Factsheet

Developer:
Anchorite Games
Based in Sydney, Australia

Release Date:
Feburary 10, 2025

Pricing:
Free to download and comes with a full campaign. Additional campaigns will be priced at $1.99 USD.

Platforms:
iOS, iPadOS

Website:
Exoloper

Testflight:
Exoloper on TestFlight

Press / Business contact:
matt@anchoritegames.com

Social:
Matt Purchase on Mastodon

Description

Exoloper is at its core, a game about stepping on buildings, tanks and more in a ten metre tall robot armed to the teeth with high tech equipment and weaponry. It's a power fantasy of gigantic robotic warfare.

The core gameplay loop begins with the player outfitting their squad for drop into a campaign. The quantity and quality of units they can take is limited by weight and the components available in their loot stash. Each unit's components can be swapped out, from engines and reactors, to autocannons and shockwave guns, heat vision sensors and stealth fields. While the player can field an array of units from tanks to personnel carriers and infantry, the stars of the show are the Exosuits (shortened to Exo's). These units combine speed, armour and a dizzying array of weaponry, and are the only units the player can pilot.

Once their squad is outfitted, the player is then dropped (with a full interactive boot sequence) into a "campaign" on a node based map. Here they'll be tasked with completing a series of hits on the oppressive Commonwealth's ground infrastructure. Throughout the campaign they'll encounter battles, random encounters, and extraction points. Each battle yields a list of looted components the player can use to improve their units in following campaigns, with objective target battles yielding the rarest components, and the hardest fights. Should a unit from the players squad be destroyed, it and any of its components are lost permanently. If the player's Exo is destroyed, the entire campaign is scrubbed, and all collected loot, deployed units and components are lost permanently. In order to retrieve loot gained in a campaign, and units deployed, the player must extract them at pre-defined extraction nodes. And to tie up the campaigns loop, the player's time is limited by fuel, a resource they both provision during the pre-campaign outfitting stage, and one they can scavenge during a campaign. Run out of fuel and the campaign is over. Importantly, the player begins a campaign at an extraction point, meaning they can always extract if the campaign looks bad.

The battle nodes are the meat and potatoes of this game. Here the player will transition from the top down campaign layer to a first person view inside the cockpit of their Exo. Multiple features all play in tandem here, from a stealth system thats driven by unit sensor suites, component / weapon noise, and realtime weather systems, to complex ballistic penetration and armour systems. The battles are designed to feel as much like a simulation of this futuristic exosuit combat as possible (for one person, working part time). Notably, it's not designed to be fair. There will be times where the player is outnumbered, out gunned, or otherwise at a significant disadvantage, and in those cases, it's up to the player to recognise that they should just leave.

In particular, great care has been taken to make the game feel as alive as possible here in the battle mode when played on an iPhone. Spatial audio cues, strong haptic and visual feedback, a streamlined control system and a wide array of options and customisations give the player the freedom to be immersed in a true simulation experience from the convenience of their phone. Every step, thunk, and rattle of their exosuit can be felt as much as it can be heard.

Production History

Following Interloper's launch in July 2020, Matt's time was divided between providing new content and support for Interloper, building out prototypes for new games, managing Anchorite's small but awesome community, and learning how to be a stay at home dad. There were a total of six feasible game prototypes that were constructed, a base building mechanic follow up to Unstoppable, a few stabs at trading / mercantile games, an fps extraction looter shooter, and more. Work began on what would be the next title Charge in late 2022.

Exoloper's initial concept came about as a quick and dirty prototype of improving the armour penetration systems from Interloper, of having multiple components of a unit talk to each other in an efficient way (signal messaging within a contained unit) during the production of now halted Charge. The initial use case for this tech was to expand Interloper's boss capital ship battles out into something more, but it quickly became apparent that this tech could be used for a new game, one focussing on ground combat with intense destruction.

In mid 2023 Anchorite launched the first private beta for Charge, and whilst the game hit its design pillars, it became apparent there was way more work required than expected and that it wouldn't be completed for quite some time. After discussing the pro's and cons of the situation, particularly with a hard monetary deadline, the choice was made to switch gears over and to quickly build out Exoloper with the initial goal of launching early 2024. if anyone out there can accurately predict when a game will be finished, I'd like to have a word with them - Matt.

The idea to turn this component system into a spiritual sequel for Interloper came relatively easy. Sci-fi vehicular combat is epitomised by giant robots, and giant robots slinging lots of guns fits neatly into the 90's inspired simulation genre that Interloper sat in.