Spin Rhythm XD News

Hey Spinners, welcome to Update 17

This turned into a way bigger patch than we had planned. As soon as we started tinkering with the editor it turned into a huge QOL update. No mouse controls for note placement yet, but there’s a ton of new fun features to mess with in the editor.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped out with testing this patch on the beta branch.

Mega thanks also to our community translators who do such a killer job. If there are any Japanese fans out there who want to contribute, just let us know in Discord.

Massive thanks also to our modding community for always pushing us to implement their cool features (customisable backgrounds, accuracy bar and so on). We love you.





[h2]FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]Three new tracks! [/h3]



We’ve picked three very weird and wonderful tracks for you this patch to bring our track total to 50 tracks!

• The Kraken by Teminite - another of his pirate dubstep masterpieces, with one of the strangest and most addictive drops you’ll hear
  
• No Limits by modus and Loudar - Spanish EDM artist modus brings his signature style of finely detailed production and rhythmic precision to SRXD
  
• One Esk Nineteen by Praxis Axis - a dark, heavy-hitting 6 minute epic with samples of Balinese monkey chanting. This is like nothing you've heard before and makes for a very challenging and fun rhythm game level
  

[h3]Graphical overhaul[/h3]

We have completely overhauled gameplay visuals. The game now runs entirely using a single camera, which should improve performance greatly

• All notes are now rendered in 3D and have an updated look
  
• The audio spectrum is now circular, and has been combined with the gates that the ship flies through
  
• Track angle / ship distance / note speed has been slightly adjusted for balance
  
• Background object / track collisions are now handled with a dithering shader. If you find any weird collisions that are broken please let us know
  
• Beats have an updated effect
  
• New scratch note look (colour flashing can be disabled in the accessibility menu)
  
• Plus many more smaller things
  

[h3]Track turns[/h3]

We have added 250 unique flight paths by hand to make the gameplay experience feel more alive

• Some of these might be wack, please let us know if you find any that don't work
  
• Track turns can be disabled in the accessibility options menu for that classic gameplay feel
  

[h3]Difficulty update![/h3]

All Easy levels (and some Normal levels) have been updated to be easier. We want this to be a difficulty that any rhythm game newbie can jump into and have fun with. Hopefully these changes will achieve that goal.

• Taps have been added to Easy in simple streams
  
• Scratches have been removed from Easy
  
• Motion, note density and colour swapping have overall been lowered
  
• The early Normal levels have been made slightly easier to ensure a clean transition between difficulties
  
• Tutorials have been updated to align with this new design
  

[h3]New "Customise" tab in options menu[/h3]



Players can now further customise their in game experience using the new “Customise” tab in the options menu, including:

• Placement of the accuracy bar
  
• Placement of the judgement text (“perfect” etc.)
  
• Placement of the track time remaining bar
  
• An alternate HUD layout (angled instead of rounded)
  
• Distance of HUD elements to the track
  

[h3]Other features[/h3]

• Editor keys are now fully customisable (enable these with a toggle at the bottom of the keyboard mapping screen
  
• An accuracy bar has been added to allow players to see how precisely they are hitting taps, beat and releases
  
• A new accessibility menu custom colour “highlights” which allows players to change the colour of the elements on the side of the track and wheel
  
• Bloom slider! Protect your eyes from overuse of bloom with our handy new bloom slider. Those with fancy monitors are encouraged to turn it up
  
• Custom levels can now have custom backgrounds! (set these in the left panel when in the note editor). Mix and match a background and a colour palette from any of the 50 base game backgrounds to make some truly interesting and unique backgrounds
  

[h2]POLISH[/h2]

• Added the full sax solo to Believe (Hard). You Hard players deserve it.
  
• Fixed some out of place notes in Arcana Engine (Hard / Expert)
  
• DJ Hero Controller input has been deprecated
  
• Improved design of contrasting notes (accessibility option)
  
• All scrolling windows / dropdowns now work properly with scroll wheels (no more slow scrolling)
  
• Added feedback for spin notes (particle burst coming out of the wheel portals)
  
• Improved hold note behaviour when charting
  - Note tails are generated closer to the hold note start
  - Pressing 4 a bunch of times will extend the tail note
  - Pressing Alt + 4 will extend the tail out by 1 beat (or create a longer hold note to begin with)
  - When placing new holds in the middle of existing holds, the auto generated tail (to the left) is now a single tick behind
  - Hold note tails will no longer erase other notes when auto generated, they will just be made slightly shorter by default
  
• Spins now fade slightly at the end of their tail for clarity when followed by another spin
  
• All Editor notes are now a few pixels fatter (which should help with charters working in higher resolutions)
  
• Release notes have their own look, and are thus clearer in the editor timeline
  
• Wider note tails (spin, scratch enders) are wider and can no longer be pointlessly moved around
  
• Hold note tail motion is now visible in the timeline
  
• When switching between note editor and clip info editor, the current time will match
  
• Editor hotkey list has been cleaned up, with spacing added and common actions grouped
  
• Editor hotkey list has been updated to include all hotkeys!
  
• Editor hotkeys will now update themselves when you update your bindings
  
• Editor tabs (chart info, hotkeys) now open and close independently
  
• New hotkey! Use O and Alt + O when a group of notes is selected to remove the beats only or remove the notes only from the selection
  
• Placing notes no longer erases beats (and vice versa)
  
• Placing new notes on existing notes will erase the existing note
  
• Placing two match notes will now mirror and colour swap allowing quick creation of match note stacks
  
• More note stacks now show up as errors (including match note / tap stacks of the same colour)
  
• Clip info editor and note editor layouts have been cleaned up to look a little nicer
  
• Editor controls and functions have been cleaned up
  - All note tails (releases, and hold notes) are now cycled through in one direction, beat releases and hold releases now change type when moving in the same direction
  - Alt is now exclusively used for “large movements” (now Ctrl + Alt + move does 1 beat movements)
  - Ctrl + left / right no longer cycles through note types, it cycles note tail types instead of Alt (as this made no sense) - this means you can select large groups of hold notes or beat notes with tails and change them all at once to release / regular note tails without butchering the start notes, which is pretty neat
  - Alt + left / right now does a large movement left / right (this was previously Shift which made no sense)
  

[h2]BUGS[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where low quality backgrounds could clip through the track
  
• Fixed a bug where cleared tap notes could be snapped to multiple times
  
• Fixed a bug where short spins would not align to the next note
  
• Fixed a bug where replacing a beat hold start with another beat would cause a broken note
  
• Fixed a bug where Switch Pro glyphs were invisible in the tutorial
  
• Fixed a bug where very short hold notes with releases could trigger the release before the hold was even pressed
  

See you next update.

Hey spinners, it's been a while since we posted anything, so here's an update on what's coming up.

We've been spending the last 6 weeks or so doing a few big changes at once. The focus of the changes is to hit 60fps on Switch, which we have hit! There's a bit of detail below, and it might be a bit game dev-ish but hopefully it's interesting.

We will be previewing these changes at the end of our upcoming Elite8s tournament (in a couple of days), so follow us on Twitch, bit the bell, like, comment, subscribe etc. if you want to catch an early look.



Jump in Jump in Discord for details on when the stream will precisely be.


[h2]Twisty track![/h2]



Twisty track is making a comeback. After many years of being absent (despite being a prominent feature of our Early Access trailer), we are putting the twisting flight paths back in the game. They do make the note reading slightly more difficult, but they make the game look a lot more awesome, and can be disabled in the accessibility options menu.

We had a few issues with world objective cutting through the track (clouds, crystals etc), but we have developed a dithering shader that fades objects as they collide.

All the track twists have been entered by hand, so if there's anything particularly egregious or busted, let Daverwob know and he will fix it up.


[h2]Two new tracks[/h2]



We're up to 49 tracks! We may be able to slip another in before this patch to hit 50, which would be epic. The two new ones are similar in that they are both a little different.

First up we have The Kraken from Raise The Black Flag by Teminite. Definitely one of the weirder drops on the album, but tons of fun to play.

Next up we have a relatively unknown artist with a wild track - One Esk Nineteen by Praxis Axis. It's 6 minute, primal, dark and epic tune that balances analogue Moog synth arps and Balinese Kecak chanting samples. There's nothing quite like it, and we love finding these undiscovered gems. We hope you enjoy it when it finds its way onto the playlist (it's on the upper end of the difficulty spectrum).

Check out The Kraken here

Check out One Esk Nineteen here


[h2]Easier easies[/h2]

Easy was always meant to be a difficulty that anyone could pick up and play, no matter your experience level with rhythm games. By the end of the track list, the levels actually got ridiculously hard for beginners. We witnessed many of our less gamery friends struggle with these, so as Easy didn't fulfil its role as a beginner difficulty level, we decided to redesign all of them.

We have removed scratch zones and added tap notes in simple streams, greatly reduced the complexity of colour swapping and match note movements, and reduced the number of multi spins.


[h2]New audio streaming technology[/h2]

We developed a new way of streaming audio for the mobile Endless Mode. Basically it means the accuracy of how and when audio is played in the game is much higher and more efficient, making genuine DSP issues (hopefully) a thing of the past. It also means we can implement an endless mode in XD (something we've wanted to do for a while).


[h2]Graphical upgrade[/h2]

One of the main ways we optimised the game visually with our recent work has been by reducing the number of cameras to one.

This has meant redoing the HUD (which was on a separate camera) to something a little more immersive, redoing the wheel mesh to be simpler (making it easier to add additional wheels in the future), and redoing the way the track appears in the world.

We are also redoing all the notes to be in 3D (instead of a mix of 2D and 3D)

Unfortunately when changing so many things at once, there's a lot of testing to do to make sure all the features work again. This is why our current patch is taking a little longer than hoped. Thank you for your patience!

Keep on spinnin'

Welcome back, Spinners

We have a small but excellent update for you. Two new tracks by Koven and Teminite, a long-awaited search feature (thanks to the modding community to giving us the kick up the bum to get this officially in the game) and a ton of optimisation work that should fix many stuttering issues which caused DSP errors and hitches mid-gameplay, reduce memory usage (especially with large volumes of custom tracks) by at least 50% (we have had reported up to 80% usage with some players), and improved loading speed with everything.



Lastly some news, Will has taken a new job at another local game development company PlaySide. We wish him the best in the future and we will dearly miss him and his adorable dog Remy.





[h3]FEATURES[/h3]

• 2 New Tracks!
  - Your Pain by Koven - we’ve wanted a Koven track in the game since licensing “Shut My Mouth” for the Monstercat DLC. It’s just so damn catchy, with intense vocals and some killer drops
  - Ghost Ship by Teminite - short and sweet, a real earworm with some savage drops, from his latest album Raise The Black Flag
  
  
• Search feature
  - Located near the filtering button is a new search bar, simply start typing to search from track name, artist, feat. and subtitle fields
  - If a result contains less than 20 tracks, the tracklist wrapping effect is disabled
  - You can search for “create” to quickly find the option to create a new chart
  - Random is removed when searching
  
  

[h3]POLISH[/h3]

• Reset leaderboards for I See Lite XD, Metropole XD and This Is It XD as it was not possible to beat the top scores due to level data changing (a lower maximum available score from a previous update)
  
• Many optimisations to reduce stuttering (and DSP errors)
  - Many of the DSP errors experienced by users weren’t actually audio related, they were frame rate stutters that caused audio desync
  
• Removed mipmapping on track art (sharper tracks, some artifacting)
  
• Fixed some un-equalised match note strings in Hot Pursuit (Hard)
  
• Fixed some out of time tap notes in Body Fl0ating (Hard)
  
• Improved customs loading speed and memory usage (by at least 50%)
  
• Improved Korean video latency translation issue
  
• Fixed an issue with Razor Sharp crystals colliding with note path
  
• Slightly reduced the background reaction effect intensity of tap notes and right spins
  
• Fixed a layout issue with extremely long track names in pause menu / results screen
  
• Completing all expert / XD difficulties should now reward players with achievements for completing all normal / hard levels
  

[h3]BUGS[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where users would experience a black screen on startup, requiring restart
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes custom audio would not show up without a restart
  
• Fixed a crash related to the background of I See Lite
  
• Fixed a but with the date format when looking at past daily leaderboards
  
• Fixed a bug where entering practice mode then restarting a track would clear metadata
  

See you next patch.

Happy new year everyone!



This isn't quite a big feature update, but we recently licensed a bunch of tunes from Raise The Black Flag - Teminite's epic pirate-themed album. Sam (Teminite) wanted to play some Pirate Afterparty on stream next week, so we fast-tracked the tune into the game, along with a few bug fixes.



Details below.

[h3]FEATURES[/h3]

• New track! Pirate Afterparty from Raise The Black Flag with a sweet underwater background
  - We also licensed 3 other tunes from the album to put in future updates (Ghost Ship, The Kraken and Raise The Black Flag)
  
• 2 new options menu tick boxes to allow leaderboard submissions for base game and customs (these were actually slipped in with a hotfix a few weeks ago)
  

[h3]POLISH[/h3]

• Updated French translations (consistency of “custom” word usage)
  
• Improved speed and quality of custom menu scrolling
  
• Updated Unity versions to hopefully reduce the number of DSP / garbage collector related crashes some users are experiencing
  

[h3]BUGS[/h3]

• Fixed “321 Go” animation and audio sometimes being cut off when a track is loading
  

See you next patch.

Merry Christmas, Spinners!

Our new "consolified" (and just all-round better) menu system is on its way, in the meantime we have decided to do a pre-1.0 implementation of Achievements!

Many thanks to our awesome Discord community who came up with many of these unique challenges and pun-tastic names.

We have also added slipped in leaderboards for custom tracks, and a new free track! Enjoy

Details below.





We have 42 achievements for you! Some of these are simple, some will take a bit of skill and hunting. These will eventually tie in to a levelling up system, providing bonus goals for new players to gain XP to unlock tracks. Nothing super complex or fancy, just an alternate path to progress beyond just mastering individual tracks.



We also have a somewhat unexpected new track for this patch. "Prism Bucket" was written, recorded, mixed and mastered in a single day by the winners of the recent APRA / AMCOS composition workshop that Daverwob helped run. The tune is by Aussie artists Martiln and Mr Kapow.

On the reference list for the composers was a few tracks by Anomalie, so these two fired up Omnisphere and channelled their jazz chops into a very Anomalie-esque tune with a wicked trumpet solo that is super fun to play.

Many thanks to APRA / AMCOS for sponsoring the license for this track to be in the game.

There are a few other fixes, QoL updates etc. Patch notes below.

[h3]FEATURES[/h3]

• Added 42 achievements!
  
• Added Steam leaderboards for custom tracks
  
• New track - Prism Bucket
  

[h3]POLISH[/h3]

• Tap notes now have a simpler look
  
• Added a slight texture to the target zone of the wheel for clarity
  
• Edit Mode (customs) now has as many speed settings as practice mode
  

[h3]BUGS[/h3]

• DSP icon will no longer show before the track countdown is complete
  

See you next patch.