GeneRally 2 News

This update includes a new car, some new objects, and a variety of physics-related fixes. It's part one of the the two-part patch, which includes the new UI update.

• Added a new car: Drift.
  
• Added a new track: CherryDrifter.
  
• Smoothed fuel and tyre wear calculations to help reduce any disadvantage from using keyboard input.
  
• Separated throttle and brake inputs.
  
• Speed limiter areas are now more aggressively enforced.
  
• Adjusted the handling of the Lightning, to give it a more weighty feel.
  
• Small adjustments to the General and Formula's colliders.
  
• Small adjustments to the wheel behaviour when colliding with the terrain.
  
• FIXED: Particles no longer remain on the terrain when moving to the next track in a Championship.
  
• FIXED: Cones no longer slide down the terrain when restarting a race.
  
• FIXED: AI no longer start slowly when they start off the racing line.
  
• FIXED: Reverse grids now apply in the first race, too.
  

• Added new snowy variants of the Birch tree and Hedge.
  
• Added Cherry Blossom trees (in two colour variants).
  
• FIXED: Bridges no longer cause a bump at the edges.
  

• The main menu sometimes experiences distortions or other rendering issues - changing resolution, or restarting the game may rectify the issue.
  
• Occasionally, when in Windowed mode, changing the language multiple times in quick succession can shrink the game window.
  

Hello there 👋

It's time for an update about the work going on behind the scenes here at Curious Chicken Games!

As many of you will be aware, we've been focussing on the GR2 Multiplayer update, but we've also been at work on a variety of other things, too. So, we'll start with talking about what you can expect from the next patch!


Despite all the work on the online multiplayer (more about that below), we've been making sure that we have time to work on some of the most-requested features, bug-fixes and new content.

At the moment the next patch is still under development - and it could still be a couple of weeks away - but broadly you can expect to see: the new menu UI; a new car; some new objects; and a variety of small new features and fixes that have been requested by the community over the past weeks and months!


Work on the online multiplayer is progressing well. At the moment, we only have a few more things to finish, before we're ready to start some invite-only beta testing (stay tuned on Discord for more information about that).



Fundamentally, the major things we have left are some UI work (to get the lobby screen, selection screens and in-game screens up-to-date with the new UI we're launching soon); synchronising the host's track files to the clients; and some validation/verification stuff (to ensure everyone in the server is running the same versions of everything).

We want to make sure that we only release online multiplayer when it's stable and has all of the basic features needed for it to be fun to play with your friends (or strangers) online.

We're still on target for our internal estimates for the release of online multiplayer - so, even though we've not had much to say about it in the past month or two, we're still moving ahead as planned!


As part of our focus on involving the community in the day-to-day development of GeneRally 2, we'll be trialling hosting some "live events" - initially on Discord.

For the most part these will begin with some Q&As, and maybe even some patch previews - but after the launch of online multiplayer, we hope to be able to do some community races together with you!

Be sure to join us on Discord, to be notified of when we're planning to host such an event!


We've had a number of requests to get GeneRally 2 on TikTok or Instagram - so we've decided to try that avenue out! You can now follow @GeneRally.Game on TikTok and, if all goes well with that, we may expand to Instagram at a later date. We're trying our hand at being a little more social media savvy 😊



So, if you're interested in seeing some short-form GeneRally 2 video content on TikTok... follow us!

Of course, being a small team and with a limited amount of time to dedicate to social media, we want to ensure that we're spending our time wisely. As a result, we'll be keeping updates on Facebook and X/Twitter to bigger announcements only.

We'll continue to update regularly on Discord!


Additionally, we've made some updates to the Roadmap page in order to make our objectives a bit clearer and to show a little more obviously what we're working on right now, and how it's going.

As with the previous format of the Roadmap page, the contents are all subject to change, but we'll try to keep this broadly up-to-date even between these update posts!


Finally, the Community Choice Award for January 2024 - which would normally have been announced by now - is also coming soon. We're going to be trialling featuring the tracks in short-form videos on social media, as well as making the announcement blog posts... so we were waiting to announce all of this stuff together.

Stay tuned here, and on TikTok 😉

This update includes some new objects, as well as a new track. At the moment the team's focus is on the upcoming online multiplayer update, so this update is smaller than usual.

• Added a new track: WinterTyme.
  
• Snow tracks (Snoogy, Snorge and Polarius) got updated with the new snowy variants.
  

• Added some Christmas cheer to the Main Menu!
  

• Added new snowy variants for Fir Tree, Pine Tree, and Bush.
  
• Added static cars, vans, trucks and trailers.
  
• Up and Down arrow keys can now be used to cycle variants in the New Object tool.
  
• FIXED: Hay bales now correctly follow the terrain.
  
• FIXED: Phantom AI lines no longer sometimes remain when loading a track.
  

• The main menu sometimes experiences distortions or other rendering issues - changing resolution, or restarting the game may rectify the issue.
  
• Occasionally, when in Windowed mode, changing the language multiple times in quick succession can shrink the game window.
  

Today's blog post is going to cover the upcoming Christmas Update, as well as talk a bit about our progress towards online multiplayer, and what you can expect from the next couple of months!


Before Christmas, we'll be launching the GeneRally 2 Christmas Update. This update will include a variety of small features and fixes, but also some themed additions to help you celebrate the holiday season in style.



Most notably, we'll be adding a new track, and a selection of new objects (including static cars, vans and trucks) and some winter-themed variants of existing objects.


Work continues on the online multiplayer feature, which is coming along nicely and is beginning to have all the features and functionality we envisioned it having at its initial release.

At the moment it's possible to race with your friends (or complete strangers) in single races - or in championships - online. We still have some way to go and our focus at the moment is now particularly on the additional functionalities like synchronising tracks between players, and handling mid-race disconnections.

After this, we'll have some UI finalisation to do - and then we hope to conduct a couple of invite-only tests before launching multiplayer sometime after the New Year! Stay tuned here, and on Discord, to find out more about the invite-only tests 📧


We're continuing to follow our roadmap and our plans for GeneRally 2's Early Access period - and we're on-track with where we expected to be at this point. It's our intention to launch out of Early Access within the first half of 2024 🏆

Still outstanding on our pathway towards a Version 1.0 release are the online multiplayer, a couple of cars, improvements to the AI, and a variety of smaller bug fixes and features.

In the year leading up to the launch of Early Access (and for a couple of months afterwards), we were really lucky to be able to have such a large team working on GeneRally 2. Now, our team is much more modest in size (only three of us are working actively on the project) - a result of the basic realities of independent game development.

However, as we saw the possibility of this from afar, we set our Early Access goals conservatively, to ensure we could reach them even with a smaller day-to-day team.

What this means is that prioritisation becomes the most important factor for us in delivering content and feature updates. Right now, our focus is on delivering the online multiplayer, and then we'll be able to turn our attention to the other items on the list!

Of course, this also makes now a great time for us to say thank you to the team members who have helped us along the route, but are no longer working with us on a daily basis: we are so grateful to you guys for your contributions to GeneRally 2 over the past couple of years 😊

This update includes some performance improvements, as well as a few minor features and fixes. At the moment the team’s focus is on the upcoming online multiplayer update, so this update is a little smaller than usual.

• Improved performance related to skidmarks and terrain shading in race mode.
  
• Adjusted wheel damage to be a bit less vicious.
  
• FIXED: Tree stumps now behave correctly when colliding.
  
• FIXED: Corrected several objects UV mappings.
  

• Added Polish language localisation (thanks to Salami/Scorpion).
  

• Added new size variants for trees and bushes.
  
• FIXED: UI models for the second house type are now displayed properly in the UI.
  

• The main menu sometimes experiences distortions or other rendering issues - changing resolution, or restarting the game may rectify the issue.
  
• Occasionally, when in Windowed mode, changing the language multiple times in quick succession can shrink the game window.