VERSION 0.2 SPEED RACER

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This patch brings a change in direction to the movement system. In exchange for higher overall speed,
speed boosts when performing movement techniques, such as vaulting and sliding, will be increased and
emphasized. This should deepen the movement and retain high-speed moments while making combatants
easier to hit in a gunfight.

A prototype single player game mode known as ‘Gauntlets’ releases in alpha. Run & Gun against the clock
or  for a highscore in tightly designed parkour courses. You’re rated on overall speed and combat
effectiveness (the measurements are simple for now, but expansions are planned!)

A large portion of my time during this patch was spent on building out a visual style and setting.
While significant progress was made, it remains unfinished. So if the feature list seems thin,
I apologize. I still think you'll find some worthwhile stuff though!

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New Features:

--MOVEMENT--

    -Vaulting has a new behavior when used with Momentum. Hold Spacebar through the vault to send
    your momentum upwards vertically. You can still tap spacebar to do a standard forward vault.

    -Vaulting now sets your momentum in the direction of the vault, allowing for quick
    directional changes.

    -Sprinting with momentum will better maintain your velocity, but it will decay to the
    base sprint speed overtime.

    -Sprint from a walk will now build momentum over time.

    -Wall Jumps! Use these to conserve your momentum around corners.
    (Press the jump button in air just before contact with a wall, the implementation is still
    being worked on.)

    -Sliding downhill now gives you a slight boost depending on the slope.

--COMBAT--

    -Explosive Throwing Stars! Press ‘Q’ to equip a star and left mouse to throw.)

        -Will stick to whatever surface they land on and deal explosive damage after a small delay.

        -If you stick a player it will detonate immediately.

        -Deals 150 damage on contact, damage falls off with distance (5m radius)

        -Has a 10 second cooldown

    -Directional damager indicators will now point to any one brave enough to deal you you damage
    (and any hazards in the area, like throwing stars)

--MAPS & MODES--

    -New Prototype Single Player Mode: The Gauntlet!

    -Design Goal: The aim of the gauntlet is to provide a training ground for new players to
    learn and master the movement and shooting at their own pace, as well as provide veterans
    a more relaxed space they can race times or compete for highscores. This will also provide
    a way for me to provide consistent fresh content, as releasing smaller levels like these
    every week or so requires significantly less time and resources than promising

     multiplayer maps + new mechanics. (Although those are still coming of course.)

    -Access the gauntlet through the Main Menu, there are 3 test levels you can test.
    Your feedback is absolutely invaluable so I’d love to hear what you think!

    -Gauntlets are currently completely offline, the ability to ghost-race other players and a
    leaderboard will
    be coming in later updates.

    -Arena Matches will now end after a player reaches the 25 kill limit.

--VFX--

    -First pass on a designed HUD (the old one was really just a nicer looking debug interface lol)
    Please give feedback on it! It will go through at least 2 more iterations, so things will be changed.

    -The explosion effect for the throwing stars is also highkey 🔥

    -New 10/10 UI Splash when getting a kill Expect more like this! :D

--SFX--

    -4 new sounds for landing shots (Body shot, head shot, and kill shot with both.)

    -Added ‘fly by’ sounds for bullets

--ART & ENVIRONMENT--

    -A bit of a weird note, many weeks went into the art design and asset creation. I’m working
    on both finding a central art direction and creating a modular set of assets I can use to
    quickly iterate and build maps. Lots of progress was made, not a ton of it is finished though.

    -Working on a modular interior environment, as well as exterior Cityscape. These will be
    tested for performance and clarity in the Gauntlet before coming to multiplayer maps, so play
    that if you want to check out their progress!

    -New Main Menu featuring all the new assets so far, and the first look at city of Blink’s
    setting, Neo-Arcadia! (I actually had to change this because the performance was awful so its a greybox with 10/10 lighting rn)

--MISC--

    -New pre-game lobby! Connect with your friends and ready up before the match

    -New ability to customize your display name, player color, and player title (not persistent, you’ll
    have to reenter the info every time you close and reopen the game. This functionality will
    be improved.)

Adjustments:

--MOVEMENT--

    -Walk Speed Decreased (600->500)

    -Base Sprint Speed Decreased (800->700 [but can still be built up to 800 w/momentum)

    -All movement tech (Sliding, Vaulting, Blinking, etc) have an updated algorithm for
    calculating boost and momentum. Everything has received balance changes but because the system is
    different the values don’t translate 1:1 so I won’t bother transcribing them.

--COMBAT--

    -Slight decrease of red dot's size in sight.

--VFX--

    -New less distracting hit effect when shooting a player. Curious if some people enjoy the old
    one more though, so whatever your opinion is please speak up!

Bug Fixes:

--MOVEMENT--

    -Fixed bug where host player could enter slide from a slower velocity

    -Fixed bug where players would vault up sloped geometry when attempting to jump

    -Fixed bug where vault wouldn't recognize certain geometry

--COMBAT--

    -Fixed issue where damage culling/server verification would sometimes drop damage applied to
    multiple different players from the same source