Rise & Fall News

Hey everyone! I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year!

We're back with some small updates and improvements!

[h2]Players:[/h2]
- Players will not clip out of environments as easy.
// Switched to a better rigidbody tracking setting.

-Shrink and grow flash effects tuned down.
-Temporarily using the same shrink and same grow effect between all sizes.

-Players now spawn on the white lines.

-Players now experience less friction running through launchers, and have more aerial control.

[h2]AI[/h2]

-AI Players will not try to block the goal anymore
//Not needed since we implemented Cheese Walls.

-AI now properly climb cliffs if needed.

[h2]Environment:[/h2]
-Goal lines are now directly on the ground, instead of slightly above the ground.
-Lowered blue side's goal light (was too strong).

-Fans now spawn in proper spot, and line up with chalkline.
-Fixed a few spots players could break out of the map unintended.

-Table is now centered.
-Launchers are now positioned more equally to each other.
-Arena is now equal size on north and south sides!

-Sideboards are longer.
-Sideboard geometry has been re-done to be more consistent and predictable.
-Boards are equal on both red and blue sides

-Ball will no longer accidentally bounce up sometimes
//There was an extra collider I forgot to disable!

-Chalkline doesn't periodically flash anymore

-Launchers are slightly thinner, making them more of a deliberate decision than just random occurrence.

-Added some rocks around the arena to make it feel more attached to the rest of the terrain.

-The south-end glass is now more visible.

-The small bumpers in the middle are now aligned to the chalklines.


[h2]UI[/h2]
-Scoreclock and control tooltips are now slightly smaller.
// Accidentally made these larger when anchoring them to frame corners!

-The lights that flash when you score a goal are no longer so bright (but still bright)

-The birds holding the score clocks are now the same size (Thanks Barry!)

-Mouse Cursor now correctly comes back on the Victory screens.

-Added a quit prompt before quitting to pause menu.
//No more accidentally quitting out!

[h2]Camera[/h2]
-CLIFF Map now uses a new camera, that focuses on the ball at all times!
// We're eventually going to put in arrows to help find your player off-screen
-Camera has slightly less smoothing, but responds faster to the ball's movement

[h2]Cannons:
[/h2]
-Ball now spins correctly after being shot out of cannons.
-Cannon now has a little more rotation and a delay.
// Meaning you can time hitting the ball into the cannon to shoot it into the other team's goal!


[h2]Ball[/h2]
- Fixed a spot where the ball was creating a weird shadow when spinning

[h2]Audio[/h2]
-Fixed a sound from shrinking and growing playing way too loud.
-Removed a song that didn't fit the theme of the game

Hey guys!

A few changes in this month's update.


-Finally, we've got a medium-sized level for you to play in.
-It's made for 4 players and goalies are on by default, with a few unique features to the map.


-Thanks to our Game Manager, the game now remembers your settings when you load a new game.
-So if you turn off other players and reload the match, it will remember that. (At least until you quit the game).
-Player difficulty also gets saved between games.


-Same as with players. You can turn off the level cycler (which changes the level variant every 45 seconds) and choose between 5 different level variants to play in.
-Found under Settings->Next


-You can now turn the master volume up and down in-game in settings.
-Music and sound effects have their own slider, and can be turned up or down as you want.

//Note: These don't yet save between games. That's on the way.

//Note2: Anything with a toggle or a dropdown currently saves.
Anything with an on or off button still needs to be brought into our Game Manager.



[h3]Fan Variant[/h3]
-Tweaked the fan level to play better (IMO). Tested a whole bunch of combinations that just felt too chaotic.
-Fans are a little bit weaker, making the ball easier to control.

//Your jump inside wall fans is a bit shorter than it's supposed to be. We're working on that.

[h3]Cannon Variant[/h3]
-Cannon has been given more holes and a bigger collider, making it feel more responsive


-We heard you about people stealing goals by spamming hitting the ball right as it spawns.
-That's where we implemented wall 'cheese' that comes up when goals are scored.
-We also changed the look so it feels more natural in the environment.

-The guards come out of the goal, and push the player out. Also fixes players accidentally getting stuck inside the goals for a few seconds.
-Added a few more seconds between goals to give people a moment to breathe.

-Small fix for characters not always looking at the ball when they should be

-Level Changes are handled through code. Much easier for us to make and add new ones.

-Lighting improvements in areas above the playspace.

-Glass has a mesh pattern on it, making it easier to see the arena boundaries


-Improved the countdown before a game with a great 3,2,1 effect.


-Before the match starts, a quick panel pops up, reminding you the win condition.




-Wrote some scripts to correctly open the pause menu every time, regardless of what was open before

-Moved all game sound to either Sound Effects or Music, which can be turned up and down in the mixer


-Added an image of cavemen playing together on a couch
-Made the game mode and win condition more readable in the load screen


-Fixed Some Spots where Players and AI could get out of level

-General scene cleanup in prep for larger levels
-Goal Posts have been tweaked to be more modular, so we can more quickly make new levels.


-Set up a beta branch that anyone can switch to.
-This is the branch we're posting stuff we're working internally on.
-You're welcome to try out features before we set them live on the main branch!




-Wins Totals. After each match, the game will track Red's Wins and Blue's Wins.
-Was going to come in this update, but there's a weird bug when more than 1 player is active that makes the winTotal update infinitely, so we've had to cut it for now.


//As soon as the new levels don't break the game, we'll have them accessible on the beta branch for you to play.


[h3]You can check our Trello to see what's coming next![/h3]
https://trello.com/b/jAJERNTs/rise-fall

Patch Notes of these Patch Notes:

-Improved spacing consistency between sections
-Spelling errors corrected.
-Improved header consistency across all sections
-All sections begin with H1 headers, making them easier to read.

Level Variants Have Arrived!


The default quickplay mode now alternates between 3 variants of the same map:
- #1: Table
- #2: Fans
- #3: Cannon

#1 is the normal map that we've always used.

#2 is a fan-focused variant with a fan in the middle of the map and fans in the corners.

#3 is a cannon-focused map with a strong cannon in the top of the map and bumpers all around a more open level.


We have other variants that are almost ready! We'll still be tweaking these as we play them more!

If you want to select a variant that isn't in rotation yet, Pause the game and hit Settings->Next->Level Variants and choose a variant.

You can also turn off 'Level Cycling' to just play a variant as long as you want.

Right now, these settings reset when you start a new game. We're working on saving settings!

Changelog:

Lots of small tweaks and changes to the game. I'll be updating this with a more detailed list soon.

Thanks for playing!

Dave

Some updates for the game!

1) Loading Time Fix
- Massively sped up the loading times loading into a match.
- Matches only take a few seconds to load into.
- The first time you load your first match after updating, the load time will be slightly longer (but still shorter than before).
- Afterwards, loading is only a few seconds.

2) "Anti-Cheese" Implemented
- Added Guard Rails on the table that spawn in when a goal is scored.
- This prevents "cheesing" goals by hitting the ball into an open net once it spawns.
- The guard rails are angled so the ball will go over the net if hit right away.


In Progress:

"Anti Cheese"
- Add some animation/effects/sound to make the anti-cheese feel more natural in-game
- Make it toggleable on/off in settings

To follow what we're working on, check out our Trello!
https://trello.com/b/jAJERNTs/rise-and-fall-game-jam-3

Also feel free to let us know what you think via our forums or Discord server!

We're a small team of recent graduates and current students at George Brown, so we're doing our best to update the game as often as we can!

Thanks!

Dave

A couple small updates.

1) Player Difficulty Settings

• Players can now turn AI Difficulty up in the settings menu.
  
• There's 3 options: Easy, Normal and Hard.
  
• Upping their difficulty will make players move faster for a challenge.
  

2) Players can be manually turned on or off

• In the same menu, you can manually turn players on or off.
  
• Play a 1v1, or practice by yourself if you want to.
  

3) AI Adjustments

• AI now jump more often than before.
  

4) Keyboard Bindings

• Pressing Enter now also swings the club for P1.
  

5) Knockback Adjustments

• Reeled in player knockback by a tiny percent.
  

6) Announcer Implemented

• Our new announcer for the game has been implemented, and will call out goals being scored.
  
• More to come from him soon!
  

7) Under the hood changes for new features coming soon

• We're working on some level variants for the map.
  
• Scripting for conveyor belts, moving platforms and boost pads are in the game and being worked on.