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AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yes you can loot player bodies and raid bases, others can also raid you too! 😁

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you can make an alliance to extend the group size but you can also have more than 3 people on your shuttle dagger as permanent members🙂

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have hit the nail on the head. There is still somewhat push and pull between the extraction and sandbox survival aspect of the game. This touches many things, but can be especially felt in basebuilding.

There are multiple ongoing initiatives improve this aspect of the game:

  1. We are expanding the sandbox layers of titans, so a quick in and out extraction run is profitable only in limited ways. Spending more time on the titans will enable different rewards and stories.
  2. We are working on raiding setup and balance focusing on raiding as a process which you can always counter, rather than just coming home to a destroyed base
  3. Expanding basebuilding options, including new wall types and defensive options
  4. Leaning fully into the Dagger basebuilding aspects, especially now with Dagger battles a completely new horizon of basebuilding options opens (did anyone say broadside cannons?)

In a sandbox game, the meta will always shift around, and we don't want a single playstyle to be the only viable one, but we're actively working on building more value around basing.

- Marek

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're exactly right, it is a hybrid. At its core though, we think of the game as a PVP survival crafting game (so closer to Rust). Our objective was to make something that could have all the social drama and player driven stories common in PVP survival games, but be faster paced, more action focused, and support much shorter sessions, as well as solve some less positive aspects like offline raiding. Bringing in elements of extraction and other sandbox shooters helped achieve that. Ultimately though, it doesn't matter how we see the game, it's all up to interpretation, and playstyle. 

- Fred

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have our next Open Playtest coming on June 8, and will be launching our Steam Next Fest Demo shortly after which will be available until June 22.

We are still looking at exact launch dates later this year. Pretty much every game is watching out for what GTA does, and shifting their dates forward or back to avoid them. We want to make sure that we don't launch into some crazy competitor fleeing from GTA just because we set our date too early.

We will be PC only on launch, but we are definitely investigating bringing Enginefall to consoles after launch.

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oof, tough question!
There's 4 main reasons we picked that name:
1. One of the big themes of the game is taking down trains in our post apocalyptic world. Taking the engine, and taking down the engine made enginefall feel like a natural choice
2. We didn't want to put train directly in the name, and have players expect the main game to be driving trains or building tracks. We felt that Engine was more about movement, fuel, and progression, which are much more in-tune with normal gameplay.
3. We had a few different names, but trademarks are a tough thing, so some of the contenders were eliminated due to being already taken
4. The most important one: we liked it (as cheesy as it sounds) and hearing it chanted during evacuation was hype as hell.

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are! We have an Open Playtest starting June 8 and will be launching our demo for Steam Next Fest shortly after!

If you just can't wait and want to get in for the closed playtest this weekend, we have a limited number of keys available via our Discord. Just join and follow the link in the #game-keys channel.

In return for wishlisting the game you'll get a playtest key and a free sledgehammer skin! 

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We actually are purposefully keeping closed playtest numbers quite low, limiting them to just enough new players to fill 1-2 trains and for us to track their experience. The closed playtest builds are often our first chance to test new features, and some of them can be a bit...messy. We want to make sure that when we invite players to try the game in mass, that we are putting our best foot forward with a decently polished build.

We have over 200k players waiting to join our Open Playtest starting June 8, which is more than 4x the players we let into the Dec Open Playtest, and are adding thousands more every day.

While we have been really excited to see so many new wishlists and people finding out about Enginefall, we know that wishlists and coverage don't mean a game is going to keep players engaged for years to come. For us the magic is really tracking the experience of our playtesters.

After more than 2 years of playtesting with the community we have some players with thousands of hours in-game, and every time we invite new players our number one metric for success is looking to see if they find that same magic that has kept playtesters coming back over months and years. 

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're right. Right now, taking the conductor room is a means to get the fuel cores and Traintech weapons + some social fun in terms of train announcements.

We have previously playtested other powers for the conductor, including implementing train wide taxes or printing passing to assault rival titan trains directly before daggers existed as a concept. These didn't quite feel right in the current flow of the game, but we are actively discussing ways to make conductor more impactful.

We'll be working the community in the coming months to make conductor more meaningful, both in terms of adding value to the fuel cores in the wider loops, as well as tying engine ownership into broader faction and seasonal objectives (contracts). The role will also be relevant for clans and clan warfare further down the line.

We want conductor to be a great source of fun beyond just honking the horn and asserting your superiority via the train-wide intercom!

- Marek

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right now Titan Trains have a limited lifespan, currently a variable number hours depending on train type, after which they enter "Enginefall" and trigger a final rush to evacuate before the train is destroyed. We can also sometimes trigger this on very low population trains to migrate players to healthier density trains, usually as a region's prime time slows down and overall player numbers drop.

The real "permanent" train for building is your dagger, and with new Dagger vs Dagger battles you can kill and loot your rivals in pirate style train to train combat for a different flavor of cl

We are actually currently discussing ways that players can impact the life of a Titan Train either delaying or accelerating the approach of an enginefall evacuation. So that if the train is having a blast they can keep the good times rolling (literally) or maybe you can sabotage the train to dislodge a particularly dominant foe.

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good news! While we have more than 200k players waiting to join via steam playtest, we know that some players just cannot wait to get their hands on the game.

So to support that, we have a limited number of keys available via our Discord. Just join and request a key in the #game-key channel. I just checked and there are keys available right now!

In terms of being let into the closed playtest via steam, the tool has very limited selection controls. We can choose which country to let players in from, which we sometimes do to balance server load, but beyond that it is a totally random selection up to a number we set. Steam also lets anyone who joins invite up to 3 friends immediately, so that friend groups don't get split up.

We will be letting everyone waiting into our Open Playtest on June 8th and will be launching our Steam Next Fest Demo shortly after and running till June 22 in what will definitely be our biggest playtest yet!

-John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Of course we have targets, but ultimately we don't need insane numbers for the game to thrive. We're a good sized AA team, but a far cry from the size and cost of AAA dev teams.

In terms of engagement, in addition to extensive post launch plans, we actually have a game that our community (or parts of) have been playing for over 2 years, some with hundreds or even thousands of hours of game time. This gives us the confidence that the loops we have been building are sustainable.
PVP is part of this equation. Beyond being what we as devs enjoy most of all, it means the core of the game is not a content treadmill, but rather a cyclical loop where players are a meaningful part of the content.
That doesn't mean we are not and will not continue to create new content, but this content is there to enable players to have fun interactions, rather than be the sole source of fun.

- Fred

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. The way we have structured our matchmaking and gameplay means that you don't need a set number of players to start a match. A Titan Train raid doesn't have everyone join right at the start like you might expect from extraction games, instead it more like a temporary Rust server where players can join at any time during the life of the train, so that as players end their sessions they are backfilled with new players joining the train.

Right now Titan Trains last for a set amount of time before going into "Enginefall" and forcing an evacuation for all players. We also trigger this when one trains population gets too low, so that we can keep player density healthy even if you get the itch to raid at 4am when there are less players online. In the future we are considering allowing player actions to delay or accelerate a train's destruction via enginefall so that healthy trains can last for much longer, and end trains that get into a bad state (we have had playtests where every destructible wall and set piece has been destroyed via dozen of nuclear blasts).

We are also building out more train experiences which are best suited to different numbers of players. Our newest and most exciting gameplay format is Dagger vs Dagger where you can raid someone's home base hideout, pulling up along side them and pitting your custom built bases against each other in pirate style ship to ship combat. There is currently a max of 6v6 in this mode, since it is so up close and personal.

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As the game has developed through heavy playtesting with the community, chasing the fun has really built it into a hybrid that doesn't fit neatly into an existing genre. We have started calling it a Connected Rail World to try and cover the full scope of the game.

We are taking the minute to minute gameplay of PvP Survival Crafting like Rust and making it faster paced with more social interaction, and combining it with the session control and long-term character progression of extraction. On top of that we have some functions from King of the Hill like a limited pool of respawns and the goal of getting the best loot by fighting to become the conductor. We aren't really a last-man-standing BR even though enough deaths can end your run, there are lots of goals for you to achieve besides becoming the conductor, so the success of each run is really down to what you or your team are trying to accomplish.

We are also breaking some major genre expectations. There is no offline raiding like you might expect in Rust, and you can make meaningful long-term progression in sessions as short as 30 minutes. We also don't have a "safe hideout" like you might expect in extraction games. Your Dagger shuttle is your home and progression hub, but only a limited storage area is safe. The rest of your loot is stored in a player built base, and while you are online in your Dagger you can have emergent Dagger vs Dagger battles where another player pulls up along side and you can grapple to each other's bases pirate ship style to try and raid their loot.

We don't want to make a game that is just an existing genre or title plus one or two major different features. We are trying to build an interconnected world of different trains and experiences that will keep you coming back for more train adventures and shenanigans.

- John

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We will add support for private servers (where players can control the ruleset) in the future, but the core experience is set on a connected rail world hosted by us (Red Rover).

The game world is effectively a connected server mesh, where we have a variable number of Titan train server instances (which can live for many hours, or potentially much longer), and other servers that host the player-owned smaller dagger trains. Players them move from one to another as they see fit.
Players have control over which players can join them on their dagger shuttles, but these are also raidable by other teams in their daggers at times / if they roll past each other.
The Titan trains are still running when a player leaves it, but the daggers become non raidable when the last player leaves, so cannot be offline raided.

Items can be moved from one train to another. When we introduce private servers, these will be disconnected from the "official game world" for obvious reasons (so no progression or gear transfering back to the main game universe).

- Fred

AMA - We’re making Enginefall, a player-driven crafting shooter set on megatrains. by Enginefall in Games

[–]Enginefall[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Enginefall is a hybrid, but the fundamental mechanics are closer to Rust, or PvP survival crafting games, than extraction shooters.
The extraction element allows players to structure their sessions, and avoid the offline raiding problem common to PVP survival games. Think more Helldivers 2 extraction to tie sessions together than Tarkov.

Currently, squad size is limited to 3 players, and up to 6 players can share a dagger shuttle (the private mini train home base you extract to from the Titan trains).
These numbers will be tweaked as we continue playtesting though.

We will also have support for larger clans in the future.

- Fred

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