The 30th of November has arrived, which means the time has come for us to share with you all what we teased a few weeks ago on social media. And that is our official announcement trailer!

We had the honor to showcase it for the first time during the PC Gaming Show and at the Xbox Comi-Con Brazil Showcase, and we feel incredibly happy they invited us to be part of the show.

In case you missed the trailer, or you want to rewatch it, you can check out our official trailer - it includes some additional gameplay footage - here:


It took a lot of hard work and several late-night brainstorming sessions from us dodos for this trailer to come to life, and we could not be happier with the result!

We would like to share with you some of the early stages of our creative process in the form of concept art that was created and used for the story board:


We are also super excited to announce that we have partnered with Gameforge! We are thrilled about working with them and trust that having their support will help Under a Rock reach a broader audience.

Considering our team is only 5 dodos strong, we're really glad to have their assistance with the marketing and business side of creating and publishing a game, which will allow us to focus on what our top priority has always been: making the game as great as it can be!

With all of that said, we want to thank everyone for being a part of this journey.

We truly couldn't have gotten to this point without you all, and we cannot wait to show you more of what we have in store.

Before we dive in, we wanted to take a moment to thank everyone in our growing community for the massive support you’ve given us so far. Whether this is your first time learning about our game or you’ve been with us from the start, your support is so greatly appreciated, and it continues to provide us, along with ample amounts of coffee, with the fuel we need to push through those challenging moments that come with developing a game. So, again, thank you very much!

With that said, if you’ve been around since we first showcased our game back in 2022, you’ll know that a lot has happened since then. It’s now been over a year, and we figured it was time to start providing you with some regular updates about the game’s development, not only to keep everyone aware of what’s going on, but also so we can give you a taste of what’s to come. Starting off with a recap of information that you may or may not be familiar with already.

One of the first things we wanted to talk about is... creatures! While we plan to have a wide assortment of them upon launch, and already have the 3D models for many, we thought we would take a moment to focus on just three of the incredible creatures that inhabit the world of Under a Rock and tell you a bit about what we’ve been doing to bring them to life. These being the Fluffypuff – a large, adorable bunny-like creature –, the Snugget – a cute sabretooth-hamster hybrid –, and our beloved Dodos – a long thought extinct creature, brought back to life in our game!

An important aspect of the development process for us is ensuring we are creating a world that feels alive through the behavior of its inhabitants, and because of this, we spend a lot of time working on the creature AI in situations both inside and outside of combat. Recently we focused on how these three creatures react to different weather events, for example lightning storms:

• 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.

But it doesn’t stop there, and we have tons of different behaviors to add for different situations, including how they interact with each other and you as the new arrival on their island. Feel free to discuss and suggest creature behaviors on our Discord. We love hearing your ideas!

There are two build modes that can be switched between seamlessly.

• 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.

Spent hours, days, weeks or even months on building an amazing looking base? Cannot stand the thought of doing all the nitty gritty details again after it was destroyed by another player or creature? Well, this is where ghost-building truly shines and comes in handy. When any elements of the base is destroyed, from the largest pieces to the smallest details, the item will automatically be saved as a ghost element. Then, all you need to do is trigger it, and add the necessary resources again, and boom, your base is back! And since it will be ghost-building, your friends can easily help with the reconstruction process.

We plan on eventually making it so that construction blueprints can be saved for later use and be shared with other players. You cannot pack up your base and unpack it again later, but you will be able to make blueprints and reuse these at other locations as part of the ghost building system. Use them to quickly establish a campsite, a small outpost, or even a large base provided there is ample space available for placement.

There will be very few rules limiting where to build. On the ground, in the trees, inside of caves, even underwater. We won't stop you, although the wildlife might try to.

Making Under a Rock requires a powerful game engine, and we are using Unreal Engine 5 with all the latest bells and whistles it has to offer. This includes nanite for infinite view distance, lumen for lighting, groom for creature fur, and with our latest upgrade to UE 5.3 we are now using VSM (Virtual Shadow Maps) which brought the visuals to a whole new level by allowing us to have infinite shadow view distance with a minimum performance impact. In many areas this new wonder from the engine increased the performance across the board, including for our minimum spec target.

Looking at what’s coming down the pipeline, we can already see what we want to share with you in future blog posts. This includes showcasing some of the fun and unique items and structures within the game, breaking down what you will be able to do upon release – from fighting to taming creatures – as well as revealing more of the island's inhabitants including the natives, but let’s save those details for future posts!

We simply cannot wait to show you more of what we have in store, and if you haven’t already, we would encourage you to Wishlist and Follow us, so you can stay on top of it all. For those who are eager for more up to date information we regularly share screens and short videos on Discord, Instagram and on X, all of which you can find here : linktr.ee/underarock .

Thanks again and see you next time!

They say a picture can tell a thousand words. But what about a start screen? Check out what our start screen looks like and keep your eyes peeled...you might discover a rogue Dodo running around.

The music was composed by the very talented composer Noï Ortiz-Perez!

We are a small indie game studio, Nordic Trolls, consisting of five people.
Under a Rock is a procedural open-world survival game. Explore your own mysterious and colourful island populated by exotic creatures, oversized wildlife and curious natives, as a 19th century stranded explorer.
Unreal Engine 5
Currently, we do not have a set release date, but once we do, we will announce it accordingly.
This is still to be determined, but you can expect a reduced price while the game is in Early Access.
We are currently planning on releasing Under a Rock on PC - both on Windows and Linux -, and consoles.
Under a Rock supports up to 10 players in co-op, PVP is optional. You also have the option to play the game as a single player, for this you don't need to be online!
Peer to peer and dedicated servers will be available. For the latter, you have the option of setting up the server on a computer of your choice or renting from a game server provider. Games can be either private or public.
Currently, the game will be available in 11 languages. These are Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish (Spain). As with everything, this may change in the future.

• 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.

Base building is split into two main categories:

• 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.

The Ghost Building is also automatically activated if your base is destroyed, meaning all you have to do is recollect the resources. We also plan on adding a feature that allows you to save your blueprints and share them both between worlds and with friends!

They come in all shapes and sizes, from small to gargantuan, with the latter being a whole biome by itself. Creatures inhabit them, and they rarely like to share the space, nor the precious resources found within. Kick them out, claim the space and build your own base within, there are no limits.

Caves seamlessly integrate into the procedural environment, meaning there are no loading screens to break your immersion.

Get your Under a Rock news faster by joining our Discord! We are active at answering questions and interacting with our amazing player community. Always!

https://discord.gg/underarock

@Krystine_art created our first piece of fan art and we absolutely love it. It's based on the default feminine player avatar that we have been showing off everywhere. More of Krystine's amazing charcoal works can be found by following her Twitter handle.

Hello everyone!

We recently made a new video, showing off some of the Tier 1 construction elements you will be able to play around with when building your first base. What you see is all built using in-game tools only. It took us a while, to be honest, cause it turned out to be quite a large base and it was just fun building it. Time was forgotten, the video was made, here it is:

Using Unreal Engine 5 and the core technology, nanite, is a blessing. Not only does it allow for faster production due to not having to spend time on reducing polys to optimize for rendering. It also allows us to provide an unprecedented level of detail for the building blocks, not to mention the distance at which you can see your base. No more inside of the base showing before walls are rendered, no more not seeing parts of your base even though you are only a short distance away.

Each construction piece is in the range of 300,000 - 1,000,000 polys. The ropes have individual threads, not normal maps.

Lighting is powered by Lumen, and it updates beautifully at run-time as you add or remove construction pieces.

You will be able to build exceptionally large constructions with minimum to zero impact on performance. We know this because we have already tested it extensively. This screenshot is not of a massive construction.

Construction in Under a Rock comes with very few rules, allowing for a wide range of creativity in building your dream home. In and under water, up in the trees or high up in the mountains. Your choice. It's simply about having fun.

Someone said to us they couldn't decide on whether the construction or the avatar's hair is the most impressive. If you wonder, we are using Unreal 5s groom tech for doing the hairs, and are also close to finishing the animation system for them.

Hope you like what you have seen. You can also find us at Discord[discord.gg] where we are very active.

Hi everyone! We have a Discord channel. It's where we usually share things first, like new screenshots and other tidbits from the ongoing development. There you can interact with us more freely or just follow whatever is going on.

Hope to see you there!

Discord: https://discord.gg/underarock