City of Beats News

Hello everyone!

We're excited to be participating in the Steam Next Fest! Catch our livestream on Tuesday at 10 am EST, where we will be showing off the latest demo!

For more follow us on Twitter, Instagram and join our Discord!

This stream is pre-recorded and will be looped through the duration of Steam Next Fest.

Hey all, big news time!

As some of you might already have noticed, we've updated the demo for the upcoming Steam Next Fest. Besides the usual tweaks & changes, there is one major addition: Speedrun Mode.

We just started a Speedrunning Competition where you can even win Steam keys for the game if you're fast enough!

[h3]Join our Discord where you'll find all the info you need to participate:[/h3]
discord.torchedhill.com

[h3]Changelog[/h3]
Here's the changelog for the new demo build - quite a lot of changes since last year's Gamescom demo:

• The Repeater is back - it's now (again) the game's starter weapon, with some tweaks to the Aimbot mod & Supercharge
  
• New Dialogs - added lots of new dialogs/narration/illustrations, as well as updated how dialogs are presented (now with text animations and sound!)
  
• New Upgrades - not many, as I don't want to spoil them in the demo, but I've still added a few new ones
  
• Tutorial Rework - you now actually have time to read those texts without getting shot at
  
• Easy Mode can now be disabled in the demo, if you want the real challenge!
  
• "Map Peek" Feature - check out the whole map and their rewards to plan your route in advance
  
• Start Screen - new & cool
  
• Performance improvements - overall ~50% higher FPS, in some levels even 2-3x FPS increase
  
• Graphics tweaks - better-looking environments and VFX like explosions, warping, …
  
• Added widescreen support for up to 32:9 resolutions; also tweaks for Steam Deck
  
• Lots of UI/UX improvements, including both HUD & menu reworks/tweaks
  
• Balance improvements & bugfixes as usual
  
• So many more small tweaks you'll have to find by yourself
  

Heya, I’m back with another development update for City of Beats!

This month we’ve reached a major milestone - we’ve finished implementing the final boss encounter. And it’s a crazy one, we’re really firing on all cylinders here. This means that we can now play through the whole thing, from the start screen until (and including) the end credits sequence!

Of course, there’s still a lot to do - but now my probably favorite part of gamedev begins: Tweaking and iterating on the campaign so that it flows well from start to finish, and adding additional content where we feel like there’s still some variety and fun missing.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Balancing Run Duration[/h3]
After a bit of internal playtesting, we found that a full run through all 3 biomes & the final boss currently takes about 50-60min. This is quite a bit longer than I originally intended, considering that we know the game really well and are probably faster than the average player in their first few hours.

Ideally, I’d like the length to be around 40min, as having more but shorter runs results in an increased number of “big choices” and therefore more gameplay variety. Of course, if the runs are too short, those choices lose some of their weight and a successful run might not feel as rewarding, so we’ll have to find the perfect balance between the two. I’ll try to shorten the length and amount of combat encounters a bit and see how it goes. I’m already looking forward to the 15min speedruns. 😅

[h3]Summer Gaming Events[/h3]
In the past few months, we brought the game to a couple of gaming events, which really paid off on the marketing front. Between Gamescom, Tokyo Game Show and EGX London, we’ve gathered tons of wishlists, followers and feedback. 🥳

Check out this interview with Nick, which dives deeper into the origins of the game and highlights some of the decisions we made regarding the music/rhythm aspects!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Our latest trailer!

[h3]Adaptive Music[/h3]
Nick has also recently published two new interviews on his blog that are must-reads if you’re into adaptive music and music design in general:

1. Halo, and the birth of cinematic adaptive music (with Halo audio lead / composer Martin O’Donnell)
   
2. Dying Light 2, and the importance of music design (with Dying Light 2 composer Olivier Deriviere)
   

Have a great day & see you next time,
Kai

Hey everyone!
We want to start off this update with letting you all know that City of Beats is being featured at Gamescom at the Freedom Games booth! If you happen to be attending Gamescom in person, you can check it out at Hall 10, Stand F-002g. With us being at Gamescom, we've got a brand new updated trailer for you all to check out:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The trailer isn't the only thing getting an update! We've also updated our demo. You can check it out now on our Steam page 👀

[h3]Patch Notes[/h3]

• the Lightning Bow is now the default weapon for the demo
  
• new mini-boss reward type: select a Trait Upgrade to add 5 levels to one of your traits until the end of the expedition
  
• combat reward nodes can now be destroyed to gain HP instead of the reward
  
• supercharging weapons now feels more powerful (new sounds, and an AoE Stun when activating supercharging the bow)
  
• updated 2D illustrations for our characters and events
  
• new sounds, e.g. mini-boss warp-in
  
• keyboard/mouse icons are now displayed in menu button prompts (instead of text-based indicators)
  
• slightly increased player's damage reduction in the demo
  
• update to the final UE4 version, bugfixes & polishing all around
  

Welcome back for our July update, which barely made it into July!

[h3]The Blazemaker[/h3]

In City of Beats, we want to make sure that every weapon feels unique, both in terms of gameplay as well as its soundscape and what it adds to the music. So, in the past month we’ve been working on another rather unexpected instrumental weapon: a flamethrower called Blazemaker.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Shooting flames with it adds an euphoric synth layer to the music, as was our idea right from the start. But it quickly became clear that something is missing: while our other weapons play a melody on each shot, the flamethrower just… continuously shoots flames. Our solution was to play the melody through our burning enemies: Enemy drones take fire damage each quarter beat, and this is what plays harmonic notes that create the melody. Therefore, make sure to keep them burning if you want the melody to keep going!
(In hindsight it might not have been the best idea to work on a flamethrower weapon during the heatwave here in Europe. Literal heat & sweat went into creating the Blazemaker. Might want to reschedule that Ice Beam weapon we had planned for Winter.)

[h3]Working on the Metagame[/h3]

Besides the Blazemaker, we’re also reworking and adding to the game’s metagame systems and persistent progression. If you’ve played the demo, you already know the trait system, where you can permanently improve your character stats.
In July, we’ve implemented the hovercar AI component system, which allows you to upgrade your hovercar’s software to gain out-of-combat advantages on your expeditions. Examples for this are unlocking new flight paths on the map or even re-rolling combat rewards if you’re not happy with the selection you were given. You can buy/upgrade these components in the hub and enable up to 3 of them at the same time.

WIP screen of the hovercar upgrade menu

[h3]The Pursuit of Flow State[/h3]

Last but not least, there’s a new blog post from Nick where he explains the techniques we’re using to get the player into a “state of flow” in City of Beats.
Check it out here!

Thanks for reading & see ya next time!
Kai