Genre: Fighting, Shooter, Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Indie
Hyper Jam
Patch v1.10 - Team modes and more!
We're excited to bring you a new patch that adds some fun new ways to play the game!
And in case you missed it, Hyper Jam is now out on Nintendo Switch! The optimisations we made for Switch also improved performance on other platforms, so the game should run better than ever (you may even be able to bump up a quality level or two!).
Team Modes
Teams have been one of our most requested features, and we’re happy to announce their arrival with two new modes!
Elimination is a new team-based mode which supports both 1v1 and 2v2, and awards a single point for winning a round - first to the score limit wins! First perk choice is given to the team that lost the previous round, removing the viability of throwing early rounds to gain perk advantage. You'll do half damage to team members by default, but you can also choose full or no damage. You can also turn on “Win by two” to make the finale more of a tug of war.
Takedown is similar to Elimination, but your teammate will respawn if you can stay alive for 10 more seconds after they die. Your team wins the round when all members of the opposing team are out at the same time!
We’re excited by the new strategies and dynamics that emerge with another player on your side!
Loadouts
We also added an option to pick a set of perks before the match starts, so you can go on to battle it out without any drafting between rounds. This can be a great way to try out different perk strategies without the constraints of a draft, and it’s fun to pit your favourite loadouts against each other!
Game rules presets + new mutators
In addition to these new scoring modes, we also added a number of new game rules and mutators, along with a new UI that lets you easily see all the rules at a glance. You can also save a set of rules as a preset, and load them up at a later time!
In fact, the built-in Elimination, Takedown and Loadout modes we mentioned above are actually just presets, so you’re free to use them as a base for your own custom rulesets.
Some of the new mutators include:
Instagib, where any damage will instantly kill gib you
Slippery Ground, where you slide around as if playing on ice
Falling Protection, which will return you to the play area if you fall off - great for those who found the environmental hazards a bit too… hard to avoid
Zero Gravity Thrown Weapons, which'll make thrown weapons keep travelling until they hit something (or some...one!)
Same Weapon Rounds, where only one type of weapon will be spawned during each round
Plus the option to disable Dashes, Parries and Throws, which can force you to play differently!
Cross-play matchmaking between all platforms
We’re happy to announce that from now on players on PlayStation and Xbox can be matched against each other! And with Hyper Jam now also available on Nintendo Switch, that means players on all 4 platforms can jump in the same matchmaking queue.
As always, feel free to organise private matches through the Discord with others on your platform of choice.
Other improvements
The existing free-for-all mode is now known as the Brawl preset
You can now return directly to character select from the pause menu
The sudden death ring now leaves more space around the hole on Overpass, giving players more room to move around
Weapons will now always spawn inside of the Sudden Death ring while it’s active
Players without a profile equipped will get a random selection of taunts you’ve unlocked, so they can still join in the BM
You can now equip a new skin or taunt you unlocked directly from the unlock dialog
Controls can now be customised directly from the options menu, saving a trip to character select
Improved the aiming of bots slightly on lower difficulties
Fixes
Fixed some cases where explosions in certain areas of an arena wouldn’t damage or knockback nearby players
Fixed a bug with the “Separate keyboard and gamepad” option that sometimes caused too many characters to be spawned
Fixed tutorial popover scrim being inset by safe zone
Fixed certain UI animations occasionally not completing
Fixed collision in left alley of Overpass
Fixed the nickname picker confirm button not responding to clicks
Fixed Chinese translation of GAME
Fixed several crashes
Fixed various minor bugs
We hope you enjoy the new content, and be sure to tell your Switch-owning friends that they can now play Hyper Jam too!
Patch v1.9.0
We’ve got a bigger patch in the works, but in the meantime we’ve fixed a few bugs and added three new languages!
Improvements
Hyper Jam is now available in Russian, Korean and Simplified Chinese, in addition to French, Italian, German, and Spanish
You can now set the game language from within Steam
It should now default to whichever language you use for Steam itself, rather than your operating system’s language
You can also choose a language for Hyper Jam specifically by right-clicking on the game in your Steam library, selecting “Properties”, and heading over to the “Language” tab
If you had previously set up a language override using launch arguments, that language will still take priority, and you’ll need to remove the launch argument to use the Steam language picker
PS4 controllers are now natively supported
You should now be able to plug in a PS4 controller and have it just work - no need to fiddle with Steam Input!
Icons should switch automatically, and you'll even get your controller light matching your character's color
If you had previously used Steam Input to configure these controllers then you may need to remove those configurations (please let us know if there are any other changes needed!)
Keyboard players can now re-bind their movement keys
French players rejoice!
Existing bot difficulties are now easier
Added a new “Master” difficulty that’s equivalent to the old “Expert” difficulty
Let us know what you think of these difficulty changes, particularly if you're a new player!
Fixes
Fixed a number of small localization issues
Fixed a few bugs in the tutorial
Fixed a bug causing character select slots to flash when unrelated slots readied up
Fixed some minor bugs in lobby
Fixed certain text being wrapped mid-word
Potential fixes for some rare crashes
Hyper Jam On Sale Now!
For anyone who's been waiting on a bargain for themselves or a friend, your time has come since Hyper Jam is 10% off on Steam for the whole week!
Patch v1.8.0
This patch focuses on matchmaking improvements that’ll make it easier to get into games and give you more to do while you wait, in addition to a number of bug fixes!
Join in progress
You can now be backfilled into a match that's already in progress! This should help you find games faster and avoid just missing out on a potential match. For those looking for more competitive play without the possibility of backfill, feel free to continue organising private matches via the Discord! We support Discord lobby integration, so it's super easy to invite other Discord users to join your lobby without having to add them on Steam.
When you join a match that's already in progress you'll be given a random selection of perks for each round you've missed, start equal with the lowest player's score, and be given a laser strike if you join mid-round. A match will stop backfilling once someone gets close to the score limit to avoid disrupting a hard-fought victory. Matchmaking thresholds have been shortened slightly to let you get into a 1v1 faster, given additional players can now trickle in as you're playing.
Local versus while matchmaking
You can now continue to play local games while searching for an online match! This allows you to practice against bots, and even play with some extra local friends inbetween online matches.
Other improvements
Notifications now stack instead of overlapping
Local games will now pause when an active controller is disconnected (or runs out of battery)
Matchmaking indicator is now prettier
Fixes
Fixed scoreboard bars overlapping if player left just before they were re-ordered
Fixed scoreboard sometimes showing as zero score after a player left
Fixed perk card titles not being scaled down properly in certain languages
Fixed damage text not always being rounded down
Fixed unable to press back from arena select while game is paused
Fixed client returning to character select underneath arena select leave dialog
Fixed slight layout glitch when closing pause menu
Fixed Cyber Heart visual effect occasionally not being removed on clients
Fixed mouse cursor jumping to top left while window isn't focused
Fixed character slots getting into a weird state after cancelling matchmaking
Fixed a rare case where packet loss could cause the camera to remain black when joining a match
Fixed a rare case where camera could rotate sideways due to framerate hitches
Fixed a rare case where sudden death announcement could appear during post-round
Fixed a rare case where the pause menu could be owned by the primary player when they weren't in the match
Potential fix for perk icons in match end stats becoming a white square
Potential fix for certain match end stats not highlighting the correct player
Patch v1.7.0
This patch includes some long-awaited balance changes, as well as a number of small improvements and fixes, some of which lay the groundwork for future patches!
Improvements
The taskbar icon will now flash if something important happens while the game is in the background
Eg. when a matchmaking game is found, when it’s your turn to pick a perk, when your character has been spawned
You can now delete profiles while using keyboard/mouse
Button prompts no longer show gamepad icons while using keyboard/mouse
We still hope to improve the overall mouse experience further in the future
Added some fallback latency tests in case the standard tests fail
Added some more specific messages for certain errors
Balance changes
Katana:
Increased slash cooldown from 0.3s to 0.4s per slash
Slightly increased charge time from 0.7s to 0.85s
Charged attacks now cost 2 ammo
Perks:
Reduced Mind Crush confusion duration from 3s to 1.5s
Increased Blood Runner move speed boost from 25% to 30%
Blood Perks now trigger at 40% health instead of 33.3%
Pyrogenesis now does 30 damage over 3 seconds instead of 20 damage over 2 seconds
Cyber Heart now heals 1.5 HP per second instead of 2 HP per second
Developer comments: We’ve seen new and intermediate players consistently struggle against Katana, often feeling helpless and unable to react or escape from an aggressor. In addition to fixing a bug that affected its cooldown, we’ve added slightly more time between slashes to give players a better chance to parry them, and increased the charge time a little to make it more deliberate. We also increased the ammo cost of the charged attack, given it requires a read to parry and is relatively easy to execute.
Mind Crush has been a divisive perk, and while certain players have enjoyed the challenge, others find it frustrating and hard to deal with. For now we’ve cut the confusion duration in half, which should preserve the initial disruption but reduce the feeling of being confused forever, and we’ll continue listening to player feedback.
The blood perks are particularly strong when paired with perks like Survivor and Bulletproof, but weren’t quite as effective without these synergies. These buffs mean you don’t have to be as low to get their benefits, and the increased move speed should make Blood Runner feel more impactful at lower stack counts.
We’ve also buffed a few other perks which we felt weren’t enticing or effective enough, and reduced the healing provided by Cyber Heart given how consistent its benefit is.
Fixes
Fixed a bug causing Katana’s cooldown to be ignored for consecutive charged attacks
Fixed being unable to heal while in Survivor’s short invulnerability period
Fixed some cases where the sudden death ring wouldn’t appear due to packet loss
Fixed long names touching the screen edge while mini score bars were full
Fixed stat cards with 3 rows of perks overlapping the XP display
Patch v1.6.0
This is a small patch to fix some of the main known bugs, and also contains a few small quality of life improvements. We hope to have another patch out soon with more improvements and some balance tweaks!
Improvements
Enabled background audio
Added a slider for volume options, allowing for smaller increments
Reduced default game volume
Added an option to separate keyboard and gamepad
This will enable those with only a single gamepad to have an additional player on keyboard/mouse
Fixes
Fixed an issue causing weapons to occasionally get stuck on zero ammo in online games
Fixed sudden death announcement not slowing time in matchmaking games
Fixed mouse-only camera mode option not being saved
Fixed "player has left" notifications not being shown in certain online games
Thanks to everyone who's been playing so far. It's great to see you enjoying the game, and we're listening to all of your feedback!
Feel free to join our Discord to chat with other members of the community, organise matches, report bugs and more!
Hyper Jam has launched!
The game is now available on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One - join us on the official Discord server to organize matches and have your say on what we should add next!
You may have also seen on our social pages that we are giving away a PS4 Pro and 20 copies of the game.
Entries closes on the 18th of February (3 days from now) so get on it!
Hyper Jam Release Date
Hello everyone, we have some very exciting news for you today.
We are thrilled to announce that Hyper Jam will be launching with online-crossplay on PC, Xbox One and PS4 on the 12th of February 2019!
As some of you may know, we are only a small team and have been working very hard on this game for years now. For us to finally be able to get the game into your hands is a huge milestone for us, and we cannot wait to hear what you think, and continue adding to the game moving forwards.
It's been a while since we last posted a progress update, so here are some of the feature highlights that you'll see in the full release:
New Arena: Jungle
This is a larger arena full of shortcuts and places to out-manoeuvre your opponents set atop of a high-tech jungle base!
New Arena: Skyline
This arena is optimised for intense 1v1 duels, featuring close quarters combat, wide open edges and symmetrical cover.
Tutorial
We've added a short and sweet tutorial to get you familiarized with the mechanics of the game before you jump into the fray!
Rebindable Controls
Make yourself comfortable with the ability to remap the controls as you see fit.
Unlockable Skins + Taunts
Gain XP as you play the game, and earn a new unlock each time you level up!
There are over 80 different skins and taunts you can use to express yourself as you take out your opponents.
Cross-platform Matchmaking
Find games quickly and easily with cross-platform matchmaking! PC players can be matched against opponents on Xbox One and PS4, giving you even more challengers to face.
More Synthwave
We've added a bunch of new music to the game, which now features tracks from artists Carpenter Brut, Dance with the Dead, Meteor, Electric Dragon, Vulta and Cloud Battalion!
If you have any questions or want to chat with other people who are excited for Hyper Jam, feel free to join the official Discord via the link below:
Progress Update and PAX Aus 2017
Hello everyone!
First of all, thank you to everyone who played the game at PAX Aus this year. We had an awesome time and got a tonne of positive feedback. Seeing your reaction makes us even more excited to get the game into your hands!
For those of you who didn’t get a chance to see us at PAX, we wanted to check in and share some of the what we've been up to over the past few months.
New level: Overpass
This level is a lot of fun to play on, especially using the rotating billboards to get grenade trickshots, and knocking each other into the abyss.
After completing Overpass we found ourselves wanting to take another look at our older levels, and ended up making some huge improvements to both their mechanics and their visuals.
Subway
Subway has always been a favourite, so we didn't want to change the design much mechanically. Instead we opted to simply refresh the visuals and improve visibility to make it easier to play on.
Assembly (formerly Hoghouse)
As with Subway, there were mechanical elements of this map that we really enjoyed – such as the pits and dynamic cover – but the slaughterhouse theme was a relic from early development and felt a little out of place.
We decided to capitalize on those mechanics we enjoyed by making the moving cover bigger and more solid, and by making more of an event out of the pits, which now open and close during the course of the game, giving the level a really dynamic feel.
Hotel
After playing on the old Hotel level for a while we found some fairly fundamental problems with the old design, and so went back to the drawing board. We ended up redesigning the layout completely to be simpler and more fun to play on, while still preserving the enjoyment of breaking glass and falling into the pool. As part of this we also gave it a visual overhaul, with readability as a major priority.
Characters and Animation
With the new levels coming together we then turned our attention to the characters. We completely revamped the animation system, and made big improvements to the character models, including new physics-based clothing which not only looks great, but really helps with character identification. The game now feels much more fluid and responsive to play, particularly as your movement and attack speed increases.
New ability: Parry
We decided that there were not enough defensive options in the game, so we added a mechanic that allows you to block damage and deflect projectiles back towards your opponents!
We are still fine tuning this mechanic, but even in its early stages it has added a whole new layer of gameplay and tactics that we are really happy with.
Online Multiplayer
We are very excited to announce that we will be launching Hyper Jam with online multiplayer!
Online is a feature that is very frequently requested, and after doing some tests internally we are confident in our ability to pull it off.
We still have quite a lot of work to do to ensure getting into an online game with friends or randoms is a seamless experience, but the core gameplay itself is working quite well already, and we hope to do a beta at some point in the future so the community can help us stress test it.
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There have also been many other smaller changes and under the hood improvements, including changes to throwing weapons, chance-based perks and more.
Now that our graphics upgrade is complete, we will get back to posting GIFs and other content on our Twitter and Facebook accounts, so be sure to follow us there if you want more Hyper Jam.
Thank you all so much for your continued support, and let us know what you think!
Update regarding Early Access
Hey followers,
Some of you might have noticed that our estimate of early 2017 for an early access launch has come and gone.
The reason we haven't made any announcement about the launch (or a delay) yet is that we haven't been able to post all of the information publicly until now.
While we were initially wanting to get an early access build out to you all earlier in the year, we've got some great news which has caused us to reconsider that choice:
We're happy to announce that Hyper Jam has the support of Film Victoria for its remaining development. This means we're now able to work full-time on the game, and as such we've decided to instead go straight to a full release rather than doing early access first.
The downside to this is that you'll have to wait a little bit longer to play Hyper Jam, but in return you'll get a much more complete, more polished, higher quality game. We're currently aiming for a full release some time in early 2018, but will keep you posted if this changes.
It's also worth noting that our intention to continue adding updates and new content hasn't changed – we still plan on supporting the game and the community as it grows, and we're grateful to all of you who're still following Hyper Jam.
In other news, we'd like to share a few things we've been working on:
New perk icons! Along with other assorted UI improvements
AI bots! You can now fill empty player slots with bots, or even play against 3 of them if you don't have any friends around. They're pretty fun to play against, and can be quite a challenge on the highest difficulty.
A lot of other smaller changes and under the hood improvements, including attack cancelling, revamped announcements, and tweaks to sudden death.
Of course we've also got a number of new weapons, perks, and arenas in the pipeline. We usually post GIFs and other content on our Twitter and Facebook accounts, so be sure to follow us there for a sneak peek.
Thanks for being patient, it'll definitely be worth the wait!
