PowerBeatsVR News

Dear players!

We just released another update for PowerBeatsVR. The game got enhanced synchronization between beat and objects, performance improvements, and lots of visual polishing including a major rework of some environments and synchronized special effects.

Here are all the changes in detail:

Graphics:

• Added special effects in each environment which get triggered by the player’s actions
  
• Major visual polishing and redesign of all environments
  
• New start-up room in our brand new space station
  

Menu:

• Reorganized menu tabs for easier access to key features
  
• Added "Fitness" tab showing heart rate and calories in menu
  

Performance:

• Improved synchronization between beat and objects
  
• Improved overall performance
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed misplaced hammer alignment
  
• Fixed playspace warning when switching from pause to menu
  

As always, we would love to get your feedback on Discord. Speaking of that, we are going to make some polls regarding further content, where we need your input.

Comments and reviews on Steam are also much appreciated!
Cheers,
Team PowerBeatsVR

Big News!

PowerBeatsVR just got a huge fitness boost with our latest update: Besides lots of polish, some fixes, and new requested options from you, there is now an advanced calorie counter, player statistics, and unique support for heart rate monitors to track your fitness level and make the calorie counter one of the most accurate available in VR.

For more details about which heart rate monitors are supported, head over to our community post.

And here are all the changes in detail:

New Main Features:

• Added a sophisticated calorie tracker based on age, weight, gender, controller movement, and heart rate as optional input. Burnt calories are stored for a single session, a custom period, and for the entire lifetime, and are shown during a challenge, on the endscreen and in the menu.
  
• Added unique support for commercial heart rate monitors to show your heart rate in-game. The heart rate will also be analysed after each challenge and used for making the calorie tracker more accurate.
  

Menu:

• Added the option to enable/disable hints
  
• Added the option to adjust the playspace warning or even disable it completely
  
• Added the option to reset the calorie count shown for the custom period
  
• Added the option to enable/disable graphics beautification
  
• Added saving to the visibility of the Options and Credits panel
  
• Condensed the options and parts of the menu
  

Gameplay:

• Fixed missing/low haptic feedback
  
• Added Tracked Motion to statistics after each challenge
  
• Added fitness and VR tips to loading screens
  
• Enabled pause when system button gets pressed
  

Graphics:

• Improved sharpness and contrast of graphics (beautification)
  
• Changed the destruction effect of boulders to being shattered into lots of small pieces with enough force applied
  
• Polished particle effects for touching the streams
  
• Polished stream visuals
  
• Made environments brighter and more friendly
  
• Polished the space environment
  
• Polished the feedback visualization
  
• Added various skyboxes to the desert and medieval environment
  
• Changed the start-up room to being a futuristic gym
  

Sound:

• Added an alternative drum-like and more subtle destruction sound
  
• Set default volume to 50%
  
• Removed the sound that was played whenever the powerfist was fully charged
  

Performance:

• Optimized the particle effects
  

As always, we would love to get your feedback on Discord community server about the update and the features you want to see next.

Comments and reviews on Steam are also much appreciated!

Happy calorie burning!
Team PowerBeatsVR

Hey PowerBeatsVR players!

Great news: We’ve released the highly requested level editor and the custom song support. Now you can create beatmaps for your own music from the comfort of VR and see directly how the challenges are going to be.

Since this is an early version, some features we’d like to add are not yet available, among them simple in-game sharing. Right now, if you want to share, just send the files to your friends or share the beatmaps in the #community-maps channel of our Discord server. Please note that uploading songs for which you have no permission is not allowed there. Always respect the copyright of the individual song.

For more details about how to implement custom songs and use the VR level editor, head over to our blog post at https://www.powerbeatsvr.com/vr-fitness-game/level-editor-released/.

We are excited to see what you are going to create with the editor. We have pre-filled the custom song folder with some new songs (without beatmaps) and an official track (“Galaxies”) you can use as a template for creating your own challenges.

But there is even more. Besides having developed these two features, we also listened to your valuable feedback and made some changes, upgrades, and fixes in the following areas:

Gameplay:

• Added hit velocity to scoring on Beginner level
  
• Added “no wall” modifier
  
• Changed the glowing balls to “powerballs” which require twice as much hit speed as the “normal balls”
  
• Fixed a bug which led to showing even a score of 0 on some occasions
  
• Added previous best highscore to the statistics panel after each challenge
  

Songs:

• Added a new song with Beginner, Advanced, and Expert layouts: “The Planet” from Agenda 23
  

Performance:

• Improved performance of the orbs within the space environment
  
• Restricted the full destruction sound to playing only once within 0.1s
  
• Restricted the full destruction particle effect to playing only once within 0.1s
  
• Fixed the credit screen lag within the menu
  

Graphics:

• Increased the contrast within the Space environment
  
• Fixed the physically incorrect movement of the debris
  
• Made the impact ground shockwave more responsive
  
• Added some score animations on special events
  
• Fixed the switching of the trees to 2D billboards on lower quality settings
  
• Fixed the billboard rotation of the grass textures
  

Menu:

• Fixed the hard-to-use quality settings
  
• Added enabling/disabling bloom as an option
  
• Added music volume control
  
• Added SFX volume control
  
• Added switching between official and custom challenges
  
• Added the playspace size as text values
  
• Made the menu slightly bigger
  
• Separated credits from options
  
• Separated gameplay, video, and sound options
  
• Added some menu animations
  
• Rearranged the settings, credits, and highscore buttons
  
• Added saving to the visibility of the highscore panel
  

Sound:

• Reduced the default volume significantly
  
• Added a stop to the “fully charged” sound loop of the powerfist, the shield deploy sound and powerfist release sound after a song has been finished
  

As always, we hope you enjoy the update and would love to get your feedback. So join us on our Discord community server at http://Discord.gg/Powerbeatsvr.

And if you want to know what’s coming next, head over to our Development Roadmap on Trello: https://trello.com/b/2yNQWbbJ/powerbeatsvr-development-roadmap.

Until next time,
Team PowerBeatsVR

We will release our VR level editor for PowerBeatsVR very soon. You will be able to create beatmaps for your own music from the comfort of VR and see directly how the challenges are going to be.

Since this is an early version, some features we’d like to add are not yet available, among them simple in-game sharing. We will share more information next week. So, stay tuned!

Hey everyone,

this is just a short hotfix to handle the random FPS drops, which occurred on some systems due to a bug in Unity (the game’s engine) whenever the game window lost focus.

Until now, the solution was to click within the game window to restore focus and the normal FPS values. With this hotfix, the game should restore the normal framerate whenever you start a challenge if the bug happened before during long inactivity. This is only a temporary solution and will become obsolete as soon as the bug is fixed within Unity.

Feel free to contact us, if you are still having some issues with that. You can join the PowerBeatsVR community on our Discord server and chat with us there. Also, if you have ideas or feedback you want to share, please tell us. We would love to hear from you!

Cheers,
the 5 guys behind PowerBeatsVR