#SelfieTennis
HAPPY NEW YEAR + 2018 UPDATE
We made a little NEW YEARS video to show you the new features in #SelfieTennis version 2018: https://youtu.be/XR_pA9Ig14E
Update includes new&funky AI by Horatiu + racket tracker support (Vive only). So smack them ball heads up to celebrate that 2017 is sooooo last year!
Love,
@VRUnicorns
NEW VIDEO (& secrets)
Julie/@VRUnicorns
VRUNICORNS BOOTCAMP BUNDLE
You can check out #Archery HERE.
And here's a link to the VRUNICORNS BOOTCAMP BUNDLE, if you fancy.
+ let us know your wishes for the next #SelfieTennis update!
Mr. Romantic Update
As some of you know we had a rough 2016 Autumn, but 2017 has proven to be a delightful experience so far. Horatiu aka Mr. Romantic has been cranking out an update of #SelfieTennis with much more focus on hearts and romance. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day in Romania (Horatiu’s home country), so we felt that this is an excellent time to push the new build live and we very much hope you’ll enjoy the polish and new features:
We expanded the heart upgrades to contain more cool features that we feel complement the game (some features are inspired by #Archery that the Swedish unicorns have been working on in parallel...more about that game SOON).
1. Highscores now produce a reward in the shape of hearts! As many as you can score in honest tennis against/with yourself.
2. HEART TRUMPET - once you find it as a heart upgrade it allows you to avoid meaningless violence by directly spawning hearts.
3. The bow - which can be used to shoot regular arrows or ball arrows (or rackets, or ponycorn, or lightsaber or some of the other stuff in the game), so you can shoot the hearts and feel like Cupid. Spread the love!
4. Arrows that impale - use them like you would with anything else in the game - mess around, take selfies and distract yourself from playing with yourself.
5. Added 3D unicorn for better selfies - remember to log-in on the screen before tweeting from the #SelfieStick. There’s unfortunately no easy way to get around this log-in process for now due to Twitter’s web API.
6. Added more bees which can be shot to make more bees (with no upper limit, but they are really hard to shoot so if you lag your game it means you're really good at it).
7. Various small fixes to graphics and racket physics improvements which increase overall performance.
Have fun you all! Be prepared for more craziness in the future.
-Julie
#SelfieTennis #Update
We wanted to push an update live a few weeks ago, but Horatiu had to find a new place to live and I (Julie) have been hit by some autoimmune arthritis and have been in-and-out of hospitals the past three weeks. Steroids have brought be back to functionality and I’ve finally been able to playtest Horatiu and Simon's work on this update to the max. And it's awesome IMO. First, the new stuff:
- #FriendsMode! Play with your friends, and track scores with the local highscores. Enter this mode by pressing F on the keyboard (see part 1 below for more info).
- #MixedReality! An experimental tool for recording with a static Mixed Reality camera. Enter this mode by pressing XXX on the keyboard. Remember to adjust FOV and the clipping planes yourself. You can turn the playspace 90 degrees in VR on grips after pressing T on keyboard. Rotating playspace can be useful when recording action shots (see part 2 below for more info).
- Other fixes and tweaks (see part 3 below for more info).
1. FRIENDS MODE: LOCAL MULTIPLAYER!
Our friends love it when we have Vive parties, where we pass the headset along and let each other take turns playing. We started making our crazy sports games by making prototypes in the middle of the night and having friends over to playtest them, and that's exactly the spirit we want to bring to you with the #FriendsMode. In this update, you will get:
On-screen local multiplayer scoreboard
Features for adding players, renaming, removing and clearing their scores
3 game modes with more on the way in future updates!
#VanillaTennis game mode, where you play the good old who-can-keep-the-ball-going-over-the-net-the-longest #SelfieTennis original rules
#ThrowUp game mode, formerly known as #HighBalls, but this time with Rackets, because bouncy rackets are funnier than bouncy balls. The rules are simple: throw your racket the highest to win!
#HorseRace. NEED WE SAY MORE??? Use the #Ponycorn to go from one end of the court to another in the shortest time. You can add your own rules to this: finish the race only after #spanking all the ball people in the court, or you're only allowed to jump backwards, or you have to use #GiantMode or do laps... Your imagination is the limit!
Known issues: If you get the magic mushroom upgrade and try #HorseRace in the #FriendsMode your start & goal will spawn outside the court. WOOOPS. Lesson learned: don’t do magic mushrooms. Also, in this mode ball people sometimes fly in outer space...just don’t do drugs. Seriously.
Remember to lock the interface with the little lock button if you want it always on-screen! This works great for parties and showcase events!
The scores are saved between sessions, so you can pick up the game where you left off, or start a new session with your friends the next weekend when you get together again!
Pimp yourself up by changing colors using the selfie stick! Hit yourself in the head to change colors.
ACTIVATE #FriendsMode WITH THE CHEAT KEY F
2. MIXED REALITY STATIC CAMERA TOOLS
We thought it would be cool to make mixed reality videos, but we wanted to make it without the need for a 3rd controller, so Horatiu made a tool to make our lives easier. And we hope all you streamers and film makers will have an easier time with our tool than without it.
Use the complicated cheat "XXX" to turn on the mixed reality interface. Follow the instructions in the game to make your life easier calibrating the real-life camera with the in-game camera, and do it with better precision and less time-waste too!
How to use the tool?
Activate the Mixed Reality mode by pressing XXX (three times X). We have added a file called externalcamera.cfg next to the #SelfieTennis .exe in your game folder for this to work!
Check out the (?) button in the interface, for a nicer, colorful version of these instructions, with a #sexy picture of Horatiu to boot!
Use the first button to choose which controller to use for calibrating camera position.
Press the second button to hook up camera position to the controller position, in a way that makes it a breeze to align it with your real life camera.
Align the controller to the real-life camera, and touch the touchpad (which should be easily accessible at your index finger) to lock the virtual camera in place. Press the touchpad to start this step over until you get a good position.
Fine-tune the position and rotation of the camera, as well as field of view (FOV), near and far clipping planes, and the middle clipping plane (or near offset, as SteamVR calls it internally)
Save the settings when you are satisfied, and you're ready to record!
Next time you start up the game, just press Load instead of setting up the whole thing again (provided that your setup has remained identical).
3. OTHER FIXES AND TWEAKS
Space To Reset is back! It's especially useful when playing with your friends, or when trying to get rid of all the ball people lying in the way.
Fixed left handers fairness: when you switch controllers using the Application Menu button (the little round button above the touchpad), you're doing it right and you are officially left-handed, so you will get the correct amount of forehand and backhand shots, and their correct placement. If, on the other hand (heh), you switch by physically switching controllers, you will continue to get slightly more forehands.
#SelfieStick + #PonyCorn bug turned feature! We know you love riding the pony and taking selfies at the same time, and that you took advantage of one of our quick'n'dirty scripts that didn't make it in the refactor in order to CHEAT your way into it, but we've decided to LET YOU! So you can now safely (fingers crossed) always use the selfie stick and ponycorn (and spawn balls when switching tool), no need to hack around ;) it’s sometimes wobbly as riding an actual pony is.
Fixed an achievement (the "Byeeeeee… eee… ee…") that was too hard to get (it was actually impossible to get, because it was broken) and some other achievements
Fixed Snowball that sometimes leaked from a parallel #SkiJump Universe and got stuck in the #SelfieStick (now it doesn't get stuck)
TIME FOR EXCUSES:
No ball cannon??? I know - Horatiu, Simon and I are still discussing how we wanna do this and he’s currently on a road trip with his family towards his motherland, Transylvania. He is literally becoming Dracula as I type. I hope we get that ball cannon/gun in someday within near future, cause I REALLY REALLY want it. His Twitter handle is @horatiu665 in case you wanna put some hardcore pressure on him and help me get the ball cannon in.
As always: let us know what you think!
Julie @VRUnicorns
PS. remember that we have a lot of cheat keys...and other instructions:
Instructions: You use the triggers to spawn the ball(s) and racket. Double-click on racket trigger to lock it. You can change controller hands on the small button above the touchpad. Knock #BallPeople off the court and take their hearts to enter #HeartAttack mode (time-limited upgrades).
#SelfieStick is on ball controller's grips and you can record a GIF and tweet it out via the touchpad - log on to your Twitter profile via the computer screen when you start the game. Double-click grips to lock it in your hand. SAFETY IS KING: Controllers can fly, SO WEAR WRIST STRAPS!
Cheats (on keyboard):
- F: For #FriendsMode (local leaderboards)
- I: spawn peeps outside court
- O: delete peeps outside court
- P: spawn peeps inside court
- L: delete peeps inside court
- B: for high Balls serve mode
- E: for Enio ball (experimental - for higher visibility)
- K: for Kids mode (don't cheat, if you're an adult...by age)
- S: deactivate the #SelfieStick
- M: turn of Music
- Arrow keys: rotate play space
- HAHAHA: Laugh at your friends for extra hearts!
- XXX: for #MixedRealityMode
- T: rotate playspace on racket controller grips while in #MixedRealityMode
#RacketUpdate
The #RacketUpdate is live and all about rackets (and the like). The default racket has been revamped and now looks and feels better - based on real life standards. You can choose various skins to play with, but you need to unlock them by smashing special #Hearts (kill a spectator, knock said spectator over the edge and smash the heart). Link to #RacketUpdateTrailer
There are a few unlockable special rackets too:
- #Lightsaber as an ode to our lovely friends at ILMxLAB
- #Ponycorn - a pony on a stick - childhood favorite! Ride/jump to the end of the #Rainbooooow!!! (Actual rainbow will be included in a future update)
- #MultiRacket - Experiments sometimes result in success, other times in failure. Once every million tries though…you get something a bit more unique.
The new rackets are accessible via the new selection system on the touchpads. Don’t worry if at first it doesn’t do anything! All you need to do is whatever it is you normally do (kill and go for the hearts) and the upgrades will come to you.
Performance improvements courtesy of Unity 5.4 (we finally upgraded from 5.3).
Future:
- We teased a ball cannon, but didn’t finish it yet, but you can already shoot balls (go figure!)
- We’re working on AI for the #BallPeople - they will still be the old lovable characters you all know and love, but with a bit more personality.
- #Rainbooooow!!!
@VRUnicorns
Upcoming Features!!! #PinkyPromise
We’re updating #SelfieTennis within a few days (most likely Sunday late eve). We’re fueled by carrots, apples and sugar to push it live and we promise this update will make you FLY on rainbows (really, anything in life should, but we hope this REALLY will).
It’s always hard to promise, but we’re currently crunching on:
1. New rackets (which are NOT measured after the kids racket Julie brought to the office in November last year back when we knew nothing about tennis….sorry!)
2. Andreas made some #StarWars-related #OdeToFriends at ILMxLAB. Surprise!
3. Horatiu is implementing some sweeeet AI on the ball people (on top of everything else Mr. #Wizard is adding).
4. And we are doing overall performance fixes (finally updated to Unity 5.4 instead of 5.3 - yiiipiiphihihi) and we are also working on the ball-racket collision.
5. Oh, and someone mentioned a ball cannon, right? RIGHT!!! BALL CANNON!!!
@VRUnicorns
#MajorPhysicsRevamp + #Achievements + #Love
- Physics system has been revamped and tested with REAL Tennis Players (no kidding. We've spent hours in a tennis club + have had real tennis players testing)
- Serves have been MASSIVELY improved. IRL tennis players seem to prefer the experimental ball serving mode (cheat key: B)
- Implemented topspin and slicing, quite subtle but noticeable in #ProTests
- Improvements for ball/racket collision system (will revisit in the future #PinkyPromise)
- Achievements: steamcommunity.com/stats/392190/achievements
- B: for high Balls
- E: for Enio ball (experimental - for higher visibility)
- K: for Kids mode (don't cheat, if you're an adult...by age)
- S: deactivate the #SelfieStick
- New high score leaderboard for new physics and we’ll keep the old one for show-off/historical reasons: steamcommunity.com/stats/392190/leaderboards/1323402
- I: spawn peeps outside court
- O: delete peeps outside court
- P: spawn peeps inside court
- L: delete peeps inside court
- M: turn of Music
- Arrow keys: rotate play space
Minor bug fixes: teleportation bug, rotating play space bug and then some.
Next update: we’ll push out next update in a few weeks, so give us your input, feedback, crazy ideas, wishes, whatnot on Steam, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, email, snail mail, pigeon, unicorn, YOUNAMEIT!
#carrots, #rainbows, #love
@VRUnicorns
#QuickFix
Original post (without the bad language...tsk tsk...Danes aka Julie). We’ve never had frame rate issues in #SelfieTennis before, but something happened with the #HeartAttack update and a few of you lovely players (luckily very few) suffered from frame rate drops. Thanks for letting us know lovely people! We’ve done a quick fix on the #SelfieStick as it seems to be related to that little gimmicky fella and we will do an overall performance optimization very soon. You might not be into taking selfies, but we always had it ready at hand (=spawned in the level). We’ve tweaked that now, so we keep it inactive when you don't feel like documenting and tweeting about your #KillingSpree. We don't know why it became an issue, but this #QuickFix seems to have done the trick. Let us know whether it works for you peeps who suffered! Make sure to spank us if you see us IRL. We’ll be at Nordic Game Conference this week.
Update: #HeartAttack + fixezzzz
- Feature: Heart Surprises - get more love out of your old sweet hearts
- Explosive Heart: When spanking is not enough.
- Violin Racket: Become a musical genius.
- Big Racket: Size Matters!
- Tiny Racket: So cute <3
- Big Balls: Everyone loves big balls!
- Heart Heads: Extensive heart surgery.
- Giant Mode: When you scale up, there is not mush room.
- Bee: to bee or not to be
- Feature: Better sense of fashion for ball people headwear (added hats)
- Improvement: Improved audience spawning algorithm
- Improvement: Bell towers now spawn ball people on the court
- Improvement: Improved teleportation algorithm
- Improvement: GIFs saved to MyDocuments/VRUnicorns/SelfieTennis
- Improvement: minor performance optimizations
- Improvement: Racket throwing mechanic, racket physics
- Improvement: Optimized audio routing
- Improvement: Using native audio spatializer
- Improvement: Mouse Cursor hidden
- Anti Imrovement: Removed broken Reset Level Button
- Fix: Positioning of ball people
- Fix: Twitter input field
- Cheat: Disable music on M
- Cheat: Rotate Playspace using left < and right > arrow keys
- Cheat: Laugh at your friends for extra hearts!