Surprise! Next Descenders Update is This Week!

June 18, 2018

Hey everyone,

Remember that big update we told you about?

It's coming to the Steam version of the game THIS THURSDAY, June 21st! (The Xbox version will get the update next month)

See you then <3

Next Big Update Very Soon: Brings Team Objectives, Daily Challenge and More

June 7, 2018

Hey everyone!

The next Descenders is coming to Steam in less than 2 weeks (note that the next Xbox update will be next month, and encompass two PC updates in one). Here are some of the features you can expect:

Teams Rework

Up to now, the team you pick doesn't make a great deal of difference to how you play the game. With the next update, there will be daily objectives to complete that will be team-specific, and will earn you additional Rep and special team gear.

New Secret Level

By now you've probably found the Construction Yard in Highlands. With the next update, there will also be a brand new, secret level to find hidden somewhere else. What will it be? Where will it be? You'll have to wait for the update to find out, but all we'll say for now is -- it's quite different to anything you've played in Descenders before...

Daily Challenge

The next update will finally introduce the Daily Challenge to Descenders. Every day, every player will be given the same set of levels, and you'll have just one run to get the biggest Session Rep score that you can. There will be daily leaderboards for every Daily Challenge, so you can track how well you're doing each day compared to everyone else.

Session Markers in Freeride Mode

You asked for Session Markers in Freeride Mode, so here they come. You'll be able to plop down a marker on a level, and then restart from that position whenever you like.

Bonus Objectives Rework

Right now, you are told your Bonus Objective on the world map, and have to pick a level that matches what you are required to do. However, we've found this sytem is a little confusing, especially for new players. With the new update, the Bonus Objective will be automatically generated based on the level you pick, and will always be completable.

This update is coming in the next couple of weeks -- we'll let you know when!

The Rogue-Bike Update is here!

May 15, 2018

Hey everyone!

The Rogue-Bike update is here! We've revamped most of the existing systems (rep system, world map) and we're introducing a big new feature: the build crew. Let's dive into the changes right away:

Changes:

World Map overhaul:
- Randomized start/finish line and level placement.
- Added more special nodes to the map. (Medic, First person, Danger zone, and more??)
- Day/night cycle. A new environment starts in the morning and playing a level advances the day. Reach the end of the world map before you run out of daylight.
Rep system overhaul:
- Rep can no longer be lost. The risk of losing reputation made end-game players play very safe, this wasn't very fun to watch. In order to see more sick tricks we're introducing:
- Flow (rep per minute). Flow is the reputation one earns per minute, making sure that the players who are on top of the flow leaderboards are actually the most entertaining to watch as they constantly have to do the sickest stunts.
- New sessions start at 0 rep, the goal is to reach the end of the last environment with as much rep as possible. Session rep is added to your account rep after each session. Leaderboards will track 'best session rep', 'flow' (only on successfully completed runs), and 'overall account rep'.
- Diminishing returns. Doing the same trick over and over will reward fewer rep each time.
Build crew:
- Build crew is a way to customize and tweak a session to the players liking.
- At certain rep milestones during a session new crew members will be unlocked. The player will have to choose one out of four randomly generated crew members (modifiers). Crew members last until the end of a session and a fresh session starts with 0 crew members.
- Crew members can be: wider paths when generating levels, higher bunny hops, decrease in off-road friction, generate fewer obstacles, always show the compass, and many others. Right now we've implemented 22 different build crew members and there are more to come! If you have ideas for other crew members, let us know!
Removed the 'Practice' option when starting a new session. Practice session was a way to ride without consequences but after removing reputation losses this no longer feels needed.
Removed dawn and night random visual modifiers. Storm can still randomly occur. Dusk now appears after having played 7 levels in the same environment. Night appears 2 levels after dusk. Completing a boss jump and entering a new environment resets the day timer.
Mixer integration. Allows for interaction between viewers and streamers on the Mixer streaming platform.
Speedrun timer. Enable in the gameplay settings to show a speedrun timer during your sessions. This timer ONLY pauses during loading screens.
Added and tweaked a bunch of sound effects.
Added a few new outfits, bikes, and accessories.
Updated to a newer version of the Unity engine. This should improve the experience on lower end computers and macs.
Performance upgrades across the board. We had to do a ton of performance upgrades when working on the Xbox version of Descenders. We took the ones that were applicable to PC/Mac/Linux and carried those over to the Steam version of Descenders.
Updated the Steam plugin. This fixes the bug where some players have no leaderboards.
Bugfix: pressing 'equip now' in the game over screen now actually equips the newly unlocked items.

Reputation reset
With the new rep system and the new leaderboards we're resetting everyone's reputation. Based on your current rep we've handed out a few legacy items. Everyone who scored at least 1 reputation has received an accessory item. If you obtained 50.000 rep you've received another legacy item. And if you managed to obtain an impressive 250.000 rep you've gotten a third item on top of that.

Community
If you want to keep up to date with the known issues and our current plans, join our Discord, or have a look at the Roadmap! As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Much love,
RageSquid & No More Robots

The Rogue-Bike Update: Coming May 15th

May 3, 2018

Hey everyone!

We're here today to give you some pretty exciting news.

A couple of months ago, the RageSquid team came up with a massive idea for Descenders that would make the game even more exciting and fulfilling, while fixing some of the issues people were having with the roguelike elements and the Rep system.

And now we're finally ready to unveil what we're calling The Rogue-Bike Update -- and it's coming on May 15th.

Here's what you can expect:

The New World Map

Currently, you play through the Career Mode world by world, and move from left to right on the world map. Other than picking what the new level will roughly contain in terms of steepness, stunts and curves, there isn't much to it. Until now.

With the Rogue-Bike Update, you'll now be tasked with exploring a randomized world map, filled with special nodes to discover. Your goal is still to reach the boss jump and clear it to move on to the next world, but you might want to ride around a little first and see what the world has to offer...

But don't ride around for *too* long. If you spend too much time exploring, the sun will begin to set, and you'll be plunged into darkness, making completing the boss jump a whole lot trickier.

The New Rep System

The current Rep system is fine, but we've found that it stops the best players from wanting to take risks. All this will change with the Rogue-Bike Update.

From May 15th, each new run that you do will set your Session Rep back to zero, and you'll only earn Rep, rather than losing it. You'll also now be judged based on your Flow -- that is, your Rep per minute.

In other words, the better you ride and the more tricks you do, the better your Flow. And when you finish a Session, your Session Rep will be added to your Total Rep. Easy!

Crew Members

Right now, once you've unlocked Canyon or Peaks, you might as well keep restarting from those worlds to reach the final boss. With the Rogue-Bike Update, we introduce Crew Members, who give you a reason to start from Highlands each time.

Every time you earn a certain amount of Rep on a run, you'll unlock a new Crew Member. These Crew Members will give you special mutators, such as softening all your landing impacts, or adding extra steepness or stunts to every level.

These mutators allow you to play the game your own way, and pick the abilities that matter to you. You can, of course, still start runs from later worlds, but you won't earn as many mutators that way.

But what about my current Rep?

On May 15th, we will reset all Rep scores. However, we will be giving special items to each and every Descenders player based on how much Rep they've earned before then:

If you've bought and played the game before May 15th, you'll earn a legacy item to show that you played before the Rogue-Bike Update
If you've earned more than 50,000 Rep by May 15th, you'll also earn an extra special legacy item
If you've earned more than 250,000 Rep by May 15th, you'll earn both of these items, and an extra, extra special legacy item

When can I see the update in action?

We'll be showing off the Rogue-Bike Update for the first time live on http://mixer.com/nomorerobots next Tuesday, May 8th, at 8am PT / 5pm CEST.

EXCITING TIMES!
Love Mike + RageSquid

ANNOUNCEMENT: Our new game, Ascenders

April 1, 2018

Hey everyone!

We know you've been enjoying Descenders, but we also know you've been wishing for something a little more... uphill. We've been experimenting with new ways to play Descenders, and we've come up with something we're sure is a great way to reach new heights!

We hope you like our new game, Ascenders!

You can play for free right now! To play you'll need to be on Windows, go to Descenders properties in your Steam library, go to the BETAS tab, enter "AscendersTheGame" as the password, and click CHECK CODE. You can now select Ascenders in the dropdown menu.

Be careful whlie you're enjoying this new game, because Rep is carried over to your regular Descenders progress. But so are any unlocks you may get ;)

Have fun <3

Sound effects hotfix and #SCRAPE gear

March 28, 2018

(Windows only at the moment. Mac&Linux coming soon!)

Hey all!

Last week's update gave the game a few new sound effects. Unfortunately some of these effects weren't properly categorized so the volume sliders had no effect on them. Because this is quite intrusive we wanted to get this hotfixed instead of waiting for a next bigger update, so here we are!
In addition to the sfx fixes we are happy to announce that we've partnered up with German mountain biker and youtuber Fabio Schäfer. His brand of gear, #SCRAPE, is now unlockable! #SCRAPE gear is the first brand we're collaborating with this is something we want to do more often, so tell your favourite youtuber/biker to get in touch with us and we'll try to work something out to get their brand in the game!

Changes:

Added #SCRAPE gear by Fabio Schäfer to the gear pool.
#SCRAPE items include 3 new goggles, 2 long sleeve jerseys, 1 short sleeve jersey. The items are of uncommon, rare, and extraordinary rarities.
Bugfix: categorized sound effects so that volume sliders affect them.
Minor CPU performance improvement.

Mixer integration
The idea was to enable Mixer integration in this hotfix but after we publicly tested it in yesterday's stream we decided that it's too easy to abuse it in its current state. We'd like some more time to tweak it to make sure that it's solid. We'll release this when we get back from event season that's starting next week (PAX/EGX Rezzed).

Community
If you want to keep up to date with the known issues and our current plans, join our Discord, or have a look at the Roadmap! As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Much love,
RageSquid

Newsfeed/performance update

March 23, 2018

Hey all!

We're back again with a small update! We've heard your feedback on the rep system and world map and we agree with you, they really need some work. We're super eager to rework these things but that's going to be a big project. Before we can start on a major overhaul like this we wanted to get a few smaller things out of the way. One of the things in this update is the newsfeed. This way we can communicate more information to you without having to upload new builds. This is also a place where we can highlight community clips and images.
Apart from this we did a lot of small fixes and updates, which I'll list below.

Changes:

Added multiple UI sound effects.
Added new character voice sounds and removed the temporary voice effects from the rider (goodbye Cedar!).
Added a newsfeed in the main menu. This is where we'll place information about the game, its updates, and community highlights.
Physics raycasting update, this new method for wheel collision is about 16x faster and should even be more precise as well.
Mixer integration. Streamers who stream on Mixer.com can now enable interactivity in the gameplay options menu. In career and practice mode the viewers can influence level generation and hand out extra reputation when the streamer performs sweet tricks. In freeride mode the viewers can submit level seeds for the streamer to play. We've had to disable this because of issues while building the executable. Expect this in a hotfix some time next week.
Added a few more unlockable items ;)
GPU performance improvements across the board. We mainly tried to pull the FPS in the forest environment more in line with the rest of the environments.
Big CPU performance upgrades, should be most notable for people with low end CPUs.
Bugfix: removed bonus objective UI from freeride mode.
Bugfix: UI buttons would sometimes randomly scale up.
Bugfix: Button navigation in game modes menu fixed.
Bugfix: Couple of localization errors fixed.
Bugfix: 1460 is now 1440 lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHpetnUFQMA&t=0m35s

Next up:
As stated above we are super hyped to start working on the new world map and the new reputation system. We want to move away from a percentage based penalty system and towards a system which rewards taking risks and doing sick moves, rather than spending as much time as possible grinding levels in a safe manner. While we're working on this we're definitely going to keep you up to date through our social channels and on Discord. Do keep in mind that this next update could take a month or two, this is quite a big undertaking for the small team that we are.
Next to these big overhauls we're also going to be travelling a lot in the near future. There are several events we'll be going to and if you happen to go to any of these, please drop by our booth and say hi, we'd love to meet you all in person <3
You'll be able to find us here:
- GDC (Right now, San Francisco, USA) - Mike
- PAX East (April 5-8, Boston, USA) - Mike & Rosie
- EGX Rezzed (April 13-15, London, UK) - Mike (& Roel/Lex?)

If you want to keep up to date with the known issues and our current plans, join our Discord, or have a look at the Roadmap! As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Much love,
RageSquid

Freeride Update Hotfix

March 5, 2018

Hey everyone!

Unfortunately the previous update (Freeride mode update) shipped with a couple of bugs. Today we're pushing a small hotfix to resolve these issues. Please keep your feedback coming so we know about these bugs and we can keep fixing them as soon as possible!

Changes:

Freeride levels can now be quit without having to stop riding. You can now also respawn while riding when you have health set to infinite.
In Freeride mode, trying to select environments the player hasn't unlocked yet will now trigger a popup explaining why. The same goes for trying to select the Boss Jump physical modifier.
Level seed now always shows on the bottom right of the screen in the post-game UI.
Bugfix: Freeride UI labels now localize properly when selecting non-latin languages.
Bugfix: achievements are no longer triggered in Freeride/Practice modes.
Bugfix: post-game UI health bug fixed (1 HP bug).
Bugfix: rep now properly displays after a Freeride level.
Bugfix: Golden Run, Made it, and True Descender achievements now trigger again.

Known issues:

macOS stability is a big problem, crashes occur more frequent than on other platforms and framerates are lower than we want them to be. We're aware of this and currently looking into getting external help to fix these problems.
Steam leaderboards bug. Some players have no entry on the leaderboards and we're having a hard time reproducing the bug but we're still well aware of the bug and working on it.
General performance levels are not yet where we want them to be. We're constantly looking at ways to improve this.

If you want to keep up to date with the known issues and our current plans, join our Discord, or have a look at the Roadmap! We'd love to hear your thoughts!

<3
RageSquid & Friends

Freeride Update!

March 2, 2018

Hey everyone!

Another week, another update! It's been 3 weeks since we launched and it's been one hell of a ride so far. We're overwhelmed with your love and feedback and we're changing the course of the game to make sure we can implement the things you want to see. As an example of this we're introducing the 'Freeride' mode in today's patch! In this much requested mode you're able to generate levels by setting the variables that are used in the generation process, as seen in the above screenshot.

Another highly requested feature we're adding today is the ability to load up a level by its generation seed. If you see a level you like, write down the seed (seen in bottom right corner of the pause menu) and play it again in the Freeride mode. You can also share this seed with others so that they're able to play the exact same level!

Changes:

Added Freeride mode. In this mode you can generate a level to your liking, play with or without health, and rep changes will not be saved.
Added the option to load a level from a generation seed! This means you can screencap or write down the seed when you see a level you like and replay it at a later time, or share it with others. The seed for the level you're playing can be found in the bottom right of the pause menu.
Added the option to immediately equip an item when you unlock it.
Added a new t-shirt of Extraordinary quality, created by the Foodz company.
Added a shirt for people who participated in the beta back in October 2017. Codes for this item will be going out by e-mail.
Bugfix: updated a few grammar mistakes in translations.
Bugfix: team nodes are now correctly named when hovering over them in the world map.
Bugfix: fixed 2 wrongly labelled songs.
macOS/Linux: applied the hotfix that was rolled out last week on Windows. This contains fixes for a world map bug (game booted up in an empty world map), and it adds a few missing keybinds in the key rebinding menu.