Stampede: Racing Royale News

Hey everyone!

The second Steam Playtest for Stampede: Racing Royale begins August 21, including changes and improvements across all areas of the game, built around feedback and suggestions from our community. Here are some notable fixes and additions...

[h2]Features [/h2]

• Friends and Party systems added. Players can connect with Steam friends in-game and create parties of up to five players, using invites and friend codes to connect
  
  
• Nitro force curve effect added. When a player uses the Nitro power-up, nearby players can be pushed aside
  

[h2]Gameplay [/h2]

• Updated default control schemes for controller and keyboard. Players can manually assign inputs to different keys/buttons of their choice in the Settings menu
  
  
• Changes made to kart collision effects and physics, making kart behaviour more predictable when making contact with other drivers
  
  
• Fixed intangibility delay when striking opponents with a power-up. Drivers will now be immediately intangible when struck, meaning players can drive through them as intended
  
  
• Fixed issue causing rolling blockades to teleport, creating invisible collisions for players
  
  
• Removed the possibility of the same map featuring twice in a match. Each map selected over the three rounds of a match will always be different to each other
  
  
• Additional VFX for multiple areas of the game, including power-ups and slipstream
  
  
• XP rewards and Player Level progression has been rebalanced, to be better paced across a longer playtest
  
  
• Kart handling tweaks made, and minor kart performance changes made for Battle events
  
  
• Improved AI kart behaviour on Battle event map (Royale Island)
  
  
• Updated audio and logic for countdown timer at the end of races
  
  
• Further balance changes to deployment of power-ups
  

[h2]Performance [/h2]

• Resolved instances of CPU spikes when navigating the main menus, causing crashes or frame rate drops
  
  
• Resolved performance issues caused by user changing the display resolution
  
  
• Resolved some issues causing players to be unable to connect to a lobby. It’s still possible for this to occur, but multiple fixes have improved this area
  
  
• Default game volume has been decreased. It shouldn’t be so loud when you first boot the game!
  
  
• Players can be placed in more populous server regions, to ensure they enter lobbies with as many human players as possible. Players will see the server region they are in via on-screen text, and can select their ‘Preferred Region’ in the Settings
  

[h2]Visual[/h2]

• Fixed issue causing the player’s character to be blurred on main menu screens
  
  
• Achievements screen removed, as we continue to finalise ways for players to earn additional rewards
  
  
• Further improvements to the profanity filter for display names
  
  
• Visual updates to multiple areas of the game, including maps
  
  
• Fixed instances of erratic camera motion while boosting
  
  
• Pop-up text for when you strike an opponent with a power-up, or have been struck by a power-up, is now larger
  
  
• UI changes for the homing projectile power-up
  
  
• Fixed instances of reward item images appearing on top of each other on screen
  
  
• Images for the three kart archetypes on the Garage menu are now correct
  

As always, you can use our official reporting form if you come across something you want our team to investigate, or drop a message in Steam Discussions, if you have any feedback. Our Trello board will also be updated with known topics and their status. Thank youuuu!

Hey everyone,

Good news – we’re super pleased to announce that the second Steam Playtest for Stampede: Racing Royale begins on August 21!

You can register interest in joining the playtest in the usual way: head to our store page now and hit the green ‘Request Access’ button. Once the playtest is live, you’ll receive an email with full details on how to get involved. This Steam Playtest will run for a full week, closing on August 28.

Alongside the Steam Playtest, we’re also incredibly excited to be bringing Stampede: Racing Royale to Gamescom!



Attendees in Cologne, Germany can participate in our Steam Playtest throughout the event by visiting our booth, in Hall 6 at the Level Infinite area. Get your hands on the latest version of the game, meet some of the Stampede development team, find some cool photo ops, and potentially grab some sweet merch!



The majority of changes in this playtest focus on resolving community-reported bugs from last month, alongside more improvements across key areas of the game, such as network, performance, visuals, and gameplay balancing. Available maps are the same from July’s playtest, and a handful of new cosmetic items have been added to progression rewards.

With Stampede still early in development, our team are working on plenty more content, features, and improvements as we work towards Early Access kicking off later this year.



Full patch notes will be shared before the second playtest begins, and we’ll continue to update our Trello board of known issues that our team are looking into. Follow our official social channels to stay up to date, as well as see live coverage from Stampede at Gamescom!

Hey everyone,

The Stampede Dev Log begins today! These series of articles aim to keep you informed on what the Stampede: Racing Royale team here are working on, explain how we’re using your feedback, and deliver a little insight into our chaotic kart racer. Think of it is a neat ‘in the know’ thing for the most dedicated members of our community.

After folks had a chance to play what we’re creating for the very first time, now seems a good time to drop Dev Log #1! You ready?

[h2]THANK YOU[/h2]

First things first, a super-sized THANK YOU to everyone who jumped into our first Steam Playtest. We’re thankful for two reasons. Firstly, your willingness to try an early slice of the game provides our development team with valuable information to help Stampede’s development. Secondly, the amount of feedback and suggestions we’ve received from players, either via our survey or Steam Discussions, has been fantastic.

By rolling out an early, work-in-progress version of this game to the public, we’re putting a lot of trust in players. We want to bring you along on this development journey, and that means having faith you’ll ‘get’ that things are not quite where we want them right now. To see so many players understanding that process, and sending us constructive feedback, is genuinely amazing. So yeah… thank you!



[h2]ADDRESSING YOUR FEEDBACK[/h2]

We’ve been going through all the comments, bug reports, survey submissions, and more to help us understand what to focus on going forward with Stampede.

For example, we’ve seen lots of positive feedback so far on the general direction of customisation items, and the fun cosmetic stuff you can unlock, so we’ll continue down that road. We also see the fair points on kart physics and ‘jostling’ with other karts being unpredictable, so we’ll keep working on that. We hear the requests for the ability to party up with friends, and the ideas around introducing more varied music and audio, so our team are exploring both of those topics.

That’s just picking out a handful of common topics we’ve identified from the playtest. Many suggestions will take time to address, and some will be more achievable than others, but we’re doing our upmost to take what you’re telling us and hook it up to our plans. Even at this early stage in development, it’s cool to see that in action.

[h2]NEXT PLAYTEST WHEN?[/h2]

Alrighty then – let’s look forward! With Early Access set for later this year, we have plenty of work to do. That work includes creating an updated version of the game for our next Steam Playtest, which we will confirm dates and details for very soon.

With a second playtest around the corner, one thing we’d like to flag with you now is to not expect significant changes in the overall experience, or amount of content in the game. With a small turnaround time, our focus for the next playtest is optimisations, fixes, balances, and sneaking in a couple of player-requested things. We’ll share full details ahead of the playtest going live. More big stuff will come later!

That’s it for our first Stampede Dev Log. #2 will be with you after that second playtest. Have we said thank you enough times yet?

Hey folks,

As the first Steam Playtest for Stampede: Racing Royale comes to a close, we invite all players to fill out our first survey, asking your thoughts on all the content included in the playtest.

SURVEY HERE | https://forms.office.com/e/WL891c6YMA

Stampede remains in development, and as we continue to improve and refine the game, we'll be using your feedback to inform our decisions. Provide as much info on you can on what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you'd want to see next. Thank you!

Let's gooooo! Stampede: Racing Royale is playable for the first time ever, with our Steam Playtest rolling out now, running until July 31.

For players who have requested access to the playtest via our store page, look out for an email, providing full details on how to download and enter the game. If you are yet to sign up, there's still time to hit the 'Request Access' button on the Stampede store page, and get those playtest details.



Whilst our chaotic kart racer remains early development, this Steam Playtest is a chance to take a first look at some of the features and content being designed for the game. Take part in thrilling 60-player online karting events against the world, competing over three rounds of races and battles to be crowned the ultimate champion!

Over 50 cosmetic items can be discovered and equipped in the playtest, and there's a light player progression system that includes cosmetic item unlocks. These features only scratch the surface of what we're working on for Stampede, but we can't wait to see what you think.



Many aspects of the Steam Playtest build are not final, and players may experience issues with performance or gameplay. If you come across anything you'd like our team to look at, please use our dedicated reporting form, and we'll investigate. We also have an official Trello board for Stampede, which our team will keep updated with the status of hot-topic issues whenever possible.

For a reminder of what our game is all about, check out our latest video, brought to you by the Stampede TV team:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We'll be active in Steam Discussions to chat with players and get your early thoughts on Stampede: Racing Royale. See you on the track!