New update v1.36 "Super Spring" live!

Hello racers!

Welcome to our MASSIVE Spring update!

This is the biggest update we've ever done and it brings a lot of new features that has been requested and some bonus stuff we've wanted to implement ourselves. We'll throw out a BIG DISCLAIMER immediately though:

Due to a huge part of our code base being rewritten, reworked and redesigned in this update, there probably will be bugs, some nastier than others. We've done our best to stabilize the build before releasing it to you but we are only two people working in our spare time so it is impossible to test all possible scenarios in a game as complex as Roadclub. So, we need your help testing this one! Please report anything suspicious and we'll get right on it asap!

Anyway, this one is so big we need a highlights section, so here they are!

HIGHLIGHTS

• 4-player support in local multiplayer
• Track Editor and Steam Workshop support is now public (beta)
• New elimination race mode
• New desert dirt track, Cactus Road Park!
• Improved Time Trial mode
• Reworked weather system
• Basic modding support
• Destructible track objects
• Animated water
• Menu animations
• New sounds and particle effects
• New race intro
• Start sequence countdown speed increased
• Wrong way-sign (beta)
• Reset car button (beta)

FULL RELEASE NOTES

• 4-player local multiplayer support added! We also reworked the entire experience of setting up the races so it is much more intuitive and fast.
• Track Editor (beta) and Steam workshop is now public! It is still beta and quite rough usability-wise but we think it'll get more testing this way. It should be stable enough but not as easy to use yet as we want. But we need your feedback to know what is hard to understand!
• Reworked race rules system. We can now MUCH easier define the rules for a race which means we can add new race modes over time. To illustrate this we have...
• New elimination race mode! The classic mode where the last car on each lap is eliminated from the race until only one remain is now available for custom events and local multiplayer modes.
• Improved Time Trial mode! You asked for it! You can now run as many laps as you want unhindered until you've decided you've reached your limit and then save the time. You can save the time even if you wreck your car (although you'd have to restart the trial at that point). Just quit the race using "Save time and exit" from the pause menu and the record will be uploaded.
• Reworked weather system. Instead of having wind OR mist OR snow OR rain everything is now combined into one system and in addition we've added clouds and everything is affected by the current wind, even the clouds and snow! This means we can now have cloudy, misty, windy, rainy AND snowy weather all at once. Which combinations can happen is also depending on the biome (desert, countryside, winter) so it won't snow in the desert very often (but it CAN happen!).
• Wrong way-sign. The game now tracks if you're going the right way and shows a sign otherwise.
• Reset car button (beta). If you end up in the wilderness and feel it might take long to get back on track you can now press a reset button (which you have to map in Options->Controls). At the moment this doesn't look very good but it should work OK. We'll keep improving the effect over the next few updates.
• New track "Cactus Road Park"! It is a desert dirt track made for some close racing.
• Redesigned menus and divided into Single Player and Multiplayer sections and made a new race mode selection screen where we can add new modes in the future.
• Improved sliders in the UI to be more intuitive. They no longer need to be activated to change value.
• Basic modding support. You can create your own track objects with custom art, sounds and particle effects manually and import them into the editor, just by creating files. This makes it possible to create packages of your own additions and upload them to mod sites for others to enjoy. Many other parts of the game are easily modified as well by just changing files in the main folder. This will be an undocumented feature for a while but if any of you want to dive in immediately you can! (NOTE: Please be aware that modifications of the application folder will be overwritten by Steam when the game updates, so backup your mods!)
• Improved object system. We've rewritten most of the code related to the track and environment which gives several new possibilities for more dynamic tracks, as mentioned below:
• Destruction! Objects can now be made destructible so cars can slam into for example hay bales, crates and fences and they'll blow up to huge effect! This can also alter the routes of the more arcadey tracks over the course of a race.
• Environment sounds and trackside particle system support. Tracks can be made more alive by allowing sounds to be placed in the environment and particle systems to burn, smoke or enhance areas with other effects.
• Animated water! A new animated water layer backdrop has been added to enable more varied environments and give some more motion and life to the tracks.
• Menu animations. We have a rudimentary system in place to make more animated menus to give them more life and make them seem less static. This is very early yet and we will continue to improve this over time to find a good balance between snappy input and visual improvement.
• New skid sounds and particle effect for rough and loose surfaces
• New race intro creating a bit of atmosphere before race starts and displaying lap record and track name.
• Dynamic race UI makes sure to only display the UI elements needed cleaning up the screen a lot during races.
• New tarmac skid sound. Now sounds a lot more realistic!
• Dirt skid sound and particle effect finally added!
• We now display which buttons are mapped to Back out from menus on the main menu. Further improvements incoming here as well.
• Control mappings are now displayed on the pause menu for faster reference during gameplay.
• Re-race event button now stores all settings so its easy to get back in if you accidentally quit out from a race you wanted to play again.
• Start sequence countdown speed increased to get into the action faster!
• "Laps to go" message added on new laps.
• Improved design of Spy report screen.

Fixed

• Finally fixed nasty bug causing cars to get stuck and send player into space (literally) sometimes during the first race after creating a new profile.
• Finally fixed clipping edges of maps. Sometimes the camera could go far enough over the edge you could see beyond the map.
• Fixed collision boxes on most cars that were extending outside their visual body.
• Many UI cleanups and consistency improvements.
• Removed annoying slipstream sounds.
• Tons of minor stability improvements and performance improvements. (Please note that with many new effects an actual framerate increase may not happen anyway.)

Notes

• Removed "Night" race time. Until we can make it look good we are removing the night mode from the game. Lighting didn't work and it was hard to see anything so it wasn't fun. We'll maybe revisit this later if it is demanded but until launch it's out.
• Leaderboards will be reset in this update because the previous ones were only made for official tracks and now everyone will be able to make tracks!

All in all this is starting to give us a great platform to add more things faster to the game in the future, pre launch and post launch.

As always, post feedback in discussions or join our discord and post there. We want to hear everything you think about the game and the update, big or small, crash or annoyance!

Have an awesome day and we hope you'll enjoy this new experience!

/Benny