Oct 17, 2016

GRIP Multplayer testing now available on the private Steam branch!

GRIP: Combat Racing - Chris@CE

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GRIP MULTIPLAYER testing is now available in the Private branch on Steam!!
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We're excited to have our dedicated community finally be able to play the game online with friends and strangers alike. If you're able to jump on and test the game this week, that would really help us, as we're trying to get a public version out ASAP!

This testing phase is exclusive to people who backed our website funding campaign.

(If you haven't accessed the private branch for GRIP on Steam yet, the code is "SnarSn4r5n4r". Enter it, then opt into the the private beta) This is basically a gift to our active Steam members who have been dedicated to the game but weren't able to back our website campaign. Thanks for being great fans and constantly supporting us!

The multiplayer menu has options for Find a Game, Join a Game, Create a Game and local Splitscreen. Finding a game allows you to input a preferred configuration to search for, with the game finding an event that most suits your search criteria. Joining a game requires you to know the game's specific name, which is the best way to play with friends.There are currently some issues with the game, but that's to be expected with the first iteration of multiplayer functionality.

Here is a list of known issues or features we need to add
Multiplayer:

*NEW* Fatal errors: Sometimes when trying to join a game, you may get a fatal error. This had not popped up in internal testing, so apologies if it happens to you. Be sure to end the process "Music Player" in task manager if the game does crash, or you won't be able to run it again.
Arena Mode: There is an issue where the player's vehicle may act very strangely, floating and sliding around. This occurs after getting destroyed, but may not be consistent or persistent, or might not happen at all.
Although bots can be enabled in multiplayer games, they may cause performance issues for players with older hardware. If you are running the game on medium or low, we suggest disabling bots when creating an online game. Be advised though, that some games you find online will have bots enabled.
Sometimes map voting is a bit bugged, in that the wrong selections will show for the game mode. This is usually fixed by changing the game mode a few times
Sometimes the info feed will say a player has joined the game when they're already connected
When spectating cars, the player name is not shown.. This will be added soon.
Cars can intersect with each other if some users have a bad net connection
Lobby chat and ingame quickchat need an anti-spam filter
When spectating in multiplayer, there is a bug where you may not hear vehicle engine sounds.
When an event is starting, the syncing time may take longer if someone with a lower-end PC is joining
Pickup balancing can be a bit distorted in multiplayer, with players being able to grab the same thing multiple times in a row. We are looking into this

Levels:

New Liddo5 map (Islands)! We totally left it in there by accident.. but hey, now we can get more feedback. It's in extremely early stages and there's not even enough spawns for 10 cars, but it's a good indication of how cool it'll be :) Enjoy it while it's still available!
Transport: There are a few areas of the map where you can reset outside of the race tunnel and fall into the void. These will be fixed soon
Alhatra Wastes: The car likes to bounce around more on this map than any other, unfortunately. Also, the map still needs some flow work, including a rebuild of the upper path to the left past the bridge in the forwards direction

General:

The menu only has mouse support right now.We will be adding gamepad support as soon as we can
You might lose your previous vehicle customization after updating GRIP on Steam. Sorry! We'll have car customization saving in the game hopefully soon.
You may experience some bouncier or floatier vehicle physics in this build. This is due to us updating our custom Unreal build to 4.12. We'll be looking into fixing these issues inNovember
The game can sometimes freeze if player is alt-tabbing during the loading screen. Try not to alt-tab when it's loading ;)
A small amount of users with older GPUs may experience performance decreases with this patch. We've just updated our custom version of Unreal Engine to 4.12 and are still optimizing
For very few users the game may freeze periodically while playing. This is an issue associated with UE4, of which Epic are aware. If you experience this, some possible workarounds can be found HERE or HERE

We're doing our best to fix as many of these issues as possible for the next patch, which will hopefully be a public release of multiplayer!

If you want to give feedback, or need to report any issues, please visit our forum (be sure to check the bugs and crashes lists before posting):
http://www.cagedelement.com/forum

Or you can visit the Steam Page

To all of our players, thank you for supporting us, and we hope you'll like what we've got coming in our next updates!

Oct 17, 2016

GRIP Multplayer testing now available on the private Steam branch!

GRIP: Combat Racing - Chris@CE

*NEW* Fatal errors: Sometimes when trying to join a game, you may get a fatal error. This had not popped up in internal testing, so apologies if it happens to you. Be sure to end the process "Music Player" in task manager if the game does crash, or you won't be able to run it again.
Arena Mode: There is an issue where the player's vehicle may act very strangely, floating and sliding around. This occurs after getting destroyed, but may not be consistent or persistent, or might not happen at all.
Although bots can be enabled in multiplayer games, they may cause performance issues for players with older hardware. If you are running the game on medium or low, we suggest disabling bots when creating an online game. Be advised though, that some games you find online will have bots enabled.
Sometimes map voting is a bit bugged, in that the wrong selections will show for the game mode. This is usually fixed by changing the game mode a few times
Sometimes the info feed will say a player has joined the game when they're already connected
When spectating cars, the player name is not shown.. This will be added soon.
Cars can intersect with each other if some users have a bad net connection
Lobby chat and ingame quickchat need an anti-spam filter
When spectating in multiplayer, there is a bug where you may not hear vehicle engine sounds.
When an event is starting, the syncing time may take longer if someone with a lower-end PC is joining
Pickup balancing can be a bit distorted in multiplayer, with players being able to grab the same thing multiple times in a row. We are looking into this

Levels:

New Liddo5 map (Islands)! We totally left it in there by accident.. but hey, now we can get more feedback. It's in extremely early stages and there's not even enough spawns for 10 cars, but it's a good indication of how cool it'll be :) Enjoy it while it's still available!
Transport: There are a few areas of the map where you can reset outside of the race tunnel and fall into the void. These will be fixed soon
Alhatra Wastes: The car likes to bounce around more on this map than any other, unfortunately. Also, the map still needs some flow work, including a rebuild of the upper path to the left past the bridge in the forwards direction

General:

The menu only has mouse support right now.We will be adding gamepad support as soon as we can
You might lose your previous vehicle customization after updating GRIP on Steam. Sorry! We'll have car customization saving in the game hopefully soon.
You may experience some bouncier or floatier vehicle physics in this build. This is due to us updating our custom Unreal build to 4.12. We'll be looking into fixing these issues inNovember
The game can sometimes freeze if player is alt-tabbing during the loading screen. Try not to alt-tab when it's loading ;)
A small amount of users with older GPUs may experience performance decreases with this patch. We've just updated our custom version of Unreal Engine to 4.12 and are still optimizing
For very few users the game may freeze periodically while playing. This is an issue associated with UE4, of which Epic are aware. If you experience this, some possible workarounds can be found HERE or HERE

Sep 16, 2016

GRIP Update v.1.1.0 is now available!

GRIP: Combat Racing - Chris@CE

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GRIP Early Access Release v.1.1.0 is now on Steam!
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NOTE: We debated releasing MULTIPLAYER with this patch, but stability issues convinced us otherwise. We're working hard to get multiplayer integrated ASAP. Game dev will be game dev :/

Even without multiplayer, this is our biggest patch yet, with a ton of new content including a brand new MENU, a new VEHICLE, better CAR PHYSICS the new CARKOUR game mode, a new TRACK, and much more. Tons of things to keep you busy!

NOTE: GAMEPAD NAVIGATION IS NOT CURRENTLY WORKING IN THE MENU. We'll do our best to get it in with the Multiplayer patch

Other known issues with v.1.1.0:

Your input and car customization settings may not save the first time running the game. Subsequent runs of the game seem to save them properly.
Input assignment can be buggy. This will be fixed for next patch
Car colour customization in the garage can be strange when trying to achieve pure white. Try moving the hue bar to yellow if the car isn't bright enough.
Pickups balancing has a bug where you may get the same pickup more often than you should. We are looking into it.
Music ingame can stop playing. If this happens, exit the event and change the music volume value to try and reset it.
You may very rarely get a crash. If the game does crash, be sure to go into task manager and kill the process "Music Player" or Steam will still think the game is running
21:9 and other wide aspect ratios have a bug where the HUD isn't centering properly. We are working on it.
Car rims turn red once the first LOD distance is hit. We'll fix this for next patch
In Carkour, if you make it to the end of the course but fail to grab the collectible, the end camera may get stuck even after reset. If this happens, you'll need to back to the menu and reload the map. This will be fixed for next patch
Sometimes the car exhaust effects fail to appear until the accelerator is let go an engaged again
Slow motion has been removed from the game for now, but the input value still exists in the settings

Here is the FULL CHANGELIST for patch 1.1.0:

Gameplay:

A new Cygon Cyclone car is now playable, with it's own sounds and visual effects. This vehicle is of the Speedster class, which is the same class as the Dominator. A middle class car is coming very soon, and we think you'll love it (Note: a new shield design specific to the Cygon manufacturer will be coming later as well)
The vehicle physics now have code that prevents the cars from launching into the air so much. You'll see a drastic improvement in how the car interacts with terrain and rocks. The cars also feel heavier upon landing
New Carkour game mode: This is our homage to Scramble mode from Rollcage Stage 2. This mode has you navigating an obstacle course to grab collectibles in the fastest time possible.
New Ultimate Race game mode: Instead of ranking the racers on just their position, Ultimate mode takes into account things like weapons use, average speed, and lap times to tally up a points total for each player. The player with the most points by the end of the race, wins.
Arena mode is now improved, with traditional deathmatch gameplay and more modes coming later.
Catch-up implementation is improved, with less obvious change in vehicle speeds. This helps keep the race pack together

Levels:

New Racetrack set on Liddo5 called Speedbowl! This track is our homage to a certain track from the original Rollcage ;) It's quite a simple map, but also a LOT of fun
Liddo 5 - Biodome: Overall layout and visual quality is much better, with a bunch of different ways to traverse the level. AI now use the ceiling of the dome as well. This map is a good showcase for fun Arena mode gameplay, and more arenas will be coming within the next few months
Norvos - FIC Outpost: Improved flow, smoothed terrain, added more pickups, improved overall visual quality and layout. Fixed a few collision issues, plus an issue where race checkpoints weren't working properly (The map is still very WIP)
Jahtra - Alhatra Wastes: Improved flow and greatly improved visual quality, with new structures throughout the map. Also improved AI pathing and performance. This map is still WIP, as some areas need re-doing and the reverse version's routes are not finished
Liddo 5 - Transport: Improved visual quality and fixed some collision issues
Jahtra - Yuri Industrial: Improved flow, AI pathing and tunnel entrance collision to be less frustrating
Festive: Removed this map for now, as it will be exclusive to the holiday season.

UI:

We have a brand new Menu, which is at least 100x better than the previous one. We're pretty proud of it :D This new menu also includes a GARAGE where you can customize your vehicles with different paint jobs, tires and rims. This is just the beginning of our car customization options.
The settings menu has a plethora of options for your tweaking pleasure, including FOV adjustment, HUD opacity, force feedback on/off, HUD damage effects on/off, FPS limiter and plenty of screen options
There is now a custom music jukebox in the audio options. Just drag your music into the jukebox folder and enable it in the menu to hear your tunes ingame!
The pause menu now has all the settings available from the main menu for easy adjustment
The HUD is improved in that it's easier to read and has more information. We've also added an indicator for mines on the track, as well as changed how missile targeting works, so let us know what you think of them
Input customization is now available in the settings menu. You're now able to set up your controls however you like! (NOTE: Some issues may occur with remapping controls. We're still working on them)

Pickups:

Missile navigation improved, plus fixed issues with specific parts of levels causing an assassin collision
Raptor MG now targets mines effectively, destroying them with one bullet
Pickup balancing is now better (though there are a couple bugs that need to be addressed)

Visual:

Chase camera improvements: You can now orbit the camera around the car, crashing is less disorienting, overall direction of camera is more intuitive
Cinematic cameras in demo mode/end of race improved, as well as depth of field effect

Audio:

Some tweaked and added sounds
Just a reminder that many sounds in the game (including car engines) are first versions and are subject to change/improve

Optimization/fixes:

Particle effects have been optimized and players should see an overall performance increase
Added LOD models for various level meshes, optimized some particle effects

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming in the next update:

MULTIPLAYER

Coming in the next few updates:

Player stats
Two new cars
A new racetrack
A new arena
More Carkour maps
An additional weapon

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback. If you want to give feedback, or need to report any issues, please visit our forum (be sure to check the bugs and crashes lists before posting):
http://www.cagedelement.com/forum

Or visit the GRIP discussions page on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/app/396900/discussions/

To all of our players, thank you for supporting us, and we hope you'll like what we've got coming in our next updates!

Sep 16, 2016

GRIP Update v.1.1.0 is now available!

GRIP: Combat Racing - Chris@CE

Your input and car customization settings may not save the first time running the game. Subsequent runs of the game seem to save them properly.
Input assignment can be buggy. This will be fixed for next patch
Car colour customization in the garage can be strange when trying to achieve pure white. Try moving the hue bar to yellow if the car isn't bright enough.
Pickups balancing has a bug where you may get the same pickup more often than you should. We are looking into it.
Music ingame can stop playing. If this happens, exit the event and change the music volume value to try and reset it.
You may very rarely get a crash. If the game does crash, be sure to go into task manager and kill the process "Music Player" or Steam will still think the game is running
21:9 and other wide aspect ratios have a bug where the HUD isn't centering properly. We are working on it.
Car rims turn red once the first LOD distance is hit. We'll fix this for next patch
In Carkour, if you make it to the end of the course but fail to grab the collectible, the end camera may get stuck even after reset. If this happens, you'll need to back to the menu and reload the map. This will be fixed for next patch
Sometimes the car exhaust effects fail to appear until the accelerator is let go an engaged again
Slow motion has been removed from the game for now, but the input value still exists in the settings

Here is the FULL CHANGELIST for patch 1.1.0:

Gameplay:

A new Cygon Cyclone car is now playable, with it's own sounds and visual effects. This vehicle is of the Speedster class, which is the same class as the Dominator. A middle class car is coming very soon, and we think you'll love it (Note: a new shield design specific to the Cygon manufacturer will be coming later as well)
The vehicle physics now have code that prevents the cars from launching into the air so much. You'll see a drastic improvement in how the car interacts with terrain and rocks. The cars also feel heavier upon landing
New Carkour game mode: This is our homage to Scramble mode from Rollcage Stage 2. This mode has you navigating an obstacle course to grab collectibles in the fastest time possible.
New Ultimate Race game mode: Instead of ranking the racers on just their position, Ultimate mode takes into account things like weapons use, average speed, and lap times to tally up a points total for each player. The player with the most points by the end of the race, wins.
Arena mode is now improved, with traditional deathmatch gameplay and more modes coming later.
Catch-up implementation is improved, with less obvious change in vehicle speeds. This helps keep the race pack together

Levels:

New Racetrack set on Liddo5 called Speedbowl! This track is our homage to a certain track from the original Rollcage ;) It's quite a simple map, but also a LOT of fun
Liddo 5 - Biodome: Overall layout and visual quality is much better, with a bunch of different ways to traverse the level. AI now use the ceiling of the dome as well. This map is a good showcase for fun Arena mode gameplay, and more arenas will be coming within the next few months
Norvos - FIC Outpost: Improved flow, smoothed terrain, added more pickups, improved overall visual quality and layout. Fixed a few collision issues, plus an issue where race checkpoints weren't working properly (The map is still very WIP)
Jahtra - Alhatra Wastes: Improved flow and greatly improved visual quality, with new structures throughout the map. Also improved AI pathing and performance. This map is still WIP, as some areas need re-doing and the reverse version's routes are not finished
Liddo 5 - Transport: Improved visual quality and fixed some collision issues
Jahtra - Yuri Industrial: Improved flow, AI pathing and tunnel entrance collision to be less frustrating
Festive: Removed this map for now, as it will be exclusive to the holiday season.

UI:

We have a brand new Menu, which is at least 100x better than the previous one. We're pretty proud of it :D This new menu also includes a GARAGE where you can customize your vehicles with different paint jobs, tires and rims. This is just the beginning of our car customization options.
The settings menu has a plethora of options for your tweaking pleasure, including FOV adjustment, HUD opacity, force feedback on/off, HUD damage effects on/off, FPS limiter and plenty of screen options
There is now a custom music jukebox in the audio options. Just drag your music into the jukebox folder and enable it in the menu to hear your tunes ingame!
The pause menu now has all the settings available from the main menu for easy adjustment
The HUD is improved in that it's easier to read and has more information. We've also added an indicator for mines on the track, as well as changed how missile targeting works, so let us know what you think of them
Input customization is now available in the settings menu. You're now able to set up your controls however you like! (NOTE: Some issues may occur with remapping controls. We're still working on them)

Pickups:

Missile navigation improved, plus fixed issues with specific parts of levels causing an assassin collision
Raptor MG now targets mines effectively, destroying them with one bullet
Pickup balancing is now better (though there are a couple bugs that need to be addressed)

Visual:

Chase camera improvements: You can now orbit the camera around the car, crashing is less disorienting, overall direction of camera is more intuitive
Cinematic cameras in demo mode/end of race improved, as well as depth of field effect

Audio:

Some tweaked and added sounds
Just a reminder that many sounds in the game (including car engines) are first versions and are subject to change/improve

Optimization/fixes:

Particle effects have been optimized and players should see an overall performance increase
Added LOD models for various level meshes, optimized some particle effects

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming in the next update:

MULTIPLAYER

Coming in the next few updates:

Player stats
Two new cars
A new racetrack
A new arena
More Carkour maps
An additional weapon