Beach Ball Valley 1.0 is out, after only 36 build updates since April 2016!
It's been an adventure & we're happy to launch our super unique VR game into the world. Here's a list of the changes we've added since EA launch! Thanks to everyone for joining us in early access! We've had a blast playing & making it & tweaking from your feedback! We're now at a happy, stable, carefully polished release that's so small, it would fit on a CD!
We've tweaked and changed a lot!
photo based & hand painted graphics
rebuilt and simplified the valley
removed teleporting to make it super simple
added tutorial graphics to show you exactly what's going to happen
made all the beach balls come to you
updated unreal engine versions to include better low latency
balanced mind control around hand instead of head
mind control two balls at once
added a number of beach ball drops to make sure you had enough
super rad beach ball model
ring the bell minigame
goalie minigame
demo keys show up on the pc monitor for easy reference
rain cloud to grow bigger beach balls
hints that show up when you look at your hand
wind in the valley will blow beach balls around
magnus effect curves spinning beach balls flight paths
discord rich presence
keys to start minigames from the keyboard
beach balls have fall and Christmas colors!
pimax & virtually all other headset support
keys to have beach balls jump at the player
5+ tracker support for foot & more paddles
hidden advanced mode with desktop music controls & old mind control
realistic binaural (hrtf) audio effects
tiny coins you can eat
trading cards
achievements!
Have fun!
Beach Ball Valley out of Early Access
Prepare your pizza paddles, because Beach Ball Valley is releasing on October 10th, 2020!
It's been a blast working on it and sharing it with everybody. Seeing many smiles & beach balls slammed skyward around the world. We've tweaked and polished many areas of the game, most notably graphics, sound and haptics!
But wait, there's more!
- achievements - trading cards - profile badges - beach balls - 5 tracker support (possibly up to 11, but we couldn't test that) - device support for pimax 8KX / index / wmr / rift / cosmos / quest (via oculus link).
You can see the achievements right now, but you cannot unlock these achievements yet, they'll go live when the game releases!
Ice Cream Cone
We've fixed a few little bugs due to user feedback! Keep it coming!
- hjk keys start minigames when no other minigames are playing
- strength game is named correctly!
To play those minigames from in VR press the menu button and squish the button of the game you want to play.
Update Ice Cream!
After over one year of testing and tinkering, we totally rebuilt the valley to put you right in the middle of the action, with as little confusion to new players as possible! This is the release candidate. Next release is out of early access!
Balls come to you no matter what!
Minigames are a bit different
Pimax Support
More hotkeys to amuse your friends
New simplified mind control system
Discord integration – so your friends can see how many beach balls you've hit!
Can be played with index controllers, but they're not modeled nicely into the paddles
Tracker Support might not work due to issues in STEAMVR itself – should resolve presently
The original valley will always be available – check it out under the original-valley branch in beta tab when you select game properties.
Here's a handy guide.
Beach Ball Valley Early Access
We're going to be out of early access soon, but we've made big changes which we will release this month! Here's a bit of back story behind our development!
Beach Ball Valley started out a long long time ago. It started back when HTC was going to Release the vive in December 2015. We had 2 months to learn VR development and develop a game in VR. This game made a lot of people smile and laugh at VR demos in 2015, so we figured we'd build it out for a release with the Vive.
Release schedules changed to April, and we shifted to work on a different game entirely - a castle defense crossbow game where you were being actively attacked by wizards and dodging shrapnel, as your castle was getting destroyed. The team behind that game believed that it needed to look AAA and be way more complex (skill trees, etc) if we were going to release. We didn't release, but instead I turned back to the crowd pleasing beach ball whacking project.
We released it on launch day against all the other VR launch titles & were promptly buried. Had we waited a week or two for people to start looking for content, we may have reached more folks.
We we kept updating the game and tweaking things based on demos we did to friends and game conventions. We watched how people played and kept up the goal of making it accessible and fun. It's been a blast seeing people play it & seeing families where the kids play the game and then play with their parents with the keyboard controls. It's also lots of fun seeing the extra trackers in play - giant paddles on your feet is hilarious.
We've come a long way - figuring out lots about the UX behind VR & how to experience something using only pizza paddles. We've wrapped up all that we've learned and are packaging it into a nicely accessible beach ball paradise.
Update Huckleberry
Hand Mind Control!
You can wave your hand like a trademarked movie character and if you're holding the grip, and if you've touched a beach ball, you can influence it with beach ball mind tricks!
Either hand works, so you can do two at once, or can you?
Spectator Screen
There are a variety of keys you can use to interact with your friends, now we show them on the main screen. Space to toggle on/off. No perf hit either way.
Bonuses
Big Beach balls show up now and then. Nobody really know where they come from or why they're here, but they're nice to play with.
Rain Cloud is more happy and loves to water the beach balls.
Fixes
Minigames now end when you leave the area
It's easier to make a shot that bounces off the castle roof and hits the hoops
Paddleball is now always 8 proper hits away
Balls pop less easily
Music minigame launchers are better timed
Tracking puck functionality isn't crashing the world anymore.
(probably)*
Grass is now greener on the other side
Holographic hint paddle system shows players how to start the first game or teleport so you probably don't have to tell them anything for them to move around in the game!
Music minigame metronome goes away farther so it's harder to hit by accident
Super Rare Secret Advanced Mode
<*> Click the backs of the controllers into each other, you'll see some magical puff, and then mind control reverts to the original and challenging system of actually moving your head around because you're rad Mind control
Update Grand
Beach Ball Valley Update Grand!
We've updated weather systems to reflect standard cloud diversity. There are now happy clouds and angry clouds. You'll know which are which!
Also, there are now buttons to press to start games for all the games.
To top things off, we've added a new beach ball! It's Grand!
Oh, and one more thing. Try hitting a beach ball 10 times with the same paddle.
Update Finnish Pancake
Exciting new features
Squishy Buttons. Media Menus. Music Game. More Fluffy Clouds! Octopus Ready!
Music game!
Any song ever, on time, every time. Just tap the tempo!
Pick scored or freeplay. Tap in a tempo, preferably to the music you're listening to; desktop music, the radio or even a live band! Hit beach balls with the beat! Retap the tempo when it changes, or tap the escape button to escape.
Puck Tracker Support
Vive Puck Trackers now work as extra paddles; stick 'em everywhere! Play with your friends or your cat, or you feet. Add 'em on your arms to basically become an octopus. You can use a lot of trackers, way more than 3. Just turn 'em on and go! If you have enough arms, because you're an octopus, you could play with 8 paddles at once.
Squishy buttons.
They're the best. They're highly robust and very squishy. Way better than springy buttons. They'll let you change music, start games, and teleport!
Fixes:
Lots of little visual improvements.
You can't glitch the ball through the floor anymore, don't even try it!
Ctrl+M disables triggering the music menu in case your guests won't stop triggering it.
K = explode all the beach balls away from you
End = end game, fade to white.
Home = restart game, fade in!
Full Details, cheat codes, inspirational quotes, bug reports and gameplay guide in the manual.
Beach Ball Valley Update EMU
If you're trying to figure out the code, you may have noticed we've been releasing each update based on alphabetic animal names! This is pretty much accurate so far.
Squishy Button Teleport System!
Easy to squish
Colorful
Makes sense where you're going
Open it up with the teleport button
Fully haptic enabled squishery
Squishy
Squishy Button Desktop Play Control
Easy to squish
Control your happy tunes from in VR
Sometimes tells you what music player you have
Opens with the triggers!
Coin Drop for your friends
C on the keyboard
Drops edible coins
Don't drop too many coins, they don't grow on trees!
Even more things!
Nicer haptics
Nicer graphics
Softer clouds
Tooltips on controller - look close!
Activate a tooltip that points to a button with 1-8 (manual for details)
Beach Ball Waterfall works from down the canyon
Neater particles! Poof!
Zero gravity is working!
Beach Balls are way friendlier
Secret Giant Mode activation added!
Tips of Castle Turrets ding when hit!
Also, we created the back end code for a really big cool update that we're excited about, but we decided to release this right now instead of waiting anymore! Cheers!
Beach Ball Valley Update Dragonfly
We've added another minigame!
Try to keep the balls out of the goal. Or in! Go for AN EXACT NUMBER! DECIDE YOUR OWN DESTINY!
Or just enjoy huge flocks of beach balls rolling down the hill. We won't tell you what to do. (Well, we kinda did, but ignore that, aight?)
Beach Balls don't get stuck in turrets, or stop in the minigame.
General tweaking of programmy things behind the scenes.
Small tweaks of graphical things including clouds and castle turrets and teleport arrows.
Super fancy scoreboards with extra fun. Careful though; they're not tied together well, and can break apart if you treat 'em roughly.
Mind Control: It's now semi-officially in the game.
Somebody got over 1,000,000 points in the minigame. That's pretty rad. Shoot for the stars!
Also, check out the manual! It has keys you can use to annoy your friends!
