Mindball Play
Steam version no longer supports headband function
In doing so we've also lowered the price by about 66% with hopes of increasing the number of players that buy and play Mindball Play. This should result in more online games for you who already own the game to play and compete in.
Now as to the why. Throughout the year we have continued to work towards the goal of making focus training and EEG measurement available to everyone, during this time we've realized that we need to provide our customers that want to train focus with additional software outside of training, such as long term specific stats. This software, FO:CS Stats, has now been developed and will soon be sold together with our training game FO:CS Play (more or less Mindball Play with the focus training functionality only), at our new website www.focs.gg.
If you have mainly bought Mindball Play for use with an EEG headband we apologize for the change and encourage you to get in contact with us. We'll make sure that if you'd like to sign up or purchase FO:CS Play & FO:CS Stats, you can do so at a discounted price as you've already paid for part of the function we now offer elsewhere.
TL;DR
If you don't own a EEG headband, nothing has changed. The game is now cheaper.
Muse headband support now requires Windows 10
Playing Mindball Play with the Muse headband now requires that you have Windows 10 on your PC and use the Muse Direct app.
It will no longer be possible to play Mindball Play with the Muse headband on Mac.
We are sorry for the inconvenience that might cause our Mac users. Unfortunately the circumstances are out of our reach.
We hope that you will enjoy Mindball Play played with other input methods or by using the BrainLink headband.
Merry X-Mas and Jingle Ball skin
Mindball Play is in Yogscast's Jingle Jam Bundle this year! (Check it out here. 100% of the proceeds go to charity, $2,870,601 has been donated so far!)
Hi and Welcome to all jingle-jammers! Thanks for checking out our game while supporting a great cause! You're awesome!
We're giving everyone the Jingle Ball skin to celebrate!
Version 1.1 released, with spectator mode and new campaign chapter!
We have now launched Mindball Play 1.1!
Campaign Chapter 3 – Celestial Spheres
The aliens are attacking in our 3rd campaign chapter – Stop them from leeching on our power supply before they lay more eggs!
Finishing the 3rd campaign mode will grant you an achievement and a new skin! (And the eternal gratitude from the world of Mindballs - just don't expect McCheaty to admit it)
Spectator mode
You asked and we listened – You can now spectate players in online and LAN games!
You can join a game and decide to be spectator from the beginning or start spectating other players after you have finished your race! In spectator mode you can choose to stalk a specific player or fly around the track like a crazy person!
Have fun!
Changes in version 1.1:
- Spectator feature added. Players can now spectate network games.
- New Campaign chapter added.
- One new skin and achievement added.
- Fixed some track issues.
- Optimized particle effects.
- Removed podiums from finish in online Time Trial.
- AI-balls now reverse a little if stuck on track.
- Limited collision particle effect spam for wedged balls.
- Fixed wrong finish order in network games with lag.
- Fixed position bugs when restarting network games.
- Fixed missing rolling sounds when lots of balls are nearby.
- Fixed reset issue on track Emerald Flow in network games with laps.
- Fixed lag spike on race finish.
Mindball Play 1.0 released!
This update to Mindball Play signals the end of our Early Access period. We can't thank our early players enough for testing the game and giving us feedback! Thank you, and to new players, WELCOME!
We are now releasing two brand new racing tracks, Emerald Flow and Binary. Emerald Flow is a more traditional race track, with focus on taking corners and optimising your line. Binary is the complete opposite with multiple ways to get from start to finish, and many obstacles on the way! Both tracks have support for multiple laps!
We have cleaned our Time-Trial leaderboards by removing times set before ghost balls were implemented. This should ensure all leaderboard times have a correct ghost ball replay.
Our new Campaign mode has been tweaked and should be more interesting from the get-go! We have also updated our achievements and added lots of new unlockable skins! While we were on it, we also took the opportunity to add Steam Trading Cards and a short tutorial!
Last, but not least, we have now added support for eye tracking with Tobii! This means you can steer your ball 100% with your eyes! You can also combine headband with Tobii eyetracking for a totally unique, handless experience!
As always, we deeply appreciate any feedback and bug reports. Find us on social media or on the Steam forums!
See you on the tracks!
Changes in version 1.0:
- Support for Tobii eye-tracking added.
- 2 new tracks added. Binary and Emerald Flow.
- 14 new skins added.
- New Steam achievements added.
- Lots of changes to campaign missions.
- Playable tutorial added.
- Star times in Time Trial tweaked.
- Player names added to minimap.
- Changed default Brake key from B to Left Control.
- Changed default Use pickup key from X to Left Shift.
- Laser duration increased to 2 seconds.
- Grip power-up has more grip.
- Running into oil with grip active cancels grip but doesn't apply oil.
- Players can get pick-ups when in ghost-mode.
- Some tweaks to sound volume and attenuation.
- Added a bindable shortcut-key for fast race restart. Unbound by default.
- Max number of network players increased to 20.
- Searching for network games only finds games of the same version.
- Problems with using non-ascii characters in username or password fixed.
- Ball skins are now used in split screen.
- Lots of smaller menu changes.
- Some track issues fixed.
RELEASE DATE!
With the release of Mindball 1.0 we'll give you two brand new tracks: Emerald Flow and Binary. Emerald Flow is a more traditional race track, with focus on taking corners and optimizing your line. Binary is the complete opposite with multiple ways to get from start to finish, and with many obstacles that stand in your way!
You’ve all been waiting and now it’s almost here! Race with your hands, eyes or brain! The upcoming 1.0 version will give you the opportunity to play Mindball with almost any input mode out there. Tobii Eye Tracker which is now built into the new version adds to the already stacked input list, combine it with a brain sensing headband for a completely unique handsfree experience.
Version 0.20 released, with a slew of new features!
This update to Mindball Play brings a heap of new features: Online Time Trial, ranked online games and two campaign chapters.
Online Time Trial works like normal Time Trial, each player race alone on the track vs the clock. Since it is a network game you can also see other players as ghost balls; not just ghost ball replays, but live ghost balls.
Online games can now also be ranked. When you play ranked games your rating will go up or down depending on your final position in the race. There is also a new leaderboard where you can see the global rankings.
The two campaign chapters contain a set of missions, where each mission has a custom set of goals, rules and conditions. Each mission can give a number of stars and when enough stars have been collected the harder “boss” mission is unlocked. Defeat the “boss” mission to unlock the next chapter.
For network games the host can now change track, as well as set passwords for network games. The game can now also be played using only the mouse.
As always we appreciate any feedback! Please let us know what you think of the campaign difficulty or how the new online features work!
Changes in version 0.20:
- Online Time Trial added.
- Two campaign chapters available.
- Ranked online games added.
- Quick-race added for network games.
- Host can change track in network games.
- Network games can now be password protected.
- Required star-times for Time Trial tweaked.
- Pointer steering input-mode added.
- 3 control-presets added.
- Camera setting changes.
- Some track-fixes.
- Can join network games with double-click.
- Ghost-ball particle effect optimizations.
- Reduced sfx sound volume in menu.
- Fixed issue with sending headband statistics for Time Trial games.
- Fixes to in-game chat.
- Fixed some incorrectly rotated lights.
Mac support added to Mindball Play
We have just added Mac support to Mindball Play!
Mindball Play requires macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or higher.
p.s. Curious about the new campaign mode? Take a sneak peek and try it out on our new experimental beta! News post about the beta can be found here.
All the best from us at Mindball
Version 0.19.1 with volumetric fog and fixes.
While fixing all the problems that sometimes come from updating to a newer version of Unreal Engine we have also spent time improving the lighting on all tracks. On the high and max settings you now have a nice and soft volumetric fog around most of the lights in the game.
We have also gone through the LOD- and lightmap-settings for many many objects, and as a result some tracks now take less disk-space and should run a little faster.
The long-standing bug with minimap-indicators getting stuck has finally been squished, as well as a recent bug that sometimes stopped ghost replays from downloading correctly.
For our headband-users we have also added a new focus-indicator that is displayed around the ball instead of in a corner of the screen.
Finally we have added an option for mouse look, for those of you who prefer to control the camera directly with your mouse.
We hope you enjoy the update! As always, all feedback is welcome!
Changes in version 0.19.1:
- New on-ball focus indicator available when using headband.
- All tracks have been optimized to look better and render faster.
- Volumetric Fog added in high and max graphics settings.
- Advanced graphics settings added.
- New death-animation when ball is reset.
- Made some tracks take less disk-space.
- Mouse look added.
- Nicer looking message when running into oil.
- Updated to Unreal Engine 4.19.
- Lots of LOD and lightmap resolution fixes.
- Some track-fixes.
- Fixed ghost-balls sometimes not downloading correctly.
- Network issue with stuck minimap-balls fixed.
- Faster and more robust timeouts if joining a network game fails.
- Fixed camera twitching slightly when following smooth curved tracks.
- Fixed ghost-balls shaking in low fps.
Introducing experimental - with campaign sneak peek
As the name suggests it is meant to provide a way to share the latest of what is happening in development with those interested. If you want to try out the newest features then you can now switch to experimental. For those who prefer a more stable and bug-free experience I would recommend staying with the default branch. It is also possible to switch back and forth between stable and experimental at any time.
Some warnings about experimental:
- Progress and setting are kept separate between stable and experimental, so any skins and stars you unlock in experimental will not be unlocked in stable.
- Experimental and stable uses different time-trial leaderboards, so any fast times you set in experimental will not be visible in stable.
- Experimental may be updated more often meaning more patches to download.
- Experimental may contain unfinished, unpolished or broken features.
- Not everything you see in experimental is guaranteed to make it into the stable branch.
To switch to a different branch in the Steam client, right-click on Mindball Play from the library page and select "Properties". Among the available tabs will be the "BETAS" tab.
Select branch in the dropdown menu under "Select the beta you would like to opt into:"
Available now in experimental is a sneak peek at one of the campaign chapters we are working with. There is also a new focus-indicator for those of you with headbands, more advanced graphics settings and an option for in-game mouse-look.
If all goes well you should also have an updated stable version soon, but without the campaign sneak peek.
Hope to see you in experimental!