It's been a little while and there's a lot to cover, so let's jump right in with the Featured Vehicles for September. This month's theme was Dune Buggy, and there were (again) over 50 entries to look through. I wasn't sure if the theme would get much interest since destruction isn't really part of it, but I was (again) very impressed with all the entries. Here are the winners and honorable mentions:
FEATURED VEHICLES
- Chasing Rat Grav Buggy - Kaijp
- Halo Warthog (Buggy Vers) - AceOfBlades
- Buggy Fun - Looshkin42
- Truck-Buggie - DarkySword
- Storm Buggy - Yatobi
- CliffClimer - PaperMachine
- Red Viper Hyper Buggy - Zombie Ninja
- Dune Buggy and ATV - Turbo Jack Flash
- Sand Blaster - PyroTeknikid
- DuneStar - AjaxGamr
- Mini-Rally - SmokieTheSalmon
- Heavy Duty Buggy - Kozuel
- Super-Duper Buggy - MasterSubliminal
- Cross Buggy - AlienWang
- Interceptor mk 2 - Stranger
- Stadium Truck - Stranger
HONORABLE MENTIONS
- Bearco. Sand Rail - OscBear
- Bare Bones Buggy - Tatsumesan
- Buggy2 - Looshkin42
- Bend-It-Like-Buggy - IceCreamMan4254
- SooFighter Buggy 01 - SooFighter
- Dune Buggy - BurntPotato0123
- Doom WPV mk3 - Omble09
- 5x5 Buggy mk1 - IceCreamMan4254
- BFF Buggy mk VI - Grim
- Leviathan Monster Truck - DangoSpark117
- Desert Vulture - Atlantic
- Gunner Buggy - Yatobi
- Mega Buggy - Dominus Nictus
- Mega Buggy - Crow
- Dakkar - Stranger
- Rude Racer - Stranger
- Sand F1 - Stranger
- Baja Buggy mk 2 - Stranger
- Scarab - Stranger
Stranger had large number of entries this time, and they were all quite good, but Interceptor mk 2 and Stadium Truck stood out to me. Other really impressive standouts included Dune Buggy and ATV, Cliff Climber, Halo Warthog, and Sand Blaster. All the featured vehicles were excellent, and many of the honorable mentions just missed the cut this time. Enough talking, here's a video:
I wish I had a larger island to test these creations with, and that's something I'll remedy in the future. I'll also look a bit more into ways to make vehicles smaller. Smaller parts are one way that's definitely coming, but perhaps some universal scaling option would help. It's a more technical problem than it appears at first, but the scale issue keeps coming up and is unlikely to go away, so I should probably take another look at making it happen.
NEXT FEATURED THEME: BALLOON BOMBER
DEADLINE: OCTOBER 26TH
The next theme will be Balloon Bomber, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Use balloons (mostly) to power a flying vehicle, and give it the ability to rain destruction down from above. Whether that's actual bombs or other weapons is entirely up to you.
VERSION 0.151 CHANGELIST
Here are the changes for version 0.151:
- Added 4 new gameplay songs and 2 new build songs (plus 2 more bonus tracks)
- Added soundtrack customization screen so you can choose which songs play
- Added Mass Modifier, which adjusts entire player vehicle while playing (doesn't adjust mass display, select cab in Advanced Mode to edit Mass Modifier)
- Doubled the max charge amount for distract mode (and structure testing)
- Widened maximum zoom in/out range for most camera modes
- Reduced damage to structural blocks (from structure/ground collisions only) when 120hz physics is not enabled
- Added "Recommended" label to 120hz physics
- Fixed expanding/contracting an object resetting the color slot
- Made it more obvious which blocks are decals in the editor
- Ignore all block damage for a short while after island loads
The biggest new thing this time is the soundtrack expansion and customization. The soundtrack is mostly complete at this point, but there could be other tweaks/changes in the future. The Mass Modifier for vehicles fits Sandbox Mode perfectly, and it should let you fine-tune the behavior of your vehicle. The new structure tutorial is also linked from the game, or you can just watch it here:
UPDATES AND TUTORIALS, ETC
Updates have been a bit too slow lately, and I hope to improve that over the next few weeks. The structure editor tutorial was one thing that really threw me off track for Instruments, and future tutorials will be different. I'm happy with the tutorial, but creating it made me not want to work on the game for a bit, so I worked on something else. Now that I've cleared my head, I'm not going to worry so much about doing things in an exact order, but instead focus on just getting things done.
I feel like I've only been going half-speed with Instruments updates, and haven't been enjoying the process. Most of the tedious/boring tasks are done with (editors, workshop stuff), so I'm looking forward to just getting stuff done. The vehicle building update is still the next big update, but I'm not going to worry about what order or how many small updates are made along the way.