V.0.1.4 is here!

Every single time I say "this update is the last one" for the Demo I break my promise and end up pushing something else anyways. This is one of those times. This patch comes with two major features:

Full Mouse Support + Mouse Turn Style

Mouse Turning The actual, main point of this patch. The 2nd alternative Turn Style for Keyboard has been replaced with Mouse Turning. It does what it says on the tin: your vehicle will now turn into the direction you are pointing with your mouse, and the mouse will transform into a reticle during gameplay. This seems to be a preferred method of turning for some people, so I hope the inclusion of this makes the game more accessible. Mouse lock is activated during gameplay, btw, so no need to worry about flying off-screen either. I've developed a habit of flicking my mouse whenever slamming for some reason. Maybe that makes it stronger in my head. UI Mouse Support You can now navigate the game's UI with your mouse! At last, you can finally do the thing where you rapidly woosh your mouse between two options to spam the switch noise. This was fairly hard to implement, actually, since the game's UI and navigation was never meant for mouse support. I hope that what I ended up implementing works out, though.

Rank now impacts Speed

One of the most common feedback points I receive about this game has been that it's just too hard at the start to get into due to the pacing of the game. The previous blog post mentioned that I wanted to tackle this by introducing an "Engine Speed" accessibility setting. After taking a lot of time to think about it (Read: I took a really long shower where I stood under hot water idly for 10 minutes) this method introduces some issues I am not sure how to tackle yet, such as the question of how to "push" people to 100% speed, or how this option would interact with the daily leaderboard system. Ultimately, this should've been a responsibility of the Rank system, where the lower ranks are manageable and the higher ranks hard. As such, I did exactly that: Push this problem onto the Rank system. Your rank now impacts your speed, alongside the speed of every other vehicle in the game. The relative speed bonus enemies gained during high ranks remains the same - e.g. the speed you had to your opponents remains the same, relatively. The current speed of the game has been relegated to Rank A, while lower and higher ranks change the speed of the game by roughly 3.33%. This means the D rank is ~10% slower compared to the previous, default pace of the game. This also means that R rank is faster by 6.66%! Playing around with it, this seems to impact the game positively. From my observation, the lowered speed in lower ranks makes learning the game easier, and the speed change is gradual enough that it doesn't feel jarring to go from one rank to another. Additionally, the bonus speed in higher ranks makes it feel pretty rewarding to finally reach them.

Other Changes

• Vehicles with a pipebomb attached to them are now immune to being taken out via. ramming by other NPCs as well. Build up those chains without fear!
• Fixed a bug that caused the Desert Gunner and Desert Hedgehog (The two big guys for desert and mesa respectively) to have a higher spawn rate than usual. Oops.
• Desert Hedgehog no longer attacks players while they are side slamming. This changes nothing apart from removing the confusing "NO DMG" pop-up, which lead some players to believe that the Desert Hedgehog is immune while it has its spikes out.
• Various other, minor changes.

------------------------------------------------------------ Oh - and have you noticed? REDLINE CROOKS is taking part in the Endless Replayability fest! Tell your friends, family and pastor! Join the Discord Follow on Twitter/X - Alexander