Barely Racing News

Hey everyone, here we are with another update. Things are going really good. PC development for our game is pretty much finished. We will keep testing, fixing bugs and making sure we deliver awesome racing game for you. We have couple of new updates and are happy to share it with you.

• We redesigned our game logo.
  
• Our Steam page is updated with new assets and with our new awesome gameplay trailer.
  
• And last, but not least, we have implemented Leaderboards functionality. Now you will be able to race for the best times against your friends and against other people in the world.
  

Do you want to try out our game and give us feedback on how we can improve it? Follow up this link: https://www.fragile-software.com/apply-for-beta/

Hey everyone, it’s us, Bojan and the crew behind Barely Racing. I know it’s been a long while since I last posted here. You know how it is. Life and “current world events” happen. It seems that over the last few years, each of around 8 billion people in the world had something compromised.

Luckily, Barely Racing has been doing well and I have some news to share.

We’ve done a fair bit regarding the development in about 2 years since we last posted. The game’s near its completion as of now and we can announce a couple of things.

• Firstly, we aim to have Barely Racing released well before the end of the year, hopefully sometime in Q3 2023.
  
• Secondly, Barely Racing will be ported to Switch and possibly to other platforms in the future. We all feel that it’s a great move, as the game seems to be a good fit for these platforms.
  

It’s hard to beat the feeling of having split-screen races with your friends on a console, right? And it’s still the easiest and simplest to connect 4 controllers to a console. However, the game will be virtually the same on all of the platforms, so it won’t matter where and how you play it, as it will deliver a steady 60 FPS despite the platform.

Unfortunately, we decided to abandon the Linux and Mac versions of the game. We don’t expect the amount of work needed to be worth the effort. Making a port and leaving it be would be a challenge, however, possible fixes and updates make it way too complex.

So, aside from porting, polishing and focusing on the business part of the whole endeavour, what have we done since the last community post here? We’ll share more details about that in the next devlog we’d like to post soon, but to keep it short, here’s a list:

• All tracks were redesigned to ensure driving and racing on them was always as fun as it gets).
  
• We added three visual themes to the tracks (Junkyard - a dystopian and desert-like environment, District - your regular, nicely kept and neat neighbourhood and Jungle - muddy slopes and dense greenery).
  
• The story mode was added (we’re no Shakespeares, but it’s still something!),
  
• Cups were added.
  
• Characters got redesigned.
  
• The menu and some parts of the UI got rebuilt from the ground up.
  
• And last, but not least - there are now rockets in the game.
  

As you can see, there was quite a lot of work we did. We’ll tell you more about it soon, but let us state one thing now:

It’s easy to make an ok game and roll with it. Barely Racing was a title like that. However, we decided that we don’t want many compromises in a game that’s about high octanes and explosions. It wouldn’t feel appropriate. Because of this, we scrapped big parts of the game and made it better. Sure, it took time and it’s a pity we didn’t let you know about it earlier (sorry about that), but we felt it was an obligatory step and that Barely Racing is exponentially better as a result of such drastic measures.

And yeah, adding rockets was necessary as well. No doubts here.

While there’s some work to be done, it’s nice to finally see the finish line after all these years. The project’s been in the works since 2018, so it took a while, but we are sure it was worth it.

The current build of the game’s playable - give it a shot and let us know what you think about it. Talk to you sometime soon, we reckon. The next post will be more technical in its nature.

And there’s also one last thing.
Sign up for the beta test here - https://www.fragile-software.com/apply-for-beta

Hello racers, new major update is here. Your feedback is extremely valuable!



- All maps have been redesigned in full. We now have two map thematics. More will come
- Tons of new map assets have been added
- AI drivers now drive better in general
- Added logic where cars that are far behind will be faster in order to catch up
- If AI is far ahead of player, it will now slow down on some game difficulties
- Multiplayer screen now has information what every option does and what every game mode is about
- Lots of UI images have been updated
- Car size has been reduced in order to make it more realistic
- All map tracks have been resized in order to make them more realistic
- Player will now have lap time displayed when lap is over
- Every billboard now has some decal on it
- Leaderboard now shows which car has been destroyed
- Spectate mode added for all game modes (available when player cannot play anymore)
- Adjusted car smoke when car has been damaged
- Minimap added to football
- Car will now spawn in order (per spawn position) in multiplayer
- Lots of text is now smaller
- Vugo car has been redesigned
- Added base support for 8 players. It is not yet used anywhere



- Fixed multiplayer menus glitches on wide screen
- Fixed inappropriate car behavior when switching from reverse to forward gear
- Fixed bug where AI drivers would not avoid mines correctly
- Fixed bug where car position would be displayed wrong
- Fixed bug where red pulsing screen would get stuck on multiplayer modes
- Fixed bug where minimap car icons would not follow UI transparency
- Fixed bug where flag in flag chase could be spawned twice
- Fixed bug where lap would not be calculated correctly in multiplayer
- Fixed bug where in multiplayer leaderboard was not displayed correctly
- Fixed bug where you could get stuck in tutorial
- Fixed bug where client would not see warmup time in multiplayer
- Fixed crash that would occur when more than one player has joined online multiplayer game
- Fixed bug where players would see different game times in multiplayer
- Fixed bug where player could not pause in single player game

Hello racers, new minor update is here. Thanks for giving us awesome feedback. Please continue to do so.



- Updated to the new version of Unreal Engine (Version 4.26)
- When car is blinking it will no longer take damage
- If player quits the game from campaign, car's current health will be written down to the savegame
- In tutorial, car will be stopped after every task is done
- Endgame menu will now show players and Ai avatars
- Map assets updated, and added some new assets
- In split screen, we will end the race if there is only one player left
- If player has more than 5 friends, instead of random AI players, AI drivers will be populated with Steam friends
- Added new options for some multiplayer game modes
- Menu navigation and back logic now greatly improved. Keyboard and gamepad navigation upgraded
- New countdown widget added
- When car is destroyed, we show "Wrecked" text
- Added blur to the background in garage
- Refactored fonts in some menus
- Multiplayer menu visually refactored. We now show map image and game mode description
- Removed "OK" button from tutorial and replaced with "Press any button to continue"



- Fixed bug where drunk duration would stay infinite
- Fixed bug where stepping on mine would not push the car away - mine would not have the impulse
- Fixed bug where in tutorial, AI would not have correct name
- Fixed bug where player UI could be shown before the map was loaded
- Fixed bug where drunk effect would be active when player has finished the race
- Fixed bug where frag limit for deathmatch would not be displayed correctly
- Fixed bug where changes in settings menu would not affect widgets
- Fixed bug where game would not pause if game controller was disconnected

Hello racers. Thanks for being part of this project and helping us make this game much better. We are proud to announce that we have successfully finished big refactor of our game which allows us to go towards implementation of online gameplay. It has been a hard and long work, but we managed to do it. This update will not include any online features, as we are planning to keep that for full game release. “Converting” offline game to online was much harder than we thought and our main goal here was to make sure we don’t break anything regarding offline play. Rest assured online is coming. We tested it, and we managed to play all existing game modes in peer to peer Steam online play, and it worked fine. What we are considering now is how to proceed. Keep it peer to peer, or use dedicated servers. This will be decided in the future. Of course, this refactor didn’t kept us from adding more awesome features and fix some bugs, so here is the list

[h2]Features:[/h2]

• Garage fully redesigned. Most of the assets are replaced. New assets added.
  
• Tons of new sounds added (menus, pickups, weapons, multiplayer sounds… and much much more). We still haven’t update engine sound, but rest assured it’s in our top priority list for next sound update
  
• Added support for game events. Game will randomly add event where player can pickup a package, and has to win the race. That will give player great bonus. If player fails, then money is taken from player’s account
  
• When there is a three players in split screen, we will no longer stretch third player’s screen
  
• Added support to spawn “big money”. Big money is spawned randomly and gives player four times the value of regular money pickup
  
• All pickups assets have been replaced with new ones
  
• After game has been unpaused, player will get message “ready” allowing player to prepare for continuation of a race
  
• Garage menus refactored a bit to be more user friendly
  
• Car camera updates (positioning and smoothing)
  
• Added camera shake features when player uses turbo or steps on a mine
  
• AI overtake logic upgraded a bit
  
• Money pickup value will increase as player drives better car
  
• Some cars now have faster machinegun fire rate than others
  
• Added social media icons
  
• Added about screen
  
• Player will get better bonuses for winning a race with the better car
  
• Depending on a game difficulty we decide if car is fully repaired after the race, 50% repaired, or not repaired at all.
  
• Spikes, as car addon, removed. No plans to bring it up in the future
  
• Mini map positioning updated
  
• Game now runs on fixed frame rate of 60 fps
  

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]

• Fixed bug where dialog text would blink after dialog was shown
  
• Chopper physics fixed
  
• Fixed bug where tire track would bug out and show far away from the car
  
• Fixed bug where sounds would not be positioned correctly (left right positioning)
  
• Fixed bug where car would slow down when hitting a pickup
  
• Fixed bug where text was not centered in some menus
  
• Fixed collision on some of the tracks
  
• Fixed bug where AI would hit the walls all the time on some of the maps
  
• Fixed bug where changes in SFX volume would not apply right away
  
• Fixed bug where in buy new car menu, car could show fire particle effect
  
• Fixed bug where escape would not work in some menus in order to go back
  
• Fixed bug where some objects on the map would not have a collision