Hey everyone!
Today Patch 0.1.12 launched, which includes pinball related objects such as a bindable flipper, a bumper and more interesting additions! Also I'd like to look forward abit and take a look at the next patch + the upcoming timeline.
The Patch
The patch introduces 2 flippers (left/right), these flippers are bound to K by default, but can be bound by selecting them and then rebinding the key. The key which is bound is per flipper saved and in that World. This means that when uploading a World to the Steam Workshop the keybinds are saved with it! Pressing the bound key results in the flipper moving, as expected.
The patch also introduces pinball bumpers, these bump marbles away when they hit the ring, and then they will flash a light a few times. The light and the bumper strength can be customized as you want.
In addition to that, spinners now have a motorized option. Select any existing spinners and you can turn them into motorized versions, with customizable speed, direction and if they should ignore marbles bumping into them. In real life motorized objects can be slowed down if the pressure is beyond the motor's strength, so I added in a toggle if it should ignore any marbles hitting it and just spin without any interference. I recommend playing around with it as it offers some interesting techniques.
A magnet has been added as well, this magnet can be customized in terms of strength, radius and if should pull or push. Using the magnets you can now prevent marbles going one way, or even attract them into a certain direction!
Here are the full notes:
- Speed boosters have a "set speed" option. Marbles passing them will simply have the set speed instead of it being added ontop of it's current speed.
- Fixed an issue where scaled boosters would multiply their boost through their scale.
- Spinners now have their own panel which pops up when selecting, here you can customize if they should be motorized, their speed if motorized, their direction (clockwise / anti-clockwise) if motorized and if they should ignore marble collisions.
- Added 2 new spinner variants, a triple bladed and a single bladed variant.
- Added a magnet, the magnet can push or pull with the desired radius + strength.
- Added a new marble skin panel, with additional buttons for selecting marble skins
- Added a pinball bumper, this bumper can be customized in terms of strength and lightcolor to emit.
- Added 2 pinball flippers, these can be keybinded to any key.
- Added a new community marble skin
Looking back and going forward
Last patch introduced the flexible track building system which provides new ways to build your track, but came at a cost.
I spoke with various players about this system. The new system allows for more options, but it is slower to work with than the previous one where you had less options but a solid & fast way to create tracks. So in order of getting the best of both worlds next patch will be dedicated to an update on that front.
I'll reintroduce the previous building technique where you can drag UI buttons at the end of a selected free endpoint to create a new piece (this will be shown as a ghost like the previous system did). This piece will then be created using the new free-form tech, but using the system we had before.
In addition to that, the free-form panel which pops up when editing one will have additional buttons, similar to Parkitect's UI for example. Using these buttons will work in the same way the UI-dragging does but at more predefined values, create a free-form track using whatever buttons you have selected!
The created free-form track will still be editable per point if wanted, so you can still connect 2 normal tracks using a simple free-form track for example.
If you have any questions your always free to chat using any of the social media's :)
As always, thanks for the feedback & support! It means a lot to me.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491340/Marble_World/