Color corrected player portraits in order to be more similar to ingame colors.
Added outline to player score and announcements to make them more readable.
Changed the placement colors in the post game screen to the player colors.
The menus will now remember whether Tournament or Skirmish and their respective modes and preselect them when navigating the menus.
Tournament/game modes will now be highlighted in red when the recommended player count is not met.
FPS capped menus in order to avoid unneccessary system useage on some hardware configurations.
Balance:
Removed domination score bonus from tournaments.
Decreased required eliminations for a domination from 4 to 3.
Bugfixes:
Fixed tooltips not showing up in the settings menu while paused.
Fixed a rare case where the tournament round score screen would get out of order.
Online is coming to Lance A Lot!
Simply put, too many people have requested this feature for us to ignore it. So, we have finally decided to do it! Online will be added to Lance A Lot in (what will hopefully be) a few months!
The first step going forward is to implement an online beta, which will be accessible to everyone who has purchased the game. We hope to be able to launch the beta sometime in December or January, but we cannot say for sure yet.
The online mode will support 8-players and will be kept separate from local play. It saves us a lot of headaches if local and online play are kept separate (as they have different UI-, camera- and level- requirements), and more importantly, we can make larger levels suited for 8-player online if they are kept separate (which wouldn’t work on a shared screen as the camera would be too zoomed-out). This also means that we will add four new player characters, along with a few new levels. More content and mechanics could also be included over time, but nothing is final about that yet (please let us know if there’s anything specific you want added to the game!).
This also means that releases on Mac, Linux and Xbox One will be postponed until after we have implemented the online mode. We are quite limited in the number of things we can do at any given time since we only have one programmer on the team, and implementing online will therefore have to be prioritized over other platform releases.
For those wondering about whether we are going to add AI, well the answer is that we might. We cannot promise anything about it at this point though. But please tell us if you feel that AI is important.
Why wasn’t online part of the game from the start?
For many various reasons. The main reason is that Lance A Lot was originally planned as a short 12-week project, developed primarily as a way to get experience as a team (it’s our first commercial release) and to prepare us for our next project which is a much bigger game (and has now of course been postponed until we’re completely done with LAL). Over time though Lance A Lot expanded into a half-year project. If we had known from the start that we would spend over six months on this then we would most likely have included online from the start, or made an entirely different game instead.
We should also be clear that adding online to a game that was originally built for local-only could prove problematic. We’ll try our best though!
What will happen in the next few months?
We have a minor update planned for the next few weeks, fixing bugs and improving on UI and other minor issues. After that we probably won’t make any game update until we’re ready to release the online beta in hopefully December/January (unless there are other bugs or technical issues to fix of course).
We want to hear your suggestions!
We have a lot of ideas about new mechanics, features and content that could be added to the game. But before we commit to anything we want to know that there’s a wider interest for the game, so an online beta is the first step to verify that. If everything goes well though, we could expand upon the game with new modes like racing, team fights (two knights on one rocket perhaps?) or pass the bomb. Updates could also include new mechanics like power-ups, boosting and re-implementing a more balanced version of the barrel roll ability that was part of the beta.
But we need your feedback! So please let us know what you want added to the game, and please post your suggestions in either the steam community or over at our subreddit. We read pretty much everything posted in either group. We will also post there whenever we have questions or something we want your feedback on.
For those who want to follow the continued development of Lance A Lot, we suggest subscribing to our YouTube channel for (usually) weekly updates. We also have a Facebook and Twitter page of course.
tldr; 8-player online coming to Lance A Lot. A beta will be available hopefully in December or January (or later) to everyone who has purchased the game. Mac, Linux and Xbox One release postponed.
EDIT March 28 2017: The online mode has unfortunately been cancelled, read more here.
Hotfix 19/10
Fixed a bug where the title in Tournament/Mode Select screen wouldn't update after backing out to the main menu.
Changed the Window Mode dropdown to a Fullscreen toggle.
Added a scrollbar to the Resolutions dropdown in order to accomodate for setups with a lot of supported resolutions.
Fixed a spelling error in the Swedish localization.
Lance A Lot is now released!
Woop woop!
Save 35% during launch week!
During our greenlight campaign a while back in June, we promised that Lance A Lot would be released at the price of $9.99 (or equivalent). However, since then we've decided to increase the price to $14.99 to bring it up to par with similar party games on Steam.
But in order to be fair towards our early followers, we will have a 35% launch sale during the first week. This way all early adopters can get the game for the price we originally promised. The sale will go on for 7 days, starting a few hours from now when the game is released!
Also, just a heads up. Since we're finally releasing the game now, the closed beta will end shortly. Thanks to those who gave feedback and helped us during development!
Beta Update #3b
ADDED
Gameplay tab in settings.
Option to always play William Tell in both tournament and skirmish.
Option to turn off the HUD for taking screenshots.
Option to turn off player outlines.
Option to scale player outlines.
Option to toggle vibration on controllers.
FIXED
Fixed rare case where powderkegs appear ignited when respawning.
Settings menu now renders properly in resolutions other than 1080p.
Players turn value will now reset to zero when immobilized, thus avoiding awkward poses when the game ends.
Tipping a powderkeg over either by player collision or collision with another explosive will now transfer ownership.
Fixed a case where it was possible to start loading the same level twice.
Fixed rounding error on slider options.
CHANGED
Moved HUD scale option to the gameplay tab.
Standard outline size is now slightly smaller.
Outline on rocket is now on after elimination.
Outline will now appear on a KOTH point when a player holds it.
Camera will now aside from players also follow active game mode objectives and portals.
Tournament setup and restart is now accessible from pause menu.
Mouse will now be hidden in menus when using controller and not moving in order to avoid having multiple buttons highlighted.
Powderkeg eliminations will now always be awarded to the last player activating it, rather than the last player that isn't the player being eliminated.
PERFORMANCE
Most static objects now uses atlassed textures in order to reduce draw calls.
Optimized trees.
Beta Update #3
NEW CONTENT
Levels: Thornwood
Modes: King of the Hill (as well as “Grand Tournament” and “Conquest” in Tournament)
Music: William Tell Overture-cover which plays during final rounds in Tournaments
Music: a shortened more extreme version of the William Tell Overture-cover which plays during Sudden Death
Music: reduced the bpm on the menu music (it’s less intensive now, which is more fitting for a menu soundtrack)
Placeholder Announcer: new lines (rocket eliminations, self-eliminations etc), adjusted other lines and added more variation (3 domination/revenge lines instead of just 1 etc)
Players: four new characters (Royal Champion, Black Knight, Grim Templar & Mystery Challenger) have been implemented
Players: animations for all characters have been remade and they now tilt slightly while turning
GAMEPLAY & BALANCING
Bash: changed attack rate from 0.50 to 0.75
Bash: increased attack trigger area width from 0.25 to 0.40
Controls: turn acceleration removed for keyboard players (controllers never had turn acceleration to start with, so this is now equal)
Modes: self-eliminations in Melee now causes you to lose one point (but never below 0)
Modes: default score limit for Melee reduced from 15 to 10
Modes: dominations now require 4 eliminations in-a-row against a specific player (was previously set at 3)
Movement: increased top speed multiplier while the lance is lowered from 1.2 to 1.3
LEVELS
All: adjusted- and added new player spawn positions, adjusted CTF-banner start position and adjusted colliders on all levels
All: minor visual adjustments on all levels
Crossroads: visual upgrade with mining-related props
Proving Grounds: replaced fences with tents and trees on both sides and moved props closer to the wood beam
Barrel Roll: added a fourth powder keg (and a fifth powder keg hidden in the watchtower)
Sacred Grove: opened up the level and replaced center-walls with trees
Enchanted Lake: reduced the distance between the portals, added more trees
VISUALS
Visibility: spawn VFX is now player-colored
Visibility: rocket exhaust trail is now player-colored and reacts to movement while turning
Visibility: added a player-colored overlay on the players and game mode objectives
Visibility: added a player-colored overlay on all dangerous level mechanics that can be activated by players (holy hand grenade, rotating wood beam & powder kegs) to show who will get rewarded for any potential eliminations
UI: updated Player Select (mostly finished now, still missing polished player portraits though)
UI: partially updated Mode Select & Level Select
UI: updated ingame HUD (larger and easier to read point counters)
UI: updated ingame pause menu (fewer but more relevant options are now available)
UI: updated the credits
OTHER
Bugs: dangerous level mechanics like powder kegs and the rotating wood beam now properly award points to the correct player for eliminations (instead of incorrectly counting as self-eliminations or similar)
Bugs: fixed a lot of minor bugs
Performance: loading times are now faster for all levels
Performance: trees will now deactivate when not in motion in order to increase performance
Here's a gameplay video showcasing Thornwood and King of the Hill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYjYj-I-5gk
Release date postponed
We have decided to postpone the release of Lance A Lot to the 18th of October (instead of the 29th this month). This was not an easy decision to make, but we feel that the extra two and a half weeks are necessary to ensure that the game is well-polished upon release.
The closed beta will therefore also be extended into October. The next wave of beta invites will be sent out along with the next beta update.
More info can be found here: http://rockethammer.com/new-release-date/
