After many weeks of late nights and long hours, the base work for supporting multiplayer in the game is finally finished, along with the first (of hopefully many to come) multiplayer game mode! I am doing a week of public testing first before pushing it to the official game, if you'd like to help test and play multiplayer early the details are at the bottom of this post, its easy and done within steam in a few seconds!
I apologize for this update taking so long, even though I knew this would be a lot of work it still exceeded my expectations for how difficult it would be. I guess it's true what they say about "just adding multiplayer", it's really not easy! Thank you all for being so patient, and I am excited to now get back to a more regular update schedule like before, so expect new updates every 1-2 weeks for the foreseeable future! New vehicles, new game modes, more multiplayer features, new campaigns, more editor features, it's all coming!
Multiplayer Features:
-Both global online and local(LAN) are supported for up to 8 players (this number may be increased later on depending on how things go)
-For now only join via code matches are supported, however a server browser is absolutely a possibility in the future, I just dont have the player count right now to support it right now. The code system however means that you do not need to be Steam friends to join games, so you can send your join code to anyone to play with them. This means organizing multiplayer sessions on discord or facebook or whatever you want will be easy and accessible to everyone. This also ensures there is no risk of the game ever getting "shut down" if I can no longer afford servers. Multiplayer will always be available for as long as the game (and Steam) exist!
-A full in game chat is supported, making is easy to talk trash, organize races, and help the host decide what to play next! This system is also used for real time notifications to all the players, like showing when a player gets a new best lap.
-ALL game tracks are supported, you can race on any community track, any of your own private tracks (even if they aren't uploaded to the community), and any of your unlocked campaign tracks. Have your buddies hop in and help you test your new tracks before you upload them!
-The first game mode available is called "Hot Lap", this is effectively the standard game where you freely race for best lap times, including functioning leaderboards, but with your friends! In this mode there will be no collisions, and everyone will still spawn in the normal start box (but custom session marker respawn points still work). As you race everyone's best lap times will be shown in the pause menu lobby leaderboard for everyone in the group, and there will be notifications any time a player gets a new best lap time. Leaderboards still work and update in real time, so you can all compete for leaderboard spots together!
-More game modes are already in the works, including standard competitive timed racing modes inspired by real life rc as well as more arcade friendly lap style races. The host of the match will have total control over game modes, enabling collisions, setting lap count or timers, allowing for practice sessions before starting the race, etc. and again, every track in the game will be available to play in all these modes!
-Photo mode is still fully supported! Show off your groups custom liveries and vehicles in a virtual car meet and get some cool squad pics!
-Movement and prediction net code is extremely complicated, especially with physics like this game has, this is something I will continuously be working on and improving.
-Everything here is a work in progress, and I am very open to feedback, suggestions, and ideas for future multiplayer game modes! So let me know what you would like to see!
Update Notes
New Features:
-Multiplayer is finally here! All back-end and supporting systems for multiplayer, plus a whole bunch of rewriting of existing features to make them work online is now complete! Supporting local and online multiplayer for up to 8 of your friends and foes!
-The first multiplayer mode "Hot Lap" has been added to the game, with more modes coming soon, plus I am open to any further ideas for fun game modes to play with your buddies!
-Regular more frequent updates will now resume as well :)
Bug Fixes:
-Fixed daily jam skip practice button being bound to back button (so it skips practice when trying to go back from the pause menu)
-Added some further protections to the daily jam system to catch rare instances of strange timer behavior
-Fixed rare case of spamming buttons causing overlapping menus when exiting out of race mode
How to join in early testing:
Open your Steam library
Right click on ReCharge RC: High Voltage, then select "Properties..."
In the window that pops up select "Game Versions & Betas"
Select the "featuretesting" branch
Wait for the game to update, it should now show up as "ReCharge RC: High Voltage [featuretesting]"
Go race!
Otherwise just wait a week or so and these updates (likely with further improvements and bug fixes) will be pushed to the normal release branch and you wont need to do anything!
Going forward this feature testing branch will be used for early testing of new features that I would like community feedback on before they become a part of the "official" game. These builds may not always be stable, and there may be bugs (sometimes game breaking) present. If you choose to opt into this your feedback and bug reports will be greatly appreciated! This branch will also likely have much more frequent updates, sometimes several in a single day or week as I am testing new things.
Come join the official discord and lets play some games together! - https://discord.com/invite/4DdPrpMfRG