GeneRally 2 News

This update introduces some small new features, and fixes several smaller issues.

• Completely rewrote the AI pit-decision logic to improve race strategies and pitting behaviour.
  
• Adjusted several car colliders to improve car-to-car collisions.
  
• FIXED: Follow camera no longer zooms out excessively on tracks with a very low camera height.
  

• Automatically smooth height maps when importing from PNG.
  

• Added Japanese language localisation (thanks to Hiroshi Ashida).
  
• Small improvements to main menu performance.
  
• Fuel and tyre bars are now greyed out when they are set to 0% in the race settings.
  
• Fixed decimal values in times not being localised correctly.
  
• Moved the driver race blocks towards the top of the screen for increased visibility.
  

• 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.
  

Welcome to the August 2024 Community Update! We'll be posting these regular, short-form posts with news and information about development - primarily what we've been working on recently; and what you can expect to see in upcoming patches.

To join the discussion, as well as get more info direct from the development team, you can join us on Discord!


We're always hard at work on different features and fixes - and here are a few of the things we've been working on this month, but aren't yet finished. As always, you can check out the roadmap for more information.

• Online Multiplayer - Core functionality is complete. We are now focusing on fixes and UI.
  
• UI Update - We'll have more information on this in a separate blog post, soon!
  
• AI Update - We're in the process of making the AI smarter and nicer to race against.
  
• Next Car - The next car is in the process of having its model finalised, and its textures tweaked.
  

These are things that we've been working on, and are either undergoing final testing or are "ready to release". We'll be including these in the next game update.

• AI - The AI pitting logic has been completely rewritten and is significantly improved.
  
• Physics - Changes have been made to open-wheel car colliders to make them more driveable.
  
• UI - We made tweaks to the menu UI performance, and small changes to the in-race UI.
  
• Height Map Import Smoothing - PNG height maps are now smoothed when imported.
  
• Follow Camera - The follow camera no longer zooms out excessively at some tracks.
  
• Japanese Localisation - Thanks to Hiroshi Ashida, the Japanese localisation is complete.
  

This update includes a variety of AI fixes, a few physics fixes, and some new objects and object variants!

• AI now calculate the fuel they need to finish in a more "human-like" fashion.
  
• Adjusted tyre wear calculation to reduce AI advantage.
  
• Improved the low-speed turning behaviour of the Drift and Lightning.
  
• FIXED: AI no longer drive through the pits on the last lap unnecessarily.
  
• FIXED: Edges of bridge models now cause significantly less "bouncing".
  
• FIXED: AI should no longer have a disadvantage in certain grid slots (hopefully).
  

• Added new coloured variants of the various armco barriers.
  
• Added a new Chain Link Fence object.
  

• 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.
  

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 😉