Hello everyone! Just writing this to break the silence and let you guys know what's been going on. We've got a big update coming up so there's quite a bit to talk about.
First of all, sorry for the delay. We said we'd have v0.3 out over a month ago. I'll take most of the blame since the holdup has been related to the codebase (plus being kinda lazy these past two months, that's over though). Lots of the code has been refactored to pave the way to v1.0, since it was getting rough working with what we had. Nothing noticeable in the end, but it should improve workflow which is always nice.
Also, the leaderboards. We fixed a speed bug with the last patch, and were planning to wipe the leaderboards with the next patch. Since the next patch is taking so long, some times with the bugs are still up there. We've redone the core movement/control system, so we're doing a full wipe of the scores with v0.3. Bear with us until then!
Alright let's talk a bit about v0.3 now.
Multiplayer + Combat
This is the big part of the patch. Multiplayer will be fully ready to play, both local split-screen and online.
There will be three game modes for now:
- Sprint - For now these will just be all the single player levels, get from point A to point B
- Circuit - Basic lap based levels, no surprises here (available for single player too)
- Battle - Last man standing combat, with weapons and abilities
There are also hubs used for online, where players are free to roam around while the host picks the level. We'll probably add some fun stuff into them later, but for now there's a pad with all the abilities and weapons on it.
Combat is a big addition. Players get a health bar, and try to make all the other ones disappear with a mix of weapons and abilities. Ramming into other people works too if that's the way you roll.
Weapons are a permanent pickup/selection, and will never expire. Right now there are three melee weapons, and three ranged. Two of the ranged weapons use ammo, which can be refilled from pickups on the ground. If you pick up ammo for a weapon that doesn't need it, you'll get overcharge, which will empower the next attack you do.
Abilities exist on a timer. When you pick one up, you'll have 30 seconds to get the most use out of it. We've got about a dozen in right now, ranging from speed boosts, to stealth, to shields.
Controls
One big change is the previously mentioned movement/controls. The ball was moved using kind of a "push" force, and the friction with the ground is what caused it to roll. We've completely changed that now. Unless you're in the air, the ball will be given torque, instead of the push we used before. It's a big change, but we feel like it's improved the game overall.
We're still messing around with the default control bindings as well. They're a mess right now because of all the new combat features, but we'll figure out how to streamline it better.
The camera got some work done it too. We added a button to snap on the auto-follow, which is really useful and I highly recommend getting comfortable with it. We're making a new tutorial level which will cover stuff like this.
Most of the patch is ready, but there's still a few things to do before we put it out. We might wait for the new Unity patch which is coming next week sometime, since it fixes a memory leak, but we could also use an older version without the leak. So the patch day is "sometime next week probably". Stay tuned!