We’re at a point in development where our next major goal, the Alpha Release, is right around the corner. It’s so close, in fact, that it makes more sense to take some members off that goal and to let them work on future developments and concepts. I’m very happy to say that this week’s Dev Update is all about the accomplishments that we’ve already achieved since this decision was made!
The first one is the subject in this Dev Update’s title and image: Stewart! There’s been some discussion internally about whether or not we’ll include alien lifeforms within Gears of Eden. They could fit pretty well and we have some very fun ideas for them, but their inclusion is also a whole other can of worms to open up that isn’t strictly necessary. For this discussion to be complete, we needed to know what the lifeforms might even look like. If one member of the team is thinking of classic sci-fi, “Greys,” they’re probably going to feel differently about their inclusion than another team member who is, for example, picturing little crabs that scuttle around with rocks on their backs. Stewart, then, is our first attempt to figuring out that oh-so-important style. He’s not finished yet and he might not ever appear in Gears of Eden, but I have no doubt that you will end up seeing his influence in the final product!
As for something we can promise that you will see in Gears of Eden, at least in the first Alpha Release, we’ve put together a temporary Quality of Life feature. Currently our collision systems need some work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven up to a charging station only to clip into it and get stuck forever. That, however, will take a lot of work to correct, undoubtedly pushing the alpha release even farther back, and there’s plenty we’d like to test in the meantime! Instead, we’ve implemented a small reset feature that the player can activate whenever they get stuck in some geometry. If, for example, you got caught in our diabolical charging station traps, the feature would return the player back a few feet and safely on their treads again. Again, this is temporary, but it’ll save you needing to restart the game every hour or so!
Finally, we’ve been editing the upcoming Gears of Eden short story! After Sledge put together some super helpful editing notes, I’ve gotten to work on cleaning up areas where I wasn’t clear or became long-winded. My next goal over the next few days will be to re-write the beginning section, which is sort of a mess made from me trying to figure out what, exactly, the story would be. We want to release this with the first Alpha Release, but to do so, I’ve got to really step on it!
This has been such a fun week for Gears of Eden! That’s it for this week’s Dev Update, but we’ll be back this weekend with the fifth episode of the Reaching Eden Podcast, so be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get that update (and everything else Gears of Eden) the very moment it’s available! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitch as well, we plan on streaming some more Kerbal and GoE development testing this week and weekend! Thank you so much for reading and supporting us, and I hope you have a great rest of your week!
