Rainbow Reactor
Founding Heroes of the Rainbow Reactor
as we said, we'd be going round & taking names – and we just passed the deadline for our Early Adopter Challenge. We recorded the scores right when Early Access ended as well as last midnight, and to make it really fair, we decided to expand the list to 30 people, so that everyone who was in the Top25 at the end of Early Access is included.
Now without further ado, here's the list of 30 Steam names that will be displayed in the upcoming "Factory Tour" feature, where you will be able to teleport around the factory and learn some of the history of the Rainbow Reactor:
mushi_mush
haemtets
rexerjohn
Brownie
Delorean787
quintthemint
ChRoM
foofaraw
jonbitzen
Nici
mAd
tadude
tycoon2001
Pvteyes
scs333
Bobylebobs89
ivetodie
HOSHI82
clive.cummings4
w.jauch
Moriar
Dragonking_0504
francis2668
DJ Gelo Official
Xiūgǎi nín de nìchēng
high res monkey
tamanegi
wrnglr06
Sandora
dgtlhrt
This feature is planned to release this summer. If you your Steam name is on this list but you do not want it to be shown, please let us know at any time and we'll take it off immediately.
Thank you for playing!
! Price Hike Imminent ! & Dev Video
at the time of writing this, there are only 24 hours left in our "Goodbye Early Access"-Sale. After this, the price of the game will go up to reflect its status as a full release - And so it will cost $14.99 from then on.
While some may think that this is an ambitious price, it really is a ton of work to make a game with this level of polish, even if the underlying game principle is a simple one. To shine a little light on our arduous (but mostly fun) work process of the last two years, we've put together a short video that shows some of the iterations Rainbow Reactor went through:
https://youtu.be/Rx0TZGCNNi0
Well, looking back at all this brings back the memory of how much sweat and tears we (sometimes literally) had to put into this game – and it's pretty certain that we will have to invest umpteens of hours more, if we ever want Rainbow Reactor to make a profit. At the moment, we're still quite far away from even making back the money we had to spend to get the game to this point. But still we will push on – with your help! If you like the game, spread the word and the love for VR! Because one thing is for sure: The VR community is one of the best and without the many helpful and friendly people out there, we probably wouldn't have made it so far :lunar2019coolpig:
Good Bye, Early Access!
To celebrate Rainbow Reactor’s transition to Full Release, we are giving a 40% launch discount. Don’t forget that after that, the price of the game will go up to reflect its completed status – so now may be the best time to enlist as a worker bot at the Rainbow Factory!
Also, our Highscore Competition will still run til the 31st of May, at which date everyone who holds a place in the top 25 of the „Full Day“ Leaderboard will be eternalized on a commemorative plaque in the Rainbow Factory Tour, which we will release as a coming feature later on.
For more information on the game, please have a look at the older blog posts and discussions.
Thank you for your support,
The Rainbow Reactor Team :D
Early Adopter Competition!
a while ago we said we were planning a little reward for people who supported Rainbow Reactor during the Early Access phase. Now we present you with a competition to permanently record your name in the history of the Rainbow Factory!
As the next big feature, we will add some teleportation points to the game, so you can check out the factory in more detail. And one of these points will have a commemorative plaque where the 25 highest scoring Early Adopters of Rainbow Reactor will be eternalized!
That means, all you have to do is to be placed as one of the 25 best players in the main leaderboard on the 31st of may. At the end of that day, we will record the 25 top players from the Full Day Leaderboard (minus the devs who may be in there - that suspicious Grooviak guy will not count!) and display their Steam names on the commemorative plaque once the “Teleportation Tour” feature goes live.
So get out there and rack up those scores!
By the way, did you know that there is a downloadable Rainbow Reactor manual available from the Steam Store Page for your information and entertainment? ːsteamhappyː
Huge Music & Rhythm Update
a couple days ago, we told you Synthwave Is Coming – now it's here! We've fitted Rainbow Reactor with 9 brand-new music tracks which make the game appear in a whole new light. The beat of the music is synched to the appearance of the Chromium Balls, and even more importantly, to the right time to grab them before they fall off the rail. So if you pay attention to the music, or even better, groove along to it a little, you will soon be able to perform intuitive saves that weren't possible before. Also, this heavily '80s-inspired new sound track adds to the atmosphere of Rainbow Reactor, which has always been inspired by the decade that was famous for arcade culture and the rise of cyberpunk.
People who hate synthesizers don't have to worry though – of course, you can still turn the music off in the options menu and we have other improvements for you as well. For example, it's now possible to see freshly formed Chroma Balls on their way to the emitter. In the glass pipes behind these machines, you can now see which colours will appear on the rails next. Very useful for planning ahead! Also, when you set the voice volume of our HoverBot to zero, now all narration will be skipped, so you can move through the game faster. On top of that, there are quite a bit of added tidbits to the graphics which make the Rainbow Factory look better than ever, as well as further performance improvements and bug fixes.
So this is one of our biggest updates so far, a lot of code had to be re-written to allow for perfect beat-matching, but we think it was worth it, as we feel the whole playing experience has been transformed into something much more dynamic and well tuned. We hope you'll all agree and have fun – in which case we'd be super grateful if you could invite your friends to try Rainbow Reactor too and get some more entries to our leaderboards. And of course, reviews are always appreciated.
But for now, check out this new update and get a groove on! :lunar2019coolpig:
Synthwave Is Coming!
it's time for us to tease you for our next big update. One thing that has been missing from Rainbow Reactor so far was our idea to have the music synched to the action. Finally, we are almost ready to release this great new addition. With nine music tracks, one for each work shift, you'll be able to groove along to the beat and get a feeling for when it's time to grab the next chroma ball off the rails, even without looking!
The challenge for us to get everyone into the groove was to find a style of music that is somewhat funky without being too aggressive and has a clear rhythm without being overly monotonous. Combine that with the requirement to match Rainbow Reactor's eclectic visual style that revolves around '80s Arcade Culture and Cyberpunk. Of course there can only be one answer to all this: Synthwave!
Here's a sample track, coming hot from the studio of our composer Karumatsu Akawa:
https://youtu.be/c5Jk2QEv1wU
We know most of you guys will be busy watching TV tonight, so we'll take some more time to fine-tune the release of this groundbreaking addition to Rainbow Reactor. Please note that the synched music will conclude the list of things we wanted to achieve for the game, so we will be going out of Early Access soon. If you're reading this and do not own the game yet, keep in mind that there will be a significant price hike once the game is fully released. Also, we are currently working on a special surprise for all Early Access Adopters, so now could be the best time to join the ranks of the Rainbow Factory Workers!
Do not worry though, even after the Early Access Phase has concluded, Rainbow Reactor will be supported with updates and new features … until long after the Threat From The North will have been repelled. Or will it?!? [SPOILERS!!!]
p.s.: Did you know that our graphics aces Tom Hiebler and Henrik Zähringer contributed fantastic artworks to "Unseen Westeros"? Fans of the seven kingdoms who do not know about this art book & exhibition yet should ask their favourite search engine about it :lunar2019coolpig:
Last Days Of Discount (again)
all things come to an end, and this is true for our current participation in the Weeklong Deals :lunar2019coolpig:
For another 30 hours, you - or your friends - can get Rainbow Reactor for 25% less. We promise our game is not one of these "Early Access Duds" that do exist out there, but a good investment. We keep on improving the game as we speak - seeing how the performance improvements really did well, we are doing even more of these, possibly being able to release more optimisations in a week or so.
Also, more voice-over in different languages are being prepared. You can tell us what languages you'd like to see, errm, hear the most in the discussions section. And if you even want to jump in with your own translations or voice recordings, or if you know some talent we should approach for recording in your language, please let us know!
Other than that, we are of course looking at new ways for you to have fun in the Rainbow Factory - but first, let's see you guys fill up the Single Shift Leaderboards ːsteammockingː
See you soon!
Another Fresh Update Arrives
less than two weeks ago, we released Rainbow Reactor Version 0.43 – which is now further improved and upgraded to Version 0.44 :lunar2019grinningpig:
Don't let these small numbers fool you, we really packed in quite a bit of important new things, tweaks and fixes. To recap, the last update brought the new game modes "Single Shift" and "Party", which enable you to make your own rules by means of modifiers, and really duke it out for the ultimate score – either online, by competing in 9 separate score tables for each “Shift”, or locally with friends who can use a keyboard to enter their names into a local score table. On a side note; don't forget to enter their names before they play, and make sure the Rainbow Reactor window is active, so you can use the space bar to type their name.
We made some little enhancements and added fixes to these modes, but the main news in 0.44 are the revamped game options. For the first time, we introduced a new language for our Rainbow Robot's voice over. Soy9000 Model “Dietrich” is making his debut as a German speaking HoverBot. Hopefully we'll be able to activate some of his colleagues for more languages. If you want to help us out by translating or even voice-acting in your native language, please do contact us!
Another big step is the introduction of different settings for the overall graphics quality. As a super small team of newcomers, we didn't want to fulfil that cliché of releasing a no-budget-game with ugly stock graphics and instead poured a lot of effort into the visuals of our Rainbow Factory, which has been improved by lots of new moving parts in this update. However, being n00bs in a way, we overdid it apparently. Some of you complained that the throwing mechanics feel laggy or even buggy for them, and that shouldn't be the case – as we spent ages fine-tuning these. So the culprit seems to be our somewhat heavy polycount in conjunction with expensive anti-aliasing and lighting settings. IF you encounter any weirdness in throwing, like balls dropping like stones, then this is caused by performance issues. In that case, please try gradually lowering your graphics setting and/or “GFX RES.” (resolution) parameters, or work your way up from “low” to find out what works best on your system. However, we didn't leave it at that, but also spent a huge effort optimising our CG models, stripping away up to half of the polygons, which brings a noticeable performance boost, even on “High” settings ːsteamhappyː
If you want to see all of these new feaures in motion, have a look at the "Quick Look" video we added to the Store Page. That same video can be found on Youtube with subtitles in English and German: https://youtu.be/qHQFPdUS-o8
And here's the full list of Patch notes:
RAINBOW REACTOR VERSION 0.44 / 0.43
///PATCH NOTES
- achieved huge performance boost through graphics optimisation
- added three graphics quality setings: “LOW”, “MED” and “HIGH”
- added German Voice Acting
- added animations to the Factory and our HoverBot
- several bug fixes & fine-tuning of scoring system
- added new game mode "Single Shift" with Modifiers
- added 9 individual Highscore Lists for "Single Shift"
- added new game mode "Party"
- added a localized Highscore List for "Party"
- added new options:
- ability to change the volume of Robot's voice
- ability to rotate hands by 90°
- added "News":
- messages from the Rainbow Reactor's management will be shown here
- minor improvements to sound effects
So, we hope all of these additions will make Rainbow Reactor even more accessible and fun – as always, let's hear your thoughts in the discussion section where we prepared some threads for General Discussions, Bug Reports and Feature Requests. If you like what we're doing, don't forget to write a Steam Review :lunar2019coolpig:
Lastly, if you don't own Rainbow Reactor yet or want to get your friends on board, we have a discount coming up later in the day – keep your eyes peeled! :quid:
Two New Game Modes Are Here
the update we announced last week is now live, so we invite you to try the two new game modes "Single Shift" and "Party". In both of these you can customize your playing experience with Modifiers that apply an additional, hidden multiplier to your score. Try and squeeze the last bits of score out of each shift by making the most insane combos and driving your multipliers up to the max!
You'll be able to compare your results to those of your friends or the whole world through the new Highscore Lists which now exist for every single shift. By the way, these are seperate from the main game in so far as scores you achieve there will not be shown in the Single Shift Score Lists, due to the different scoring systems.
The other mode is called "Party" and offers the same basic features with an added localized Highscore List. Invite some friends over and have someone who is not currently wearing the VR headset to press the Space Bar and then enter the name of the next contender. All efforts will be recorded in the Local Highscore List - until you delete it for a fresh start.
If you like, have a look at the "Quick Look" video we added to the Store Page.
And here's the full list of Patch notes:
RAINBOW REACTOR VERSION 0.43
///PATCH NOTES
- added new game mode "Single Shift" with Modifiers
- added 9 individual Highscore Lists for "Single Shift"
- added new game mode "Party"
- added a localized Highscore List for "Party"
- added new options:
- ability to change the volume of Dottie's voice
- ability to rotate hands by 90°
- added "News":
- messages from the Rainbow Reactor's management will be shown here
- minor graphical improvements
- added animations
- minor improvements to sound effects
- minor bug fixes
That's about it from us at this point, we hope you will enjoy the new game modes – send us your feedback, criticism or bug reports in the Community Section and don't forget to write a Steam Review if you feel like it :lunar2019coolpig:
Research & Development
our first update is in the final stages of testing and we'll hopefully be able to roll it out soon!
Aside from fixing some of the issues that came up, this update will bring two new game modes: The first one is "Single Shift" where you tackle an isolated level of the game while having the abilty to activate different modifiers that will raise or lower the difficulty, resulting in different score multipliers. Since these Single Shifts come with their own high score lists, you'll be able to show off your best results to the world.
The other mode is called "Party" and it will give you the same options as "Single Shift", but with local high scores where players can enter their name. So if you have some friends over, you can find out who can squeeze the highest score out of the game and make your own rules using the modifiers.
So until the update is ready, let me share some technical discoveries with you. As you may know already, we are really new to developing VR, so there are some things we still have to learn :lunar2019coolpig:
Looking at the issues some Oculus Rift users had with swapped hands or one controller not responding, we found out that the version of SteamVR we are using is causing these problems. While we still have to find a way to get rid of them code-wise, we can at least offer a simple instruction how to avoid them: When SteamVR starts up, it assumes which controller is which based on their position relative to the headset. So what you need to do is just to place the controllers in a way that the left controller is positioned left from the headset and the right one on the right side (looking towards the sensors).
Also, it's important that the SteamVR control panel shows both controllers are active (green) before Rainbow Reactor starts, otherwise one or both hands will just lie on the ground uselessly, even though they work in Oculus Home. So in case one of the controllers is greyed out in the SteamVR control panel, just activate it before starting Rainbow Reactor. Should the issue persist, please restart SteamVR while keeping the Oculus software running.
Another issue is that some of you wrote the throwing lags or doesn't work properly. This happens when there are perfomance issues. You may not suspect it, but we wanted to give Rainbow Reactor some impressive graphic fidelity and this makes it quite GPU-hungry. So if you experience any lag or the balls sometimes just fall down like stones, please lower the "GFX Resolution" in the options menu. If that still doesn't cut it, please be patient until we can offer a wider range of graphics settings.
We also noticed that performance can suffer heavily if the Rainbow Reactor window on you desktop is minimized. So please keep it open when playing :lunar2019smilingpig:
That's all from our side for today, hope to see you soon when the first update is out ːsteamhappyː