An incredible milestone has been reached: 400,000 dodos have wishlisted us on Steam!

We are beyond grateful for all the love and support from each and every one of you, it truly means the world to us. Your excitement keeps us motivated every day, and we're hard at work crafting something special for you!

We can't wait to share more about our development progress soon, stay tuned!

A big hug to all,

The Under a Rock Team

Greetings explorers! 

It’s been a while since our last update, so we wanted to check in and share that development is progressing nicely. Many systems and features are now taking root, while we continue growing and nurturing ones already in place. This includes a wide range of core systems, including building and research, combat, animations, procedural world generation, and more. 

With that being said, we would like to give you a bit of insight into the current state of some of those systems, and a taste of what’s in store moving forward. 

Take a peek at our latest video:

We’ve continued polishing and expanding how worlds are procedurally generated, adding more variety and overall structure to them.  

• New epics were added across the world, including more corruption-based epics, making exploration feel more distinct as you travel

• We’ve done a lot of additional work on starter crash sites 

Caves received a major content boost with the inclusion of many new modules, entrances and end pieces, which have been added across Soft Metal, Ant Hive, Bee Hive, Crystal, Mushroom and Generic cave types.  

• Cave generation has been improved, and caves are now less likely to end after a single room 

• Creatures have also started moving in – currently limited to Ant Hives – and they can now navigate and engage in combat inside procedural caves 

• Resources can now also be harvested underground, giving caves a value beyond exploration  

Underwater areas went through a major overhaul, with a lot of visual reworks, various additions, and a general polishing of the ocean. 

• Several new creatures have started appearing underwater and are using pathfinding to smoothly navigate the procedural underwater environments  

Lakes are now swimmable, both on the surface and underwater, complete with appropriate visual effects. Plus, effects and pathfinding have been added to creatures with the swimming ability. 

We added new construction and crafting stations to support upcoming gameplay:  

• The Research Table, a brand-new crafting station that will become central to exploration and discovery on your adventures 

• The Blueprint Table, a central hub for blueprint capture, management and placement 

• A Drying Rack, a vital survival station used to process resources into consumables 

• The Stove, your go-to station for cooking meals and baking tasty treats 

• A Smelter, where raw metals are refined into ingots ready for crafting 

• The Trinket Table, a workbench for crafting trinkets that will give you all kinds of helpful boosts 

• An Archery Target, because testing your aim should be a part of base life too!   

We’re also expanding the list of placeable backpack items, allowing many more materials, ingredients, and creature parts to be displayed in your base. Whether you want a cosy setup or something more... unconventional, that choice is yours!  

Additionally, we’ve adjusted some of the existing stations to streamline overall progression. 

As a part of our ongoing base-building work, we have now fully implemented the blueprint system, to make building, sharing and rebuilding your bases easier.  

Here are some key features:  

• Blueprints can be captured, named, saved and shared, with all saved blueprints being synced through the Steam Cloud, and shared across all characters on the same account. The system will include its own interface, featuring a Crafting and Blueprints section. 

• We have also added the possibility to deploy externally hosted blueprints into the game client without restarting the game 

• When capturing or placing a blueprint, you can choose whether to include interactables and decorations and even preview the decorations before placing  

• Color-coding is also available, giving players an easy way to coordinate and plan construction more clearly 

Blueprints are our way of saying “That was cool! Now do it again, effortlessly.”  We hope this helps future builders bring their creations to life with ease!  

We introduced the first part of our cataloging and research system, which will eventually tie into photography, missions, society communication, and rewards (more on these later!) 

For now, we focused on the core loop:  

• Players can craft a Research Table to begin studying their discoveries 

• Research currently includes Creatura and Materia, with Formulae and Curiosa coming later 

• Research works similarly to crafting: select an item, provide materials, queue it and wait for completion 

Players will receive in-game notifications as new research becomes available, with completed research granting rewards later.  

• Materia entries are one-shot unlocks, while Creatura research is designed to unfold in more steps over time.  

Each completed entry will add visual and written information to your Journal, gradually building a clearer picture of the world you are discovering.  

Speaking of the Journal, to better support the cataloging and research systems, we developed it beyond our first iteration, and it now includes:  

• Question marks that will indicate unresearched information 

• A visual indicator that will highlight fully researched, unread entries 

• Researched items, which will appear with icons and expanded descriptions 

These systems will turn exploration into progress, give insight into the mysteries of the island, and good reasons to keep snooping around the island. 

We’ve also spent a good amount of time refining combat and related animations, focusing on responsiveness and difficulty.  

Some of these adjustments and additions include: 

• Several improvements to combat visualization, including critical hits being more clearly highlighted, damage numbers fading out at a distance, improving collision detection during combat and polishing motion warping during combat to make movements and attacks feel more natural 

• We reworked and tuned combat timings for humanoids, and rebalanced combat values for T1, T2 and T3 creatures to better define early-, mid- and late-game encounters  

• Perfect parries are now slightly more forgiving, and enemies will properly react when you land one, making successful timing feel more impactful on both sides of a fight 

• Initial implementation of underwater combat, which will be expanded over time 

• New weapons were added 

• Performed weapon balancing, adjusting the damage and impact damage values of different weapons 

• We added 3D models for cursed weapons, including:  

  • Axe 

  • Spear 

  • Pickaxe 

  • Uncommon, Rare and Epic Ogre Clubs 

• Reworked the effects of item durability upon death 

• Changed item durability damage to a variable value rather than a flat one 

• A lot of improvements were made to various player-side animations, such as blocking and parrying 

• Lastly, we also added taunt animations for players, because sometimes combat is as much about attitude as it is about damage! 

Playing with fire  

We’ve started fleshing out environmental hazards, such as fire and how it affects gameplay. There are now two distinct phases: 

• Warning phase: When you stand too close to a qualifying heat source, a Burn bar will appear as a warning, giving you a clear indication that you will start taking damage. The surrounding environment and your Fire Resistance will affect how fast it fills. 

• Damage Phase: Once the bar fills completely, you’re on fire and will take damage until it depletes. Rolling on the ground, being in the rain or swimming can reduce the duration of the Burn effect. 

 Water-related improvements  

While working on hazards, we also improved water-related danger visualizations.  

• A new screen effect is now activated when the player starts taking drowning damage, making it much clearer when it’s time to surface. 

• We implemented a lot of additional loot drops, harvestable items and craftable items, and made changes to existing ones  

• GPU-side optimizations  

• Game-side optimizations  

• and much more!    

This update is very much about setting up many systems that will grow over time, and we’re excited to keep iterating on them, so please keep in mind that things may be changed or adjusted in the future.  

P.S. After a busy Christmas season, we’re diving into work on the taming and companion system, while the Dodos and Snuggets keep us warm. Thank you for your continuous support of our journey and stay tuned for the next update!  

Would you like to know more? Then make sure to join us on social media and Discord, where we regularly share screenshots and short videos of the game.  

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YouTube 

Join our discord: https://discord.gg/underarock

The community has spoken and our next showcase is here: Combat.

The world’s full of surprises - and not all of them are friendly. Survival won’t come easy - you'll need to master the art of combat.

Here is a glimpse of the battles that lie ahead:

Want to participate in the next community voting? Join our discord, follow us on social media and be a part of the next voting!

Follow us on:

X[x.com]

Instagram[www.instagram.com]

Facebook[www.facebook.com]

YouTube

Join our discord: https://discord.gg/underarock

The community voted - so here is a look at how building looks like in game! Featuring the new UI, a sneak peak at how gathering will look and more:

Want to participate in the next community voting? Be sure to join our discord and follow us on social media and be a part of the next community voting! Follow us on: X[x.com]
Instagram[www.instagram.com]
Facebook[www.facebook.com]
YouTube

Join our discord: https://discord.gg/underarock

Hey everyone! Based on the recent announcement trailer, we thought it would be a great idea to cover a few of the traversal methods you saw, as well as the ones we haven’t shown yet.

While exploring the vibrant biomes of Under a Rock, you need to be able to think on your feet. Like when you first see a creature, even if they’re absolutely adorable, you need to be ready to react—whether that ends with you giving them a hug or, the more likely option, running for your life. While running is a quintessential part of getting around in any survival game, there may be times where going on foot just isn’t the best or even the preferred approach, and that’s where the variety of travel mechanics come into play.

Now let’s take a peek at those methods:
While some of these mechanics will be available to you as soon as you wash up on the beach, some will require you to craft items or tame creatures.


GLIDING
Soar through the air with your very own glider and experience the world from above by jumping off the highest mountain, or opt for something simpler by choosing the nearest rock. This one is an easy-to-learn, but hard-to-master mechanic.

Gliding through the air during a storm, although fun, might not be the best idea.


GRAPPLING
This is a favorite of ours. We just had to have it, and it turned out to be amazingly good fun, even more fun than we expected it would be. You can grapple freely to any surface strong enough to support the grappling hook, meaning it will go straight through the leaves on a palm tree, but the trunk itself will work nicely.

Grappling down can easily lead to unfortunate corpse runs. Unless, of course, you have chosen abilities that mitigate some of this high-velocity fall damage.

Under a Rock would feel incomplete unless you could climb rocks, trees, the walls of your home—basically any surface that looks climbable.
This is free climbing at its finest. Up, down, sideways, diagonally, even around edges. Want those coconuts high up in the palm tree? Well, you can either climb up or chop it down, though should you do the latter, you won’t be getting any more coconuts from that tree.

When you get to an edge, you will mantle onto the surface above. Going down works the same way, just in reverse, but only as long as you choose to go into climbing mode.

There are water surfaces to swim across and mysterious depths to explore while diving. Shipwrecks, enigmatic ruins, creatures, resources, and even underwater caves await.

Form a bond with creatures of your choice, be it a Snugget, a Dodo, a Bee, or one of the many other creatures that inhabit the island. Their speed, ability to carry, or even combat skills vary, so having multiple companions to choose from is a good idea.

Would you like to know more? Then make sure to follow us on social media and Discord, as we will be releasing longer gameplay footage of our travel mechanics over the coming weeks.

• Dodos will run around scared, or try to find bushes to hide in.
  
• Fluffypuffs will burrow and hide underground, and you can find the mounds of dirt they leave behind and watch them come out when the storm abates.
  
• Snuggets will either gather in groups under a tree canopy or shelter in a nearby cave if they can find one. Sheltering in a cave can often lead to them having to fight whatever is already lurking in the darkness within.

• Default mode, for placing solid constructions directly, as long as you have the necessary resources.
  
• Ghost-building, that allows you to plan and prioritize your base construction through the use of different colors – without spending resources and allows your friends to contribute to the construction as well, by adding the necessary resources.

• Building bases
• Taming and breeding the creatures in the world
• Hunting creatures
• Fighting other players and in game factions

• Different weather conditions
• Poisonous plants and creatures
• Traps scattered across the island
• Dangerous nights and unpredictable AI
• Hunger & Dehydration - though eating and drinking will not be a huge focus in the game, it will offer bonuses if you keep your health and hydration up.
• Resting & Comfort - which will be split into three factors resting, comfort level and a rested bonus and, depending on the circumstance, will give you a number of bonuses.

• Real-Time Building - where you gather all the resources and build your base instantly
• Ghost Building - which allows you to plan your base ahead of time, and once you have collected all the resources you can build the items.