Spell Karts News

Update 4 adds 3 new "beam" spells, a new arena game mode "Ritual" and many fixes and general improvements.
Kart physics has had an update which should resolve a lot of the issues being encountered. There are still a few known bugs, particularly that the increased mass of karts can cause them to get stuck in objects. These bugs will be ironed out over the next few days in minor releases.

Update 5 will be released in two weeks to allow time for physics debugging and general bug fixing over the next week.

Added new “Beam” spells
Beam spells project a line forwards, affecting anything the beam hits and applying the spell effect over time whilst in contact. Nature and arcane beams will apply an effect only once to each target.

• Arcane beam
  
• Fire beam
  
• Nature beam
  

Added new “Ritual” game mode
Available in arena mode. A ritual circle appears randomly on the map, players in the circle will gain points whilst alive. There are three phases to each ritual, each phase will last a random amount of time.
Each phase brings a smaller circle, forcing players to take action against one another.
Once the final phase is over, all players in the circle will be sacrificed. Listen to the changes in ritual audio to know when to leave!

Other new features

• Implemented global cooldown for spell casting - 1 second
  
• Added new achievements
  

Improvements

• Kart physics improvements
  
• Various map Improvements
  
• You can now fine-tune the amount of vegetation present in the scene, turning vegetation down can increase performance on low-end systems
  
• You can now increase/decrease the delay between consecutive NVIDIA Highlights shots (default 30 seconds)
  
• Backend work towards internationalisation
  
• Sound will now pause while in Ansel mode
  
• Various performance improvements and timing fixes
  
• Added NPCs to various maps
  
• `Vicious Vikings` is now snowier
  
• Increased size of standard kart
  
• Start time is now better synchronised to countdown even under high latency
  
• [Windows] Added DX12 launch option
  
• [Linux] Switched default graphics API to Vulkan
  

Fixes

• Fixed split-screen on Linux (Vulkan only)
  
• Fixed rare issue causing players to fall through terrain
  
• Fixed shaking and wobbling in most cases when kart wheels penetrate terrain
  
• Fixed drifting on hills
  
• Fixed kart flipping in most cases
  
• Fixed Boogie Bogs terrain collision
  
• Fixed network spam caused by certain spells
  
• Fixed GeForce highlights recordings button
  
• Fixed AI getting stuck in Dungy Dungeons
  
• Fixed collision issues in Wild West
  
• Fixed inability to jump in multiplayer
  
• Fixed issue where a controller would sometimes be forgotten after playing a split-screen match
  

Known issues

• Various physics issues are currently being worked on
  
• Snow effects can be duplicated in split-screen
  

Hello Spell Karters!

Update 3 has focused on gameplay and map improvements, and update 4 will largely continue this work.
After update 4 we'll begin marketing the game more widely so we can get the multiplayer numbers up - I know that's been an issue for those who have joined us early in this Early Access adventure.

Drifting
Hopping was added in update 2 and update 3 adds the next logical step with a basic form of drifting.
Kart physics has been updated to support what should feel like a fairly natural and smooth drift.
We also managed to squeeze more performance out of the physics updates which is always a bonus!

Map improvements

• Vicious Vikings has had a major facelift
  
• Wild West has similarly been overhauled
  
• Minor updates to Boogie Bogs vegetation
  
• Pirate Island arena map updates - more to come here
  
• Minor aesthetic tweaks to Ice Box
  
• Added new NPCs to Wild West, more NPCs will begin moving into the other maps in the next update
  
• Lighting improvements in various scenes
  

General improvements

• New UI sounds
  
• New win/loose sounds
  
• Improved initial game loading speed
  
• Improved kart physics
  
• Improved memory usage in various areas
  
• NVIDIA highlights will no longer auto show but a button will appear instead if you have new highlights to view
  
• Fixed - rare desync issue when starting remote multiplayer matches
  
• Fixed - Tonk has a new collider so it doesn't merge into walls as often
  
• Fixed - Issues with controller hinting text in the lobby, both on smaller screens and when solely using a controller
  

Update 2 is a pretty hefty release, bringing the completion of split-screen support and migration to the FMOD audio engine.
Pirate Party has also received a minor facelift, chopping up the scene a little bit to improve performance and make the track feel more enclosed.

Migrated audio engine to FMOD
This was a pretty big change for us and is particularly exciting as it allows us to bring the soundscape to life and make the game more immersive. This update doesn't take full advantage of FMOD features as time did not allow it, and for the most part, we wanted to do an in-place upgrade.
We do have a few small changes though:

• Adaptive engine noise
  
• Split out sounds into more categories and added appropriate volumes to the settings menu
  
• Various minor changes to soundscape
  

Split-screen support
Additional players can be added to a lobby by pressing “Y” or “Triangle” in the lobby (host or local mode only). Support for split-screen will be improved in future updates, as well as allowing for Steam's various remote play functionality.

Other new features

• NVIDIA Highlights support (Windows only)
  
• Pirate Party has received a few tweaks, making the map a little more interesting and performant
  
• Jumping! Players can now hop over obstacles (default key is “space”)
  

Balance changes

• Reduced shield duration 6s -> 5s
  
• Reduced death penalty 6s -> 4s
  
• Healing yourself whilst dead will now complete the death repair timer
  

Minor fixes/improvements

• Fixed issue preventing heal spell from giving a speed boost
  
• Fixed graphical bug on fireball, where it appeared to be re-casting after projectile launch
  
• Fixed projectile spells will attempt to travel along the ground rather than going through it
  
• Fixed “Speedy” achievement
  
• Added sound to player disconnect effect
  
• Removed engine sounds on UI previews
  
• New & improved loading screen backgrounds
  

Added options in the settings menu to enable/disable:

• Post-processing
  
• Vegetation (do not recommend disabling this, A future update will let players set “none/quarter/half/full” vegetation instead)
  
• Advanced skybox and weather effects
  

Known Bugs

• Hitting the ground can cause you to stop temporarily
  
• Split-screen in Linux on some graphics cards can cause everything to be too bright
  

Hello Spell Karters!

Spell Karts has finally been released to Early Access!
We're very excited to finally be sharing this with the world, and wanted to lay out the vision and current plan going forward by answering a few questions you may have.

What should I expect during early access?
Early access is a tricky thing, releasing an unfinished game without players feeling disappointed or frustrated by terrible bugs. What we've tried to do is to get the game stable enough with enough of the main features to be worth playing.
There is a huge amount of work we want to do to enhance the experience over the next few months, followed by a period of stability & performance updates before the big release.
After the big release, we plan on continuing to add content, both as free updates and as DLC expansion packs.

Should I buy now?
Play the demo and see what you think - if you enjoy yourself and want more content then yes!
The demo will likely be kept up throughout EA, although it will be updated less frequently than the main game.
If you don't enjoy playing the demo but are interested to see where the game goes because you like the concept, please leave some feedback and follow us!

So what is coming next?
We don't want to give too much away but I will say we have plans for 3 major new systems (talent trees and quests have been mentioned, and I'll keep the third a surprise!).
There are also plans for MANY more game modes and a very long list of smaller improvements on our roadmap.

A couple of examples of areas targeted for improvement:

• Audio - the soundscape is very basic right now
  
• AI - much work to be done here
  
• UI - better controller support
  
• Gameplay - It can be hard to catch up if someone has a significant lead. Whilst this game will be skill-based, a few unlucky spells can render you at a severe disadvantage regardless of skill. This is something to work on.
  
• Map improvements - add more gameplay elements to maps; risky shortcuts, map-specific traps (e.g. cannons in pirate party) etc.
  
• Graphics - we're happy with what's there, but it could be improved
  
• Performance
  
• Multiplayer performance improvements
  
• Stability
  

How often will there be updates?
The plan is to release somewhat frequently (ideally weekly) though it is largely dependant on the work being done for the update. We do plan to release weekly announcements (Spell Karts Sundays?) keeping you up to date with our progress. We feel this is important so those who bought into a pre-release game are kept informed of development progress.

How can I test future updates?
There is a "next" branch available in the game options within steam - bear in mind this is likely to be VERY unstable.

Release build only - demo build not updated

This is a fairly minor update, with a bit of UI polish and a few bug fixes but a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to support future patches.
Patch notes will now be sequentially numbered to be easier to follow.

New features:

• NVIDIA Ansel support for Windows platform
  

Minor changes:

• Fixed issue where you could move around whilst dead if you were frozen right before death
  
• Various minor bug fixes
  
• Various minor graphical improvements
  
• Improved map selection UI backgrounds
  

Other changes:

• Background work for split screen support
  
• Background work for transition to FMOD audio engine
  

A note on update 2
Update 2 will completely overhaul the audio system to enable future audioscape improvements and split screen support. It is likely this work will overrun the usual weekly development cycle due to the scope of the work required.
This update will also (unless there are major bugs during testing) bring support for split screen.