It's good to be back! Thank you all for your patience while we worked out the kinks in this update; there's a ton of new stuff, and we can't wait to share it with y'all... so let's get to it!
You can now send Gifts to your friends! This has a been a much-requested feature, so we’re excited to get it out there!
The important details:
- Anything you can buy with tokens, you can now send as a gift (if you are over level 15)!
- Navigate to Watch > Store and find the item you would like send as a gift. Choose "Give as Gift" and select the friend you would like to send it to! They’ll receive a nicely gift-wrapped box.
- You can choose to make your gift anonymous if you like
- You also cannot give someone something they already own!
A few updates for Screen Mode:
- Revised login and registration flow for Screen Mode players. Much cleaner and more sane (we hope).
- Loading screen tips between rooms - all kinds of helpful info here. This is something we plan to bring to VR as soon as possible, but for now if you’d like to see the loading tips you’ll need to boot the game in Screen Mode. Which is now easier, because...
- Launching in Screen Mode is now supported natively on Oculus. In your Oculus Library, click on the “...” and choose “Start in Desktop Mode”
This update is also includes a bunch of new stuff for Creators. We are really excited about this…
As we’ve mentioned a few times in various AMAs and forum posts, a bunch of the AG team (including most of the art team) is very hard at work optimizing Rec Room for some exciting new platforms. This means that we’re currently limited in our ability to do things like “make another JumboTron” or “update Rec Royale”. Thanks for being patient with us here, we know the updates are little slower during this phase =]
So, with the art team otherwise occupied, we got creative with the Creation tools!
Basically we went all in on having our AG designers have build a #community room! The magnificent @ry-guy and the wonderful @meriesa teamed up to build ^CapturePoint, a new PVP-style room where three teams battle to control the Capture Point in the corridors and catwalks of faraway Star Station.
This was a really fun and interesting exercise for us. ^CapturePoint is built using only tools that are available to you - yes YOU! It’s also copyable, so you are welcome to remix it, learn from it, improve it, etc. We’re also sharing a bunch of the stuff that got built as inventions that you can bring into existing rooms.
Now, we did cheat a little bit. As @ry-guy and @meriesa were building, we also added a bunch of new Creation tools… based partly on what was needed for ^CapturePoint, and partly addressing some long-standing requests from creators.
Here’s an overview of the new Creation tools in this update. Ready? Strap in because it’s a long list:
First, we've added a new Games Rules chip!
- This chip exposes a bunch of the internal Rec Room game systems for use in your rooms.
- This includes stuff like health/damage, HUDs, reviving rules, spawning with/without various kinds of equipment, team radios, etc - in all there are 19 pages (!) of settings for you to tweak! Check out the details here!
- Note you can have multiple Game Mode chips in your room. Each one will appear as a mode on the scoreboard. The mode selected on the scoreboard will correspond to the active Game Mode chip.
- You can find the Game Rules chip in Maker Pen > Palette > Gadgets > Other Gadgets (and use the Maker Pen "Configure" tool to access the settings).
- Note that existing rooms will automatically have a Game Rules chip added to it, as that’s how the system works now. The Game Rules chip will be near the spawn point for the room. If you have trouble finding it, or run into any trouble with the Game Rules chip, please email [email protected] and include “Custom Room Issue” in the subject line. We’ll get back to you as quick as we can. You’re also welcome to ping us on Discord/Reddit/wherever. We want to help!
Next, we're stoked to introduce the State Machine chip!
- This chip makes it really easy to manage any kind of state behavior - whether it's as simple as "door open/door closed", or as complex as managing the states for a custom game mode.
- Find it in Maker Pen > Palette > Gadgets > Other Chips. The basic flow for using the State Machine is to place the State Machine chip, then add States. Use the Wire tool to set the default state, and to define which states connect to which other states. You can also use the wire tool to connect things like buttons or trigger volumes to the state transitions. Basically, use the Wire tool to connect everything together.
- The State Machine chip is extremely powerful; we recommend anyone interested in implementing custom behaviors check it out!
We've also added the ability to pack your circuits into Circuit Boards!
- This makes large, unruly collections of wired-together chips into a single neat Circuit Board object.
- You can pack/unpack circuits using the same "Edit/Done Editing" flow as editing Maker Pen shapes.
- Circuit Boards also let you protect your circuits when sharing them as an Invention - if you include a Circuit Board in a "Use Only" Invention, other players aren't able to unpack it.
- To create a Circuit Board, use your Maker Pen to Select several Chips, click [...] to open the context menu and select "Create Circuit Board"!
But wait, there's more! We've updated the shape bevels (i.e., what the edges look like when you're drawing shapes)!
- Shape bevels are now "smart" - they are not simply scaled with the shape. The net result is that large shapes now have sharper edges, a much requested adjustment.
- This will not affect existing rooms, but newly-created shapes will have the new bevel behavior
And we've upgraded the Audio Sampler:
- You can now specify start and end offsets for much tighter control over your sounds.
- You can also specify which channel it will play through (SFX, music, voice, ambient).
- Screens players can now record audio samplers and holotars using the context action button.
Whew, almost there! We also tweaked and added a bunch of other creation stuff, including:
- There's a new Beacon object, perfect for highlighting objectives in your games! Place and scale it like any prop, then you can use circuit inputs to dynamically control the height, color and visibility of the beacon.
- SFX chip now has a volume setting in its Config menu.
- There's a new "Player Revive" chip. It works like the Player Hit chip - it sends a circuit signal (including player ID) whenever a player is revived.
- Breakable objects (like plates, bottles, jugs) now respawn by default (if you want them to break forever, tweak that setting in the new Game Rules chip).
- Laser weapons are now the PvP-tweaked Laser Tag variants (rather than the Jumbotron variants). This won't affect existing placements, but new placements will use the new variants.
- Trigger volumes are now player role-aware.
- Teleport distance and walking jump height are now configurable in room roles.
Plus a bunch of bug fixes, including:
- You can now cleanly exit the app! No more force close =]
- Fixed issue where there could be messy graphical glitches on photos.
- Fixed bug with weapon reloaders getting "stuck" inside trigger volumes.
- VR players can directly unequip avatar items in the dorm again (sorry about that).
- Screens players can directly equip/unequip costumes using the context action button.
- Screens players can record holotars/samplers using the context action button.
- Audio samplers now correctly support 0 volume when circuit-connected.
- Fixed maker pen targeting for audio samplers and object respawners.
- Respawn point object default to landing directly on it, with configuration option to smart auto-choose within an area.
- Added tooltips for connection tool in screen mode.
- Removed "flicker" behavior from looping holotars.
- Added Shield to Player Stat chips.
- And more!
Whew, this is a big one. We’ve done an unusually large amount of testing (for us) to make sure existing rooms aren’t negatively affected by these changes, but if you do run into any issues, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Please email [email protected] and include “Custom Room Issue” in the subject line. You’re also welcome to ping us directly on Discord, Reddit, etc. We want to help!
Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://www.againstgrav.com/community/
Thanks for playing Rec Room! As always, don't hesitate to give us your feedback =]