Hey, Racers!
Open beta starts now! All you have to do is download the Airframe Ultra demo to play! No sign ups. No forms. No fuss. Just download the demo and play!
Let’s get some FAQ out of the way:
How long will the beta run for?
The beta will run for a week ending on March 2nd at 9am PST.
What tracks are available for the beta?
All of the tracks from the previous betas!
Oceandrive
Chasm
Nightride
Stormdrain
Quarry
Estate
I experienced a bug, where should I post it?
If you find a bug, please report it in the bug report forum! That will be the easiest place for developers to locate and track the bugs you report!
Wait, where is the local play option? Where's the private rooms options? Are you removing it?
Don’t worry it will come back! We aren’t removing it. Some of the changes made didn’t work in local play or private rooms so we removed it for the time being. It will be back in the future.
EDIT: We heard you guys like Private Rooms, so we've re-enabled them! To make Private Rooms work, tick "Private Room" option when creating. The name of the room is the password!
So what actually changed since the last beta?
Alright, alright, time to get to the MEAT of this dev log. What actually changed since the last beta? There are quite a few changes from some more QOL features, a new voting system, and more!
Quality of Life
This was probably asked for from the very first closed beta we ran, but I am happy to finally get to get this in your testing hands. Rebindable keys are in this beta!
Voting System
Alright, so this is probably one of the biggest changes you’ll quickly realize is the new voting system in between races. When you open a room you’ll immediately start in Warehouse instead of the lobby UI screen. When the host starts the voting or when the time runs out in the lobby, you can vote on two randomly chosen tracks.
You can vote on which track you want to play by entering the highlighted zone in front of the board. The one with the most votes will be the next track you race on. If there is a tie in the voting, it will be randomly chosen between the two tracks.
Circuits
In this playtest, you will play in circuits! Circuits are 3 races where your points carry over and the person with the most points after all three races win. Now, there is a caveat to this, you must have won at least one race. So, you may be 50 points ahead of everyone but still lose the circuit because you didn’t win the race. The podium is for winners!
If you win you can stand over the competition with a new cutscene. I would show it but as you can see I took second place in this circuit and am still salty over it. I won’t show me in second place. If you take the top 3 in the circuit, you do get a… “weapon?” that you can use to fire at your rivals and friends to really rub it in their faces. I’ll leave that for you to discover as well.
Host Controls
Since you spawn in Warehouse when you start a room, you don’t have the normal menu for you to set up games. So the developers have added a new room or two for the host to enter and change the settings for the races.
If you aren’t the host I would be careful trying to enter the room. We have the highest defense weapons bought from the underground black market to protect the rooms from any unwanted visitors.
There are some settings that a host can control directly:
Max Players
Max Lives
Max Kills
Cops on or off
Numbers for Lives and kills are:
Low: 5 Kills
Med: 10 Kills
High: 20 Kills
Some of you may find the golden revolver in the lobby with the host controls. If there is anyone that you don't want in your lobby, give them a little shot with that and that will disconnect them from the lobby.
Who’s the Coolest Racer in Megacity West?
I’ve got one more piece of news for you! This week, we’re going to learn, well… you read this section’s header.
In the Airframe Ultra Discord, we’re going to be anointing one player as the Coolest in Megacity West! Every day, players will share something from the game and the community will vote on their favorites! The player who gets the most reactions to their post wins The Coolest (an actual role I added to the Discord.)
Here is a preview of the topics!
Monday: Share your racer.
Tuesday: Coolest boost clip!
Wednesday: Coolest kill
Thursday: Favorite art you have drawn
Friday: Coolest vista
Saturday: favorite art on the wall in Ocean Drive
Sunday: Favorite thing from the beta
Join the community and fight for the throne.
Friday Livestream with the Devs
Finally, this Friday, we’ll be doing a big livestream at
https://www.twitch.tv/akuparagames!
At 12PM Noon, 9AM Eastern, Buddy will be getting the devs from AFU together in a big livestream to show off some gameplay and answer YOUR questions. Have you ever wanted to know Bandit99’s backstory? Why did we change the Vector? Who wins most in the internal playtests?
It’ll also be where we debut the promised Community Teaser, so keep an eye out for your clips!
All your questions and more will be answered live– before we open up lobbies and play with the community! There’s an event in the Discord to sign up for! Check it out!
If you do enjoy playing the beta, then please give us a wishlist. Every wishlist helps tremendously. I will also write a big write up after the beta detailing what we have learned from the beta, highlight community made content from the beta, and talk with Josh, one of the developers in Airframe Ultra to give some insight about what they are planning for the next step of the game.
-riv otter