Hyperwheel Overdrive News

Hyperwheel Overdrive v0.11.0 is here, along with our shiny new sixth stage, Sky Fortress! Be careful though; there are few guard rails!

Along with the treacherous Sky Fortress comes many new features including region boundaries (smaller stage boundaries for the various selectable regions), car suspension physics improvements, an overhaul of the point steering system for the plane, and many bugfixes & tweaks!

We're excited to get it out to players as it contains improvements to many things players have asked about and commented on. Check out all the awesome changes below and please keep your feedback coming! It really helps us here at Neon Engine figure out what's important.

v0.11.0 (Build 351): May 25, 2021

• added stage 6: "Sky Fortress"
  
• changed default forward-facing driving control mode from "Regular" to "Dual"
  
• updated driver IK system (VRIK 2.0) and set IK to be reset on respawn
  
• adjusted suspension to be tighter when car is slow to prevent vibration
  
• increased physics framerate to improve suspension stability on ramps at high speeds
  
• decreased bounce from suspension system on landings
  
• added "Solid Overlay" option to Comfort Cage setting and made it default
  
• made non-3D Comfort Cage options fade between states
  
• excluded plane flying from "Airborne Only" Comfort Cage option
  
• reduced over-correction in point steering by taking current turning velocity into account
  
• adjusted hand pointing flight input to use hand rotation for roll rather than point direction
  
• fixed player naming bug where Steam names were not always being applied
  
• fixed haptics setting not being enabled by default
  
• added power meter UI to wrists for power-ups that use it
  
• fixed multiple power-up reset interactivity bugs
  
• improved haptics for power-up power meter
  
• made boost use power meter for boost force as well as duration
  
• swapped out rifle HUD charge percentage text with meter
  
• implemented feature locking and adjusted some processes for upcoming demo
  
• fixed issue with planes falling out of sky during countdown
  
• improvements to tutorial system
  
• increased Seeker Ball scan radius from 90m to 120m
  
• increased Spy Rocket scan radius from 120m to 260m
  
• increased Homing Rocket scan radius from 220m to 260m
  
• made Spy Rocket player scans show the player marker for the whole team and notify target player
  
• added custom boundaries to various regions and challenges
  
• made continued contact with boundaries do damage
  
• made boundaries do damage to projectiles
  
• allowed spectators to trigger boundary visibility
  
• added particle effect when players die
  
• added sounds to menu interactions
  
• added additional sounds for message feed messages
  
• adjusted "360° Body Rotation" play style to hide wheels when menu is visible
  
• fixed bug with client match stats not being reset properly (kills & deaths)
  
• added "Recover Vehicle" interactable when vehicle is stuck on side
  
• minor updates to Xenodome (cutout through ramp to North outer area)
  
• minor updates to HyperCorp Complex (new spotlights and docks, bridge adjustment)
  
• changed some fonts to Arial to improve readability (message feed & tutorial instructions)

View full Hyperwheel Overdrive Changelog at NeonEngine.net

Pilot a hyperwheel car, 2197's most versatile sport combat vehicle. Race or battle against other drivers in VR, or perform big stunts on the massive quarterpipes of the Xenodome. Take advantage of a large assortment of power-ups, as well as your laser rifle & dedicated launcher, to alter the situation in your favor. Use a plane kit to soar over the daunting HyperCorp Complex, or a boat kit to navigate the long shores of Volcanica Island!

After briefly being out earlier in the year, we disabled sales for awhile to improve the experience for many more players. Though the game is on the more intense side of things in VR, we have gone to great lengths to offer many different ways of experiencing the game including a third-person camera system that makes all first-person rifle and power-up handling continue to work seamlessly, helmet vignettes, comfort cages, and rotation-locked views. There should be enough options present to make the game suitable for most VR players, and there are less intense experiences available in the larger game such as the boat races.

Hyperwheel Overdrive has a lot to offer, and pushes the VR frontier forward in many ways. We're extremely excited to get our game out to players and we can't wait to see what you all end up doing with our hyperwheel cars (or boats or planes)!

Join our Discord if you haven't yet, and also join the Steam chat group at JoinUsInVR.com!

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v0.9.10 (Build 303): December 23, 2020

• tweaked car suspension
  
• added green room to Xenodome to connect Southwest corner to South outer wall area

v0.9.9 (Build 300): December 17, 2020

• switched off tonemapper and made colors warmer and brighter
  
• adjusted bloom due to new tone settings
  
• rebaked lightmaps in multiple stages
  
• fixed near field clipping for helmet vignette for wider FOV headsets
  
• fixed point steering sphere position for OpenVR
  
• fixed bug where boat could get stuck upside-down
  
• set grounded gyro to disable when car is on its side (on one wheel)
  
• reduced lateral velocity damping in boat
  
• fixed bug where "Reset VR Position" in third-person breaks driver head & hand positions
  
• fixed bug where third-person power-up interactions didn't always work
  
• fixed third-person one-handed rifle direction pointing
  
• adjusted water fog algorithm and fixed bug that prevented it from showing
  
• raised player markers so they don't cover cars
  
• turned off auto-gyro pitch stabilization setting by default
  
• removed step from menu section of tutorial system
  
• fixed potential errors caused by tutorial system
  
• fixed car bumper UV mapping
  
• increased unlockable driver suits from 6 to 13 ("Camo Green" removed, 8 new ones added)
  
• streamlined online play process (auto-creating session, showing session list on disconnect)
  
• fixed auto-join session checkbox to uncheck after player has joined a session
  
• fixed race & match position display in players list
  
• raised menu in first-person view

View full Hyperwheel Overdrive Changelog at NeonEngine.net

Join us and JoinUsInVR.com for our upcoming LAUNCH PARTY! Rockets and lasers will be provided! =)

We're very close to the game being available again, and v0.9.3 marks a major milestone in that journey. We're aware it has taken very long, but we are on the home stretch now and the game you'll eventually play will be awesome from moment one of your first launch! And smooth... So many issues ironed out, and even now we're continuing to make major improvements in all areas from car and plane physics, to settings & menu streamlining. For now, if you don't own the game yet and love PC VR, rest assured that the big pain points are being swiftly dealt with (the glaring issues resolved already) and you'll be launching a refined Hyperwheel Overdrive from Steam very soon.

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Here are the Changelog entries for v0.9.3 and v0.9.2:

v0.9.3 (Build 267): October 27, 2020

• added new "Play Style" selector at start-up; 2 options adjust multiple underlying settings
  
• "360° Body Rotation" play style improvements
  
• changed menu to update orientation when player rotates head with rotation locking on
  
• tweaked Hand Point steering
  
• adjusted Free Play respawns to always give a plane kit if the player doesn't have one
  
• added new dashboard instrument that identifies the up direction at all times
  
• added contextual label to menu toggle
  
• modified Intro stage to last until player chooses to exit
  
• added Intro-specific main menu page with limited options
  
• made tutorial work in Intro stage
  
• improved tutorial (removed unnecessary text, fixed display bugs)
  
• fixed online session list page layout
  
• decreased size of message feed messages
  
• disabled ability to "Recover" when airborne
  
• adjusted plane not to stall underwater
  
• tweaked bot AI
  
• fixed bot flight input
  
• fixed bug where lasers were sometimes not visible over sky
  
• improved object marker positioning (especially for spectator view)
  
• fixed bug where bots could pick up flags in tutorial (making it impossible to complete)
  
• fixed bug where HUD marker wasn't showing up for first checkpoints of races
  
• adjusted race record system to submit all lap times rather than just the best

v0.9.2 (Build 262): October 18, 2020

• increased angular drag of car to slow down spins faster
  
• increased airborne gyro pitch and yaw forces to balance with higher angular drag
  
• additional car suspension refinements
  
• improved car's ability to right itself quickly after bouncing
  
• decreased stunt landing evaluation time back to 3 seconds
  
• improved plane's lift / thrust flight model
  
• put plane thrust of a force curve for slower ramp up to top speed
  
• added auto-leveling feature to plane to help players fly level
  
• fixed bug where boundary wasn't showing up in some stages

View full Hyperwheel Overdrive Changelog at NeonEngine.net

v0.9.1 (Build 259): October 6, 2020

• decreased menu size & moved it closer to player
  
• various menu page layout changes
  
• added inline option selector form field type to improve settings input
  
• simplified "View & Comfort" and "Controls" settings pages
  
• implemented UI pointer tooltip system & added tooltip messages to various UI targets
  
• added tooltip descriptions to all unlockables
  
• made UI pointers turn red when highlighting some targets
  
• renamed "Classic" control mode to "Regular" as it is used for many varying control styles
  
• added menu toggle hand interactable for third-person view
  
• adjusted Motion Lines to work in third-person view
  
• eliminated third-person camera height jitter
  
• improved third-person view offsets for all World Scale / Follow Distance combinations
  
• adjusting extrapolation settings to slightly smooth networked car position updates
  
• fixed bug where deployable spawn point changed to wrong color after being recalled
  
• fixed bug with third-person gun interfering with grounded gyro system raycasts
  
• fixed bug that made engine audio too quiet for remote players
  
• fixed bug where held projectiles were colliding with car
  
• tweaked Seeker Ball remote collisions & explosion triggering
  
• slowed down Seeker Ball in water
  
• brightened Seeker Ball material
  
• fixed issue with projectile markers showing up after creation even when out of range
  
• changed explosion damage / force calculations to use a curve rather than fall off linearly
  
• fixed bug where explosions weren't destroying Energy Shields
  
• tweaked car physics / suspension for performance
  
• doubled Energy Shield hit points (100 to 200)
  
• fixed bug that prevented "Checker" decal from being unlocked
  
• exempted Spring and Boost power-ups from being disabled after match is over
  
• improved boat driving stability
  
• improved boat stability while floating up after using Boat Kit underwater
  
• corrected plane's tendency to turn the nose up when not adjusting pitch
  
• increased airborne gyro easing time (1 to 1.5 seconds)
  
• fixed airborne gyro easing for coming out of water
  
• hid seat back for rotation-locked play (Horizon and Full)
  
• made laser blasts bigger and more visible from a distance
  
• increased laser "bullet hole" decal size
  
• added sound to important messages in message feed & changed color of match messages
  
• added additional messages to message feed for power-up failures
  
• increased mileage requirements for unlocking locked stages
  
• reversed default stick driving controls (right stick = throttle, left stick = steering)
  
• made scroll bars work with stick without needing to select them or highlight them
  
• standardized stick scroll rate across pages or panels regardless of content size
  
• fixed bug causing max projectile power-up limit to be enforced unnecessarily
  
• increased stunt landing evaluation time from 3 to 3.5 seconds

View full Hyperwheel Overdrive Changelog at NeonEngine.net