• Engine updated to 4.22.2.
  
• Support for Vulkan added
  
• Support for DX12 added
  

• Level loading has been refined and optimized. Speed increased from an average of 14 seconds per level, to 3 seconds.
  
• During level load, a loading screen is now shown. Woo.
  
• Tips have been added to the loading screen.
  

• 4 new levels have been added internally. They aren't quite ready for public release yet.
  
• Numerous sounds have been added.
  

• Serenity has transitioned to its final-ish form. Now with less popping!
  
• Smoothing has been applied to numerous new meshes, in an attempt to remove the hard edges.
  
• Midnight Ride has received its next series of overhauls. This should result in better performance, and better playability.
  
• The main menu has been overhauled to look better, perform better, and just generally be better.
  

• 2 new balls have been added. The Canadian, which is a cube, and the Flytrap, which is a sphere with cutouts that allows much faster turning and intentional popping.
  

• For the new upcoming levels, a lot of things had to be fixed. Such as:
  
• SHIFT'ing distance has been increased from 500 to 1500.
  
• Emission textures have been overhauled, to better light the darker levels, such as Cosmic Arrival.
  

Notes

General improvements

• Fixed a bug that prevented Serenity from switching to Oceanic Pathways on finishing the level
  
• Upon finishing Living Room, players will now be sent to Trials
  
• Upon finishing Trials, players will be sent to Serenity
  
• Fixed the best time metric loading from disk too often. It should now only load twice per level. Once when entering the level, and once when completing the level.
  
• Fixed the first ramp on Serenity throwing players off the track
  
• Moved 5 pickups on Serenity, to both prevent them from clipping into the ground, and to make them slightly more difficult to pick up
  
• Removed a pickup on Serenity, near the funnel.
  
• Serenity track textures have been modified to be better in line with the atmosphere and terrain
  
• The version mismatch in the main menu vs in game have been fixed. They are now synced.
  
• Midnight Ride has been modified to make it easier to reach the end, while also expanding the map a bit.
  

Notes

Roadmap

• When 0.5.0 rolls out, all the current levels will be overhauled.
  
• By 0.6, we plan to have full controller support, and the score/ best time metric finally fixed. It's proving to be a bit troublesome.
  
• 0.7 is levels levels levels. Our current level selection is a bit thin, and we'd like to expand it to close to 50 complete maps, all unique in their own right.
  
• For 0.8, we would like to add Linux support. We know the Linux player base across Steam is low, but they deserve some love too. While 0.5 and 0.6 won't take very long, 0.8 will most likely require a longer period of time due to platform specific bug patching, and OpenGL/ Vulkan vs DX11.
  
• 0.9 will be our finalization phase. Cleaning up all the unused assets, final optimization on performance, and the frameworks for continued development into 1.0.0+.
  
• 1.0.0 will be the game's release. Development will not stop here, but we will be moving onto our next game, _PROTOCOL (Name subject to change). Future content for PsyShift will continuously be added to and improved.
  

Patch notes for version 0.4.7-Release

• Updated engine version to 4.22.0
  
• Updated LowEntry to be compatible with 4.22.0
  

• Finally fixed Serenity being atrocious on hardware. This should be the last optimization patch specifically for Serenity.
  
• Aoxide has been replaced with Trials, a maze type level, featuring the new top-down camera. Enable this camera by pressing F at any time.
  
• Removed ray traced elements from the lighting on Living Room. They were never supposed to be in the release build anyways.
  
• Tweaked the lighting on Living Room, increasing performance by well over triple the baseline.
  
• Some pickups had issues with collision and being too high off the ground for players to reach. This has been fixed.
  
• Fixed Midnight Ride throwing players off the main course
  
• Fixed Oceanic Pathways not correctly sending players to the next level
  
• Tightened some seams on Serenity.
  
• Centered the "Going up?" text on Serenity.
  
• Moved the pickup in front of the elevator due to lighting issues on Serenity.
  
• Z plane detection size changed from 15.000^2 to 2000^2 (This prevents you from falling under the map too far, so you can respawn)
  
• Landscape material modified to be more clean, and make the performance hit less obvious.
  
• Removed some grass that managed to plant itself on the track.
  
• Removed the 130k+ grass and bush actors.
  
• Modified the maze mesh to remove overlapping edges so the textures stop clipping
  

• Engine version updated from 4.21.2 to 4.22RC7
  
• Physics async substepping disabled. Async substepping was needed back in 0.1.0 due to a moving obstacle that we eventually got rid of. Once it was removed, it just increased CPU usage for no reason.
  

• Changed how achievements are handled. They should now proc properly.
  
• Music volume is now set correctly across game launches (I programmed it out of order)
  
• Motion blur and lens flaring should now actually set properly
  
• Handbrake should now function independent of frame rate
  
• Removed APEX blocks from Serenity. They just caused performance loss, and didn't even work right.
  
• Temporarily disabled the best time metric as a bug is present that thrashed the storage.
  
• Background noise is now checked for NULL before using. This should prevent dead noise from playing.
  
• The main menu has had it's default color changed from orangish to a more tame purple.
  
• Added partial controller support for gameplay. Menu navigation still requires a mouse or keyboard.
  
• Fixed being able to jump in the main menu.
  
• Added invert camera option (Currently disabled, as controllers exhibited strange behavior that I couldn't correct)
  
• PhysX extensions have been overhauled to better address physics
  
• Function_Save has been disconnected from Timer_Best_Time, as it was loading hundreds of times per second, instead of just once. A workaround is in the works.
  

• Heavy optimization has been done on Serenity, increasing performance by another massive 50%.
  
• File structure has been updated to use pak files. This decreases game size, and helps the binary patching process.
  
• Input handling has been overhauled entirely. No more dropped inputs.
  
• Optimization has been done on virtually all code relating to the main ball, resulting in a net 15% increase in performance.
  
• My saving function has been overhauled to no longer thrash the storage when the best time function is called.
  

• Engine has been upgraded to 4.22 RC6.
  
• Changed how achievements are handled. They should now proc properly. (Cleaned up the code a lot. Now passes the params properly)
  
• Music volume is now set correctly across game launches (I programmed it out of order)
  
• Motion blur and lens flaring should now actually set properly (I just programmed it badly)
  
• Handbrake should now function independent of frame rate
  
• Removed APEX blocks from Serenity. They just caused performance loss, and didn't even work right.
  
• Temporarily disabled the best time metric as a bug is present that thrashed the storage.
  
• Background noise is now checked for NULL before using. This should prevent dead noise from playing.
  
• The main menu has had it's default color changed from orangish to a more tame purple.
  

• All LowEntry related functions have been converted to native
  
• Internal testing maps have been removed, such as AgsFas12A (A physics testing level. I literally head desk when I made it) and Physics_Test_Level
  
• Merc (External name: Aoxide) has been completely removed.
  
• MercV2 (External name: Aoxide) has been added, and testing can begin
  
• CRT upgraded to latest
  
• PhysX extensions have been overhauled to better address physics
  
• Async physics substepping has been disabled for this build, to test certain mesh actions when struck.
  
• Every texture and material has been recompiled.
  
• Function_Save has been disconnected from Timer_Best_Time, as it was loading hundreds of times per second, instead of just once. A workaround is in the works.
  

• Aoxide has received a performance upgrade again, increasing performance by ~3%
  
• Aoxide terrain has been modified, as the previous terrain and the engine didn't get along.
  

• Motion blur and lens flares are now considered overrides, and you can toggle them on and off at will regardless of graphics presets.
  

• Handbraking is now enabled. Press B to slow down to a stop.
  
• Screenshot mode is now enabled. Press NumPad + to pause the game, AND remove the UI, so screenshots can be taken without the UI being in your face.
  

• Numerous engine optimization and code refinements have increased the stability of PsyShift. Should crash less often.
  

• Size increased again. This is due to the raw amount of new assets we've added, and are planning to add into the game officially. Once PsyShift leaves early access, the size of the game will dramatically reduce as we will be removing all unused assets (Which already total around 3gb, but we may still need them to finish a few levels)
  

• Texture on the pickups has been changed
  

• Achievements added- "The One" and "Thank You"
  

• Lens flare intensity reduced to 0.1 (Down from 1.0)
  
• Motion blur amount reduced to 0.1 (Down from 5.0)
  
• Maximum motion blur reduced to 0.5 (Down from 10.0)
  

• Player size reduced from 0.5 to 0.1 (To give a bigger scale to the level)
  
• Player jump impulse reduced to 1200 (From 3000)
  
• Player roll torque increased from 1000000 to 10000000 (The size makes the ball roll slower, so we had to increase it to keep the speed relative)
  
• More environment added, such as trees, bushes, grass, and lakes
  
• Drastically changed the lighting, shadows, and reflections.
  

• Fixed Twilight Path instantly ending the level.
  
• Fixed Twilight Path player start being in the void
  
• Fixed Twilight Path ambient sound being glitched
  

• All track pieces have been remastered to be curved, and all hard edges have been removed (See images)
  
• Collision has been modified on many meshes to improve stability and offer greater hit detection.
  
• Lightmap reflections on many meshes have been reworked, allowing greater lighting precision.
  

• More achievements have been added and activated for testing