Hello Riftbreakers!
As you’ve already seen in our numerous previews and live playthroughs on stream (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios ), the Swamp biome is full of interesting creatures. Many of them are uniquely adapted to life in semi-aquatic conditions of their environment. Stickrids’ long legs, Fungors’ tentacles and Plutrodons’ tree climbing all provide mobility and survivability in the Swamp. However, none of these creatures are more at home here than the hero of today’s article - the Mudroner.
Mudroner in all of its swampy glory.
The Mudroner is a native species of the Galatean Swamp. These creatures can often be seen in small packs, roaming around the shallow waters. They bear quite a resemblance to Hedroners, which can be found in similar places around the surface of Galatea 37. However, these species are quite different from one another. Various types of Hedroners camouflage their bodies by taking on the appearance of liquids they live in. For example, in the Tropical zone, they look like mud, and in the Metallic Valley they disguise themselves as made of Morphium. However, Mudroners appear to be able to survive only in the Swamp biome and only in one form - ‘wearing’ greenish-brown mud outer layer.
No, Mr. Riggs, that's not how you document wildlife!
At first glance, Mudroners look like a much more dangerous evolution of a Hedroner. Their bodies are taller and more slender. Dozens of sharp teeth stick out of their giant, elongated maws. However, their most striking feature is a pair of eyes right above their mouths. The eyes emit an unnatural purple glow, attracting prey and sending a warning signal to anything that might pose a threat to the creature. That includes you.
Luckily, Mudroners hate fire, so you will find ways to deal with them relatively quickly.
Although they spend most of their time by liquid pools, Mudroners will happily leave the comfort of their homes to attack you and your base. Usually, they will try to keep their distance and throw heavy objects at Mr. Riggs, as their melee attacks are quite slow and easy to avoid. Since Mudroners move slowly, they usually won’t be able to escape once you’ve closed in on them. However, if a Mudroner feels it’s losing the fight, it can sink into the ground and materialize elsewhere. They use this technique to distance themselves from danger and continue fighting from afar.
They can catch you by surprise almost anywhere.
Fancy descriptions aside, Mudroners are a refreshed version of the Hedroners that you already know from the original game and its various biomes. However, while giving the creature a face-lift, we also came up with the idea of a neat visual feature. If you take a closer look at Mudroners, their texture has a slight animation to it, simulating the flow of a liquid. This is done via a custom shader. The shader takes information from a flow map - a texture that stores information about movement. By adjusting the flow map, we can simulate the flow of different types of liquids. We liked the result, so we applied this change to the original Hedroners as well.
A subtle change, but Hedroners look much better now that their 'mud' is not static.
This is not the only visual upgrade we’ve made in preparation for the launch of World Expansion III. Thanks to the introduction of Tiled Deferred Shading which we talked about before, we could finally use transparent objects in The Riftbreaker. That, in turn, allowed us to cook up liquid simulation, including waves and ripples on the surface. We will publish a longer article on that soon, so stay tuned!
Ultra versions look even more at home now in the Volcanic Zone.
Join us on Discord! We publish our internal developer changelogs daily, discuss upcoming changes and preview lots of cool things there. www.discord.gg/exorstudios Also remember to join us on streams, every Tuesday and Thursday, 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios , where you can see the new content in a live, unedited environment. See you there!
EXOR Studios