Over the couple months since release, we've identified, along with our testers and players, a number of things that need to be fixed to ensure new players' first experiences with Hyperwheel Overdrive are comfortable and properly introductory, especially given the fact that our game is more demanding for comfort-enhancing allowances than many other VR games. Because we want to offer a first-time experience to people that is comfortable and easy to get into, we've decided to temporarily pull the ability to purchase the game while we take it back to the garage to tweak. Existing players will still be able to install the game and download updates as normal, but new players will have to wait until we, along with our testers, feel that it's ready. We're hoping to keep this period short and get the game back out and available as soon as we are able to though, and so potential buyers should WISHLIST the game for now on Steam so they can be notified when it once again becomes available.
The game has been unavailable for purchase for a little while now, and we've already made some great progress on expanding the set of comfort features and improving on the ones that already existed. We've also reduced car jitter and some other factors that were leading to some discomfort while driving. Please see the full changelog on v0.8.11 below for full details about what we've been working on. You'll see that we've been very busy! Some highlights related to resolving comfort issues:
- improved third-person camera system with many more settings to adjust
- ability to lock pitch, roll, and yaw for first-person and third-person views
- modified comfort cage to always align with player rather than car (as those may differ now with rotation locking)
- better steering input for "Classic" driving control mode
- a work-in-progress control style that allows players to steer by moving their hands (to be shipped in v0.8.12)
And we're just getting started! Updates will continue to be released for existing players on the usual weekly-ish basis that we've been maintaining post-launch. Add Hyperwheel Overdrive to your Steam Wishlist if you don't yet own our game. We also invite you to join our Discord or the JoinUsInVR group here on Steam to keep updated about the status of the game and find other players to play with. Let us know what comfort features you'd like to see, or what works well for you in other VR games. We look forward to reaching our development goals for the game and to getting the game out once again to the public! Thank you very much for your patience..
Alright, here's the v0.8.10 & v0.8.11 changelog entries:
v0.8.11 (Build 215): June 9, 2020
- added sounds for networked smasher hits
- fixed networked smasher damage delay on kills
- doubled blast radius for grenades and rockets (40m to 80m) and increased the blast forces applied to objects
- allowed blast forces to apply in Chase matches even when damage isn't
- added "Seeker Ball" power-up:
- if you launch it, it keeps driving at it's current velocity and will scan for players to run into and explode
- if you just throw it, it stays put until it spots a player to chase and run into
- if there is just one player and no bots, it will chase the player who launched it
- fixed networked smasher damage delay on kills and added sounds for smasher hits
- adjusted no-throttle input steering auto-throttle system to work more consistently
v0.8.10 (Build 213): June 5, 2020
- disabled torque matching system for "Classic" control mode (was creating deadzone)
- renamed "Pro" control mode to "Dual"
- reduced turning sensitivity in boat for "Classic" control mode
- set default to Left Stick / Trackpad for both flight inputs instead of defaulting to separate sticks
- adjusted default Torque Matching
- fixed quarterpipe ramp in Flatland and some other geometry
- fixed bug where activating third-person camera made golden rings disappear
- eliminated the taking of damage when player the shoots their own wheel with the rifle
- fixed additional bug that prevented damage to cars
- fixed display bug where shooting a really close object showed the laser going through the object
- fixed bug where menu wasn't opening on start-up
- added shortcut menu button to toggle between Match page and the previous page
- moved Comfort Cage inside player object rather than car
- omitted Comfort Cage from dashboard panel screen and third-person cameras
- added Comfort Cage setting to lock its rotation to the world rotation
- implemented "Motion Lines" comfort setting
- split up "Lock Horizon" setting into "First-Person Rotation Lock" with options of:
- None
- Horizon (Pitch & Roll)
- Pitch, Roll, & Yaw
- made the same change for the third-person camera setting and set its default to "Horizon Pitch & Roll)"
- fixed UI pointer highlighting / button selecting bugs
- fixed UI bug where closing and re-opening menu scrolled page further down
- fixed UI bug where sliders that used whole numbers weren't populating values on start-up
- improved core UI functionality around showing and hiding sections of button / form elements on pages
- made big changes to Controls settings page
- moved view / camera settings from "General" to "Comfort" and renamed the page to "View & Comfort"
- added a Follow Camera Type setting for Rigid / Smooth
- fixed HUD scale and positioning for third-person camera for all world scales
- improved follow camera behaviour when driving in reverse or camera is caught up (facing forward instead of pointing at car)
- made Recover / Race Respawn work while menu is open