Tire Friend News

[p]"Bumper-to-Bumper Bouncer" sees Tire Friend using pinball flippers and bumpers to navigate through obstacles in a flashy 2.5D outing—a perfect complement to his already bouncy, speedy, stylish movement. There are more than a few opportunities to chain moves together. Large score payouts make it possibly among the easiest S-Ranks to earn, but its T-Rank is still a beast.[/p][p]The course is placed in the middle of the other courses—it's unlocked before "Snowblind Grind" and "The Tirebetan Plateau".[/p][p][/p][p]Other things:[/p]

• [p]Gameplay:[/p]
  • [p]The Arc Rated Tire Cover now also absorbs a hit from spiky things (keeping its immunity to fire, lasers, etc.).[/p]
  • [p]You can tap Brake in midair while bouncing to "set" your new bounce height. It's good for even more vertical control and maneuvering around obstacles.[/p]
  • [p]The camera can be zoomed in and out closer and farther away. This does give five discrete "steps" for the camera on every button press, which may be too many. Open to feedback.[/p]
  • [p]New Achievements, including one for a super quick time in "Asphalt Hill Zone".[/p]
  • [p]The "Drift Dash" is in. You can get a speed boost by skidding around corners. May tweak exactly how that works in the future.[/p]
  • [p]There are some more Sapphire Lugs sprinkled throughout old courses.[/p]
• [p]Fixes/tweaks:[/p]
  • [p]Drop shadows no longer populate "offset" sometimes.[/p]
  • [p]Keys and some powerups have new models.[/p]
  • [p]The Powerup Reserve clearly indicates which Powerups you have equipped (yellow number). [/p]
  • [p]Camera zooms in on our tire when in the "Change Tire" customization dialog (Options > Change Tire).[/p]
  • [p]More loading screen hints.[/p]

[p]Up next? Probably a new course (set in space?) while working on some "big rock", such as controls rebinding (finally!).[/p][p]Happy Tiring![/p][p][/p][p] [/p]

[p]A new course (the 18th so far!), "The Tirebetan Plateau", is now available.[/p][p]It's the most vertically-oriented course in the game. Combine that with a tire that can (a) bounce from and back up to great heights and (b) roll straight up steep walls at high speed, and—well, you've got yourself another playground![/p][p]This course also has the distinction of housing every single powerup in the game. ... with an asterisk.[/p][p]Many other enhancements are here, too—of varying degrees of importance. In some particular order...[/p][h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• [p]The loading screen includes hints and tips. These were also on the pause screen, but they're hardly noticeable there. You'll probably learn a thing or two.[/p]
• [p]A few courses, such as "Battery Acid Bayou", have new little areas and branches in them. Maybe more to come.[/p]
• [p]The "Driver Assist" (previously "Bubble") powerup that spawns after you've failed a course a few times has been tweaked a bit. It's subtler visually, you still lose Powerups on getting hit (so they can't be farmed)—though you're otherwise invulnerable, and some records aren't recorded if it's active.[/p]
• [p]Equipping Powerups (except the "Driver Assist") no longer decreases your score multiplier.[/p]
• [p]The "Spin Grip" (Rev up -> touch wall -> launch high) has been buffed, because it's fun to pull off. The Chains Powerup buffs it even more.[/p]
• [p]There are more Sapphire Lugs spread throughout the courses. There are probably more to come.[/p]
• [p]You can set off fireworks when crossing the Finish Line under... certain conditions.[/p]
• [p]In keeping with the theme of the new course, bouncing from greater heights (and maintaining your verticality) is more reliable. [/p]

[h3]Tweaks[/h3]

• [p]The UI should better accommodate different aspect ratios, such as 4:3 and ultrawide. This is most noticeable in (say) the loading screen. (I'm wide open to feedback to the contrary, since I'm a 1920x1080 main..)[/p]
• [p]Certain visual oddities have been fixed, and other visual improvements have been made. Together, these include oddly placed shadows from pipes (in "Tubular"), drop shadows from certain moving objects in certain circumstances, textures such as those on the Finish Line, new models for (e.g.) guard rails, and Tire Friend casting shadows on entering a course. Items have more flourish when they're collected, lines of Valve Caps are placed on slopes more cleanly.[/p]
• [p]Quite a few little things have been optimized under the hood (different mechanism to translate and rotate certain objects, smarter use of certain Unity functionality). These seem to affect load times and performance for the better, even on higher graphical settings. As always, more optimizations to come.[/p]
• [p]Credits have been updated.[/p]
• [p]Other under-the-hood improvements allow for quicker development and configuration of little mundane things, such as tips, course information, and other text. This ought to pave the way for localization, too. ... maybe.[/p]

[p]What's next? Probably some more polish—fixing the camera clipping through terrain sometimes (hopefully), more rendering optimization, and even more physics testing. Probably also a new course.. got some more prototypes that could be fleshed out. Maybe also actually using Sapphire Lugs to unlock hats or concept art or some such. There's also another music track or two in the hopper. Oh, and enabling players to rebind controls, view progress summaries in a list of courses, browse and pick hats using a better UI, ...[/p][p]In any case.. Happy Tiring![/p][p][/p]

[p]The super-low quality option (Options > Graphics and Sound) should be even friendlier to potato computers now. There's also a separate "draw distance" option, which can be set very, very low. These should boost performance.[/p][p]That's not supposed to be a cop-out. There are also some performance improvements and optimizations across the board. More of those to come.[/p][p]There are also these:[/p]

• [p]Gold and blue Traffic Barrels hide some Golden Hubcaps and Sapphire Lugs, respectively. You've got to hit these in Overdrive to release the goods.[/p]
• [p]Bugfixes with drop shadows, reflection probes, and some invisible Valve Caps for some reason.[/p]
• [p]Courses will indicate that you cleared a Course using the Invulnerability (blue orb thing) until you've cleared them without Invulnerability.[/p]

[p]The new Course, "Mesa Valley Rally", is also in progress.[/p][p]Happy Tiring! [/p][p] [/p][p][/p]

[p]A couple things.[/p]

• [p]Courses are easier to open in a couple ways:[/p]
  • [p]You'll get 6 Golden Hubcaps rather than 4 when completing a Course. (There are now 12 total in each Course, and also you're retroactively awarded the 6 for any Courses you've completed.)[/p]
  • [p]Course entry requirements are mostly lowered, and they're generally set so that completing all the previous Courses will usually net you enough. There are some exceptions, especially later down the line.[/p]
  • [p]Some Courses have been reordered.[/p]
• [p]Lots of physics-based fixes (rolling Spiked Logs, things on Paths \[well, hopefully fixed], pipes \[hopefully], camera, etc.)[/p]
• [p]Some tweaks to some Courses.[/p]
• [p]Some tweaks to some assets and models.[/p]
• [p]More Sapphire Lugs (for which I still need to find a purpose) and other secrets.[/p]
• [p]Fixes for a couple of annoying bugs (including, say, the camera not panning correctly when multiple Courses are unlocked in one go).[/p]

[p]Next up is probably that new Course, though there are some other improvements that can be made, too.[/p][p]Happy Tiring![/p]

[p]Among those minor improvements are:[/p]

• [p]Some more visual improvements—better tire tracks, scratch marks, kicking up grass and dust, burns, stuff frozen in the snow and covered with grass and dirt, completely retextured terrains, and so on. You can deface a course with your tire![/p]
• [p]A nondescript party hat. Celebrate any occasion, including minor updates to game about a tire. ... or a new year![/p]
• [p]Changed unlock criteria for several Courses. Some require a certain number of other Courses to be cleared, rather than a number of Golden Hubcaps. Since some Courses would be literally impossible to get to in the demo, then, the Courses in the demo have changed.[/p]
• [p]Tweaking and bug fixes![/p]

[p]New course and/or performance enhancements soon.[/p][p]Happy tiring![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p]