But if you've already got the game, jump on in and try out the biggest update BCDM has had to date! A fluid, linear campaign system with both laid back balloon popping missions, and some very challenging challenges and achievements!
If you've not yet read the patch notes, you can see them in full below!
---------------------------------------- New Campaign Mode ----------------------------------------
Brand new Single-Player Campaign mode with a linear mission system!
> Five core missions and two challenge missions in the first map, Floatonia City
> Each mission has a target score to achieve a bronze, silver and gold medal
> Score at least a bronze on a core mission to unlock the next one
> Core missions are designed to be fun, but also help the player get into the gameplay and understand the controls more naturally
> Getting a bronze is relatively easy and most players should be able to achieve it in a few tries
> However gold medals are very difficult to obtain, so focus and make sure not to miss the 100 point balloon!
> Challenge missions are unlocked by getting silver medals on certain missions
> Challenge missions are intentionally difficult and represent a real challenge for even skilled players
> Complete all five core missions to unlock new maps which will be released in subsequent updates!
> If you feel discomfort in the game, try each of these, then both. During our testing we found that everyone who previously felt discomfort was able to play the game for a long time with one of the comfort settings enabled.
Some players gave us feedback that they were feeling discomfort while playing BCDM so we wanted to get together some basic comfort settings as quickly as possible to see if they helped.
We've tested out the comfort settings on some of our lab rats colleagues in the studio and we've had a lot of success with even the most extreme cases of VR discomfort finding themselves being able to play several games of BCDM without any problem!
There are two types of comfort setting in BCDM. The reduced Field of View Vignette and the Frame of Reference cage.
Reduced Field of View Vignette You can activate the reduced Field of View Vignette by pressing the 1 key on your keyboard at any point during a battle. Pressing it a second time removes the vignette.
The vignette limits a player's field of view which can be one of the major causes of discomfort for some. The below image isn't entirely representative of what you see with the headset on, but you get the idea :)
Frame of Reference 'Cage' Nope it's not Nicolas Cage acting as your frame of reference. The frame of reference cage creates a solid frame that sits around your chair to act as a frame of reference while you move your head around in VR.
You can activate the Frame of Reference Cage by pressing the 2 key on your keyboard at any point during a battle. Pressing it a second time removes the cage.
Having a frame of reference is all some people need for their brains to understand how objects are moving relative to them in VR and can deal with a lot of the discomfort.
For both of the above comfort settings, please be aware that different people suffer from VR discomfort for different reasons. If you feel discomfort, try one of the two, then try the other, then try both.
Once you've done that please give us your feedback on whether the settings improved your experience at any one of these channels:
Discord - https://discord.gg/JwYYbk9
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/balloonchairdeathmatch
Twitter - https://twitter.com/OfficialBCDM
Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/BCDM/
> Big ammo/gas pickups no longer require you to be at the correct height. Touching any part of the vertical beam will automatically collect the pickup (this is not currently the case with weapon pickups)
v0.2 NOW LIVE! - Survival Mode, Shotgun and more!
THE NEW UPDATE IS NOW LIVE! JUMP ON AND PLAY TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT!
v0.2 brings with it a whole new singleplayer and multiplayer gamemode: Survival mode, a whole new weapon for those game modes: The shotgun (a.k.a. The Red Devil), a recenter view button and much more!
---------------------------------------- New Survival Mode ----------------------------------------
https://youtu.be/vqCC_v4064k
Survival mode, where not just your accuracy but your positioning and endurance are put to the test! Survive for as long as you can against increasingly difficult foes to get as many points as possible!
> As per traditional Survival Mode gameplay, the player or players are opposed by wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies
> Gameplay is balanced for playing solo, two players, three players or four players
> The goal is to survive as long as possible and kill as many enemies as possible
> Early waves have few enemies, each equipped with few balloons and no gas
> Later waves will have far more enemies, each equipped with anything up to nine balloons and a full tank of gas! Be warned, they also become much more accurate at shooting you as time goes on!
> Score is awarded for shooting balloons (15 points), killing enemies (200 points), assisting the kill of an enemy (100 points) and grabbing pickups (50 points)
> Available in Singleplayer and Multiplayer
> Supports up to four players in Multiplayer
--------------------------------------- New Shotgun: The Red Devil ---------------------------------------
https://youtu.be/DUl7pmzeWvk
The Red Devil - A twin-barrelled sawn-off shotgun will be the first new weapon introduced into Balloon Chair Death Match since launch!
> Can be obtained by finding and making contact with the pickup (look for the beam of red light in the sky!)
> Shoots a spread of ten bullets with each shot
> Can fire twice before needing to reload
> Extremely strong in close to medium range - Can demolish a fully inflated nine-balloon player!
> Has a limited range so it can't shoot as far as the pistol
> Swaps back to the pistol when it runs out of ammo
> Bloody satisfying to fire at a clump of enemies in survival mode >:D
----------------------------------- New Challenge: Shooting Range-----------------------------------
A new challenge mode has been added to the challenges menu!
> The new challenge introduces a new mechanic to BCDM: Shooting Ranges
> Shooting Ranges are indicated by a red ring, similar to the gold navigational rings
> When you make contact with a Shooting Range ring, you immediately stop moving and a countdown begins
> You can shoot balloons that spawn in front of you to quicken the rate at which the countdown ends, essentially maximizing your score
> When the countdown ends, a set of balloons will appear for a limited time
> Shooting all the balloons in a set causes the next set to spawn
> Once all the sets have ended, you get access to your movement controls again and the challenge can continue
----------------------------------- Other Changes -----------------------------------
> Balloon Cloud: A new option in the Tutorials sub-category of Single Player. Spend three minutes casually flying around the city shooting some balloons. Great for target practice or just a casual fly around the city
> A re-center button has been added to the HTC Vive controls. During a battle, press the left-hand's inner grip button to reset the position of the chair relative to your position. Note: The Rift already has this functionality with the Y button
> The menu structure has been completely re-worked to allow for easier navigation, many more challenges and many more single/multiplayer game modes
> Bot AI and pathing has been improved overall with more improvements planned for future updates
> Fixed a bug that caused Vive users to spawn under their chair if a Rift user is hosting a match
v0.2 - Survival Mode, Shotgun and more!
v0.2 brings with it a whole new singleplayer and multiplayer gamemode: Survival mode, a whole new weapon for those game modes: The shotgun (a.k.a. The Red Devil), a re-centre button and much more!
---------------------------------------- New Survival Mode ----------------------------------------
https://youtu.be/vqCC_v4064k
Survival mode, where not just your accuracy but your positioning and endurance are put to the test! Survive for as long as you can against increasingly difficult foes to get as many points as possible!
> As per traditional Survival Mode gameplay, the player or players are opposed by wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies
> Gameplay is balanced for playing solo, two players, three players or four players
> The goal is to survive as long as possible and kill as many enemies as possible
> Early waves have few enemies, each equipped with few balloons and no gas
> Later waves will have far more enemies, each equipped with anything up to nine balloons and a full tank of gas! Be warned, they also become much more accurate at shooting you as time goes on!
> Score is awarded for shooting balloons (15 points), killing enemies (200 points), assisting the kill of an enemy (100 points) and grabbing pickups (50 points)
> Available in Singleplayer and Multiplayer
> Supports up to four players in Multiplayer
--------------------------------------- New Shotgun: The Red Devil ---------------------------------------
https://youtu.be/DUl7pmzeWvk
The Red Devil - A twin-barrelled sawn-off shotgun will be the first new weapon introduced into Balloon Chair Death Match since launch!
> Can be obtained by finding and making contact with the pickup (look for the beam of red light in the sky!)
> Shoots a spread of ten bullets with each shot
> Can fire twice before needing to reload
> Extremely strong in close to medium range - Can demolish a fully inflated nine-balloon player!
> Has a limited range so it can't shoot as far as the pistol
> Swaps back to the pistol when it runs out of ammo
> Bloody satisfying to fire at a clump of enemies in survival mode >:D
----------------------------------- New Challenge: Shooting Range-----------------------------------
A new challenge mode has been added to the challenges menu!
> The new challenge introduces a new mechanic to BCDM: Shooting Ranges
> Shooting Ranges are indicated by a red ring, similar to the gold navigational rings
> When you make contact with a Shooting Range ring, you immediately stop moving and a countdown begins
> You can shoot balloons that spawn in front of you to quicken the rate at which the countdown ends, essentially maximizing your score
> When the countdown ends, a set of balloons will appear for a limited time
> Shooting all the balloons in a set causes the next set to spawn
> Once all the sets have ended, you get access to your movement controls again and the challenge can continue
----------------------------------- Other Changes -----------------------------------
> Balloon Cloud: A new option in the Tutorials sub-category of Single Player. Spend three minutes casually flying around the city shooting some balloons. Great for target practice or just a casual fly around the city
> A re-center button has been added to the HTC Vive controls. During a battle, press the left-hand's inner grip button to reset the position of the chair relative to your position. Note: The Rift already has this functionality with the Y button
> The menu structure has been completely re-worked to allow for easier navigation, many more challenges and many more single/multiplayer game modes
> Bot AI and pathing has been improved overall with more improvements planned for future updates
> Fixed a bug that caused Vive users to spawn under their chair if a Rift user is hosting a match
New Weapon Preview - The Red Devil!
Coming this Thursday! The Red Devil!
As part of a content-packed update coming this Thursday, a twin-barrelled sawn-off shotgun known as "The Red Devil" will be making its way into Balloon Chair Death Match!
Capable of popping several balloons at once, this close ranged weapon can be utterly devastating if you get the jump on your enemies.
But be warned, its short range and wide spread makes it inferior to the pistol in long-range fights.
Since then, we've had many new players join our little community, so we wanted to give you all an opportunity to give us direct feedback and let us know what you're looking forward to the most!
Fill out the survey below and help pave the future of Balloon Chair Death Match!
Thank you to everyone who turned up for the VR Gaming Night!
Although we originally said we'd stop giving away keys at 1,000, you lot were just so excited that we couldn't stop there and ended up giving away around 2,000 keys in total!!!
Whether you contacted us through Steam, Reddit, Discord or Facebook, we want to thank everyone who participated in some awesome VR multiplayer action!
It brings warmth to my heart to see one of our devs being shot out the sky by new members of our community <3
We've got some great new content coming to BCDM throughout the next month so hopefully you'll stay with us and try your hand at it all.
For those of you who felt discomfort due to the control scheme, I want you to know that we're considering comfort options a high priority and will make sure we prioritize them as much as we realistically can (remember we only have two programmers!).
[UPDATE 2]: We've given out the original 1000 we promised, but we're going to continue on and give out more! Bare with us while we try to get to you. We'll continue throughout the event but there's a chance we might not reach you because there's a whole load more requests than we accepted :)
[UPDATE]: The event is still on and anyone turning up will still get a key, but we will be playing Deathmatch instead of the new survival mode. Unfortunately we found some issues with Deathmatch last minute and rather than put out buggy content, we'd rather spend more time polishing it up.
But we can still have a load of fun playing some Balloon Chair Death Match so invite your friends and come along to grab a key and a chair and join us!
Don't forget, only 1,000 codes to give away so make sure to get yours early!
_________________________________________________________
This Thursday, come celebrate the new Survival Mode with an evening of Co-op Balloon Chair Death Match!
6pm - 2am UTC || 1pm - 9pm EST || 10am - 6pm PST
EVERYONE who comes along will be getting a FREE copy of Balloon Chair Death Match!
More Info Below!
----------------------------------- VR Gaming Night + Giveaway -----------------------------------
To celebrate the release of our new Survival Mode update (more info below), we the dev team will be online playing Co-op Survival Mode for eight hours on Thursday 26th!
The times are here in various timezones:
6pm - 2am UTC || 1pm - 9pm EST || 10am - 6pm PST
During these hours, anyone who contacts us via Facebook, Reddit, Discord or Steam will be given a FREE permanent Steam Key for Balloon Chair Death Match!
To contact us during the event, do one of the following:
Facebook - Just send us a private message requesting a code
Reddit - Post in any of the VR Gaming Night threads posted by /u/Drognin
Discord - Join our Discord server and request a key in the #keyrequests text channel
Steam - Add DrogninCX as a Friend on Steam and message him a request when I accept. I will then PM you your code. Note that I may have to delete people after I've sent them a code if my friends list becomes full.
For now we're going to limit BCDM giveaways to 1,000, but this cap may be removed during the event.
---------------------------------------- New Survival Mode ----------------------------------------
https://youtu.be/vqCC_v4064k
Coming in this Wednesday's update is the new Survival Mode!
> As per traditional Survival Mode gameplay, the player or players are opposed by wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies
> Gameplay is balanced for playing solo, two players, three players or four players
> The goal is to survive as long as possible and kill as many enemies as possible
> Early waves have few enemies, each equipped with few balloons and no gas
> Later waves will have far more enemies, each equipped with anything up to nine balloons and a full tank of gas!
> Score is awarded for shooting balloons (15 points), killing enemies (200 points), assisting the kill of an enemy (100 points) and grabbing pickups (50 points)
----------------------------------- New Challenge Mode -----------------------------------
A new challenge mode has been added to the challenges menu!
> The new challenge introduces a new mechanic to BCDM: Shooting Ranges
> Shooting Ranges are indicated by a red ring, similar to the gold navigational rings
> When you make contact with a Shooting Range ring, you immediately stop moving and a countdown begins
> You can shoot balloons that spawn in front of you to quicken the rate at which the countdown ends, essentially maximizing your score
> When the countdown ends, a set of balloons will appear for a limited time
> Shooting all the balloons in a set causes the next set to spawn
> Once all the sets have ended, you get access to your movement controls again and the challenge can continue
----------------------------------- Other Changes -----------------------------------
> The menu structure has been completely re-worked to allow for easier navigation, many more challenges and many more single/multiplayer game modes
> Bot AI and pathing has been improved overall with more improvements planned for future updates
