Sprint 26 kicked off this week, and we’ll be focusing on getting things ready for players with items such as: Improving creature AI, filling in the map, implementing a way for players to bank or secure loot, creating a social hub in the game, and focusing on player growth. We’re updating campfires to make them […]
  • Staging Ruins and Upgrading Creatures
    With sprint 25 coming to an end today, the team is busy adding a bit of polish, and finishing up goals. While filling in the map, and laying down a network of connecting trails is going to be an ongoing process, the handful of sections to the South that we’ve been focusing on are looking […]
  • New Buildings and Dangers
    We made a few audio improvements to compliment all of our recent map work this week. A number of weapons now have improved clicks, twangs, and booms. We’ve added some new character sounds such as crisper footfalls, and rustling while moving through the foliage. We have placeholder voices for NPCs and our monsters as well, […]
  • Playing With Friends and Building Neighborhoods
    We kicked the week off with a number of group play improvements and features. We’ve worked out the last of the bugs interfering with the ability to heal others. Splints can be quickly applied to party members to get them up and running again when you’re in a hurry, and bandages now affect all injuries […]
  • Putting Lahaina on the Map
    The team’s push to make crafting and player inventory improvements continues. We made some improvements to the drag and drop on the crafting screen, and found a bug that was displacing items. Jared is fixing it now. We also have splitting and stacking working well for players who have trouble leaving anything behind that they […]
  • Lahaina Loot Boxes
    The team did a lot of inventory and crafting work over the weekend, to make sure the arts and crafts scene in post-fracture Lahaina remains vibrant. They added some ui improvements, made some adjustments to the drag and drop between the inventory and crafting screen, and worked through stacking and splitting issues. We added a […]
  • Building Houses and the Roads Most Traveled
    As the end of the week approaches, the team continues to focus on group play features. We’re making a few ui improvements to the inventory to better highlight what items you have equipped, or loaded in your quick bar. We’re making it easier for you to find online friends or House members who might be […]
  • Group Play and Gear
    The team kicked the week off focusing on group play, specifically healing other party members. We ran into a few bugs right away. While we finally have medkits in the game, we discovered that their medical efficacy was the same as a kiss on a boo-boo (or less, really). We’re tracking down the issue, and […]
  • Creature Calls and Putting It All Together
    As the week comes to an end, the team is hard at work making improvements to the crafting system. We discussed adding a few new recipes to the list of craftable items, and talked about different ways players could discover new recipes. We’re working on the drag and drop system to shake out all the […]
  • Maps and Mechanics
    This week marks the beginning of sprint 25, and the team is busy filling in the new map, as well as finishing up some features, and hunting down bugs found in the previous sprint. After stripping down the previous map, and rebuilding it literally from the ground up with topographical data of Maui, we’ve started […]
  • Filling In the Map
    As we close out sprint 24, the group is busy hunting down bugs, and adding finishing touches. We’ve been having some trouble with the Veil News Network’s (VNN) live broadcast on the front page crashing. We’ve identified the issue, and the team is putting in a fix that should keep the drone’s feed playing as […]
  • Cartography Work and Making Waves
    The team continues to push forward with our map improvements. We’ve stripped everything out, and started from the beginning, using higher resolution open source topography data, to make a higher fidelity copy of the Lahaina area. All the roads and some of the landmarks have been imported, and the art team is busy transforming them […]
  • Throwing Things and Headshots
    The team started the week by fixing a number of weapon attachment bugs. Previously, a player trying to use the sights on a weapon felt like they were in a truck speeding down a dirt road. We addressed the ADS (aiming down sights) jiggle, so iron sight fans can take a steady aim. However, that […]
  • Measuring Mountains and Securing Trade
    The web team is working on a few tweaks and improvements to the notification system. We discussed ways to streamline and limit messages to avoid being bombarded with notifications, but still stay up-to-date with things like friends joining the game, and House members being online. Jesse is making a number of layout improvements including subtle […]
  • Mapping the Lay of the Land
    The team is busy making improvements to the group play system, and working out any remaining issues with integrating Houses and Friends in the game. While we want players to enjoy exploring the jungle, and ruins of Lahaina on their own, we want to encourage the idea that survival is much easier with a group. […]
  • Erratic Movements and Dancing
    As the first full week of sprint 24 comes to an end, the team continues their work on smoothing out any remaining crafting issues. We’re giving crafting icons some attention so it’s clear what your working on, and the images match what’s in your inventory. We discussed timers, and contemplated making adjustments to the length […]
  • Loot Drops and Weapon Shops
    We started off Sprint 24 by discussing our third loot drop scenario in the game. The first involves players scrambling to a designated area after a flare goes off, to grab a crate of goodies before anyone else. The second finds a group holding a building or area against multiple waves of attackers for a […]
  • Blue Skies and Beach Roads
    The Team continued their work on adding new design features, and talking through the crafting process. We’re updating a few icons to give players a good visual representation of what they’re working on to avoid any confusion. We discussed adding additional recipes, and talked some more about using trash as a resource when crafting. We […]
  • Buildings, Boxes, and Birds
    As we begin the final week of Sprint 23, everyone is busy finishing up projects, and hunting down bugs. The web team has upgraded to the latest versions of Webpack and React, and are fixing some lingering layout issues. We’re improving our autocomplete feature to make it a bit smarter, and making some improvements to […]
  • Lighting the Night and Making a Perfect Wave
    After the holiday weekend, the art team started off the week with a bunch of environmental and audio improvements across Lahaina. We’ve added new sounds to a number of our wild places, as well as areas filled with ruins, and the remains of civilization. The ocean is looking good in the game currently, and we […]
  • Blue Skies and Deep Mines
    To wrap up the week, we’re making some minor adjustments to the Veil News Network (VNN) drone camera. Showing off major structures, and points of interest in real time inside the game, the VNN live stream is a great way to see what’s left of Lahaina, and what’s happening around the game world. Our first […]
  • Updating Sights and Sounds
    The team started the week off doing some audio work in various locations around the map. We’ve made some improvements to the sounds of the jungle, and are working towards having a unique sound profile for all of the game’s unique buildings. We’re adding some new audio for weapons too. Guns, machetes, spears, and clubs […]
  • Performance Improvements and Cloudy Days
    To finish out the week, the web team is completing performance improvements on the web page. Jared has made some caching improvements, images have been optimized across the page, and we’ve made some changes to the Story Timeline view, in order to make it quicker to scroll through. We talked some more about a secure […]
  • Hunting Bugs and Bouncing Clubs
    We made a lot of progress on team ui, and a team page over the weekend. Jesse showed off some wireframes, and we talked over some potential user flow issues regarding playing with a group. We discussed numerous filtering options for finding Friends and House members who are playing the game, and quick ways to […]
  • Drone Improvements and Getting Parties Started
    The end of the week marks the beginning of sprint 23, and the team is busy going down the list of new goals. San added a QR code to the Veil News Network (VNN) live stream. It shows the coordinates of the camera and time, so we can compile a searchable index of drone footage. […]
  • Playing Well With Others
    This week marks the end of sprint 22, and the team is busy adding finishing touches and hunting down bugs. We talked over issues with the live VNN feed and discussed what features we’d like to add next. We’re building out a “Live Feed” area in the Media section, and Jesse showed off some wireframes […]
  • All Over The Maps
    To finish off the week, the web team is working on a few performance issues, and cleaning up a few bugs that have popped up. They’re focusing on image optimization across the page. House and merchandise images are all being resized, and Jesse is addressing a couple minor layout issues. In addition, work on a […]
  • Throwing Machetes and Holding Territory
    This week the team is finishing up our first pass at a crafting system. We’ve fixed some issues we had with crafting timers running too long, or not resetting, so item production should flow in Lahaina once again. We’re adding a repair/wash feature so you’ll be able to fix chips in machetes, clean gummed up […]
  • The Sound of Combat and Digging Into Designs
    As the week comes to an end, the web team is busy adding final touches, and improvements to our real time Veil News Network (VNN) game camera. Jesse added an animated logo that fades in and out, as the camera takes a tour of points of interest across the island. We talked over a few […]
  • Arts and Crafts and Loot
    The Veil News Network (VNN) live drone cam is up and running on the front page, giving you a view of what’s happening in real time in the game. We fixed some of the roller coaster like rotations, and it now avoids hitting the terrain to a greater degree. We discussed ways to expand camera […]
  • Dropping Loot and Making a Nicer Respawn Room
    As the end of the week approaches, San and the web team continue to focus on improving the automated camera drones, and making the live streaming experience as nice as possible. Our live stream tour of the island is still broadcasting on our YouTube channel, and we’ve been working on some overlay options to add […]
  • Taking a Flying Tour of What’s Left of Lahaina
    We started off the week by getting the team system up and running. Players now have the ability to make groups with their friends, or anyone else who’s up for running around the ruins of future Lahaina, looting and shooting indiscriminately. There are map markers indicating how well everyone is staying in formation for tactical […]
  • Item Quality and Creating a Channel Lineup
    The web team continued their work on the Veil News Network (VNN) this week. The service designed to provide players almost-real time updates of in-game announcements and events, is coming along nicely. We’ve made a VNN section on the home page to provide more in-depth coverage of the stories scrolling by on the newsticker, and […]
  • Testing Teams and Gear
    This week marks the end of the old sprint, and the beginning of 22. The teams are busy finishing up some last minute work, fixing bugs, and setting goals. We’re adding a bit of polish to the group play system, but it’s ready to test. Players can make teams, use team VOIP, see members on […]
  • Working on the Weather and Group Play
    The web team continued their work on creating the Veil News Network (VNN) this week. Designed to keep players updated with the latest ingame news, and important events, the news service is making good progress. We’re giving VNN its own section on the website, and are working on some animated scenes and embedding 3d assets […]
  • Lights, Cameras, and Filming the Action
    This is the last full week of sprint 21, and much of the team’s work is focused on rooting out bugs, and adding some finishing touches to what we’ve been working on. One of the biggest goals this sprint was to get a team system up and running for group play. All of the backend […]
  • News Streams and the Roads Most Traveled
    With the Veil News Network (VNN) newsticker working across the front page, the team is focusing on getting a live video system working for specific news events. We have a fixed camera live stream on our YouTube page with some terrific, (for some definition of terrific), Hawaiian elevator music for accompaniment. Jesse needs to rework […]
  • Team Building and Bots
    This week the web team turned their attention to the next step in our Veil News Network (VNN) service, live streaming the news. We’ll be focusing on “Travel and Leisure” stories at first since there aren’t a lot of people running around shooting, hunting, and looting yet. We talked about having a few “previously recorded” […]
  • Building Better Buildings and Body Armor
    As we approach the end of the week, the web team is making good progress on finishing up two projects: The Veil News Network (VNN) newsticker, and a table style view of game packages. We’ve fixed some overlap and spacing issues on the ticker, and have completed some styling work to make it more consistent. […]
  • Survival Tools and Game Packages
    This week the web team continues their ecommerce work. They’re working on improving the look and flow of everything in the Shop section. Jesse showed off a design that has each game package color coded to quickly and easily tell them apart, and a table style view highlighting each specific item, making it easier to […]
  • Getting Groups Together
    As the week comes to an end, the web team worked on making our ecommerce system better, and adding a few new features. Jared built a cron job to address an order processing bug that could leave some orders in limbo. Everything seems to be working now, and orders are being fulfilled through the store […]
  • Logging Lahaina and Breaking News
    As we come to the end of sprint 20, the web team remained focused on adding improvements to the Veil News Network (VNN) feature, and squashing bugs. Scrolling across the front page with test data currently, VNN will provide players with near real-time news about the most important events going on in the game. We […]
  • New Animations and News You Can Use
    This week has seen a lot of UI work across many different areas. We’re finishing up some documentation, and adding the ability to drag and drop items in the inventory. The latest pass at a complete HUD update is finished, and a complete fullscreen UI update continues. We’ve added an alert whenever you drop an […]
  • Newstickers, Grunge, and Greywater
    As we near the end of the week, the web team continues their push to create our real-time, in-game news system the Veil News Network (VNN). We hope to make VNN an interactive tool for players to keep track of important events and happenings regarding their friends, Houses, and the world they’re playing in. Jesse […]
  • Reporting Crimes and Minting Coins
    The push to create the Veil News Network (VNN), an interactive real-time service that reports on major game events and announcements, continues this week. The news API is collecting more metadata, and Jared’s story template library is growing to cover a variety of happenings and events. Jesse is working on animations for a newsticker on […]
  • Please Do Not Pet The Wildlife
    The web team spent some time fixing bugs that popped up during the Community Page update, and adding a few little improvements. We’ve: added pagination to the Friends section and others, fixed some layout issues, worked out some problems with social media links not working properly, and did some form validation work. We should have […]
  • Building the News and Harvesting Resources
    The week started off with the web team smoothing out some layout issues with the Community landing page, and hunting down some bugs. Jesse updated some layouts (mostly on the settings and referral pages). We’re adding icons for the House page and other sections so players can quickly navigate to all subsections of the community […]
  • Hold Music and the Cost of Money
    As we near the end of the week, the web team is pushing to complete the last of their work on the Community Page. The push on House customization is done for now. There’s a new prominent callout for Houses with links to the FAQ explaining what they are, and how they work. House founders […]
  • Combat, Community, and Callouts
    The web team focused on building out the Veil News Network (VNN) system over the weekend. Jared has the news API wired in, so we can sort through game data to eventually post real time updates about game events. We talked through some options for parsing the data efficiently with a number of tags and […]
  • Power Plants and Heads-Up Displays
    The web team is wrapping up the week by chasing down a few remaining bugs, and adding the last touches to House customization. Jared is busy hunting down an issue that is hiding House info from non-logged in users, and Jesse is finishing some styling work. However, the House Settings page is ready. There are […]
  • News You Need and Subterranean Safe Spaces
    The first full week of sprint 20 saw the web team finish up preliminary work on customizable House features. Players can now go to their House Settings page to: write their House charter, setup application instructions, load a House banner, pick their House colors, Integrate VOIP and streaming services, and assign a background image. We’re […]
  • Better Houses and Power Plants
    To finish out the week, the art team has been hard at work completing the new underground spawn area. Designed to allow players a safe place to respawn, away from itchy trigger fingers looking for loading characters, the place is coming along nicely. We’ve added a few shelves, tables, and a ladder leading up to […]
  • Safe Rooms and Personalized Houses
    With sprint 19 coming to an end, we’re all pushing to finish up last minute work, add some polish to a few systems, and hunt down lingering bugs. Work on the player compass continues, and we’re doing another art pass to make it pretty. The team is finishing up some final work on the player […]
  • Guns, Guns, and More Guns
    As we near the end of the week the team is busy finishing up the final stages of our programmatic building system, and addressing some problems with older models. Many of the old placeholder buildings, and some of the very first large structures, are causing some significant performance issues. We plan on deleting them from […]
  • Armor, Banners, and Arrows
    A few critical bugs regarding Houses popped up over the weekend, so the teams started by squashing them and a few other lingering problems. Charters, and members should now show up on the House page, and a bug that made banners move oddly was addressed. Having just about finished the first tier of customization, Jesse […]
  • Looking for a Quiet Little Place To Respawn
    The team is finishing out the week with expanding the options for player talents. A dozen new options were added to help players forge their characters into better crafters, hunters, medics, or a wide range of other roles. Adding the new talents exposed a few ui bugs that we still need to work through, but […]
  • Streaming From a Closet and Adding Some Color
    The web team continued working through bugs found in the timeline view, on the story page over the weekend. We worked through many of them, including a way to navigate more smoothly through years that don’t have stories associated with them. We talked through some sidebar layout issues, and made improvements to how the “view […]
  • Maps, Mockups, and Armor
    To finish out the week the web team is hard at work smoothing out any remaining kinks in the upcoming story timeline view. We’re addressing a handful of layout issues, and Jared is still working on overall performance and speeding up load times on the site. They’re reworking the “view more posts” button so stories […]
  • Customizing Houses and Respawning Players
    This week started off with the completion of the timeline view on the story page. We’re still working out a few minor bugs, but now you can read the game story in chronological order, instead of the back and forth over a hundred years of history and happenings, like before. Jared continues to look into […]
  • Streaming Video and Spawning Loot
    The team started the new year with a new sprint, some bug hunting, and a little ui work to existing systems. Jared is tracking down a few bugs in the upcoming timeline view for game stories on the blog. You’ll be able to read the numerous tales about the game world, and key individuals in […]
  • Fixing the Cart and Adding Packages
    Even though many of us were busy with trips, celebrations, and family visits during this short week, we kept plugging away to finish up our goals for sprint 18 and squash any lingering bugs. We found one of those bugs when San was placing an order on mobile. While the “continue to checkout” button would […]
  • Player Death and Referring a Friend
    With the short holiday weekend coming up, everyone is pushing hard to finish projects before the end of the year. Our goal of having a chronological view of the numerous game story posts is just about complete. The team hooked up year and story tag filters to the timeline view, and highlighted the date of […]
  • Crossbows, Timelines, and SCM
    With a couple of short weeks coming up because of the holidays, the team has been busy finishing up goals for sprint 18. Our latest pass at the inventory and crafting ui are in. We’re adding a little polish and trying to address the plentiful bugs we’ve found so far, including improvements to the crafting […]
  • The Shape of Stickers and the Sound of a Gun
    This week kicked off with the completion of our initial spawn sequence experience. Now players won’t have to worry about popping into the middle of a firefight when they login. We wrapped up a smart respawn system as well, to avoid the same situation happening when you’re coming back from the dead. Nothing is worse […]
  • Timelines and Fancy Banners
    This week we discussed different ways we could create a timeline view for the stories on the blog. Until now, the stories explaining the game world and the characters in it haven’t been posted in chronological order, but instead by whatever part of the game we were trying to flesh out at the time. Jumping […]
  • Player Death and Taxes
    The first full week of the new sprint saw everyone fixing any lingering issues, and moving on to the next big project. The functionality of our online store is done. We just have to add the images of the new shirts and the other merch. Jared has the ledger for the player wallet up and […]
  • Building Houses and Breaking News
    With the current sprint ending today, the team continued to focus on adding some last minute polish and nabbing any lingering bugs. Jared and Jesse finished up most of the ecommerce work needed to get our shopping cart up and running. PayPal integration is complete, and mock-up images of all the new shirt colors are […]
  • Caves, Spawning Points, and Growling Elevators
    Sprint 17 is finishing up at the end of the week. In between waking up from their tryptophan comas, and avoiding becoming tech support for visiting relatives, the team finished up as many things as they could. Our new crafting screen is ready, and we have a working armor system in place as well as […]
  • Spawning Loot In Scary Rooms
    With Thanksgiving coming up in a few days, everyone is pushing hard to fix last minute bugs and finish up items during a short week. Our item spawning system is getting a few tweaks. We’re working on making loot lists specific for containers ensuring that refrigerators are filled with food instead of ammo. We’re also […]
  • Armor, Audio, and Audacious Kitchens
    The web team continued their polish work on the shopping cart this week and made a number of minor fixes and improvements. As I mentioned in the last update, we decided to try a new brand of t-shirt that we think will be more comfortable. We now have both men’s and women’s shirts instead of […]
  • Lights, Cameras, and Transactions
    The week started off with more discussion about cameras. We talked at some length about how we’d handle cameras in multiple worlds, and the faraway goal of having hundreds of robot cameras, rendering images of multiple worlds at the same time. The team revisited the idea of having a live streaming camera of the game […]
  • Towers, Props, and Posters
    The shopping cart is live! After a lot of hard work and fixing some last minute bugs, we have the first version of our shopping cart up and running. Currently, you can choose from four different game packages, a Fractured Veil poster, and FRV t-shirts in four different colors. There are a few minor layout […]
  • The Sounds of Automated Construction
    As planned, we put our shopping cart up on staging and turned it over to Chris, the breaker of all things. He gave it a kick, tried out every option the average person could think of, tried out options only Chris could think of, and tried to break it in general. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful […]
  • Logos, Designs, and Elevator Safety
    This week the web team has knocked out the last of the shopping cart bugs that they discovered last week. We completed work on the checkout screen. Now: you see the correct image of the merchandise you ordered, the item quantity counter is working correctly, if you order more than one item, each item is […]
  • Cameras and Buildings and Bears!
    The team spent the weekend making refinements and improving the automated building system introduced last week. The system now has a number of pre-saved templates for buildings to choose from, and a batch build button so you can create multiple buildings of similar characteristics. You can adjust square footage, add a porch, and move doors […]
  • Shirts on a Plane
    This week the web team is focusing on clearing out the last of the shopping cart bugs and smoothing out any lingering rough spots. We’ve got most of the latest bugs fixed now, and are making sure the physical items we have ready, shirts and posters, are displayed correctly. The shopping cart will accept game […]
  • Building Neighborhoods and Installing Cameras
    This week the web team took care of all the remaining bugs discovered with the Friends system, and pushed the fixes to production. However, after some testing they found a few more bugs with the shopping cart. Jared is finishing up a little work on the checkout, and Jesse is tackling a few layout and […]
  • Carts, Cameras, and Collecting Wood
    It looks like our goal of having the shopping cart all buttoned up by the end of the week is on target. Order status and order history is hooked up so you can easily see what you’ve ordered and when it is coming. The team checked off all the bugs on our list and Jesse […]
  • Tech Updates and Layouts
    This week the web team is adding the finishing touches to our initial ecommerce system and putting a bow on top. The last of the receipt and order history work is being completed, and the last of the lingering bugs are being squashed. With a few more days of styling work, we hope to have […]
  • A Talent Tree Grows In Lahaina
    Having finished most of the rough mechanics with our shopping cart last week, this week we focused on giving it a little polish and making sure it runs smoothly. Nobody likes trying to use a cart with a frozen wheel. Jared worked on: the check-out flow when users aren’t logged in, adding order/shipping status notifications, […]
  • Creating Old Ruins and New Words
    So, and all hail our great god of mammon, the e-commerce shopping cart! This is our way of saying that we’ve almost completed work on our basic shopping cart. The core features are done and we have a list of initial physical and virtual products. Jared did a bunch of validation work and is smacking […]
  • Attaching Cameras and Creating Talents
    This week marks the beginning of sprint 16 and we spent some time going over what got done from our last sprint. The highlights include: completing the bug hitlist from our Friends and Family Alpha, weapon attachments for all your scope and bayonet needs, a quest system to give players a little purpose, a item […]
  • Taking Orders and Making Maps
    With sprint 15 wrapping up, we’re pushing hard to squeeze as much as we can into these last few days. The web team has done a ton of work getting our ecommerce … more…up and running. Our shipping system is providing/collecting all the necessary information including product details, dimensions, and item weight. There’s a little […]
  • Shirts, Skills, and Scopes
    This week marks the end of Sprint 15, so everyone is pushing to fix lingering bugs and finish up as many items as they can before planning for 16 begins. There is probably going to be a couple things from this sprint that get pushed into 16, but the good news is that our bug […]
  • Banging Up Buildings and Working Out Designs
    In addition to continuing some minor big fixes left over from our Friends and Family launch, there was a lot of iteration on inventory/crafting screens this week. After playing through the game tutorial ourselves, and listening to feedback from other players, it was apparent that the old screens were too cluttered and confusing to navigate. […]
  • Upgrades, Shopping Carts, and Player Persistence
    The first full week of Sprint 15 found the team mostly doing what we did last week: fixing bugs, making little improvements and gathering feedback from our Friends and Family release. As expected, we got a lot of valuable information from letting people play through the tutorial, expose bugs, and find out what systems needed […]
  • Bug Hunting and Adjusting Designs
    With Labor Day this week and the launch of our Friends and Family Alpha last Friday, there isn’t a whole lot of new stuff to show off for this update. Most of our time was spent squashing bugs and running through the game tutorial, making sure that everything works as expected. It’s one thing to […]
  • Alerts, Notifications, and Playing the Game
    Our plan to have a “Friends and Family” release tomorrow is on schedule. That means this past week was mostly spent hunting down some final bugs, last minute fixes, and adding some final polish. While there wasn’t a whole lot of new features or assets added, a few noteworthy things were finished. The web team […]
  • Flowing Lava and Foot Guns
    With our plan to have a “Friends and Family” release ready in just over a week, everyone has been pushing hard to work out the remaining kinks and root out any existing bugs. Our modular house/ruin system is done and we’ll be replacing the old sort-of-damaged buildings, with much more detailed and ominous looking versions […]
  • Adding Some Polish and Dealing With Floppy Hat Issues
    Our Friends and Family Alpha launch is fast approaching, so there wasn’t a whole lot of new work to show off or talk about this past week. Everyone is pushing hard to finish up systems, give them a little polish, and squash and identify bugs. However, there were a few new or completed projects, as […]
  • Bows that Boom and Seeing Blue
    With our planned Friends and Family Alpha release getting closer every day, a lot of polish work, bug squashing, and styling continued this week. We wrapped up some loose ends with our ability system, and introduced some really fun craftable items. The game now has grenades, claymore mines, and camping lights. The beach may be […]
  • Dev Update: Dressing for the Weather
    We started a new sprint this week so there was a lot polishing and last minute bug fixing going on. Refinements to our alert and inventory system continued and our crafting/assembly and cooking system also got a little love. We found a bug that would trap you inside a corpse after you dispatched an enemy. […]
  • The Lights Are Low and the Pants are Off
    We’re starting a new sprint next week so we’ve been busy smacking down bugs, finishing up systems, and adding a bit of polish to a variety of things. We cleaned up and reorganized some of the navigation on the website, added a search field to the right hand nav and fixed a lingering scroll bar […]
  • A Whole Lot of New Art
    There isn’t a whole lot to report since our last update. We found and squashed a few bugs, did some styling work to various parts of the webpage including the newest launcher, and talked about specific styling wants for player graphs and how best to display that data. The team discussed potential privacy/security issues and […]
  • Data Tracking, Animations, and Gift Shops
    It was a busy weekend for some of us but the team still got a lot done. Here’s what we did and what we talked about since the last time we checked in. Tired of looking at blank avatar icons on our test accounts, we added Gravatar support. If you already use the service, you […]
  • Tags, Forums, and Kill Data
    As usual we got a lot of work done over the weekend and hit the week running. Here’s what we we’ve done since our last update. Our forums are now hooked up. Instead of trying to create our own we decided to go with Discourse. It seems to be simple, intuitive and most people are […]
  • Making Things Secure, Crafting, and Perfect Plants
    Chris got a new SSL certificate and banged his head on docker for a while, reminding him that the awesome thing about getting punched in the face is how good it feels when it stops. We started working on an outline for the FAQ to answer all of your serious and some of your not-so-serious […]
  • Communication Goals and Coming Back From The Dead Quickly
    We didn’t spend the entire holiday grilling food and shooting off fireworks. We did a lot of work too. Here’s what we were up to. We did a lot of work on our alert system and its ui. This got us talking about our communication goals in the game. We broke down player states into […]
  • Filling House Roles and Building Abandoned Homes
    Hi everyone! Here’s what we’ve done so far this week… We’ve been doing some work on validations, particularly on our social networks page. We’re added some instructional text here as well to make things a bit more clear. We’re working on setting up “Roles” for the House section. This way you can assign titles and […]
  • Making the moon smaller and the price of pretty
    We finished our (temporary, likely) in-game chat system so you can share your words with your friends (but not words with friends, we’re not that kind of game company). We designed it like our quest, alerts, and login to be integrated with Google services. San worked on a new patcher for your quicker loading enjoyment […]
  • Friends and Thorcon and Genitals and Stars, oh my
    Hey everyone! We had a busy week and these are some of the highlights…… The team made the friend request notifications smarter, so once you’ve sent a request you aren’t constantly reminded of it. We worked out a few lingering sitemap issues that were causing URLs to point in the wrong places. The team fine […]
  • First of Many Game Updates
    Hey everyone! Here’s what will be the first of many many updates on how the game is going… During our creative meeting today, we reviewed and approved a number of new items for the game. If you’re a fan of hazmat masks you’ll be happy to learn that you now have multiple options when it […]
  • Understanding Fractured Veil
    We’ve been working on Fractured Veil (FRV) for almost 2 years now. We started with some rather wacky ideas about what kind of game we were going to make and have made a lot of progress over time. But lets start these tech posts with some details on the engine we chose: We’re using the […]