Community Update #7

Experimental's building tools have already provided some remarkable architecture, but as the tools are starting to become more refined, the buildings are getting a tad classier. Nitecrawlr has already featured in a previous Community Update, by building a maze with the first round of proper building parts we dropped into the game, and now he's made a castle, turning over 25,000 wood into a stately and grand estate. It is water adjacent. Let's take a tour. Maybe it's the shadow, but it looks foreboding. That's the sort of place that definitely has dungeons, a ghost, and a running tab with the local executioner. The view from the top turret, no doubt angled so we don't see the corpses of his victims. The last thing many people will ever see. Probably. Someone has definitely been pushed to their death down those stairs. There you have it. A nice tour of building built to creak in the wind.

This week I learned that even Rust's concept art generates fan-art. That's pretty amazing, and a measure of the community's enthusiasm that an unfinished design for a work-in-progress game will generate a creative response. The opening image is just that: drawn by ZeroFoxFK, he's taken some of the NPC concept art that Paul Bradley designed and created his own interpretation of it. He also made The Supervisor. He wasn't the only person inspired by the concepts. A Reddit thread about them incited some interesting discussion about the role robots and NPCs could play if they're let loose on the island. The well-named "dontbetoxic" suggested:

If they can fold up into a cube, the cargo plane should drop one that looks vaguely like an air drop crate.

Which generated ideas about the potential for PvE, with airdrops of angry robots perhaps provoking the people or Rust into working together? It doesn't quite take into account the moss, but it's an interesting notion. The robot art also inspired some creative writing. This, from Machismo01, is evocative:

I saw a man get cut in half by a Caretaker. It walked between the ancient walls, as if it defended something other than ghosts and some old crates. After getting shot, the injured red wolf would dive under its legs. I never saw an animal look smug before. They knew we feared it. They knew it was its friend.

All this from a glimpse of some concept art. Awesome.

Discovering what you can do in Rust is part of the charm of the world: you join a server, seek help, and the community will be there for you. Nothing can go wrong. Well, unless the person you ask is recording for Youtube and decided to mess with you. This is what happens when a group of players convince a Newman that he has to have a building permit. It brings the excitement of municipal building statutes into the otherwise dull world of rock murders and pigs made out of chicken. I think the bit where the prankster has to cut his mic in case he laughs is one of my favourite Rust moments. That poor player. He should have consulted the Rust Guide before playing.

I'm kidding, of course. I've no idea if Nitecrawlr's castle reeks of carrion or not, but it looks like it does, and if Tom Hanks movies have taught me anything it's that creepy houses will inevitably play host to murderers*. What he needs to do to convince me is make a trailer for his building, just like chaps at Olympus Gaming did. If you're a lonely wanderer on the road of Rust, in need of a secure place to stay, why not check into the wood marvel that is the Olympus Hotel? It's quite amazing how a game as indifferent to the notion of player luxury can be made into something that appears so cosy. The sales pitch goes:

Please Enjoy your stay at our lovely Olympus Hotel for new and old players alike! Amenities include, complimentary rad pills, cooked chicken breast breakfast buffet and stocked forges to warm the night. Upgrade your room to a deluxe TODAY!

Let's not assume that this sort of stuff is normal: a guy has made a trailer for a hotel he build in a game. And that hotel has luxury rooms. That's pretty great. And now I want to hear from people who've created buildings with a purpose in Rust. Hotels, shops, casinos, anything that's above and beyond the usual player base. Something that has a function.

Turn your speakers down before you click on the next video: it suffers from a noisy musical track, but at least the band is called Labyrinth. It is appropriate for a server with a maze. I'm fascinated by people taking Rust's components and building their own games out of them. It doesn't need to be complicated: the Bowwersville server has a maze where up to 16 people can compete to win in-game prizes. I'm impressed by the explosive methods the player employs to move through the maze: it's a challenge tuned to the format of Rust, requiring the use of C4 to obliterate a blockage. That's not something I'd have thought about as a maze designer. Anyone got any examples of people playing mini-games in Rust?

This is all about you, so get it touch and let me know what you've been making. We have a dedicated forum post, or you can post in the Reddit thread. I also poke around the the Steam Community, so feel free to show me to things from there. You can follow and respond to Rust on Twitter, and I'm on there as well. *The 'Burbs spoiler. Sorry.