After so long, the bug relating to bad songs and bad saves on first boot should now be resolved! New players can now safely boot up the game intuitively.
On other notes, we have 3 new sorting options (Score, Difficulty, Accuracy) that can be accessed in the song select menu. These options are also available to be selected as default sorting methods in the settings menu.
The pause menu has gotten a complete overhaul on how it functions/is built behind the scenes allowing for new menu options and settings to be created. With these changes, calibration settings have been added for faster and on the fly calibration tests along with new practice mode options. Playing a setlist? You can now skip your current song if you change your mind. Previously setlist play required the current song to play in full to progress which was not really ideal.
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- New sorting methods: Score, Difficulty, Accuracy - Careers can now have dedicated highways and backgrounds for each song - Added new practice menu options for further control over A/B points - Added calibration settings to the pause menu
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug that would produced every song as a bad song on first boot - Fixed a bug that would produced a bad save file on first boot - Fixed an issue related to preferred sort method settings missing multiple sorting options that were added since the setting was introduced
ADJUSTMENTS
- Updated how song difficulty values are retrieved and stored - Song scanning tweaks - Song video backgrounds will now loop, useful if a song has an aesthetic background and not a music video background - Pause menu got a complete overhaul with its programming. This will allow us to add new options, and option types (select, range, selector, etc) with ease
Fret Smasher Patch v0.37.5 A2
With Fret Smasher Patch 0.37.5a2, some of the most notorious bugs should be fixed.
One of our most reported bugs lately has been an issue where the audio desyncs with other stems/instruments. This error should hopefully be resolved in this update as the audio streams are now running with linked channels. If you experience any further issues, please verify your audio stem files are in sync if the song is a custom. If the song is one provided with the game, please report the issue to our Discord server. Now that this error is resolved, players should now also have an easier time calibrating their game as every stem will now be properly synced up to the game time.
Another one of our reported bugs has been from new players in the last few months. This was, scanning songs for the first time would falsely flag every song as a "Bad Song". The error has been located and should hopefully allow all new first scans to run successfully.
Now for some new stuff.
Our themes has expanded. You can now swap out the audio files for the menus of the game. This is to test the waters of menu customisation for themes where hopefully sometime in the future, we can allow you to swap out menu textures too. See the theme template for a list of audio files you can change. On top of new audio changes, we also have some new UI textures that can be swapped. Battle mode powerup icons can now be changed in themes!
AND FINALLY, we have a BRAND NEW SONG! Destination Devastation by JappWakka is now available in Fret Smasher.
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- NEW SONG: Destination Devastation by JappaWakka - Added Custom Menu Audio for Themes - Added Battle Icons for Themes - Added a toggle that allows players to opt out of leaderboard submissions
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue where career uploads to the steam workshop wasn't being tagged as "Career" - Fixed an issue where HyperFlux Phrase notes were unaffected changed by the Note Scale setting - Fixed an issue where upon first ever scan, the game would falsely flag every song as "Bad Song" - Fixed an issue where song audio stems would sometimes desync. This fix should hopefully also allow calibration to be easier now that everything is properly in time - Fixed a softlock when loading a leaderboard in song select. The game will provide control back to the player after a 5 second timer in case if the leaderboard fetch request fails without a known error
ADJUSTMENTS
- Leaderboards in the song select menu can now load more entries as you scroll down when "Global" is selected. This means you can now see more than the Top 50 entries - Combat Leaderboards, the leaderboards you can see while in a song, can now display up to 500 entries. See the settings menu to adjust this value to 500 from the default 50
Fret Smasher Patch v0.37.4 A2
Hello everyone,
We just have a small patch that addresses some issues with themes some users had and a minor career mode bug fix. We have more updates and patches coming soon, this is just something quick and small as we get back to working on the next update.
Change-log:
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue where it was possible to load into Career Mode with a different song speed that wasn't default 100%
ADJUSTMENTS
- Adjusted themes to allow for fallback textures to exist again*
*Fall back textures may exist again for notes, sustains and beatlines which allows theme makers to not be required to include those textures in a theme upload. If a custom texture exists for a note in a specific lane, all textures for that lane must be present. If a custom texture exists for a sustain/beatline, then both textures must be present in the group. Both major/minor beatline, idle held sustain, idle held glow sustain, open-idle open-held sustain, and finally open-idle open-held glow sustain. The reason for this discrepancy is with how we load textures. All textures are compiled into sprite atlases based on groups/lanes.
Fret Smasher Patch v0.37.3 A2
Change-log:
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue with the Fret Flip power in Classic Battle that would desync the frets and notes when more than 1 Fret Flip attack is active - Fixed an issue with HyperFlux Phrase notes being invisible on the default theme - Fixed an issue with the Highway Beat and the HyperFlux pulse desyncing and activating on different beats
ADJUSTMENTS
- Adjusted attack timers for Classic Battle for better synchronisation with other systems
Fret Smasher Patch v0.37.2 A2
Happy Pride Month From All of Us at Lavoie Studios!
We'll be getting back into regular updates soon, but for now we just have a small patch for today that addresses some changes for themes. Themes that require a different note scale for HyperFlux Phrase notes can now do so under the new Phrase Note Scale setting in the theme.ini file. Theme makers can also now adjust the playback speed for the note animation which also fixes the static notes bug not stopping said playback.
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- Added a setting for themes to adjust the scale of HyperFlux Phrased notes separately - Added a setting for themes to adjust the playback speed of the note sprites animation
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue with the song title in gameplay not displaying the song speed if changed - Fixed an issue with the Static Notes setting for themes not stopping the note sprite playback animation
ADJUSTMENTS
- Themes have been updated to version 6. Please remember to set your custom themes to version 6 if it's up to date on changes
Fret Smasher Patch v0.37.1 A2
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- New Song Title Card Animation
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue with the hit window being layered under the highway when toggled - Fixed an issue where when moving the input viewer around, the score text would vanish while whammying or using tilt - Fixed an issue with the HyperFlux border texture not receiving the correct alpha values in specific cases causing them to be present even with HyperFlux off - Fixed an issue with the "New Highscore" animation displaying instrument icons without backgrounds
ADJUSTMENTS
- Adjusted various animations including camera movement in menus, player card in/out, and the highscore/fc/unlock popup - Note Size setting is now available again in the game settings - Swapped out the placeholder images for unlocks with their respective icons - Removed the ability to access the old calibration tool. A new tool will be available soon with more accurate results. In the meantime, please use the detect audio latency option to obtain audio offset values. If you require assistance calibrating your game, please reach out to us on our Discord
Fret Smasher Update v0.37 A2
The Renderer Update
For v0.37 A2 we've built an entirely new rendering system for chart objects and highways. These overhauls will greatly improve the game's performance and also adds in new rendering techniques to give that extra edge of quality.
The new rendering system removes the need for game objects for each note and sustain entirely.
Our old system relied on a note being a gameobject in the scene with each note having a note renderer and sustain renderer script attached. These scripts would slow the game down as each of them would run every frame. And with 50 notes in the note pool to start, that's 100 scripts per frame just for notes which just wasn't needed! In v0.36.2 A2, this issue was addressed where only the notes on screen would have these scripts running but it was still a MAJOR flaw as it would greatly slow the game down when large quantities of notes were rendered. The new system removes the need for gameobjects and a note pool entirely by offloading the rendering to the GPU instead of being very CPU oriented.
While working on these changes, shader updates for the notes and sustains were required so while doing so, we've made the move to overhaul how sustains operate when it comes to rendering the materials, colours and whammy animations. Now, you'll see a nice smooth blend of colours as you whammy for HyperFlux or even watch as the sustain fades away if it drops.
As for the highway renderer, it won't seem like anything is different but we've made some changes to just overall improve the performance and some changes that now allow video highways to scroll which can be toggled in the settings.
Theme Makers, Heads Up!
For starters, if you're using a theme in your game right now, check to see if it's compatible.
If you're a theme maker, be sure to check the new theme template for how themes should be put together now. Themes REQUIRE all note, beatlines and sustain textures to be within the theme to be loaded correctly. These same textures must also be the exact same canvas size as one another to be loaded correctly. So all notes must match, beatlines must match and sustains of their respective type (open/normal) to match in canvas size.
Sustain colours are no longer set to the texture but now set in the theme.ini file. The new sustain materials has a base texture that's coloured and an additive overlay texture that adds a white glow.
If you need assistance with creating themes, you can always join our Discord server for help.
The Fret Smasher Development Roadmap!
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- New Song! -> Throw Down by Tr3murz - Built an entirely new rendering system for chart objects and the highway allowing for increased performance - Built an entirely new sustain shader for an overhauled appearance and increased performance - Added a toggle in settings that allows highways using video files to scroll - Added a toggle in settings to pause the game on focus loss - Added a Final Blow stat which displays the killing blow attack in Battle Mode - [REDACTED].... shh
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue with song previews continuing to play when returning to the main menu - Fixed an issue with careers downloaded from the workshop not opening - Fixed a typo with Unknown Album
ADJUSTMENTS
- Content that comes with the game can no longer be uploaded to the workshop without modification - Various optimization changes - Sustain materials has been given a complete overhaul for themes - Video background tweaks - Removed Whammy Animation Speed from settings - Removed Note Size from settings - Updated sounds for Player Connect, Player Disconnect and Combo Drop - FPS counter update frequency slowed - Leaderboard viewer will now display the player's accuracy and FC stats while in a song - Infinite Frontend cheat is now available from the start - Unlock requirements for various cheats has been lowered with the highest available unlock at level 8
Fret Smasher Patch v0.36.2 A2
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- You can now press Orange to open the song playing in the main menu - All new October Patrons added to the credits
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue with LeadRival1 & LeadRival2 parts not being properly supported for the .chart format - Fixed an issue with certain cheats not persisting variables between sessions correctly
ADJUSTMENTS
- Made various optimisations to the chart renderer - Made various optimisations to the sustain renderer - Made various optimisations to the note renderer - Made various optimisations to the highway renderer - Made various optimisations to the gameplay scene - Song scanning will now display the duplicate check progress
Fret Smasher Patch v0.36.1 A2
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- NEW Quick Scan Music Folders - Scan your music folders quickly by only checking for newly imported compatible charts - NEW Modifier: Magic Notes Chaos Lite - NEW Sorting Method: Workshop Content - Split the song list between local songs and workshop songs
BUG FIXES
- Fixed various issues with the natural HOPO calculation - Fixed an issue with songs auto pausing if Steam didn't initialise correctly - Fixed an issue with modifiers not appearing if Steam didn't initialise correctly - Fixed an issue with video backgrounds for songs not reading the video start time tag correctly in the song.ini if the key was all lowercase - Fixed a typo on one of the splash texts
ADJUSTMENTS
- The original Magic Notes Random logic has been changed to Magic Notes Chaos - Magic Notes Random now randomises the start position of each note with the notes gradually moving towards their respective frets
Fret Smasher Update v0.36 A2
Workshop support is here!
Players can now upload and download custom user-generated content using the Steam Workshop! Content includes custom charts, careers, themes, highways, HyperFlux highways and backgrounds! When it comes to your highways and backgrounds, you can even upload video variants!
Please join our Discord or see the Workshop Discussions tab on the Fret Smasher's Community Hub for the rules and guidelines of our workshop.
Change-log:
ADDITIONS
- Workshop Support - Charts, Careers, Themes, Highways, HyperFlux Highways & Backgrounds - Added .jpg and .jpeg support for theme and career preview images - 4 NEW Modifiers: Magic Notes, Magic Notes Reversed, Magic Notes Random, Magic Notes Chaos - 1 NEW Battle Power: Magic Notes
BUG FIXES
- Fixed an issue with open notes marked as taps not being assigned a sprite causing very confusing visuals of random note colours in the middle lane - Fixed an issue with the default theme using an older lower resolution texture for frets Red, Yellow, Blue and Orange - Fixed a visual issue with the hit window viewer displaying the hit window as double the size in battle mode - Fixed an issue with the game soft locking on song load if the selected theme does not exist - Fixed an issue with the News panel not removing the unread marker on read articles between sessions & menus - Fixed an issue with career bots having their skill level clamped to 3 max - Fixed an issue with career face-offs rewarding players with a victory if they have more points than the rival after the player has failed the song - Fixed an issue with the countdown vanishing instantly just before hitting 2 seconds remaining - Fixed an issue with custom video backgrounds not looping or having massive stutter problems - Fixed an issue with desync threshold not scaling correctly with song speed
ADJUSTMENTS
- Accuracy markers will now indicate if you were early/late with a +/- before the percentage - Updated setting descriptions - Updated default setting values for Lyrics, Desync Threshold, & Desync Interval - Updated the Trans Pride theme's preview image
