Vecter News

What's new:
- Rebind menu now has the new UI like everything else
- New toggle added to options menu that will pause music from playing while in the game's pause menu

What's been fixed:
- Rebind menu now also works again
- Main menu ship will now no longer get randomly destoryed for no reason, causing the game to blackscreen forever
- The engines for Level 2 and above ship were visible in first person mode, they have been hidden
- Potentially fixed the game from crashing after pressing the exit button. It wasn't happening for me so I can't confirm this one yet.

What hasn't been fixed yet:
- Text for shadow playbacks remains on screen even though their background disappears. This needs a bit of a rewrite
- There are several other bugs with the shadow playback that have been reported today but will be fixed in the next update

What won't be fixed:
- You can change the angle you look at the ship from while playing a shadow recording. This was not intentional because it looks pretty dope.

Hello pilots!

Today's update brings a bit of a face change to the game's GUI. The "menu" that used to be in the game wasn't really that up to scuff. To be honest with you I wasn't really all that pleased with it from the beginning, and others have told me this much as well on discord. The font was hard to read by itself, but because most things didn't have a background, it was also very hard to read due to all the neon lights.

Finally, after almost a year of working on this thing, I finally had a "better" idea. It's not necessarily the best idea but it's far better than what was there. I present to you all, the TUI (Text-based User Interface).



Now I promise, TUI is not a acronym I made up. They are what interfaces looked like before Windows, or Mac OS. Some laptops (especially cheaper ones) still use this style of interface for configuring the BIOS, because it's simple and clean.

Since Microsoft Windows was initially released in 1985, these interfaces remind me a lot of that era as they predate windows. Coincidentally, it also lines up perfectly with the inspiration for the graphics of Vecter. Elite, which inspired Vecter's design, was released in 1984 on the BBC Micro in the UK.



I've also done a few bug-fixes here and there so let's get into the release notes:

• Replaced all the old menus in-game with the new TUI menu
  
• Added some improvements to the save file so it hopefully won't corrupt as easily
  
• Shadow playback is now working again from the leader-board, not that anyone noticed
  
• Game will no longer allow you to Alt+F4 if it's writing to the save file or if it's uploading a score to the server to prevent loss of data
  
• Framerate drops have been reported by users playing at high FPS (above 144). These have been attempted fixed but as I don't own a 144hz monitor it's hard to say
  
• Tutorial prompts no longer flash like mad when changing colour scheme
  
• Fixed a bug in multiplayer where the race would not restart after everyone died
  
• Fixed a bug in multiplayer where reflections would be turned on even though graphics settings were on low
  

There are also a few other bugs identified with the Shadow Playback that I'll fix in a future update. Considering nobody even noticed it's not working for the past 2 weeks tells me a lot about how much that feature is used.

Being stuck in the house with the COVID-19 going on, I have some free time to add new things to the game. I wanted to add ship levels for a while now to add more "progression" to the whole experience. Here's what I've built in so far:



Okay but what do they do? They make you go faster, for now. I also want to make them be able to hold more lives but that's coming in a future update.

I've also added a little screen-saver like thing that kicks in if you don't touch any button on the main menu for 30 seconds. I mainly did it because I wanted it to look cool on my arcade machine but hey why not have it a feature for everyone right?



So yeah, that's it, hope you like it!

[0.2.1.0] FULL RELEASE

• - The score and shadow upload is now significantly more intelligent
  
• - Uploads are now done on a separate thread, so you can continue playing while your score and shadow is being uploaded in the background
  
• - Instead of a "Connecting to server" text that took up a lot of screen there is now just a spinner animation to let you know something is happening in the background
  
• - The game will prevent you from quitting for the first 5 seconds while it's trying to upload.
  
• - It is highly advised you DO NOT turn off the game while that spinner is on screen, as you might loose your scores.
  
• - Fixed an issue where players would randomly loose a life, or their whole run, for no reason
  
• - Fixed a graphical bug where you would see a black spot somewhere in the distance after jumping
  
• - Got the cameras (all of them) to function as I wanted and expected them to function, fixing as many bugs as i could find
  
• - All cameras now rotate with the ship when the ship is on a upside-down road
  
• - Re-enabled the old shield mechanic that would bounce your ship when you fall in the pit, however the bounce behaves exactly the same EVERY time (same height, same speed) when you bounce, which was always the intended behaviour but I finally figured out what was broken with it.
  
• - Fix for first person camera not twisting with the ship sometimes when on the skyways
  
• - Ship has been tweaked to feel less sluggish, hopefully.
  
• - Speed in HardCore has been set back to the previous value, it was a bug that it was so slow
  
• - the seed that was last typed in gets remembered between game sessions
  
• - Fixed the issue with shadows not uploading correctly when in MP
  
• - Fixed a different issue where scores were not being uploaded
  
• - Fixed a problem with the scores being uploaded
  

[h2]What's an EGX? [/h2]

You'll be excused for not knowing that if you're not from the UK. EuroGamer Expo (EGX) is a bi-annual gaming event that happens in the UK and contains pretty much everything you'd want from such an event. EGX Rezzed, however, is the one that focuses mainly on indie games for indie game lovers, and I'm attending!



I love these events both as a gamer and as a Gamedev. It's soo cool to use you all as test subjects watch you play and get your thoughts on Vecter. It's also equally as cool to make new GameDev friends because I need to steal ideas find new games to play too.

Speaking of friends! Unbound: Worlds Apart is coming too!


If you don't know what Unbound is, you're missing out... No point in me singing its praises, just go play the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/814680/Unbound_Worlds_Apart/

Or better yet, come down to EGX and follow this checklist I've prepared for you in advance:



This checklist has been scientifically developed to bring Vecter as much attention as possible give you the ultimate EGX Experience.

But in all seriousness, I hope to see you there. If you come by I'll give you a free copy of the game.

[h2]DLC Donation Pack[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1219990/Vecter__Donation_Pack/

I don't want to beat the drum too much on this one so just a quick announcement: Making and maintaining a small game like this one isn't over the moon expensive, but it does cost some money. If you want to help out the development effort I've created the DLC Donation Pack. Just to be clear, this will not give you any in-game content of any kind, as that goes against the Vecter philosophy of being free for everyone forever. What you do get are some wallpapers, some videos from development and a little token next to your name on the leaderboard so everyone knows you wanted to help the game grow. I will most probably add more stuff over time so expect the DLC benefit to grow.

The pack is also there to help Vecter participate in Sale events on Steam. It will be on sale pretty often so if you want to donate less than the full amount of $4.99 just wait until the next sale.

If the Donation pack doesn't work for you, just check the "Keep Vecter Free" button within the game for more details on other ways you can help the game grow.