This past sunday, September 1st 2024, was a very special day for me. I had planned this announcement for that day, but due to [strike]me not knowing how to properly add a tool package to an existing game on Steam[/strike] technical reasons, I had to delay it for a bit. Why was it special, you ask? Well, on September 1st 2014 I posted this video on youtube: [previewyoutube=96rQlAm08mU;full][/previewyoutube] This video is the oldest record of what would become Slipstream. I had been working on it for just a week or two. And now, (almost) exactly a decade later, I'm here to announce its final major update. Fittingly, this game took me on a long and unexpected journey. Ten years ago I was a hobbyist in my bedroom, learning the absolute basics of gamedev, hoping to create small mobile games just for fun, on my spare time, and maybe even earn a little side money from that. Then came steam greenlight, a kickstarter campaign, two long and painful extra years of development, an independent release, a contract with a publisher, a full rewrite of the game's code, a second release on consoles, localizations, the DLC after five years, and finally the content of this update, which I'll talk about soon. I went from amateur to professional with this one project. It pushed me to improve my skills as an artist and programmer, and to learn more about the whole process of making and releasing a game. I learned so many things. I had never even driven a car when I released the game in 2018, and thanks to the earnings from the game I bought my first car (and the second). My childhood dream of making games professionally came true, thanks to this project and to all of you who supported me. But it's time to conclude this journey. I've been talking about it for years, I mentioned it in all of my previous update posts. I want to make other things, other games, and I think I did everything I wanted and could with this one, it's time to let it go. However, as the title of this post suggests, I don't want the this project to just fizzle out silently. So I prepared one last major update for the occasion, the biggest one since last year's Blue Hour DLC. If you've read my previous announcements, you know I've been working for a long time on a modding system for the game. In fact, the modding system itself is already in the game, but a real user content ecosystem requires more: specialized tools and, most importantly, a place where users can share their content. And this is exactly what I bring to you today.

Slipstream Workshop Tools

Supernova

Slipstream v1.3.3

Conclusion

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing great and enjoying the new content in the Blue Hour DLC. If you haven't installed it, please check it out, it's free after all. I'm publishing a minor update, v1.3.1, which fixes some historically problematic things and, sadly, removes a feature. But it's for a good reason. Feature removal: MP3 support. I'm not sure how many players use this feature, but Slipstream allows you to add your own music files to the game. If you put a music file in '[user config dir]/ansdorGames/Slipstream/music', it will be playable during gameplay and treated like any other song in the soundtrack. Up until now, the game has supported three formats: ogg, wav and mp3. When I rewrote the game in version 1.2, I switched the underlying game library from libGDX to FNA, and FNA does not have native support for MP3. For the whole v1.2 cycle and v1.3.0, I used SDL2_mixer as an alternative, but this created new problems, mostly on macOS. Supporting the macOS version is extremely hard for me because I don't have a Mac computer and the OS isn't trivially virtualized like Windows and Linux. In this new version, I removed the dependency on SDL2_mixer, so now the game only requires FNA and should run exactly the same on every PC platform. But, sadly, MP3 support had to go. The game still supports user-provided music, but only in the OGG format. If you use this feature a lot, I suggest you to convert your Slipstream playlist to the OGG format, it's a free format with many conversion tools available for every system. If FNA adds support for MP3 in the future (maybe I'll add it myself, if I have the time), I'll bring back support. But for now, it's goodbye to MP3. This should fix the recent audio problems on macOS. If you still have problems, send me an email. Audio Improvements, Engine Sounds The whole audio system has been refactored, and this brings back a feature that was lost in the v1.2 update: The engine pitch shift. Now the car engine sound is slightly more realistic and a lot more pleasant to the ear. Leaderboard Improvements The leaderboard system was one of the last things I implemented in Slipstream v1.2, when I was already tired of the whole rewrite and far beyond what should be my deadline. It's always been buggy and weird. Now I took the time to rewrite it properly and it should work better in general. One tangible improvement is that it doesn't show "Leaderboard Empty" when you don't have a entry on the Leaderboard. Also, two tracks from the Blue Hour DLC, Transylvania and Pompeii, had a bug that prevented them from being added to the Leaderboards system. That is also fixed, and the Blue Hour Cup now has its own Leaderboard too. UI Change: Navigation Arrow The in-game radar now displays an arrow, like a compass, indicating the direction of the next curve. This should improve QoL on low-visibility tracks like Mystic Cave and Pompeii. The arrow becomes red when the next curve is to the right, and green when the next curve is to the left. This should allow players to predict the next curve without having to take their eyes off the road, just seeing red/green in the corner of the eye should be enough to feel where the next curve goes. And that's all for this update. Thanks for playing!

Blue Hour, a free DLC expansion for Slipstream, is now available! The expansion brings 3 new cars, 5 new tracks and 5 new songs. More details can be seen on the Slipstream: Blue Hour DLC store page. To install Blue Hour, right-click Slipstream on your library, select "Properties", then "DLC" and check the Blue Hour box. It will eventually be added to the default install, but at the moment I'm asking for manual installation so I can measure the number of installs. I'd also like to recommend players to use the game speed adjustment setting! Slipstream can be too hard to control at the default speed, and this setting exists to make the game more comfortable to play. Don't be afraid to use it, the game is still very fast at 80% speed, and everything in the gameplay and physics remains exactly the same. If I were to release the game today, I'd probably make the default speed closer to 80 or 75%, but now it's too late to change the defaults. So, please, check this option out, it can make the game a lot more fun and enjoyable. The setting can be found on the settings menu and the pause menu. Some other notes: - I am aware that the macOS version has some audio problems since the last update. I'll look into it as soon as possible, expect a patch to fix the issues in about two weeks, maybe less. - A bug with the user content loading system was fixed in version 1.3.0-01 - There are no new achievements for the DLC. It was an oversight, new achievements will be added in the near future. - I'm still working on the modding tools Thanks for the bug reports and support, I hope you enjoy the new content!

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing great. I have big news to share with you today. Slipstream is now five years old! Time flies. The original release feels both like yesterday and a long time ago. Since then, I've worked (almost) continuously to keep this game afloat. I've done a full rewrite of the code, added many new features, and fixed all the bugs and problems I could. It's still not perfect, I guess it will never be, but I've tried my best to make it good and enjoyable. Once again I want to say thanks to all of you who played the game, gave me useful feedback and support in general. Today I bring you a new version of the game, Slipstream v1.3. As with the previous v1.x updates, I'm gonna freeze the latest v1.2 build on a separate branch (legacy-v2), so it can still be played in the future. There are major changes, so let's get to them. * A new rubberbanding system For those who don't know, 'rubberbanding' is a type of dynamic difficulty adjustment that's very common in racing games. It basically makes the AI cars more or less powerful depending on the player's position relative to them. If a player is far ahead, the AI gets faster, if it's far behind, it gets slower. A great example of a heavily rubberbanded game is Mario Kart 64. Slipstream v1.1 had a lot of rubberbanding too. In the v1.2 release cycle, I tried to remove it completely, but that created a series of new problems. It's very hard to balance a game like Slipstream, that doesn't take place in a fully 3D space where minor adjustments to the racing lines can be the difference between winning and losing. In Slipstream the cars' raw attributes matter more, and the AI got out of control because it drives in a very optimized way. To mitigate this, I had to add artificial speed limits to the AI and the whole system became more complex, ugly and cumbersome than the v1.1 solution I was trying to replace. For v1.3, I decided to bring rubberbanding back, but in a very different way. There are two types of rubberbanding, let's call them 'power-based' and 'skill-based'. Power-based means the AI cars get physically faster or slower depending on their position relative to the player. That's the kind I used in v1.1. Skill-based rubberbanding feels a lot more natural, the cars don't change physically at all, the only thing that changes is the AI's skill level. It might hold the brake a little longer when it's winning, or make more precise turns when it's losing. This is the kind of RB I've implemented in v1.3. In my own experience it feels pretty good, the game still has its challenging difficulty but it doesn't feel impossible to win some races like it did in v1.2. * Car attributes, rebalanced I really like the way the difficulties are handled in v1.2, with three different weight classes like in Mario Kart. However, that system was still too tame. In v1.3, the differences between the weight classes are much more noticeable. Heavy is still the 'classic' mode, with the highest top speeds. Medium is a little slower than before, which I feel is a more sensible default setting for experienced players and beginners alike, and Light is beginner-friendly, more relaxing and less challenging. On the topic of balancing, ever since the original release, Top Speed has reigned supreme as the most important attribute. Again, due to the game not taking place in a 3D space, it's impossible to make Top Speed less important. All else equal, the car with the highest top speed will inevitably win the race. That said, I tried to mitigate this issue a little. Now both Handling and especially Acceleration have a stronger effect on the car's behavior in the race, and that should make the low top speed cars more viable. Finally, since everything was changed, a whole new set of online leaderboards will be used for v1.3. The v1.2 records will still remain accessible from the legacy-v2 branch, but it wouldn't make sense to preserve them for the new builds. Time Trial ghosts and individual records will also be cleared, but the save file progress will carry over from v1.2 to v1.3. * New modes, more randomness When I added the Battle Royale mode to the game in v1.1, it was intended as kind of a joke. Back in 2018, when PUBG and Fortnite were starting to become massive hits, people joked that "now every game needs to have a battle royale mode" and I decided to actually do it. I didn't expect people to give much attention to that mode, but as the years passed I noticed experienced Slipstream players seem to really love that mode, and I think I understand its appeal: It takes almost no configuration, unlike Cannonball, and it's perfect for a relatively long, relaxing and varied race. The randomness is an important part of the equation, Battle Royale was the only "true" randomized mode (you can shuffle Cannonball tracks, but you can still see the track list before the race). Well, not anymore! The update brings randomized versions of Grand Tour and Grand Prix modes. Both follow the same rules as the default versions, but with a random pool of tracks. I'm also trying to give a little more love to the Reverse versions of the tracks, they have been in the game since v1.0, but always stayed tucked away in just two modes, one of them probably the least played of all. Now all the random modes (including Battle Royale) will reverse half of their tracks, for maximum unpredictability. That means 7 out of 15 possible Grand Tour stages will be reversed, and 2 out of 5 Grand Prix tracks. Also worth noting that, for these modes, the game can pick any of the available tracks, including the ones from diamond cup, and also... * Modding v0.1 The user content system is now finished and stable. There was a version in v1.2, but it was a little buggy and not properly tested. Now it's 100% functional, save for the occasional bug that's probably still hiding in there. However, I'm calling this "v0.1" instead of v1.0 because there are still many parts missing. A real modding system requires three things:

• Support in the game code itself. [finished]
• Specialized tools, like a track editor. [in alpha]
• Documentation on how to do it. [not started]

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well. I have an update for you today. There are few visible changes to the game, mostly bugfixes, with the notable exception of a new feature: A Photo Mode. Here are the notes for Slipstream v1.2.4:

• Photo Mode. When activated, the screen will be frozen and the HUD disabled. This will allow players to take better screenshots of the game. Pressing the CONFIRM key will toggle the HUD on/off, and pressing up/down will switch between some photo filters: normal, pixelated, CRT, NTSC, VHS. If you had a save file prior to this update, the photo mode will probably be assigned to the F7 key. This is because this feature used to be available only in my personal Debug/Test builds, and I used the F keys for debug-only stuff. The new default/recommended binding is TAB. If you restore the default controls or create a new save file, the game will restore the correct mapping. On gamepads, it's mapped to the equivalent of a 'select/back' button. I believe it's the 'share' button on PS4/PS5 controllers.
• New localizations: Greek and Russian. This addition might cause an unexpected language change for some players because, internally, the game stores the selected language as an index, and since two new languages were added to the list, the index stored in your save file might point to a different language now. If you can't find the option to restore your preferred language, just delete the settings file ([user home]/AppData/Roaming/ansdorGames/Slipstream/settings-1.2.bin on Windows) and the game will restore the default settings.
• As usual, bugfixes and difficulty adjustments. Notably, I had forgotten to re-implement the "darkness" effect in Mystic Cave, but it's back now.

Hello everyone, hope you're doing well. The news is out: Slipstream is finally coming to consoles, thanks to a partnership with BlitWorks, the company behind the modern ports of Sonic CD and Jet Set Radio, among many others. The release date will be April 7th, the base price will be the same as the PC version. It will be available for PS4/PS5, Xbox One/SS/SX, and Nintendo Switch. If you like the game, any kind of support is, of course, welcome. I haven't got my hands on a Steam Deck yet, but I believe the game will run fine on it, since it has a native Linux version and full support for Xbox-like controllers. In preparation for the new release, I come to you today with a new update. Here are the changes:

• Localization: Slipstream is now available in Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Turkish. The language can be changed from the Settings Menu. The UI was also changed in some places to accommodate the localized text.
• The speedometer now flashes briefly to indicate the rewind status. A green flash indicates the rewind is available to use, and a red flash indicates it's fully charged. This should help players know their rewind status while keeping their eyes on the road.
• The VHS Effect on the pause menu can now be turned off on the game Settings. This should make the menu text easier to read.
• Characters chosen by players no longer appear as rivals in Multiplayer Cannonball mode.
• The traffic car colors have been changed.

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well. A new update to Slipstream has been published, with a few relatively small but significant changes:

• The whole Automatic Drifting system has been reworked to be more ergonomic. The autodrift controls used to be a little stiff and too different from manual, but now they work almost exactly the same and should be easier for everyone to use.
• Text descriptions were added to the Main Menu and Car Select screens.
• Fixed a bug in Time Trial Mode where the ghost car would get desynchronized. The bug was strictly related to how the ghost plays, not to how it's recorded, so your existing ghosts should work without issue.

Hello everyone, hope you're doing well. First of all, I want to say I'm sorry. In November I published part of an update I was working on at the time, but the work had to be interrupted and the game was left in a very problematic, buggy state for two months. That earned me quite a few negative reviews and emails, and you were right, I shouldn't have left it that way, especially for so long, in such a critical time of the year. I hope this new update can serve as an apology for that mistake. Here are the major changes in version 1.2.1, now available for all platforms:

Difficulty Balancing

New Feature: Game Speed Control

Other Changes

• Fixed a major bug on windows where the game would freeze when closing the application.
• Fixed a bug on windows where the game would open a cmd.exe window along with the graphical one.
• Fixed a bug on time trial mode where the ghost car wouldn't start the race at the proper position.
• Fixed several bugs with the Steam Platform functionality in all versions of the game. If you got a trophy and it didn't show up on Steam, open the Trophies screen and it should be added to your account.
• Added description text to the weight classes on the main menu.
• Added the option to import saves from Slipstream 1.1.

After a year and a half of work, the new version of Slipstream is finally here. Calling it "1.2" is almost an understatementit is a full rewrite of the original code. Calling it "2.0" would make more sense. Initially, it was supposed to be just a "simple", straight rewrite of the original code, in preparation for a re-release (more on that later), however, as I rewrote parts of the code, I noticed there was a lot of room for improvement and decided to take a little more time and do the right thing, fix and add everything I thought was necessary. A 6-month project became a 1-year project that, as expected, took more than a year, but now it's here, and I'm very satisfied with the results. It's hard to even write a "changelog" because everything was changed, but I'll try to list all the major new features.

New AI, and no rubberbanding

New Mechanic: Rewind

Difficulties out, Weight Classes in

Stock Cars, Custom Cars, Grand Prix rework

Records, New Online Leaderboards

New character art and dialogue

Modding

Quality of Life, Miscellanea

• Alt+Enter now switches between fullscreen/windowed.
• The graphical changes in the settings menu now happen instantly; no need to 'apply changes'.
• The in-game radar now shows your distance from the adjacent racers/rivals.
• The screen now tilts when you turn the car.
• Screen Shake and Screen Tilt can be configured from the pause menu.
• The keyboard icons now show the actual keys to which they are boundno more X/C only.
• Battle Royale Mode can now be played with 4, 8 or 12 racers instead of always 16.
• NTSC Effect has been replaced with a faster/lighter version.
• Vibration has been reduced to a more sensible amount.
• Separate save slots for Single and Multiplayer in Grand Prix mode.

Re-Release & The Future

First of all, I want to say thank you, again, to everyone who's supported the game since launch. May 21st was the third anniversary of Slipstream, and I'm really happy to have all of you here. I hope you enjoy the news. It took me a lot longer than expected, as expected, but the 1.2 version is now playable. It's not complete (more on that later), but it's good enogh to advance to the next phase of testing, and you're all invited to try. It is currently in an optional beta branch, and only windows builds are available, but I'll eventually add builds for other platforms. (Also, let me know if you can run it with Proton, it didn't work on my computer but maybe it will for some of you.) So... what's new? First, let's get the negatives out of the way:

• Only 3 game modes are available: Grand Tour, Cannonball and Single Race.
• No achievements, the secret tracks are unlocked by default but the whole progression system is disabled for now. Also no leaderboards.
• No post-race information screens, game goes straight from gameplay back to the main menu when the race ends.
• No tutorial.
• Some of the settings, like difficulty and traffic density in cannonball mode, have no effect.
• The game is completely unbalanced in terms of difficulty, some races are too easy, some are impossible. I will try to fix this soon.
• In general, remember, this is BETA software, it's not finished. There are bugs, some things don't work yet, some parts of the audio and UI are missing, don't judge it based on polish right now. I guarantee it will have at least the same level of polish as the original.

• New mechanic: Time rewind. Hold SPACE (Y on gamepad) to rewind up to 5 seconds. There is currently no limit to this mechanic, other than the rewind time resetting after use, and this will probably be changed eventually. Also expect bugs, since this is a new mechanic, and a complex one from the programming side.
• New AI. The AI cars have been completely changed in all their behavior. They are now almost exactly equivalent to a player car, having access to the same mechanics, like the slipstream, and crashing/spinning like players. Also, all of the rubberbanding has been removed, the AI cars are exactly equal to the ones available for the players. The AI is still not 100% finished, so it will do some funny stuff now and then. The collision system has also been greatly improved and the physics of the game feel better now, at least in my opinion.
• New art for all the rivals, thanks to my talented friend Victor Leo, and new dialogue for most of them. I took the liberty of writing new lines for the kickstarter backer characters. If you are a backer and want to change something on your character, email me.
• Modding. The skeleton of the modding system is already implemented, but there is no documentation and no tools yet. If you want to poke around, take a look inside the assets/content/ folder. I will elaborate on this in the future, like making tools available and adding steamworks support.
• Some technical changes. You now Alt+Enter to switch fullscreen on/off, the camera tilts, and the settings menu was changed in some ways (no more 'apply graphics settings').

Hello everyone, I hope you're all doing fine. As you can probably see, the Slipstream 1.2 update I promised at the beginning of the year is not available yet. My initial deadline was the middle of the year, but with all the stuff happening around all of us, the plans had to change. I decided then to set the deadline for the winter sale, but again I couldn't make it in time. I'm really sad for that, because the winter sale is a huge deal for everyone on Steam and it would be the perfect opportunity to present an upgraded version of the game and hopefully get some extra sales, but unfortunately it didn't work. That said, I have a lot of new stuff to show you guys. If you are still interested in Slipstream, I hope this update will be worth the wait. I'm working very hard to polish the game as much as I can, and solve the problems in the current version. Here's a short summary of the new stuff that's coming to the game shortly.

• A Full Rewrite Just to give you some context before I get into details, the 1.2 update isn't just an update, it's a full rewrite of the whole game's code. Of course the game will still feel almost the same, I "translated" all the player-facing parts of the code using the same exact values, so for the player it will feel like a normal update, but under the hood everything has changed. That's why it's taking so long, basically.
• New & Improved AI I think this is the most critical issue in the game in its current form. The AI is just not good. The races aren't thrilling enough. It was, for the most part, the result of me not being a good enough programmer when I wrote the original version. For the new version, the AI is 100% brand new, and it's a lot smarter and more interesting than before. Getting a little bit more technical, the AI cars and player cars used to follow different rules. You can notice, in-game, how the AI is kind of stuck on a railroad path, breezing through the curves without any trouble. The AI and the players are exactly the same now. Instead of the AI being a special kind of car under special rules, it is functionally equivalent to a player, so all the rules apply: the AI can crash, use the slipstream, make mistakes, bump into each other, etc. It's impossible to stress how much this changes the gameplay, you have to play to understand. it feels like an entirely different game now, and it's probably the biggest new feature in the update. It's not completely finished yet, but here you can see it in action. A positive side effect was me being able to remove all the rubberbanding from the game, which was another thing that always bothered me a lot. In summary, the single player races are now closer, more consistent, more thrilling, better in every way.
• Modding! The second biggest new feature is modding support. There's been interest in modding the game since the original release, but there was no official support for it besides adding music to the in-game radio. The new version will support user-provided tracks (including scenery props, backgrounds and textures) and cars, which will open the opportunity for unprecedented customization and creativity. It will also allow me to easily add more content to the game in the future, if necessary. Here's a demonstration.
• Time Rewinding The last of the big new features is an entirely new mechanic, time rewinding. Slipstream used to be very... uh... intolerant of error. If you crashed a single time in a grand tour mode run, for example, it was pretty much impossible to beat the rival car. Now the player can go back in time for a few seconds and maybe undo the mistake that led to the crash. The fact that the player can now undo their mistakes, combined with the fact that the AI now can make mistakes has flipped the game upside down. There is now a more strategic depth in how the player has to think about the race. The time rewinding ability will be a limited resource, I still haven't decided on a precise value yet but I'll make it so the player can undo one mistake per lap at most (more in easy mode, less in hard mode) and managing the resource will become an actual gameplay feature. There's also a short demonstration of this feature in the video linked above in the AI section.
• Other Minor Changes & Bug Fixes The most noticeable visual change is that the camera now tilts on curves, which adds a more dramatic look to the whole thing. It's optional of course but it will be enabled by default. The entire game will be rebalanced, some cars will be nerfed/buffed because, without rubberbanding, having all the cars equally balanced becomes a lot more important. There will be entirely new leaderboards for the new version because it wouldn't make any sense to compare the new, post-balancing times with the old ones.

Hello everyone. First of all, I want to apologize for the lack of maintenance on this game in the past few months. I had personal problems and couldn't get the right amount of time and energy to do much productive work. I hope it's all settled now and I can resume my usual activity.I have received lots of bug reports lately but didn't respond to any. Again, I'm sorry for this. I said on the last update that some compatibilities may break, and they indeed broke. From what I could gather, the game isn't working anymore on older generations of Intel HD Graphics processors. Even though HD4000 and below are not oficially supported, as per the minimum requirements page, the game did run on those previously and stopped with the last update. I'd like to restore that, if possible. However, it isn't possible. At least not in the current state of the game. Slipstream was programmed in Java, and that has always been kind of a liability for the game. When I started the project, it was intended to be a mobile game (where using java makes more sense), and as it transformed into a PC game I never had a chance or really needed to rewrite it. LibGDX performs very well on PC, is cross-platform and had everything I needed to complete the project. However, after release, the weaknesses of the Java dependency became more apparent. It is very portable across PC platforms, but it's PC-only (that's why Slipstream was never released on consoles), it requires a huge runtime package to be shipped with the game and has an gigantic dependency chain: my code uses libgdx, libgdx uses lwjgl, lwjgl uses glfw and a bunch of other C/C++ libs. If any of those parts breaks compatibility, all the others break too. For all those reasons, I've decided to port Slipstream to a new software platform. This will give me more control over the code, hopefully less problems and more stability. I haven't made a definitive choice yet, but the more likely candidate is FNA. It's been used in lots of succesful games, proven its quality and stability, and is similar enough to the current Slipstream code to make the job of porting not too hard. That will hopefully fix the current issues and maybe other bugs along the way. But it will also take a while, a couple of months at least. If the game doesn't run on your PC after the last update, there isn't much I can do in the short-term, but I will work on a definitive long term solution. Finally, if you have issues with the game on officially supported hardware (Intel HD 5000 and above, any Nvidia/AMD GPU with OpenGL 3.3+ support), please send me an email detailing the problem. If you sent me an email in the last 3 or 4 months and I didn't reply, please send another. TL; DR:

• Active maintenance on Slipstream is now resumed, sorry for the downtime.
• The game will be ported to a new software back-end to avoid the java runtime dependency. It's gonna take a while but I hope it's worth it.
• If you have issues, contact me. I will respond now.

Hello everyone. After a silent update from 1.1.9 to 1.1.10, which was just a bugfix release, here comes another one. The only change made to the game itself was:

• bug fix on time trial mode that failed to register your best lap if it was not the last lap (how did I miss this one for so long? I'm sorry!)

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing fine. Slipstream's 1 year release anniversary is coming soon and I wanted to update a few things before then. Here's version 1.1.9. The biggest change is the addition of a new control option: Automatic Drifting. It's similar to the 'simplified controls' that were already available on the multiplayer mode, but now it's a lot more intuitive and responsive. It's also available on all modes, single and multiplayer. That's probably the biggest quality of life update this game has ever had, and I hope it improves the experience for people who didn't like the drifting controls. For those who did like them, manual drifting is still the default option and works the same way it has always been. Other changes:

• difficulty has been adjusted across various modes, most notably cannonball and battle royale
• the game camera is now a little closer to the ground than it used to be
• the visibility in Mystic Cave was increased. I went too hard on that track, sorry.
• signs indicating curves have been added to a few tracks (neon city, mystic cave)
• assorted bug fixes, collision changes, all the usual stuff

another minor update: - fixed the bug in tutorial mode. due to an oversight, the car speed was being reset to zero when you restart a part of the tutorial. now that doesn't happen anymore and the tutorial can actually be completed again - reduced the difficulty of easy mode a little. I've seen a lot of complaints from new players (including some negative reviews) that the game is too hard. being a little hard is intentional but easy mode is supposed to give a more relaxed experience. the normal/hard difficulties remain the same that's all, thanks!

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well. Slipstream was updated to version 1.1.7, with a fix to the Xbox One controller vibration bug. I was able to reproduce the bug on both of my windows machines and the changes made to this version fixed it on both of them, so hopefully this will apply to all cases. You can re-enable controller vibration if you want. Nothing else was changed on this version. I got some other bug reports (which I'll look into now), but this was the only problem that was reported by more than one user. So... That's all. Thanks for playing Slipstream!

Slipstream was featured in the humble monthly march 2019 package and that brought in a lot of new players to the game. And with the new players, new bugs are found. Some users reported huge FPS drops when using a bluetooth Xbox One controller, specifically when the game tries to make the controller vibrate, such as when you start to accelerate the car. This issue seems to be happening exclusively on windows, with a wireless xbox one controller. Unfortunately I don't have a working xbox one controller with me at the moment, and we're in the middle of a holiday week here in Brazil. The earliest time I'll be able to send a definitive fix to this problem will be wednesday (march 6th), but thursday is a more realistic estimate. For now, the only temporary solution I can suggest is to disable vibration on the settings menu. This seemed to fix the issue for everyone who reported it. I hope to provide a definitive fix as soon as possible. Another issue that gets reported to me from time to time is that the graphical settings don't work, or something similar. Here's a step by step guide to the graphics options, i.e. it applies to all the options above the "apply graphics settings":

• change the settings you want, such as resolution, fullscreen on/off and filters
• go to 'apply graphics settings', press confirm
• choose 'keep the current settings' on the next menu and press confirm again

Some people wrote to me asking various things about controller support and keybindings, and since I never documented this feature very well, I'll try to do that now and maybe answer other potential questions. Keybinding (hopefully) works as you might expect: you select an action, press a button and that button is mapped to that action. But there are a few quirks I'd like to explain in more detail.

• The new keybidings start working immediately, as soon as you map the new key to an action, it is the only way to perform that action. So if you rebind menu actions like up, down, confirm or cancel, the only way to exit the menu is to use the new bindings.
• Keyboard and Gamepad work slightly differently.
  • On the keyboard, confirm and accelerate are always mapped to the same key, and so are cancel and brake. So the menu keys and game keys are always the same.
  • On the gamepad, "menu keys" (confirm and cancel) and "game keys" (accelerate and brake) are treated as different groups. You can map one action from each group to the same key. For example, you can have accelerate + confirm mapped to the same key, or accelerate + cancel, but obviously not accelerate + brake. One car action + one menu action. You can also, of course, map each action to a different key, as is the case with the default configuration: RT and LT for the car actions, A and B for the menu actions.
• I tried to make it impossible to get completely stuck on the menu with the keybidings, the game tries to prevent all contradictions I could think of, BUT if you manage to get stuck with unusable keybindings, hard-reset to the default settings deleting the "controls.dat" file located at
  • on Windows: [user home]/AppData/Roaming/ansdorGames/Slipstream (the AppData folder is hidden by default)
  • on macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/ansdorGames/Slipstream
  • on Linux: ~/.config/ansdorGames/Slipstream
• Key configurations are stored in a per-model basis, so if you have two identical controllers with the same internal ID they will necessarily share the same bindings. This may be an issue for some of you but I couldn't think of a solution that would not make the internal system a lot more complex (and prone to bugs) than it already is, so I left it that way to avoid other, worse possible problems. This will probably never be changed.
• The game currently does NOT update the key icons for rebound keys on the UI. I might change this in the future but right now it will always show A/B as the default confirm/cancel buttons. This is merely a UI issue, it does not affect the actual controls.
• If your gamepad doesn't work or is not recognized, there isn't much I can do. Slipstream provides gamepad support via an open source gamepad library called Jamepad, which itself uses the libSDL gamepad database. I have no control over which gamepad models they support. I can only offer official support for the Xbox One controller, so if you have problems with this model, contact me. Otherwise I suggest using an xbox compatibility layer/emulator. Gamepads are not all standardized and it's impossible to provide support for all of them, even for big companies, let alone a solo indie developer. (Off the record: I have, however, personally tested the game with the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller, Razer Serval, Sony DS4 and 8bitdo SF-30 pro (on Xinput mode), and they all worked out of the box on Windows and Linux. So if you have one of these there's a good chance it will work, but I can't guarantee anything) I guess that's all. If you have any further questions, send me an email. Happy new year everyone!
  
  [ 2018-12-15 23:12:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

as expected, a lot of unexpected bugs surfaced since the 1.1 update. I've been trying to fix them one by one, and this is the third minor update since 1.1. some people were experiencing crashes when the game tried to re-set vsync on, so I removed the vsync confirmation step. this game is designed to run with vsync always on, it will match your monitor's refresh rate and keep the physics consistent no matter what framerate it's running. I tested it on all my systems and the game stayed at 60fps, as it should. if you notice your GPU is making too much noise and/or the framerate looks choppy after the update, please send me an email (me [at] ansdor dot com).

Slipstream 1.1 is finally here, and it's a huge update.

LOCAL MULTIPLAYER

NEW GAME MODE: CANNONBALL

NEW GAME MODE: BATTLE ROYALE

NEW GAME MODE: TIME TRIAL

NEW PHYSICS, BETTER CONTROLS

SOUNDTRACK CUSTOMIZATION

• On Windows: [user home]/AppData/Roaming/ansdorGames/Slipstream/music
• On MacOS: [user home]/Library/Application Support/ansdorGames/Slipstream/music
• On Linux: [user home]/.config/ansdorGames/Slipstream/music

SIMPLIFIED CONTROL SCHEME

BETTER GRAPHICAL OPTIONS

OTHER SMALL CHANGES

Some users have reported trouble running Slipstream, the game crashes at startup and never runs properly. It affects especially people on laptops with core i3 processors, and seems to be related to a bug in the JVM being used by the game. Slipstream requires a java runtime environment to run, and it includes its own customized (reduced) JVM for this purpose. The version I was using previously was pretty old (JRE 8), and the problem seemed to be related to that particular version, so I updated the underlying system to the latest version, JRE 10. The practical effects: if the game was running fine, hopefully it will continue running fine. If the game crashes at startup, hopefully it won't anymore. However, there is a small compromise: JRE 10 doesn't seem to support 32-bit systems, so the game will only run on 64 bit systems from now on. I don't think this will be a big problem, most people are running 64-bit OSes by now, but IF there is significant demand for 32-bit compatibility, I will revert back to JRE 8. If not, I'll leave it as it is now. If this goes well, it will fix THE #1 most reported problem with the game, and I'll be free to work on new features from now on. If you find any problems, get in touch with me via email. Thanks.

The Slipstream 1.0.2 patch is now live. Changelog: - The #1 most requested feature is now implemented: fully customizable keybindings for both keyboard and gamepads. (NOTE: Slipstream only has *official* support for Xbox Controllers, both 360 and One. I can't guarantee that any other type of controller will work, but they may). - The AI system has been pretty much completely rewritten, the AI should feel more "real" now. This is a lot of new code and it may get small updates/patches over the next weeks. - The car collision physics have also been rewritten. - Quick Race mode can now be customized. You can choose between 1 (racing alone) to 30 racers on the track, and also the number of laps. - A cumulative timer has been added to Grand Prix mode. - Various parts of the main menu have been changed. Most notably, now you can see a more detailed view of your save file's progress. - Various bugfixes and small tweaks That's all.

The latest update to Slipstream has been published, and it brings the minimum requirements down to the lowest possible versions of OpenGL and related libraries. Hopefully this will fix compatibility issues some users have been reporting. There were also small changes to the gameplay, mainly reducing the amount of traffic on arcade mode, which has been an issue for some people. Some users have raised the topic of key mapping, since Slipstream doesn't allow it yet. I have taken note and will try to add this feature on the next update. If the compatibility problems are fixed, I'm gonna start working on the 1.1 version ASAP, which will include a local multiplayer mode. That's all for now.