Update .33 is now out! And it's a huge one, probably the biggest content update in months. Here's the details:
- Added singleplayer challenge modes: Air Raid, Juggernaut, Fugitive, and Horde, along with bot upgrades based on your XP level and per-level leaderboards
- Leaderboards load dynamically while in-room and display in top-left corner during Challenge matches
- Added 'Arena Modifiers', which are global settings that apply to all players. For now, all the powerups have been added as global modifiers, so you can enable things like 'all jetpacks'. Arena modifiers are stackable.
- Added reflective shader and changed textures in many levels, while removing some processor-intensive spotlights and shadows. Remaining arenas will be updated over next few days. Reflective shader should not cause much of a performance hit but can be disabled in video settings.
- Rearranged menus for more logical layout and less button overload Added 'Bot Match' and 'Training' option directly within new Singleplayer menu (along with Challenge option)
- Moved XP bar to bottom of HUD
- Stopped AI bots from boosting when round over
Added TextMeshPro and updated some menu fonts, others will be improved in next minor update
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I'm really excited about this because I think it starts to fill in a few big missing pieces. It's important that the game is fun to play even if you're not in an online match, and that's what these Challenge modes represent.
My hope is that they'll give players a really good reason to invest more time into the game, for several reasons:
- You have leaderboards to compete on that are integrated in-game so you can see clearly which of your friends' scores you need to beat.
- You have bot upgrades that function as a reward for gaining XP for playing the game.
- As you level up, you'll have more freedom to choose different upgrade balances that suit your play style, giving you reason to keep coming back to the challenge modes and try new combinations.
I also think the new arena modifiers add a ton of replayability to the multiplayer, because different combinations can drastically change how the game plays out. Some favorite combinations so far: Lasers + Jetpacks, Big Ball + Pogo Jump, Jetpacks + Homing, or all of them at once!
Please let me know what you think of the update and if you have more ideas for challenge modes. A lot of the work that went into them was building out the capabilities, at this point relatively easy to add more.
I'm also very excited about the visual updates, because it actually allows me to create levels that look better without the very time-consuming process of adding detailed textures. So that means new levels should be much easier for me to create. Look for a new one soon!