Survival mode
Survival mode is here, and with it, a procedural map generator. Survival mode is easy, you start with a minute of time on your timer and must finish the generated map before your timer runs out. Successfully doing so gives you another minute on top of what you had left. Maps get longer after each success. This game mode feature an alternative with wider maps and adjusted bonus time. The two survival mode have their own leaderboard.
New skid visual
There is now a new effect for skidding, instead of the smoke, you now have a clean trail on all surfaces.
The width of this new effect is directly proportional to the lateral force on the wheel which is also the main factor for sparking (acceleration boost while drifting).
This means that you can now precisely asses what you need to do in order to optimize your sparking.
Here is a chart:
New music
Gradient Flow now features a complete original soundtrack released under CC0 you can find it here: Gradient Flow Volume 1
List of changes:
Survival Narrow and Survival Wide
All user content is now stored in the local database, this will enable the use of steam cloud (soon)
A procedural level generator, you can access it in the level editor
A new skid effect, you can now clearly see your drift angle
A no respawn timer will now appear, if you respawn during a run, showing you the time you would be getting if you didn't respawn, this time will also appear on the finish screen
You can now disable your personal best ghost
You can now disable the input visualizer
A mini leaderboard is now visible by default in the gameplay UI, you can disable it in the options
A new key bind to completely hide the gameplay UI
The leaderboard of the highlight map while browsing will now be displayed on the left
When reaching the finish line or the end of a Survival run you will now see the related leaderboard in the end screen
There is now info about the current map you are playing in the top right of the gameplay UI
The Ui as been made less transparent across the board
You can no longer publish a map without a start and a finish line (preexisting map that don't have these will be removed)
Fixed the crash caused by a map without a start line
We are now using individual compressed files for the game assets, this should make future updates and small patches a lot lighter (sorry for the large patch size again)
A new free skin
What's coming next
I think the next step may be a new set of track pieces, the current set is very limiting in some ways. I have a lot of ideas to make a better, more useful, set. But this represent a very high and complicated amount of work, the main reason is Gradient Flow custom physics engine, each track piece must be described with mathematical equation (the actual triangles of the mesh are never used).
Another option for the next update: scriptable game modes! I already made good progress in that direction, this would allow to create all kind of game mode without requiring engine rebuild and even allow community game modes. The main use would be for online server rooms, paired with the procedural level generator, we could make all sort of things!
I think the official campaign will come after the new set of track pieces, so I might give priority to that.
And Survival is sort of in beta right now, if you think it could be made better, don't hesitate to reach out to me! This also goes for the new soundtrack, I can still edit each tracks if you have suggestions to do so.
As always, feel free to tell me what you think in the discord!