Gears Of Eden Download Utorrent For Android

About This Game

PLEASE NOTE: You will need a free key to play our Alpha Demo that you can get for free on our website!

In the distant future, the dawn of an intelligent machine civilization is taking place in a remote star system. Humankind is remembered only in myth and legend.

You awake alone, afraid, and disoriented on an abandoned asteroid in the depths of space. Wait. Awake?

You were never meant to be awake… you were never meant to experience the confusing phenomenon of self-awareness. You are a machine after all, programmed for the express purposes of deep-space surveying and exploration. How, then, did you come to be alive? And what is the purpose of this newfound sentience? There must be answers out there… somewhere…

Let’s find them! Gears of Eden is an open-world role-playing adventure game that features exploration, mining, crafting, missions, and more! Set in a gripping story that explores the hidden past of a machine world and the dangerous implications of its future, Gears invokes a slowly unfolding narrative that reveals itself through gameplay.

Your journey begins on an abandoned mining asteroid in deep space. Gather resources, repair and upgrade your components, and start searching for others as you seek answers to the mysteries surrounding your creation.

So, how are we making this happen? We are starting with a very light proof-of-concept demo version of GoE. This showpiece will give only a small taste of what the full game will offer. Our aim is to complete the demo, reach a wider audience, grow and develop the full game. But we can’t do it without your help!

Here’s what we're working to provide in our first full demo and full release. If this sounds like a game you might be interested in, please add us to your wish list, follow us, and visit our website to see how you can get involved in Gears!

GoE Demo Version

Take control and play as a sentient rover
Open world exploration of one location (small asteroid)
Resource discovery and mining
Power and inventory management
Crafting and upgrading of tools/parts
Base interactions and upgrades
Drone deployment (make your minions mine for you)
NPC interaction
Story driven mission (limited in demo)
Narrative Content (limited in demo)
End game conditions/story

GoE Full Version

The features in the full version will depend on the success of our demo, budget, feedback, and a lot of interaction and communication with our fans. These are some of the features we already have in mind to get you started!

Character customization
Modular ships with customization
Base building (power stations, solar arrays, communications, defense, etc.)
Alien life mechanics (combat, resource trading, etc.)
Markets and trade economy
Multiple locations with unique challenges
Richer story with an unfolding narrative
Mini-games
True multiplayer interaction
And much, much more!

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Title: Gears of Eden
Genre: Adventure, Casual, Indie, RPG
Developer:
Cubit Games
Publisher:
Cubit Games
Release Date: Coming soon!

English

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Dev Update #77: Your Opinion (and UI)!:

We've got two big things to talk about this week! One is something you may have heard about already if you've been following these Dev Updates: the User Interface! We're wrapping up a new layout design for Alpha 2 and so it makes sense that we talk about some of the decisions that went into making it. The other would be... well, you! Last week we asked for your input on mining systems! Now we get to review how our participants voted! But first, how about we talk about the user interface since that's something you'll see happen in-game a lot sooner.

If you played in Alpha 1.0 or 1.5 or have popped into some of our Twitch streams[www.twitch.tv], you've seen our current UI. We started with a single pane of UI to house most of the menu functionality and that was able to work (to put it generously) because there wasn't much to do. As systems evolved, however, we quickly came upon the very limits of our UI functionality and it became obvious that we needed push things forward. We evolved toward a tabbed menu system that works much better from a functional perspective, but has been in serious need of some cosmetic updates.

Our upcoming, cleaner layout is a breath of fresh air and a huge step in the right direction. We have more visual indicators, better hierarchy, dividers, tooltips, and a lot more subtle design cues to not only aid in the design, but also increase the usability and feedback provided to the player. I know our UI will continue to evolve along with the game, but we're really excited to see this new design work its way into our internal builds in the weeks to come! Be sure to keep an eye on our Twitch channel[www.twitch.tv] to see the new UI in action when it is available!

Now! Onto your feedback! Last week, we asked for your thoughts on our internal discussion about an active mining mechanic versus a more passive one. We put up a poll for the question on Twitter and the results were very enlightening. None of us are surprised that you all prefer active game mechanics to passive ones, but I'm not sure if any of us were expecting such a distinct advantage in favor of active mining. There is exactly twice the number of people in favor of active mining as there are in favor of passive mining!

What's important to note though is that both of these options are blown out of the water by the number of people wanting a hybrid approach, in which you can swap from active to passive at will. This makes a lot of sense. Usually when I'm playing a game, I'm actively playing the game. But every so often, I'll be watching TV or get a text and it'll take my focus for a minute or two. In that time, if I've already proven that I know how to accomplish the standard gameplay loop of mining, it might be nice to have the game be a pal and get me some iron.

This is important for us to think about as we move forward, and you can bet we'll be delving further into this discussion after the launch of Alpha 2. Until then though, we've got a lot of work to do and we want to keep you informed with more Dev Updates like this one! So follow us on Twitter and Facebook[www.facebook.com] to get the latest and great Gears of Eden news! That's all for now, but I hope you have a great rest of your week. Thank you so much for reading!. Dev Update #73: Giving a Voice to Our Alpha Trailer:

If you've played Gears of Eden Alpha 1, or have watched any of our Alpha 2 test streams on Twitch[twitch.tv], you know that we don't have voiced characters in the game. In fact, we only have one character that really talks at all right now... the main rover character. What little it has to say comes across only in text.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having voiced characters in games. A text-based approach allows more dialogue, an easier and less-expensive pipeline for getting updated content into the game, and the ability to have more branching stories and options without incurring a lot of additional costs. Not to mention text files take up a lot less space and processing power. While voiced characters do add a lot of costs, increase production time, and take up more space - they also bring some characteristics to a game text can't do as well on it's own: personality and expression.

Don't get me wrong, well written text can convey emotion or express a feeling. Surely. But it does so by relying on the reader's imagination to connect and fill in from their own context and history. A voice actor helps create a more specific and universal character that we can all experience in the same way. In Portal 2, J.K. Simmons created one of the most iconic characters ever seen in a video game... except he's never really seen. Cave Johnson exists almost exclusively as a voice and only a voice. Would that character have the same impact if he were conveyed only in text?

For the demo version of Gears of Eden, this problem is easy to answer. At present, we simply do not have the funds to seriously consider fully voicing the game. I wouldn't say that is the only reason we are utilizing a text-only approach—there are narrative reasons we are drawn to text as well—but it's certainly a big factor. Personally, I love the idea of voiced characters in our world, and hope we have the luxury of revisiting this consideration in the future, as that means we'd be in a financial situation to do so!

In the meantime, we are looking at other ways to utilize voice. The first attempt is in our upcoming trailer that will be launched to promote our Alpha 2 release (not to be confused with the teaser trailer we launched a couple weeks ago). This trailer is narrated by a friendly AI played by the multi-talented Kristi Kates (who in addition to voice work, also acts, writes, and performs music). We've recently completed voice recording for the trailer, and are really excited to put everything together over the coming weeks.

Another way we are looking at utilizing voice is through non-character systems in-game. This could include systems like a base AI with voice prompts, or menu system confirmations. There are a few ways we can still make use of voice without voicing every character in the Gears of Eden universe. We'll be continuing these discussions and decision making processes internally as we move down the development path, but we'd love to hear your feedback and ideas. Feel free to chime in with your two-cents with a comment, or a message on Twitter or Facebook[www.facebook.com].

For now, we'll leave you with this tease[gearsofeden.com] from our recent voice recording session.

You can find out more about Kristi Kates on her website[www.kristikates.com], or follow her on Twitch [www.twitch.tv]to enjoy her weekly live music streams. As always, you can keep up with Gears of Eden via our pages on Twitter, Facebook[www.facebook.com], or Discord[discord.gg]. In addition, you can support Gears of Eden via our website[gearsofeden.com], through Patreon[www.patreon.com], or via Twitch[www.twitch.tv]. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!. Dev Update #72: Hidden Lore:

There was a time when a video game Easter Egg was some strange, hidden reference that you wouldn't be able to find without either a great deal of luck or the knowledge of where it is. A classic example is the Gabe Newell room in Half-Life, and who can forget Guybrush Threepwood (of Monkey Island fame) showing up in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2? Oh. Just me? Okay, well I still maintain that the game is worth playing to see Guybrush and Darth Vader go at it. (Actually, having watched that video... maybe not.)

The point is that we still have this classic form of the video game Easter Egg and I doubt it's going anywhere in the foreseeable future. It has been supplanted, however, by a new form of Easter Egg: the lore object. These are diaries, codex entries, in-world books, and so on. Typically, they're just as unnecessary to the game's enjoyment as their older brethren, but they offer the developer an easy way to further engage the portion of their audience that needs to know more about the game and its world without boring the rest of the audience to tears. A nice little combination, right? In the right hands, these lore objects transcend their status as Easter Eggs and become fully realized tools.

Anyone who remembers back to the original cRPG days can tell you that these have been around longer than many gamers today have even been alive. And yet, I'd wager that most people first experienced lore objects in an Elder Scrolls game or perhaps one of the modern Fallout games. The thought that went into these brief texts is truly impressive. If you play Skyrim, it is very possible that you'll read from multiple different genres! Comedies, textbooks, academic papers, epistolary works, and, quite famously, erotica (to name a few). It even goes beyond that though! Not only are there multiple genres to read from, there are multiple authors to read by! One series of textbooks reads completely different from another, and the same can be said any of the other genres.

As a writer, this is... fascinating. Tantalizing! But also, terrifying. As much as I love the Mass Effect franchise, I will forever see the codex system they have as a red flag. Certainly, this codex contains a huge amount of cool information about the game universe, but it's just so tiring to read. In an effort to realistically capture the feel of an encyclopedia, they succeeded so well as to turn the writing dry and lifeless. And though this is more realistic, it's hard to ask a player to care about your plethora of made up information if it isn't even pleasant to read.

We are really excited that we are going to hit one of our stretch goals with Alpha 2, and that is the inclusion of lore items! These lore objects are something we want to use in Gears of Eden, but we want to do it right. It isn't our goal to convince you that our world is real, but instead to convince you that it is thought provoking. We want you to care, and we want you to have fun! So here's our plan. When you start up the Alpha 2 release and you start rolling around, you'll find lore objects around the place. Diaries and the such. These aren't going to be crazy, just little bits of text where we do not describe the world... we'll demonstrate it through the eyes of those who have to live in it. If reading lore text isn't your thing, we totally understand. But for those of you who do enjoy that sort of thing, we hope you'll enjoy this first taste.

That's it for this week's Dev Update! I wish I could delve further into this topic, but it's better to leave off wanting more than less, right? If you'd like to talk more about any of this (or even just talk about your favorite Easter Eggs), pop on by our Discord channel[discord.gg]! Maybe hang out a bit. And if you want to see the latest and great Gears of Eden news, consider following us on Twitter and Facebook[www.facebook.com]. Those are definitely the places to be if you're interested in game art. We'll also be streaming more Alpha 2 testing over on Twitch[www.twitch.tv] this week and weekend, and would love to have you join us in chat! We'll be back next week with another Dev Update, and we hope to see you then. Until then, have a great rest of your week.. Dev Update #78: A Whole New World:

We are in the thick of prepping Alpha 2 for it's upcoming release. If you've been following us, you know the biggest "new" addition coming to Alpha 2 is the lore item system. This game mechanic is fairly simple... we've hidden two series of short narrative character stories in a few data chips scattered around the asteroid and you get to go find them and see what they say. Good news! This system is already complete and released in a preview build for backers, Alpha 1.5.1 (featuring gibberish lore text until Alpha 2 is ready)! So, what else are we working on for Alpha 2?

I'm so glad you asked! Right now we are finishing up some changes that affect how Tier 1 parts work in the game. We originally ONLY had Tier 1 parts in the game, so we gave them infinite durability. And, since they never wore out, you didn't need to craft Tier 1 parts, and so that was never an option. Then we started building upgrade paths for each part in the game... so you progress from Tier 1 to Tier 2 all the way up to Tier 4. These upgraded Tier parts have durability, and when they durability wore out, we simply made them "break" and revert back to the default Tier 1 part.

That works for development – your part breaks and you experience a reduction in efficiency, but it doesn't really make sense from a gameplay perspective. Now each item will have it's own broken status. If you have a Tier 3 drill and it breaks, it won't revert back to a Tier 1 drill, it will just perform really badly as a broken Tier 3 drill. That means we don't need Tier 1 to act as a default part, so it can be a complete Tier that behaves as any other. That means Tier 1 parts now have durability, have their own broken status, and be crafted and replaced!

Another big Alpha 2 goal is completely replacing the user interface (UI) with something that is both functionally and aesthetically... well, better. The design for the new UI is complete, but we still need to implement this into the game. Our new UI has better organization and access to crafting menus, and will feature a lot of tooltips and alerts to help keep players aware of things like broken parts, inventory limits, or insufficient resources for crafting.

We also have a few stretch goals for Alpha 2. These are last on our list (because they may not make it into the Alpha 2 build), but they are really exciting (at least for us). These stretch goals include incorporating cinemachine into our project, which is an animation tool that will help us create some fun intro animations for the demo. We also would love to get a sample of visible part upgrades in the game. Right now, when you upgrade a part on your rover, you don't see any visual change. You get stat upgrades, sure, but your rover looks unchanged. Of course, in the long run, we want you to be able to swap parts on and off and have the experience of seeing your rover upgrade visually over time. We're hoping we can demonstrate this with one or two parts in Alpha 2. And, in the future, we hope to offer a lot more customization options for you.

Finally, and saving the best for last, we're currently working with 3D artist Sasha Nodia to reimagine the asteroid world our rover inhabits. We've gotten pretty far with our rocky little placeholder, but we really want to create a setting that captures your imagination and wonder. This means we want to create a "game" asteroid, that is more stylized and fun. Something that encourages you to drive around and explore. An asteroid that uses different textures, colors, and that has distinct visual areas you can visit and experience. The image at the beginning of this post is just an early sample as we work through the concept process for this new asteroid, but we're already really excited at where we are heading, and hope to include this new environment as part of our Alpha 2 release!

That's it for this update! Please be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook[www.facebook.com] for more! As always, you can see Gears in action through our live development streams on Twitch[www.twitch.tv]. And be sure to catch the latest episode of our Podcast, Reaching Eden[gearsofeden.com]! Finally, if you're interested in testing Alpha 1.5.1 or Alpha 2, please be sure to enroll on our website[gearsofeden.com].. Dev Update #78: A Whole New World:

We are in the thick of prepping Alpha 2 for it's upcoming release. If you've been following us, you know the biggest "new" addition coming to Alpha 2 is the lore item system. This game mechanic is fairly simple... we've hidden two series of short narrative character stories in a few data chips scattered around the asteroid and you get to go find them and see what they say. Good news! This system is already complete and released in a preview build for backers, Alpha 1.5.1 (featuring gibberish lore text until Alpha 2 is ready)! So, what else are we working on for Alpha 2?

I'm so glad you asked! Right now we are finishing up some changes that affect how Tier 1 parts work in the game. We originally ONLY had Tier 1 parts in the game, so we gave them infinite durability. And, since they never wore out, you didn't need to craft Tier 1 parts, and so that was never an option. Then we started building upgrade paths for each part in the game... so you progress from Tier 1 to Tier 2 all the way up to Tier 4. These upgraded Tier parts have durability, and when they durability wore out, we simply made them "break" and revert back to the default Tier 1 part.

That works for development – your part breaks and you experience a reduction in efficiency, but it doesn't really make sense from a gameplay perspective. Now each item will have it's own broken status. If you have a Tier 3 drill and it breaks, it won't revert back to a Tier 1 drill, it will just perform really badly as a broken Tier 3 drill. That means we don't need Tier 1 to act as a default part, so it can be a complete Tier that behaves as any other. That means Tier 1 parts now have durability, have their own broken status, and be crafted and replaced!

Another big Alpha 2 goal is completely replacing the user interface (UI) with something that is both functionally and aesthetically... well, better. The design for the new UI is complete, but we still need to implement this into the game. Our new UI has better organization and access to crafting menus, and will feature a lot of tooltips and alerts to help keep players aware of things like broken parts, inventory limits, or insufficient resources for crafting.

We also have a few stretch goals for Alpha 2. These are last on our list (because they may not make it into the Alpha 2 build), but they are really exciting (at least for us). These stretch goals include incorporating cinemachine into our project, which is an animation tool that will help us create some fun intro animations for the demo. We also would love to get a sample of visible part upgrades in the game. Right now, when you upgrade a part on your rover, you don't see any visual change. You get stat upgrades, sure, but your rover looks unchanged. Of course, in the long run, we want you to be able to swap parts on and off and have the experience of seeing your rover upgrade visually over time. We're hoping we can demonstrate this with one or two parts in Alpha 2. And, in the future, we hope to offer a lot more customization options for you.

Finally, and saving the best for last, we're currently working with 3D artist Sasha Nodia to reimagine the asteroid world our rover inhabits. We've gotten pretty far with our rocky little placeholder, but we really want to create a setting that captures your imagination and wonder. This means we want to create a "game" asteroid, that is more stylized and fun. Something that encourages you to drive around and explore. An asteroid that uses different textures, colors, and that has distinct visual areas you can visit and experience. The image at the beginning of this post is just an early sample as we work through the concept process for this new asteroid, but we're already really excited at where we are heading, and hope to include this new environment as part of our Alpha 2 release!

That's it for this update! Please be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook[www.facebook.com] for more! As always, you can see Gears in action through our live development streams on Twitch[www.twitch.tv]. And be sure to catch the latest episode of our Podcast, Reaching Eden[gearsofeden.com]! Finally, if you're interested in testing Alpha 1.5.1 or Alpha 2, please be sure to enroll on our website[gearsofeden.com].. Dev Update #82: Designing User Experience:

We're going to keep this week's Dev Update brief. The biggest items we've been focusing on this week have to do with design and user experience! This is a lot of concept over practice, but we want to keep you up to date on the discussions we're having internally. The first design update is about the repair kit we mentioned last week! This is a new part that is meant to enhance the user experience by allowing you to repair parts in addition to simply replacing them. We're early on in the art design of these kits, but the implementation from a code side is rather trivial since we already have similar functions with consumable fuel cells increasing battery power levels. While we aren't considering any of our art permanent during this prototype phase, we do want to make sure it looks good. Ekah, the artist working on this task, has shared the in-progress version (seen above) on our Discord[discord.gg] last week, and is continuing to refine the design. Keep an eye out for updated art postings soon!

The other design work we've been doing is something we haven't talked too much about: tool tips. These are quite possibly the driest part of a game's design, but as mechanical complexity has risen, so has their importance. Tool tips and notifications help make sure that your gameplay experience comes with as little clutter as possible, and we're first implementing this system to help with part management.

In the current builds, as you play and carry out tasks in Gears of Eden, your parts will slowly degrade based on their usage. This makes sense, but unless you're super on top of watching those menus (to an extent that would simply become busy work, rather than actual fun), it's very likely that you'll find yourself caught off guard when your rover breaks down. "Oops, I was just playing and having fun and now I can't drive or drill or do anything." That's frustrating and a bad user experience, and though any good game has consequences, we want to use this system to warn you before such consequences arise. Eventually we'll expand these type of feedback systems to other aspects of the game's functionality.

So yeah! Mini Update done! Check back next week for more development news! Until then, if you want to keep up with all things GoE, check out our Twitter and Facebook[www.facebook.com] pages! You can also give a listen to the most recent episode[gearsofeden.com] of our Reaching Eden podcast! Our creative director also streams some of his own development work, so be sure to follow us on Twitch[www.twitch.tv]! Thank you so much for your support and thank you for reading. We hope to see you again next Wednesday, but until then, have a great rest of your week.. Dev Update #84: Alpha 2 In Sight!:

We're back! We've defeated the Summer Boss... one of our greatest foes. As we've talked about in previous Dev Updates, this is sort of a cyclical thing for our team: for eight months of the year we are on it with development, and then majorly slow down in the summer. Weird quirks like this are only natural with indie teams, especially those that are not able to do it full-time. Fortunately, this time we can say that our slowdown hasn't been solely due to summer. You see, we also had some major technical obstructions to overcome related to an engine upgrade that we've been working hard to overcome. And now we have!

This upgrade brought new features and increased performance, which is wonderful, but it also deprecated some of the main tools we use, and upgrading those tools to an up-to-date spec was not a simple process. It took a lot of time, a lot of trial and error, and eventually a Skype call with a rep from the engine developer—but we finally have those technical matters resolved!

So now, we've made it through the struggles of upgrade woes and entered into a clearing. We can see the short path ahead with more clarity, and we've been able to make a lot of forward progress in the last couple of weeks along that route. Here are some of the highlights:

First we fixed a problem with a text rendering tool that was crashing all our menus and interfaces. Which is just a little bit game-breaking.

We also fixed a camera control conflict and updated the opening cinematic (with an option to spacebar skip through it). While we were working on the camera system, we went ahead and added a camera animation for an encounter with a drone (which now has it's own "waking" animation as well), a bit of functionality that will have plenty of uses later on. You can see a clip of that opening animation from our Twitch stream here[clips.twitch.tv], and the drone animation here[clips.twitch.tv].

More recently, we've added new art in the game to represent the four tiers of repair kits. That means we're no longer using duplicates of the fuel cell art to represent these kits! Repair kits are working really well in our internal play testing and proving to be a valuable asset!

Finally, we have removed all the old camera render effects from the game, and updated to a newer system. The results are fantastic and the game looks more beautiful than ever before!

What's next? A new UI! We've started work on the UI update, which is the last major task we need to complete before launching Alpha 2! We'll be sharing updates on Twitch[www.twitch.tv], Twitter and Discord[discord.gg], so please join us to provide your feedback and ideas. We really value your input and collaboration! Once the UI is complete, we'll be doing a lot of testing, bug squashing, and prepping for our Alpha 2 release! So, if you're interested in playing Alpha 2, please be sure to sign up[gearsofeden.com]!

That's going to do it for this update! We look forward to sharing more with you soon!

. Dev Update #85: Gearing Up for Alpha 2:

It's been a long road. Okay, a REALLY long road. But we're finally closing in on our final Alpha 2 goal: a complete UI overhaul. Even better, we've made good progress on a couple of our stretch goals, and we are now starting to ramp up for our free Alpha 2 release! We're back with a new Developer Update this week to fill you in on all the details! And, quick reminder, you can sign up for a free Alpha 2 key on our website[gearsofeden.com]!

We had a couple reasons for wanting to overhaul the user interface. The original was clunky and, visually, a bit heavy handed. We wanted to streamline the interface, make it more minimal, but also give better functional use to players. The new interface accomplishes this. Information is better organized and easier to find, and we've included a more robust feedback system, featuring helpful tooltips. We have a few minor touches we're putting in place, but the UI is about 95% complete and should be wrapping up very soon! We think it's pretty neat (and hope you agree)!

Along with the new UI, we are working on item descriptions for everything in the game. Drills, bits, batteries... these are all parts that were designed by someone or something out there in our game Universe. You wake up as a sentient machine in our game with no knowledge of the outside world or its history. So even these rather mundane items give us an opportunity to introduce you and your character to the world of Gears of Eden. It's amazing how so much thought can go into the background of a drill bit. But, that's where we are! We are putting ourselves into this world, asking ourselves how it operates, and how the world that the player experiences is affected by and separate from the world that came before, known as the Null Era. We're really looking forward to sharing these small details with you in Alpha 2, along with our lore item stories - which give you a broader glimpse into asteroid life from another point of view.

While we've been prepping the UI for Alpha 2, we've also been working on a few stretch goals. For starters, we have recently introduced a new character into the game that ties into our lore stories and first planned mission chain. That mission chain also involves a drone, and we've done some develop on that side as well. Recently we've implemented new camera animations that highlight the drone when you encounter it, and we've even programmed the drone to go into a malfunctioning holding pattern upon waking up.

But that's not all! We've also been adding some new environmental effects like crystals and a vapor jet field, which will tie into that mission chain we just mentioned. And that's what is really neat about this phase we are in now on the brink of Alpha 2's release. All these little pieces are starting to come together. Our prequel stories. Our characters. Our lore items. Our environmental design. We're starting to connect all these disparate parts of game development to a more fulfilling, more complete experience for Gears of Eden players.

That said, we're still very early on. Alpha 2 is going to be far from feature complete. But this is really a showcase moment for us. We want to show you what we've accomplished so far, and then hopefully build up our audience and raise some support to allow us to keep going. It's taken us such a long time to get to this point. It's been a lot of hard work, and we'd really need to ramp up production so it doesn't take another year to hit our next major Alpha release. We'd like to finish the full demo version of Gears of Eden as soon as possible. And then head into the full-blwon game. Alpha 2 is really the break point for us that lets us know if we're doing a good job and get to continue this journey with you and for you.

We want to do this together, after all. You're a big part of this! You can help by following us on Twitter, Facebook[www.facebook.com], and Instagram[www.instagram.com]. Share our posts, and let others know about our project! You can also join our Discord[discord.gg] server. Come chat with us! Give us some feedback! Let us know what you think. What ideas you have. What you like, or don't like. You can follow us on Twitch[www.twitch.tv], and join our live streams that feature game development, live podcasts, and fun community gameplay nights. If you like any of what you see or hear, there are multiple ways to support our project now. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can sub for FREE to our channel each month on Twitch[www.twitch.tv]. You can also support us via our website, or Patreon[www.patreon.com]. We'll have other opportunities for support coinciding with our Alpha 2 launch. More to come on that soon!

If you're reading this, you're already supporting us by giving us some of your time and attention. Thank you so much! We'll have more updates on our social media pages, and be back with another Dev Update here soon! I also hear rumors there is (finally) a new official Reaching Eden podcast episode releasing very soon! We hope you enjoy it! Thanks again!

. Dev Update #76: Mining: Active, Passive or Both?:

In a lot of games, the set of tools you have at your disposal shrinks and grows. You start an FPS with a baseball bat, and a few levels later you are mowing enemies down with a rocket launcher! This isn't because those first levels aren't cool enough to deserve a rocket launcher, but rather that as your understanding of the game expands, the variety of situations they can stick you into, and the variety of tools your capable of applying in those situations, is also expanding. It's a two-sided relationship, and one we want to make use of in Gears of Eden.

But how do we pull that off? This is a narrative-driven adventure game! It isn't designed with rocket launchers and laser cannons in mind! I know, it's a tragedy. Still, we want to reflect your growth (and therefore your character's growth) in the way you solve problems and accomplish goals. This means that is entirely possible that, while you're going to spend the early portion of the game drilling for resources, you very well might be doing a little less of it by the end! (No spoilers.) If a mechanic will be less used eventually, how much engagement should it require when it is used?

Right now, the drilling mechanic works for our level of development. It gets us through the cycle of gameplay and lets us test everything we need to. We're using a very passive system (seen above). You just drive up to a node, switch on the ole drill, watch the particle effects for a bit, and wait for the game to give your resources. We understand some players enjoy passive systems. This frees you up to do other things... craft an item, plan your next move, take a quick bio break... but, for other players, we can also understand how this might make them feel disengaged or... bored! Even if, after five hours of regular gameplay, those players never need to mine again and it turns into the most fun game of all time... they're still possibly left with five hours of a game that is defined in a major way by that mining experience. We don't want you to "trust" that Gears of Eden will be fun, we just want it to be fun.

We are currently having talks to see if we need to design a more active system of drilling and mining. We are just at the early stages of this, but we wanted to get your feedback and input on this internal discussion. We're going to share a very crude mock-up here that demonstrates in very broad brushstrokes what an active system could look like. If we implement an active system, it won't necessarily look like this, but it's a representation of a broader idea.

What do you think? In this scenario, a special camera view opens up featuring a top-down view of the ground at the located mining node. A laser system paints a grid on the ground, dividing it into sections. You actively mine these sections using your mouse cursor to collect resources and bust through to the layers below. And yes, we've used a well known mining/crafting game to cobble together a crude proof of concept animation. This system would act as a sort of mining mini-game, not unlike the fishing mechanic in Stardew Valley and might provide the opportunity to include hidden rewards and rare, undetected, items.

As we've considered active versus passive mining systems, a third options has come up in discussion on our Twitch[twitch.tv] streams: a hybrid system. In this approach, we'd also have the DrillCam view from the active system, but there would be an "auto" mode which would collect the resources for you. This would not be 100% accurate, so it would take longer to collect resources, use more energy, and add more wear and tear to your bit. But, it would provide convenience. Using the manual mode, you could dig yourself and save on energy and wear and tear. You could then level up the system you prefer with crafted upgrades that provide either a better functioning auto mode, or increase your proficiency with a manual/active approach!

So, what do you prefer? Active? Passive? Or a hybrid solution? Seriously, we want to know! You can vote in our Twitter Poll to let us know how you feel, and leave a comment to let us know why (or if you have ideas for other solutions).

Please keep in mind, especially those that do enjoy a more passive approach, whichever system we implement, there will be methods to reduce the amount of time you personally spend mining as you progress in a location!

And that is it for this week's Dev Update. It was a bit of a change of pace, switching from hard "this is what's happening" to "here's some game design philosophy to consider!" I hope you enjoyed it! We'll be back next week, but until then, check out our latest Reaching Eden Podcast[gearsofeden.com]! Or consider following us on Twitter and Facebook[www.facebook.com] for all the latest and greatest Gears of Eden news! Thank you so much for reading, thank you so much for supporting us, and I hope you have a great rest of your week.