Demo update 1.07 is here! And with some great changes to vehicle handling, the music, track layouts and more, this is the update to play!
Check out the detailed update changes below!
• Added new main menu theme
○ There is now a 1 in 5 chance of the old theme playing
• Adjusted hovercar movement
• Changed respawning to start line to restart countdown from 1 second
○ Gives time to ready self again finger positioning wise on controller
• New thruster visual effects
○ The old effects made it hard to tell which rocket was active sometimes. These ones are much more "glued" to the car model
○ They are also updated to show which effect is active on the car (e.g. thrust, off-road etc.)
• New hover particle visual effects
○ Similar to above, but with the hovering particles
• Changed directional arrow indicator to be above the car
○ When in front/bonnet camera, it changes to the front of the car
• Changed the boost powerup to give additional grip when active
○ This allows for powering out of corners and being able to take corners at a much faster speed
• Fixed being able to have a powerup on reset
• Added additional checkpoints to TrackDay03
○ This was done to make it easier for players to determine where to go
§ …and has had the side effect of making the track faster because of additional boosts added to each odd numbered checkpoint
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to pass one checkpoint then backtrack to the start line and it count as finishing the track
• Redesigned parts of the layout of Forest_Run to be more smooth with the adjusted hovercar movement
○ Based on feedback provided by players, slow tracks are nowhere near as fun as fast tracks, so Forest_Run has had the layout adjusted to have more fast sections
• Allowed for more replays to be recorded
○ This has also changed the naming scheme of demos to be easier to find in the "Demos" folder
• Fixed the leaderboard not displaying the correct track times
○ Also fixed it not loading the times correctly on first load
• Added leading zeros to the timer and times for the leaderboard
• Removed some UI options
○ Notably in leaderboards
• Adjusted the joystick movement to be more forgiving for 100% thrust power
○ You can now be slightly to the left/right when pushing up/down to get the same effect as full power
• Added a new speedometer
○ It functions the exact same as the old one, but more round
• Decreased turning force when boost is active
○ This should help with reducing overturning when you have the boost powerup active
•Fixed a bug where it was possible to complete a track having only passed one checkpoint (if you passed the start line)
• Changed how foliage looks in the tracks (and some other visuals)
So... what else has been worked on? It's been a while since the last big update to the game.
Well, great question! Truth is; quite a lot!
So recently Take The Wheels! was exhibited at a local convention and has had some more playtesting done, and, good news is that there was no major bugs or issues! (well... except for one, but that one was found by me and didn't effect the game at all. and actually got fixed in this update!)
Other than that, a fair few things under the hood have changed, as well as some testing of split-screen play! Which works... mostly. It still has some refinement to go through with visuals for UI and whatnot, but it's coming along well!
So keep setting blistering lap times! As because of changes to both the movement and the TrackDay03 map, there is plenty of optimisation to go!