Hello! Welcome to Project Heartbeat 0.5.0, this update introduces many under the hood changes yet again, but also some new features, let's get right into it.
NEW CONTENT
NEW SONG: Getaway
Getaway is now available, this song produced by SuganoMusic, written and sang by the great Anthony McBazooka was intended to ship early on in the game's life, however some things happened and we couldn't ship it on time.
The artwork was made by Emmilly (sadnesswaifu) and finished by me (I only did the shading on the car and drew the visible wheel, she did everything else).
This chart has been beautifully crafted by twoncity.
NEW FEATURES & IMPROVEMENTS
Discord rich presence
Discord rich presence is now available on Windows and Linux, this will show what game you are playing (or editing).
For the tech-people: This is my first shipped module using the Rust programming language, it's a technology I really like a lot so expect to see more rust-based code in the future.
The source code for the rust module is available here: https://github.com/EIRTeam/project_heartbeat_discord
Tweet button
You can now tweet your score right from the post-game screen through the new shiny Tweet button.
Main menu music disable option
You can now disable music from being played in the main menu through a new option.
VSync option
VSync can now be enabled in the options, keep in mind this is likely to introduce more input lag, but might be necessary for some people.
"Convert to" dropdown in the editor
You can now convert between note button types (so for example turn an up note into a right note) through a new submenu in the right click menu.
Custom icon pack support
One of the new things added to 0.5.0 is our first foray into the world of modding, a new GitHub repository has been created with examples and documentation on how to do this.
Icon pack creation documentation
Add ability to change URLs in PPD songs
You can now change the video url in PPD songs through a button in the pre-game screen.
Score is now shown in song list
You can now see your maximum score directly on the song list.
Play count
The number of times you've played a song is now shown in the pre-game screen, this will be further expanded with more stats in the future.
Note caching
To make the game perform well on very modest systems, the game now prepares all notes on startup and loads them even before they are neded, this comes at a loading time penalty but can greatly increase FPS on some systems.
If your computer is capable enough and you want faster loading times you can disable this in options under "Game -> Load all notes when song starts"
This option is disabled in the editor.
Slide chain rewrite
The way slide chains are drawn and handled has been rewritten, this new system should be much more reliable and also allows you to pause mid-chain in the editor.
Sound effect pooling
Sound effects are now pooled instead of being loaded on demand, this should prevent stuttering on some systems.
Hold exploit fixes
Some users noted that it was still possible to exploit holds through some complicated controller trickery, this has been fixed, please experiment with the new hold system, it should feel closer to what you are used to.
PPD double heart importing improvements
Some PPD charts failed to load double hearts properly do to an edge case in how they were handled, this has now been fixed.
Multiplayer improvements
Some aspects of multiplayer have been reworked, it should now perform a bit better and songs with non-ASCII (Japanese, Russian, Chinese etc...) characters will now load properly.
Open user directory button
In tools there's now an option to open the user directory for convenience.
Editor general architecture improvements
A lot of the editor has been rewritten, this should lead to much better performance and less bugs (particularly the legendary slide chain "sirens").
Amongst the changes included is note culling, which causes notes in the timeline to be ignored if they are not visible, the algorithm that does this has been carefully made to extract as much performance possible.
Experimental ANGLE builds for Windows
Some Windows users using NVIDIA Optimus reported frame pacing issues, this is due to a bug presented in some optimus cards and only affects OpenGL.
In order to fix this I have ported the engine to ANGLE, ANGLE is a compatibility layer that translates the game's graphics calls from OpenGL to DirectX 11 and Vulkan.
This build is completely experimental and unsupported, the DirectX 11 backend will be used in an unannounced port to a new platform, so if you could test it that would be great.
To test the ANGLE versions go to your game's directory on Steam (you can access it by right clicking PH on the library -> Properties -> Local files -> Browse local files) and click on the .bat file that matches your desired version:
- Use run_vulkan.bat to run the vulkan version.
- Use run_dx11.bat to run the DirectX 11 version.
There are two additional aspects you should know about these versions:
- Obviously this is not a native port to DX11 and Vulkan, an official Vulkan port is planned for next year, this means that performance will probably not be as good (or good at all depending on the system) which is why this build is provided without support.
- The visualizer might be slow on both, so I'd recommend disabling it.
- The Vulkan version uses the same feature level as the GLES2 version of the ordinary game, this is because ANGLE doesn't implement OpenGL ES 3.2 yet.
- I recommend optimus users with frame pacing issues to use Vulkan and enable VSync
OTHER MINOR FIXES
- Fix crash when using the add to favorites button on difficulties.
- Added a new failsafe for YoutubeDL installations, this should make it so that if the installation fails (or is stopped halfway) the game will be able to recognise this.
- The editor now ignored input properly while a song is being playtested.
- Changed the wording of the PPD importer, since we now support all PPD chart types.
- Changed the clear bar to match our new CLEAR percentage (75%)
- You can now set the SFX volume 0%
Future plans and updates on other stuff
New leaderboard system
Over the last month I've taken the challenge of learning the Rust programming language, my objective is to write a new leaderboard system so that non-official songs get leaderboards too.
This will also allow leaderboard entries with modifiers (and to filter them too).
New FAQ
A new Frequently Asked Questions article has been published, let me know if there's anything you'd like to have added.
Practice mode
The plans for practice mode involve reusing code from the editor, which is why I've decided to push it back yet again to see if the new editor architecture changes are stable.
Homebrew Nintendo Switch port
For a long time I've been building versions of the game for the Switch, however these have mostly been unplayable due to various circumstances.
It's now playable, however stuff such as graphics fail to load, video decoding doesn't work (yet) and user songs also are not loadable, but I think it will be viable to release a port for homebrew switches in the future.