Get involved in playtesting OGRT!

As we announced in our last update back in October, we are developing an experimental subgame, Off Grid: Red Team (OGRT), and playtesting is now currently in progress.  Do you want to join in?

Here's some feedback from some of our early playtesters:

“Just finished the game, and it really is amazing, as I said before the interactions with the browser were amazing, the only thing I have to note about the interactions aside from some specific issues that i will report in the forum channel was the lack of forum posts, and i hope that changes“

“The gameplay is pretty good, I enjoyed it. I also like the element with real websites—I got tripped up a few times, but that was down to my lack of attention to detail. I was a bit gutted when it came to an end.”

"OGRT isn’t just engaging—it’s successfully challenging players to think like an attacker!"

Why We’re Building This  

OGRT is more than just a game—it’s a new approach to cybersecurity education. Our goal is to demonstrate how immersive gameplay can teach real-world security skills and help players develop an attacker mindset.  

Through interactive challenges and real-world-inspired mechanics, players are introduced to core cybersecurity principles in a hands-on way. Looking ahead, we see OGRT as a stepping stone into vocational training, mentorship programs, and even career pathways for those who develop problem-solving skills in this space, but also first an foremost, a fun and engaging experience. Games are systems we enjoy learning, we think we cna do something interesting here by layering in some real learnings that you take away as you enjoy exploring the OFF GRID world.  

Playtest OffGrid Red Team, sign up here!

We’ll be sharing more updates as we continue developing OGRT, and we appreciate your ongoing support—your backing has made this possible.  

Who’s Supporting Us  

This work wouldn’t be possible without the support of Ufi VocTech Trust a leading organization committed to transforming vocational learning through technology.  

Ufi’s mission is to improve access to lifelong learning, particularly in digital and technical skills. Their backing has helped us take OGRT from an experimental concept to a fully functional prototype, allowing us to explore how games can act as a bridge to practical cybersecurity education.  

To learn more about Ufi’s work, visit https://www.ufi.co.uk  

Off Grid Ongoing Development

Since October, significant progress has been made in refining the OffGrid world. One of the biggest milestones is the complete overhaul of the intro level, setting the stage for a more immersive experience.

The exterior environments of the first two levels have undergone a full rework, bringing them closer to the final vision.

The LevelKit has also been expanded with more modular assets, making it easier for both developers and modders to craft new environments.

Additionally, new environments—such as underground parking, maintenance hallways, laboratories, and garages—have been created using fresh assets.

The first iterations of improved lighting in the workplace level are underway, enhancing the game’s atmosphere. On the next update those of you who are part of our "Pentesters First Access" program can **expect a major upgrade** on that front, we are looking forward to seeing what you think!

Before we go we also want to let you know that we deepened the environmental storytelling you’ll experience in OffGrid, increasing the connection between players and narrative through the world itself. Overall, these updates mark a huge step forward in shaping a richer, more immersive game.

We'll keep cracking on, content is coming along, and we'll have a game for you as soon as we can. As always thanks for your persisting patience and support folks, it means a lot to us.

Best,

The Off Grid Team 

If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!

OFF GRID Dev Blog - "Fresh Blood"

The sun is shining, our team has expanded and Off Grid development is in full steam ahead. It's a good time for some updates from us, don't you think?  

This is a long one so here is a summary of what you'll find below:

• Pontus - On Core Systems
• Melissa - On Layout and Props
• Diogo - On Gameplay Scripting
• Stef - On New Level
• Studio Announcements - EMF Festival!

Wait did you say more team members?

For the first half of this year we were joined fulltime by Melissa on Art and Diogo on Level Design. With their help we have been polishing and adding content to the main campaign in Off Grid, but more on that later.
We have also been assisted by Pedro, who was with us early in the year working on scripting and tools, Elias, who has recently joined the team and is getting stuck into the Modding side of Off Grid and Raquel, our producer that is keeping us all on track! 

Pontus - On Core Systems

Since the previous blog post, we've done a lot of background tech changes, including switching to a new version control system and remodelling our build pipeline to match, especially in the context of how our main project works with the Levelkit project we provide for modders. While not necessarily an obvious change from the user perspective, this will help us making sure we can always make Levelkit builds that match an exact Off Grid version and that are guaranteed to work nicely together.

We've also already tested this setup with some internal test builds, which means a long list of various small bugs, fixed here and there, and all kinds of game features tweaked slightly. Most of them not really big enough to write about here.

One of the more directly interesting ones from player's perspective is a new Tasklist app (making good use of our ongoing overhaul of the app system). As the old joke goes, "there's an app for that", and now there is one to help you keep track of your current objectives without having to go to the pause menu for that.

Melissa - On Layout and Props

We decided to improve the Apartment level by making new beds, furniture and personal items (clothing, shoes, notebooks, wall art, posters). We wanted the place to feel more like home and add dimension to the characters, especially the bedrooms, after all you can tell a lot about somebody by looking at their rooms!

Joe’s room is simpler and more practical, while Jen’s room is messier with a mix of girly/tech stuff.

  

We also updated the vending machine art and worked on some in-game branding for food items.

New Vending Machine and Snack Art

New Coffee Machine

Diogo - On Gameplay Scripting

The last few months have been focused on improving the early levels of the game, and with that comes tutorialization to introduce the player to Off Grid’s core mechanics. A particular section to highlight is when we teach the player about being careful with the noise they make when running.

 

Avoid the Sleeping Guard!

To better tie this tutorial to the rest of the level and to the overall story, we used it as an opportunity to further showcase the characters’ personalities. We start by getting the player to unexpectedly come face to face with a guard (who luckily is sleeping on the job) before having them engage in a small conversation with the always sarcastic figure of Smedley, where they learn about this core part of the game through a humorous interaction.

Stef - On New Level

As well as all of the above, we have been working away at a new level location: the Harbour. 

So...the Harbours name is Harbour?

Harbours are interesting locations, they are like a living thing, designed to keep goods constantly moving, constantly shifting, pulsing and transporting stuff around, much like a human body. We rely on them for so much, our harbours are precious, and in constantly increasing demand - after all how do you think your Temu orders are getting to you? As such, they are always looking towards technology for solutions...lovely, hackable, technology.

Here are some early screen captures of work in progress. We have some unique and interesting plans for the harbour, but we don't want to spoil the surprise too much!

Studio Announcements - EMF Festival!

The Off Grid team is once again joining the Milliways Village for some modding fun. We'll be using it as an opportunity to play test our modding tools and immerse our team in the world of digital security to help inspire our level design and story.

Until then we are working away supporting the CCCamp Mod to show off there. If you are also going to EMF come find us and say hi! We'll be in the Milliways Village.

The CCCamp Mod

If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!

Discord = OPEN! Dev chat TODAY 9pm BST / 4pm EDT

Good news!

We've been having fun today with a little soft launch of the Semaeopus discord server!

We invited our newsletter subscribers in for a little *exclusive* dev AMA session earlier - and now we're ready to welcome the rest of you out there in the big, wide world.

Join us in Discord!

https://discord.gg/NDEVwBJ

Get your questions ready...

The devs will be online again at 9pm BST / 4pm EDT / 1pm PDT today to welcome you and answer any qestions you have!

Look forward to chatting with you soon!


If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!

Saving (and Loading!)

Hi all - Steve here.  I’m a programmer working on Off Grid - and I’ve had the pleasure of working on save systems recently.  :)

Ha!  This is really one of the short straws of game development.  When I was at Sony, it was almost a rite of passage; these were the days that not only did you have to save and load, but you were responsible for ensuring things didn’t die when the memory card (remember those?) was pulled out mid-operation.

Prior to this month, we had the beginnings of a save system in place, but were aware that certain things didn’t seem to be working quite as they should - so I took a look.

What I discovered was that we kept a save in memory as well as writing it to disk.  This is a good thing - loading a checkpoint is faster.  But a side effect was that there were two code paths to reinstating a save - to load it from disk, or to just reference the save data as game data.  The danger with this is that the in-memory data can reference ‘live’ game data, which means the save on disk diverges with this during gameplay.  Lots of copying data later, the bits that weren’t working quite correctly now seem much happier.

The other work I’ve done was on a system level.  Saving and loading requires making a list of all the files available. Previously, we loaded all of these into memory - but as we cannot know how big they’re going to be, this will eventually cause us all sorts of problems. I’ve instead created a header at the top of each save file, containing the information we need to present to the player. Load the first 1000 bytes or so of each file, grab the header, close the file.

Saving and loading done then? Certainly not!  We will still have new data that needs to be added to our save structure, and I bet there are still some bugs in there.  But I’m confident that we are on firmer ground than we were a month ago.

Til next time!

Steve

Off Grid sprint update 02.03.2017 - A little *more* conversation

A little more conversation, a little more action, please!


Somebody must have been listening to a little Elvis Presley around here. Are you dancing in your seat a little bit? We are! :P

Annnnnnyway - a merry March to you!  We’ve had a good February, full of all kinds of progress, on systems, content, and biz dev, so without further ado, here’s our action:

Finishing the city map

There were few small details we wanted to do on this pass of the city map scene left for this sprint:


First, what would a map be without proper markers? We replaced the placeholder ones featured in last dev blog post with new ones, this time drawn on the UI side. Not only do they look cleaner, but also this means we can more easily switch markers for different missions; for example, to differentiate between side quests, or different story lines and content coming from different mods.

…and then, we added support for multiple missions taking place in the same location, or in same city district. Just because it seemed like a good idea. We’ll still need to add the UI stuff for selecting between the missions if they are available at the same time, but on the code side, things are already in place.

Sprint Update 09.09.16 UI so serious? :)

It’s been a funny old sprint this one really, obviously going on ‘holiday’ didn’t get in the way of us continuing to crack on with development and so although we were spread over some 6000 miles the 3 of us managed to put in some fairly exciting changes even while away visiting family on various continents.

The first Off Grid Sprint Update

We decided that it would be a good idea to start writing more regular updates about what we’ve been up to - and what better time than every time we close a sprint in our development and start a new one?!  So, here’s the first ever public Off Grid sprint update.

More data mechanics!

Our main goal for the last sprint (and one before that) has been on improving the data-related game mechanics we have.  We’ve been busy coming up with new ideas for how data could be used in the game, and designing the underlying systems that would allow us to build a wide variety of interesting interactions around the data that exists in the game world (and that characters create when using their mobile devices, key cards, computers and so on).

Even creepier surveillance system

Our equivalent of the real-world PRISM, the system that tracks all data left behind by the player and all the other characters, needed updating to allow it to also track non-living data sources - phones, key cards, computers and other devices. So, no matter what the source of the data