Sonic Beat update April 18 2016:
Hi everyone! Work continues on Sonic Beat and a new update has been published to Google Play and iTunes TestFlight. Here are the changes:
[CHANGE] Song Intensity is now called Song Difficulty for clarity. As a result, we will be referring to charts in a song as Easy, Medium, Hard, Challenge, and Custom.
[CHANGE] Swipe notes are now larger and more contrast-y.
[CHANGE] We now use our own audio engine. Over time, this will allow us to reign in all the weirdness across various Android hardware configurations. iOS remains solid.
[CHANGE] Judgements now have a visual effect applied to them to ensure legibility in peripheral vision. Also it just looks cooler this way.
[ADDITION] More advertising partners to alleviate not being able to view an ad for a free play.
[FIX] Crash during Song Request if library contained a butt-load of songs
[FIX] Crash during StepMania Import if import folder contained a butt-load of songs
[FIX] Instances where multiple versions of a song in the library might confuse Sonic Beat's audio slicing magic.
[FIX] Crash if song quit via menu after passing or failing.
[FIX] Accuracy of BPM changes for calculations done on Beat. This should fix Stop timings in several songs, but the fix for arbitrary stop lengths is forthcoming. (thank you gameboy573)
[FIX] Alphabetical sorting is now case-insensitive. (thank you gameboy573)
[FIX] Judgement location is now constantly below the note target on all screen sizes.
[FIX] iOS will no longer bully Sonic Beat into playing music when it's not supposed to, such as when the device is unlocked or breathed upon too hard.
This week we'll be focusing on reported issues with offset timing on some of the downloadable charts. (May I just call them DLC? I mean, they're not, but they're similar...) With audio engine improvements having been made the last several weeks, adjustments to support the older engine are no longer necessary. This is great all around, as it also affects StepMania and custom song imports, and now we need to make the DLC fall in line. Please continue to report simfiles that do not play exactly the same timing in Sonic Beat as they do in StepMania, as this may lead to bug fixes.
Meanwhile, Jason is performing a brain transplant on the gameplay scene. The way it was originally built was designed to save resources on older phones, but we're learning that there is a better way to build the scene that will also fix a lot of problems as a happy side-effect. It should allow us to support crazy Stop timings, and it should solve the problem of individual notes spawning just barely out of sync if you're on a very slow device. This is a huge change and we expect it to take the entirety of this week, if not longer.
Once again, thank you for your support and excitement as progress continues. Leave a comment below to let us know what you think!
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Sonic Beat update April 11 2016:
Last week we launched the public beta for Sonic Beat, and the reception has been stellar! Several people have been enjoying the game, some of them brand new to rhythm gaming, and we've been getting a ton of useful feedback and feature requests along the way.
Shout outs to RIME and Matthew B. for thoroughly testing the StepMania import feature and identifying areas we can improve upon before launch. We're happy to say the feature not only works pretty well, but the simfiles translate nicely into Sonic Beat's gameplay. Here's a video highlight of Friday's streaming test using the import feature.
You can watch the full broadcast test here:
https://www.twitch.tv/vampirebox/v/59465011?t=01h14m58s
And with that, we're just getting started. Future updates to this thread will include more detailed updates and a changelog as the project progresses.
Hi everyone! Work continues on Sonic Beat and a new update has been published to Google Play and iTunes TestFlight. Here are the changes:
[CHANGE] Song Intensity is now called Song Difficulty for clarity. As a result, we will be referring to charts in a song as Easy, Medium, Hard, Challenge, and Custom.
[CHANGE] Swipe notes are now larger and more contrast-y.
[CHANGE] We now use our own audio engine. Over time, this will allow us to reign in all the weirdness across various Android hardware configurations. iOS remains solid.
[CHANGE] Judgements now have a visual effect applied to them to ensure legibility in peripheral vision. Also it just looks cooler this way.
[ADDITION] More advertising partners to alleviate not being able to view an ad for a free play.
[FIX] Crash during Song Request if library contained a butt-load of songs
[FIX] Crash during StepMania Import if import folder contained a butt-load of songs
[FIX] Instances where multiple versions of a song in the library might confuse Sonic Beat's audio slicing magic.
[FIX] Crash if song quit via menu after passing or failing.
[FIX] Accuracy of BPM changes for calculations done on Beat. This should fix Stop timings in several songs, but the fix for arbitrary stop lengths is forthcoming. (thank you gameboy573)
[FIX] Alphabetical sorting is now case-insensitive. (thank you gameboy573)
[FIX] Judgement location is now constantly below the note target on all screen sizes.
[FIX] iOS will no longer bully Sonic Beat into playing music when it's not supposed to, such as when the device is unlocked or breathed upon too hard.
This week we'll be focusing on reported issues with offset timing on some of the downloadable charts. (May I just call them DLC? I mean, they're not, but they're similar...) With audio engine improvements having been made the last several weeks, adjustments to support the older engine are no longer necessary. This is great all around, as it also affects StepMania and custom song imports, and now we need to make the DLC fall in line. Please continue to report simfiles that do not play exactly the same timing in Sonic Beat as they do in StepMania, as this may lead to bug fixes.
Meanwhile, Jason is performing a brain transplant on the gameplay scene. The way it was originally built was designed to save resources on older phones, but we're learning that there is a better way to build the scene that will also fix a lot of problems as a happy side-effect. It should allow us to support crazy Stop timings, and it should solve the problem of individual notes spawning just barely out of sync if you're on a very slow device. This is a huge change and we expect it to take the entirety of this week, if not longer.
Once again, thank you for your support and excitement as progress continues. Leave a comment below to let us know what you think!
-----
Sonic Beat update April 11 2016:
Last week we launched the public beta for Sonic Beat, and the reception has been stellar! Several people have been enjoying the game, some of them brand new to rhythm gaming, and we've been getting a ton of useful feedback and feature requests along the way.
Shout outs to RIME and Matthew B. for thoroughly testing the StepMania import feature and identifying areas we can improve upon before launch. We're happy to say the feature not only works pretty well, but the simfiles translate nicely into Sonic Beat's gameplay. Here's a video highlight of Friday's streaming test using the import feature.
You can watch the full broadcast test here:
https://www.twitch.tv/vampirebox/v/59465011?t=01h14m58s
And with that, we're just getting started. Future updates to this thread will include more detailed updates and a changelog as the project progresses.
Last edited: 18 April 2016 10:09am