I've decided to extend the availability of the demo for week or so more and put out updates to the demo as form of early test for those interested in keeping playing. Please let me know if you encounter any problems and feel free to give feedback as will certainly be listening to what you all have to say.
This update is essentialy all the back-end stuff I put off doing when so close Next-Fest, there are some significant changes in here such as a rework to the user interface from a performance/responsiveness standpoint, additon of more sounds for the ball (hitting walls and entering hole), and tweaks to the xp and leaderboards. I'll run through the note-worthy changes but its quite a long list of small stuff so please check out the full notes below.
Level Tweaks
I've tweaked a few levels based on watching how these play out. "Tee Time" has recieved triangular bumpers so rebounding ball can bound rather than get trapped; the placement and size of the bumpers from a forward direction is unchanged. This shouldn't make much difference to leaderboards as getting stopped there usually meant a Birdie or Par at least.
Another level I tweaked a bit thats noteworthy is "Mind the Gap", besides various wall placement fixes, I also reworked the fallback path if you happen to go down that sloped hole at the start. It should now flow a little easier as it was quite common to get trapped in a corner when this is supposed to be the easier of the routes. The rest of the level remains unchanged and this wont make any difference to leaderboards.
XP & Leaderboard Changes
After listening to feedback I've tweaked how some XP is awarded to give more creativity when it comes to making your own route to the goal, I've also reworked how the time bonus is awarded.
So for starters the "Style" score has been tweaked, the "Shortcut" element is now only worth 25XP rather than 50 XP. This is to balance out the time it would take down a shortcut route vs maybe finding your own route.
Time has been changed to reward 1XP for every 1/4 second under 1 minute as well as a flat 50 XP award on top. Previously this was under 2 minutes and 2XP per second. The time itself is also handled to greater precision for all calculations. My intent with these changes is opening up more variation in the scores themselves you don't see the top handful of people having scores essentially sat at same XP due to way it was being calculated, now that split second actually counts. below is some comparison values:
- 21 seconds 196 vs 206
- 21.5 seconds 194 vs 204
- 22 seconds 194 vs 202
- 22.25 seconds 192 vs 201
- 22.5 seconds 192 vs 200
As a fun way to encourage a bit of extra testing on one of the levels I’ve tweaked, and to xp tweaks; I’ve gone and set a leaderboard ghost on “Tee Time” 'Normal' if anyone wants to try beat it ;) If you have any feedback to these changes then please let me know :)
User Interface Improvements
Every single menu in the game has had the back-end overhauled for greater responsiveness, with menus such as the Select Profiles and Leaderboards being especially noticable.
You'll also note that widget elements you can mouse click interact with have been given a border/3D-like appearence. This should especially help when its not clear what buttons you can and can't press. These are contexual, so will disapear when you can't interact with the button at a given moment due to some other action requiring your attention.
The Select Profiles menu will also handle the select button in the bottom right when comes to selecting skin / color as a fall back for when users don't understand to click the middle element to select. The back button will now move back to the previous section first before returning to the previous page.
Leaderboards will now display double the number of entries as previous. I'll likely look into a filter or way to move between pages here in the future.
Control Improvements
One element I notably tweaked was how movement on the tee is handled. Now if you proceed to hold down the power button it will charge up immediately when able, this means no more button mashing to activate it promptly. I've also done various responsiveness optimizations and the whole process can be performed a tenth of a second faster than previous.
Don't Forget to Wishlist
If you like the game and haven't already done so then please add the game to your wishlist. Not only will you be alerted as to when the game will release, but it also helps with the way Steam handles certain metrics and help raise the game in terms of popularity.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/
Patch Notes
General
- Added sounds for the ball colliding with walls.
- Added sounds for the ball entering hole.
- Added various improvements to hit collision responses.
- Fixed the flag raise detection on “Mind the Gap” being a little strict, the bounds now cover the end area better including as you pass over the water wheel.
- Added change to time bonus for leaderboards by reducing from 2 minutes to 1 minute.
- Added change to round time by handling internally to higher precision.
- Added change to Max XP for time bonus increased from 240 to 290 xp.
- Added change to how time bonus is calculated. Now 1xp per every ¼ second plus a flat rate of 50xp. This is so if you land a time of 58 seconds, you’d get 58xp not 8xp. A time of 36 seconds would net you 146xp. A time of 21 seconds would mean 206xp. The goal is to increase the score variation range.
- Added a change to the shortcut xp bonus, reducing from 50 to 25xp. My thinking is on typical levels like “Tee Time” and so on, you will take perhaps 5-8 seconds to take the shortcut – i.e. you’d lose 20-32xp from time bonus, so depending how creative you are with your alternate path, you don’t always require this bonus to get the best score – but it’s a safe bet to do so.
- Added improvements to the way moving on the tee is handled. If you hold down the launch while moving on the tee, if it remains held as soon as the tee movement as finished launch will initiate. This avoids the frantic clicking to launch as soon as tee movement has finished.
- Fixed the player spectator camera not returning to follow view after they pass through a hole.
Environment
- Added a minor layout change to “Tee Time” where the later wall bumpers are now triangular shaped to rebound from both directions. This would make no difference to any leaderboard scores, as this more about bouncing off balls that have long-sailed past the hole already in the loop.
- Fixed the fallback path on “Mind the Gap” to have an easier flow.
- Fixed wall placement on “Mind the Gap” Level (this is just side/detail, nothing to do with level layout).
- Fixed an incorrectly physical wall on “Pick a Hole”.
Interface
- Added improvements to choose player screen to make it easier to distinguish what is a button when using mouse controls.
- Added various back-end improvement to optimize performance, notably when comes to menu item times (menus were already opening in indistinguishable milliseconds but a couple such as the choose player menu and leaderboards are now more responsive).
- Added improvements to on-screen keyboard in the choose player menu. Buttons now have a 3d-look and will respond to mouse interactions.
- Added improvements to all buttons when interacting with the gamepad, the button will now visibly press and release when you select with a button (this is more noticeable on elements like on screen keyboard where the button doesn’t take you to another menu).
- Fixed the “Select” button not being functionally consistent.
- Fixed shadow appearance on the ball icons when picking customization.
- Added consistency improvements to the scoreboard so players will use same widget style as what you find with leaderboards. This will also let more players stats visible on screen at once.
- Added on screen buttons to cycle left or right with the stat pages.
- Added improvements to the main menu load up time.
- Added improvements to the style of the Next and Previous buttons on various elements. These are now visibility 3D, press and depress and have animation based on gamepad interaction.
- Fixed the public and invite only choose player menu’s not returning to the new game menu.
- Fixed pressing back in the choose player menu after clicking on a session not taking you back to the session list.
- Fixed a rogue element in the choose ball customization menu.
- Fixed ball icons on choose player menu having an incorrect shadow.
- Fixed an issue relating to text wrapping under some resolutions on the Practice menu.
- Fixed an issue relating to the color of mouse button text on the Keyboard and Mouse menu.
- Added improved descriptions to key remapping.
- Added change to xp menu to have it be represented by hover color.
- Added additional visible leaderboard entries in the practice menu (50, up from 25).
- Fixed an issue where friends leaderboard entries were not appearing in the practice menu.
- Added change to default highlight color when creating new profile.
- Added improvements to the Choose Player menu where interactable buttons are distinguished between non interactable better. The on-screen accept button will also work for the first player as a secondary means of interacting with this menu. Back button will only go back to the previous page when in the select profile state, an extra confirmation prompt will get added in the future if you have other players joined.
- Added improved behaviour for gamepad remapping menu where you can press any non-gamepad key to abort the remapping easier.
- Fixed various hit test and selectable behaviour issues in the remapping menus.
- Added performance optimizations to the player hud elements.