Toy Plane Heroes
We've released version 1.0.3!
We've finally released version 1.0.3 and just got out of early access! Toy Plane Heroes has grown so much since our first early access release and it's really exciting to see how much content we were able to develop for this project, even though it started really small in the Oculus DK1 era. It's also super interesting to look at the leader boards and see how you guys became a lot better then us! :D
After this time we've definitely learned a lot about creating vr games and it was crazy to see that there was a community war starting between Vive and Oculus. We've always tried to deliver the same quality to both headsets and made sure that all players can play against each other no matter where they buy our game and what device they are using. It's sad to see that the vr community got a little bit divided by this but we think it is already getting better! In the end both headsets are great and this competition will result in better hardware from both companies. :)
But we've also noticed the downsides of this war. An anti gamepad movement has slowly started and a lot of players only bought games with motion controls support. While we absolutely love motion controls, we are still thinking that gamepad games should also have a future in virtual reality. Sometimes it's cool to sit down, relax and just visually enjoy vr and sometimes it's amazing to be all in VR with pretty much your whole body.
The second problem we've noticed during our development was how to sell a game which is really intense in VR. We put in warnings in almost every description text of Toy Plane Heroes but we underestimated the amount of people that would buy this game even though they are sensible to motion sickness. We've released on day 1 when vr came out so we should have expected that a lot of people would be trying out vr for the first time. This resulted in some bad reviews and refunds so we knew that we had to focus on this issue, but at the same time we wanted to keep the intense feeling of flying in a toy plane. So we've developed an OPTIONAL comfort mode and tested it with a bunch of people until almost everybody could play the game. :)
So to sum it up, we've released a unique gamepad vr game which has a lot of intense movement in a time where roomscale vr was the holy grail. Financially Toy Plane Heroes was not able to cover the development costs but we just kept financing it through side projects because we love the charm of our game and wanted to keep making it better.
The final version doesn't mean the end of Toy Plane Heroes. We still have some reaaaaaaaaally cool plans that we will develop in our free time. So stay tuned!
Huge update: New singleplayer campaign!
this might be our biggest update so far! While we have been focused on the multiplayer part in the last couple of updates we also realized that the player base of vr is currently not big enough to play against other players all the time. Even though you already had the possibility to add bots to the servers, we wanted to make the singeplayer part of the game more appealing. That's why we've added a new campaign mode in which you can take the side of McRed or/and OGreen to play some fun little missions! (If you want to be on the scoreboard: Now is the time to do so! :D )
We've also added a brand new map and so much more but you will see that inside of the game!
You might have noticed that we changed the price to 9.99$. While our game was very well received most of the time, some of the players are disappointed that there aren't other players online all the time. We hope that with the new price point we will get more users but keep in mind that the VR community is still relatively small. (That's one of the reasons why we've also made the singleplayer campaign.)
We hope that you are going to like our update and can't wait to see your new scores for the scoreboard!
New Optional VR Comfort Mode!
We are incredibly excited to share our new VR Comfort mode with you!
It took us a long time to develop a mode that is fun, balanced for multiplayer and that is less intense in regards of motion sickness but we think we finally did it and just made an Update for the Game.
The comfort mode automatically stabilizes your plane so that there is not much rolling/looping involved. You can control your plane with one stick only and basically just use yaw und pitch. The stabilizer will do the rest for you! While this may sound limiting to some of you we made sure that it is still a lot of fun and it makes the game accessible to a lot of new players!
NOTE: This mode is completely optional! We love the regular mode because of the intense gameplay and we know a lot of other people like it too. There for the default is off. (You get a note at the first start of the game) But if you look in our Steam reviews the only reason for bad reviews right now is pretty much motion sickness. So even with closed Cockpits and Helicopters there are still people who can't play the game.
You can activate the comfort mode at anytime with the Y Button or inside the options menu.
We made a lot of tests with this new mode. In a combination of a closed cockpit and the comfort mode it is pretty easy to avoid motion sickness! :) We had some rare case in which players couldn't even play our game at all but now can play 30 minutes without feeling sick! :)
Keep in mind that our game will always involve movement and you can of course make you sick if you do a bunch of pitching so it still stays in the intense comfort rating but we are sure that we just made the game a lot more accessible for new players.
Thanks for all the feedback and we hope that you are going to enjoy the update!
New map released: Supermarket!
We finally integrated our biggest map so far: The Supermarket!
The gameplay is a lot different on such a big map. It's a little bit slower and less intense then our other maps. We really think that it's a good addition to the game! All in all i'ts just mind blowing to fly through a supermarket with a tiny toy plane! :D
Here is a picture of what it's like to start at the McReds:
Here are some of the changes:
- Added the Supermarket map
- Improved flight handling for bigger maps
- Improved rigidbody physics
- Capture the Flag: Arrow now looks at the desired flag
- Added respawn button for Classic Race
- Improved AI
- Scoreboard now refreshes more often
- Fixed wrong sound file
We hope you like the update and as always see you inside of Toy Plane Heroes!
Sneak Preview of the Supermarket
We are currently working day and night to finish our biggest map so far! We still have a lot to do but we have the feeling that the Supermarket is going to be awesome! :)
Unity's lightmapping system is pretty unstable for such big environments but we are getting closer to good results.
Hope you like it!
Added Highscores, Confetti Canons and a lot more!
we've just released our next update!
We are now featuring Highscores for all of our gamemodes and maps! The top 10 users will be listed there, but your personal score will also be saved so that you can try to improve yourself. Especially for the Racing mode the new scoreboards are a great improvement. We are really excited to see what times you are going to accomplish on the different maps!
Major Changes:
- Added Scoreboard for Highscores
- Added Confetti Canons. (Reeeeeeally awesome feature!)
- Respawn Timer is now 5 seconds, so it's less annoying if you get stuck.
- Added 3D effect to the TV
- Improved Tutorial
- Improved handling of the Airliner
- Added little "Toy Soldiers" to the maps
- Improved HOTAS support. (Turn it on in the option menu)
- Improved plane textures
- New menu structure (Fly now was misinterpreted by some users)
- Added plastic part tipp
- Fix: Reset and open menu controls are now customizable
All in all this is a great update but we also had some troubles with our supermarket map. The lightmapping currently makes a lot of problems and we haven't managed to get a reasonable quality. We are working day and night on this but we already wanted to share the new features, so the supermarket map will be in the next update.
As always, have fun playing Toy Plane Heroes! :)
Custom controller (PS4) issue Fix - Instructions
thanks to the user Nubbits, we fixed a bug that can be pretty annoying for people who are using a PS4 controller.
In case you have the problem that the right trigger opens the menu and the left trigger recenters your view you should try this:
0. Restart Steam
1. Right click on Toy Plane Heroes in the library and click properties
2. Click on the BETAS tab.
3. Enter following password in the input box: "toyplaneheroesnubbits" and click check code
4. Choose wip64 under the beta drop down menu.
It should make an Update. Make sure it says 7.64b on the TV. You can customize the OpenMenu Button and the Recenter Button in the options menu.
The fix will also be in the new stable update coming soon but we thought we might share this information already in case anyone has experienced the same issue.
Have fun!
Update: Helicopter, Closed Cockpits, Capture the Flag and other cool stuff!
We are very excited to announce that we've just released our next big update!
We've included a new level one standard plane called "Airliner". The plane looks a little bit like a Piper and has a closed cockpit. Therefor it should be a lot more comfortable for people who are sensitive to motion sickness. :)
One of the biggest changes in the update is that we've integrated our first helicopter called "Little Copter". We think we've managed to develop a flight system that is both challenging but not to hard for beginners. The helicopter is also a level one vehicle so that people can choose from three different types at the start. They should be comfortable in the regards of simulator sickness as you can't do rolling and loopings etc. It will still be very intense in regards of heights! ;) We made it a little bit slow so that people won't crash to fast. :P
We are really excited about your feedback! Helicopters are adding so much variety to the game, especially in the gameplay mechanics. We are really happy to have them in TPH.
The other cool feature that we've added is the new gamemode "Capture the Flag". The bots are able to play it so there won't be any problems in case there is nobody online. (There are not a lot of HMD's out there, so we made sure that it is fun against bots. ;) )
We've played it with three people and it was really intense. I was defending the flag with my helicopter and the other people tried to catch the flag. You really have to develop some strategies for this gamemode! :)
Overall we've also made a lot of smaller changes and bugfixes. For example: You now get a "cloud" message once you shot a plane so that you know who you shot.
Anyway we hope you like the changes and the direction Toy Plane Heroes is going! We still have a lot planned so stay tuned! :)
Helicopters and new planes coming soon for less motion sickness!
We've got a lot of feedback and we've noticed that, while the majority of people are doing fine in regards of motion sickness (or even like the crazy feeling of flying :) ), there are still some people who can't play the game but really want to... We've made a lot of tests in this regard and noticed that we also need planes with a big closed cockpit as a reference point.Therefore we are currently focusing on another level 1 plane that kind of looks like a Cessna or a Piper. Most people actually love the open cockpits because it's so intense but with the Cessna, Bomber and the Jet we are going to deliver planes that can be used for users who are looking for a more moderate experience.
Flying loopings and rolling will also be intense in a closed cockpit and you might sometimes want to fly around in the most comfortable way possible and just enjoy the toy styled world, shooting bots/players. That's why we are introducing a Helicopter (also level 1) in the next Update! This is a big change for Toy Plane Heroes and was a difficult decision for us. Adding a totally new kind of vehicle type is a lot of work and will be hard to balance but we just love our game and hate when people can't play it because of motion sickness.
You can expect the new update to be released at the end of next week (May 29th) and it will add a lot of diversity to the game! We are really looking forward for your feedback once it's out.
It will also contain a new Game Mode: Capture the Flag! The only downside is that we have to delay the "Supermarket" map to the next update. We are incredibly excited for the new map and it will be awesome to fly around such a big environment with all those new vehicles!
As always: Thanks for all the feedback and see you inside of Toy Plane Heroes!
New plane released: "Jet" ! - Bot's can now fly all planes
we just made another update and it contains a lot of cool stuff! :)
We've done some smaller fixes/changes but most importantly we've released the "Jet"! You can get it once you are level 5 and this plane will feel completely different from the others. :O It has a fully closed cockpit. We are really looking forward to what you think about it!
The other big change is that we've updated our bots so that they can fly with all planes. They just pick a random one once you add a bot. It's now a real toy plane battle even when you are playing against the computer. :)
We've also added some stats to our planes. You can see them when you hover over the 3D hologram. This way you know exactly what the main differences are.
Thanks for all the feedback and see you inside of Toy Plane Heroes!