Spin Rhythm XD News

Hey there, Spinners,

While we are working on our current big task (making the menus work properly for consoles / gamepad) we thought we'd release a few new free tracks and an update to our custom colour system.

We've also started implementing Steam achievements (which will be tied to a simple level up system in game for unlocking tracks) - so if you see some strange achievement popups, please ignore!

Details below.







Dance With Silence by Camellia is a tune we have wanted to include for a while, and like many Camellia tracks it fits the game perfectly. The level sits in the upper mid range of the difficulty spectrum and is super fun to play, so we hope you enjoy.

We met Aimee Francis recently at a songwriting workshop run by APRA / AMCOS which Daverwob was helping run. We checked out her back catalogue and liked "Show Me Love" for its uplifting, soaring vocals and pop vibe which we felt we needed after a year of long lockdowns and pandemic shenanigans, so we licensed it from her!

It fits nicely in our setlist on the easier end of the difficulty spectrum, as another option for players learning to transition from Expert to XD.

Patch notes below.

[h3]FEATURES[/h3]

• 2 new tracks!
  - Dance With Silence by Camellia
  - Show Me Love by Aimee Francis
  
• Improved custom colour system
  

[h3]POLISH[/h3]

• Fixed Metropole (XD) inconsistent lift off note pattern in the chorus
  
• Adjusted a difficult hold note pattern early on in Mimic (Normal)
  
• Fixed a same direction spin before and after scratch zone in Mimic (Expert)
  
• Removed a lift off note at the end of Spin Cycle (Hard)
  
• Fixed a same direction spin before and after scratch zone in Believe (XD)
  
• Changed the look of spin notes to be slightly clearer
  

[h3]BUGS[/h3]

• Fixed beat hold / scratch zone particles being off-center
  
• Fixed a bug where extremely long scratch zones would slowly lower frame rates
  

See you next patch.

Hey spinners,

Huge thanks to our community for pointing out these bugs after our last massive patch.

Hotfix details below.



FIXES

• Fixed a bug where changing the track speed override slider would move the menu background around
  
• Fixed a bug where simple background could carry over to the main menu
  
• Fixed vertical cut off issues in a few translation strings in Russian and Chinese
  
• Fixed a bug where the GO (of 3 2 1 GO) animation would enter strangely and shift to the right
  
• Fixed a bug where 3 2 1 GO animation was out of time
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes New Game background objects would fail to load
  
• Cleaned up a few broken Chinese translation strings, and updated a few others
  
• Inactive options menu objects (framerate bar with VSync enabled, show only favourites option with no favourites) now look much darker and un-interactable
  
• Fixed a bug where saturation and lightness sliders (custom colour menu) looked solid instead of gradated
  
• Fixed a consistency issue with track name capitalisation
  
• Fixed a bug where a charts info (bottom left) could contain no track art and difficulty would display 00
  
• Fixed a bug where stacking too many hit sounds in close proximity would make audio out of sync
  
• Fixed a translation issue with SpinFM “join” button
  
• Fixed an issue where track pads (Steam, PS4 controller) weren’t working
  
• Increased the window for DSP issue reporting (this would over-report when there wasn’t any perceivable DSP issue)
  

See you next patch’.

Hey there, Spinners,

We tried killing two birds with one stone in this update. What if we could completely redesign the tutorial system, and also refactor everything about how things were (previously very lazily) loaded and unloaded in our game, as well as change the entire structure of our AssetBundles?

This of course lead to a bigger cleanup than we anticipated, but the results will be worth it for future ports such as the Switch version. Nintendo places strict limits on patch size, and very specific requirements for gameplay displaying their hardware in-game.

Another thing we did was redo how our translation system works. We have moved to a Google Sheets system which can import into Unity in a single click. It’s now super easy to change strings in-game as we don’t have to deal with an external translation system (OneSky), saving time, money and revisions from translators who sometimes did not fully understand the context of a rhythm game.

Huge thanks to Discord users Raoul1808, Gamer97, Mapy, Edge, DJ_Mike, TreXDer, G4, A. Park, 20/3, CrunchyRominaeLettuce, Auth, Dr Chicken, NeoDuck, haomakk, SleepingKotofey and our mobile publisher Habby for your work on this.

If you think there are any particularly bad strings in your language of choice, let us know and we can fix them far more quickly than before.

Patch notes below.





[h3]FEATURES[/h3]

• New tutorial system!
  

The gameplay mechanics for SRXD are slightly unique in the rhythm game space. While it clicks once you understand the game and have played for a bit, we want to make the initial experience with the game as easy as possible for players new to the genre.

We now have 4 separate tutorials that quickly teach all of the game mechanics one note at a time and in a way that is relevant to the difficulty level the player is attempting to play.

• Easy - match notes, spins with a tap at the end, and scratches
  
• Normal - hold notes and tap notes
  
• Hard - beats and hold note releases
  
• XD - beat holds and beat hold releases
  

The tutorials show correct keybinds if remapped, and clear demonstrations of how to play using 3D animated glyphs of gamepad buttons, keyboard keys and a mouse.

If you miss the old tutorial music, you can still create a custom track and it will be the default music.

Another feature we have wanted for a long time is proper text explanations of how each mechanic works, and clear “objectives” (number of times the player must hit a note to proceed). There was also previously an issue where if a player didn’t understand an issue in the tutorial, they could get stuck in an endless loop of negative feedback. Now if a player fails twice, the tutorial will rewind and play the demo section with text explanation and animated 3D glyphs.

Levels are now gated by having to play a tutorial (which is easily skippable for seasoned players), and tutorials are always accessible from the level select menu (without having to dig around the track list).

Other features:

• Refactored the way everything in the game is loaded and unloaded
  
• Completely restructured our assetbundles to allow for leaner patches and better resource use and future optimisation
  
• Improved translation system (now using a Google Sheets file)
  

[h3]POLISH[/h3]

• Improved beat release effect
  
• Improves beat note hit effect
  
• Improved the effect hold notes have on the background heightmap (removed flickering)
  
• SpinFM no longer spams track select sounds when moving quickly through difficulties
  
• Menu navigation SFX is more consistent between input devices and menus
  
• Audio spectrum visualiser (in-game HUD) is now properly aligned in the center
  
• Made the options menu wider, made the debug buttons (bottom of options menu) fit all languages
  
• Incorporated all feedback from the chart feedback form
  
• Re-added the track info in the bottom left corner during play, and made long titles scale properly
  
• Added missing HDR to some elements in the key binding screen
  
• Fixed “next leaderboard in xx:xx time” text overflow in some languages
  
• Updated Chinese and Italian translations for many in-game strings (thanks to Gex, Edge and 20/3)
  
• Added translation string for “add input” in controller / MIDI mapping menu in all languages
  
• Added dynamic resolution scaling on track preview (level select) and wheel preview (options menu) - these should look better at higher resolutions
  
• Improved album art loading process (now loads with a smooth transparent crossfade)
  

[h3]BUGS[/h3]

• Fixed RichText working for Steam names in SpinFM
  
• Fixed a dodgy looking text raycasting issue on level select menu
  
• Fixed a bug submitted by user 20/3 (IndexOutOfRangeexception) caused by putting too many legacy tutorial notes in a custom chart - the game will now ignore the tutorial notes and mark them as chart errors
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when quickly scrolling through hundreds of customs
  
• Fixed a rare bug that could cause the game to never launch due to resolution being too low
  
• Fixed a bug where the final ping of the audio calibration tool would sometimes not play
  

Keep spinnin and keep grinnin.

Hey spinners, just a quick update about our upcoming patch.

We are redoing our tutorial from scratch. We have a few goals we want to achieve with the new tutorial, including:

• Music that is more modular (with vamp sections so we can better control the flow)
  
• More encouragement, less frustrating feedback
  
• Clear AI-controlled demo sections supporting different input displays
  
• Proper text explanations for each gameplay element
  
• Smaller, more relevant chunks, pertinent to the difficulty level the player is actually trying to play
  
• Players are required to play a tutorial before a level, but it's simple to skip
  
• Currently obscure elements like release notes should be taught properly
  
• Tutorials accessible from the track select menu at any time
  

We hope that this new tutorial system will make playing the game much more accessible for new players.

In other news, we have been accepted into BitSummit 2021!



It looks like we will be having to exhibit digitally, but either way this is a huge honour for us! Hopefully we can discover a few new Japanese fans!

And lasly, we were asked to do a talk for China's version of GDC (China Game Developer's Conference). As with all events, it got kind of slain by the COVID19 delta outbreak in China and fizzled out. We still wrote and recorded the talk, so we released it on YouTube. If you're interested in a bit about the development process for SRXD it is worth a watch.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As always, thanks for your support and patience, and see you at the next patch.

Hey spinners,

A few things slipped through in our last patch, we spent a few days cleaning them up.

Details below.



FIXES

• Updated many Russian translation strings - many thanks to Discord user SleepingKotofey
  
• Fixed motion controls on DualShock 4, Steam Controller, and Switch Pro controllers
  
• Refresh rate (in graphics menu) has been made slightly more visible
  
• SpinFM pause menu background has been readded
  
• Customs track titles are no longer always capitalised
  
• Switch Pro controls have been properly remapped (get the latest Official Config)
  
• Dual Shock 4 mappings have also been improved
  
• “A” rank (in level select) is properly capitalised
  
• Audio will no longer continue to play when quitting the calibration tool early
  
• SpinFM back button location in radio select menu has been fixed
  
• Calibration popup will no longer appear while in SpinFM
  
• Pressing the context button will now both open and close the context menu
  
• It is once again possible to scrub the timeline in practice mode when using a mouse
  
• Audio spectrum visualiser no longer covers the time remaining on the HUD
  
• Album cover number can now properly display numbers greater than 99
  
• “Sensitivity” setting in MIDI mapping should now properly work
  
• Music will no longer continue to play when the calibration menu is open in some circumstances
  
• Calibration tool will no longer be prompted in SpinFM when changing audio devices mid-game
  
• Errors while loading some customs songs will no longer cause other assets to fail to load
  
• Fixed formatting on customs text fields (lower case j will still be cut off, sorry juch - this is a problem with Text Mesh Pro’s handling of italics)
  

Keep on spinnin’.