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Endless Reach

Soverance
Honored Guest



Download the FREE BETA on the Official Website



THIS GAME HAS BEEN UPDATED TO v2.4
Check the website to download the update, or scroll further into the thread for 2.3 update notes.

[UPDATE NOTES]

These features and fixes have been implemented for 2.2:


  • Updates to Oculus SDK 0.4.1

  • Level 2 – The Celestial Plains is now able to be unlocked.

  • Universal online leaderboards have been introduced. View the leaderboards outside the game on the official website. Leaderboards are separated by individual level. You will be prompted to enter your name if your score surpasses one of the universal high scores. Entering names must currently be done with a keyboard.

  • When starting the game, a Soverance splash screen now prefaces the title screen, during which the HMD orientation is automatically reset

  • Screenshots can now be captured during gameplay by pressing the Left Stick (L3). This is an experimental feature, and is resource intensive. Using it will cause a momentary pause in frame rate. Additionally, only one screenshot may be saved, and all successive screenshots will overwrite the previous one. Future updates will allow for multiple saved screenshots.

  • Cameras now fade during level loads

  • The game can now be paused by pressing the “Start” button at any time during gameplay. You can restart the level, or exit back to the main menu from the pause menu. Hit “Start” again to unpause the game and resume play.

  • A new model for the player’s starting drone has replaced the placeholder model using in version 2.1. This new drone is currently known as the Mark I.

  • All firing rates have been slightly increased, and bullet collision has been improved.

  • Fixed a bug where the player could still overload after defeating the boss, causing both a complete and failure status screen to appear, as well as a constant and unstoppable controller vibration.


[KNOWN BUGS]


  • All sound effects are still super rough.

  • Status screen does not recenter properly when returning from viewing a Leaderboard

  • Targeting reticles on Boss 01 – Aern appear in the incorrect positions. They are centered instead of around Left/Right engines

  • While Boss 02 – Celestial Archon’s head can be targeted with homing missiles, no reticle appears. It’s actually there, it’s just too small for his giant head


I hope you enjoy the 2.2 version update of Endless Reach! As always, be sure to provide me with any feedback you may have here in the comments or on the game's official subreddit.
If you enjoyed the beta demo, be sure to vote on our Steam Greenlight page, or give a rating on Oculus Share. You can also follow me on Twitter @Soverance.
Shmups in VR? Yes, please! Endless Reach Beta demo now available at endlessreach.soverance.com
21 REPLIES 21

rubixcube6
Explorer
Great Game! Its very challenging, the visuals are great, and the sound effects fit pretty well. The intro scene animation is nice too. It adds a nice professional touch to it. The music is nice too! 😄

There were a few minor bugs I found wile playing, but nothing major.

- I noticed I could go beyond the point where enemies spawn from and just wait for the power-ups to grab them. the laser cannons help a little with that, but there is a spot on the left where they never get me. Maybe you could put a barrier around the area you want the ship to stay in?

- Also, when I rotate my head on the menu screens, it seems to move the UI. Maybe your camera controller is off center of the object that its parented to?

- I also noticed if you pause the game and click retry, as it is fading out, you can still pause and un-pause the game. When I clicked retry, I accidentally hit pause again after the screen had gone dark and it appeared frozen until I un-paused it.

- something else you might want to add is keyboard controls.

One last bit of feedback. I like the way you presented the donations page, but I noticed that if you choose the free option, it doesn't start downloading immediately. It also asks for your information (email, and name), which is ok for donations but I think that might turn people away from the free option. once I got to the checkout page it was un-clear where the download link was. Mabey you could make it more visible with a button graphic or big bold Text and higher on the page.

Apart from those points, it is a great game! Ill definitely be playing this more and trying to beat my high score.

Soverance
Honored Guest
Hey rubix, glad you enjoyed playing! Thanks for the great review and excellent feedback!

You're definitely right in that there are areas on each side that you can just stay off to, and never be in danger. It's an inherent flaw in the design leftover from when it was a mobile game; the ship moved based on where you'd touch the screen, and since you were always touching the screen, you'd never leave it. Obviously there is no such system in VR, and it's something I've already been working to fix. I've tried using simple physics colliders, and i've tried using basic math to keep the player confined, but neither one of them really felt good to me. The system needs more work, for sure. Hopefully I'll have a solution for 2.3!

UI definitely moves around, almost like it's on a spindle. It didn't used to to that until I updated to SDK 0.4.0. Before, it was just stationary in world space. I'm not exactly sure how to fix it yet, but i'm working on it. It annoys the shit out of me too lol.

I was unaware of the pause screen bug, but I'll fix it, thanks!

And finally, concerning the website... you'll be happy to know I spent a couple hours this evening fixing this issue! You're not the first person to say something to me about it, and it's something I've wanted to do for a while now, so I've gone and optimized the whole process pretty well, I think. I highly recommend going to http://endlessreach.soverance.com/play/ and checking it out. I'd like to hear what you think!


  • No personal information is required to download

  • Customers can now set their own donation amount, to be truly "Pay What You Want" [you can enter 0 to download free]

  • Choosing to submit an email address will provide you with an email containing a download link. You will not be added to any mailing lists, and you will receive no further emails.


I moved the links to the mobile prototype versions off to another page, and added an image gallery to the product itself as well. You know, eye candy!

Well yeah, hope that works out better for folks. Thanks again for the feedback!
Shmups in VR? Yes, please! Endless Reach Beta demo now available at endlessreach.soverance.com

Anonymous
Not applicable
This game looks promising. Are there instructions somewhere? I'm confused what is supposed to happen when I stare at the lazer beam canons and a red halo forms around them. Can we destroy them?

So I get around 63 fps in Direct mode. But I get an amazing 260 fps in Extended. Is that normal? And it runs smoothly at 260 fps, so I'm not sure why everybody suggests that games should be maxed at 75 fps?

I find that when my ship goes under me and I lose sight of it, it's very difficult to bring it back into view without dying. Could you limit how far the ship can go back?
Also I'd say that three quarters of the time, I have no clue how or why I died. Which means that I'm mostly looking ahead at the enemies coming down and not at my ship. I wonder if this is a limitation to top down games in VR? Because if this was a "monitor" game, I wouldn't have this problem as I would have the whole game in my field of view at all times.

sparkie14
Expert Protege
Running at 260 fps in extended mode on 75hertz must be running without v sync as that's why everyone is only hitting 75fps because its capped. I personally am having freezing issues when i collect power ups and this makes it unplayable for me.
Other than that this game is right up my street, graphics are great and its clear as anything with no smearing or ghosting.
Excellent work and i think the issues are my pc good specs but something went wrong the other day with no explanation and all demo's not have some issue or other.
Excellent work.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Yeah it was freezing occasionally for me too, I thought it was my system.

Soverance
Honored Guest
Had to make a few edits to the download page again this morning, after realizing it was a bit buggy. All good to go now, though, and working strong!

dzucker, there are instructions located on the subreddit's wiki. You can also reach this link from the main website under "About -> Wiki". You can totally destroy the laser turrets; just look at them and hit "B" to firing a homing missile at them.

I'm really glad to hear you guys are getting great framerates! I develop this game on a massive piece of shit computer, and the best frame rate I can get is like 24-26 on a DK1. It's sad, I know.

I'm not sure why you'd experience freezing when collecting powerups, it's not an issue I've experienced. Due to my poor audio implementation, it may simply be hiccuping when attempting to load the sound effect that goes with collecting powerups. I'm not certain that's the issue, but it's something I'm hoping to iron out for 2.3 anyway.

On a different train of thought, it's possible you're taking screenshots and causing the game to lag. The update notes in the original post specify this:

  • Screenshots can now be captured during gameplay by pressing the Left Stick (L3). This is an experimental feature, and is resource intensive. Using it will cause a momentary pause in frame rate. Additionally, only one screenshot may be saved, and all successive screenshots will overwrite the previous one. Future updates will allow for multiple saved screenshots.


Being that the screenshot function is tied to the Left Stick (L3), and that's the same stick you use to move the ship, it's possible you may just be pushing down on the stick to trigger a screenshot and causing the game to lag (it drops the frame rate to like... zero when taking a screenshot, but only for a split second). This happens to me a lot while playing, but I assigned it to that button because it was the easiest way to screenshot without needing to stop playing or set up a shot. If it's annoying anyone more than myself, I'll move the button assignment or disable the feature entirely.
Shmups in VR? Yes, please! Endless Reach Beta demo now available at endlessreach.soverance.com

Anonymous
Not applicable
Gave this one another go tonight. More fun now that I know how to destroy the cannons. 🙂 I don't get the whole purge thing though. You have to hit the "X" button or else you die!?!?! If you want to reset the weapons because they get too strong, that's fine, but just do it without interrupting the gameplay, maybe have a verbal countdown followed by the purge. But to be honest, once I knew that the purge resets my weapons, I just stuck to the 2nd to last powerup which avoids the purge. You could maybe also add fast moving red sphere's that when touched cause the weapon's to powerdown a level, add enough of them that you might not have a choice to bump into one every now and then.

I made it to the next level and the Titan boss looks really cool. I still haven't figured out how stay of harms way though. He gets me every time with those huge lasers that sweep the whole screen.

How do you reset your position in this game?

As for the freezing, I experienced it quite a bit. For me it seems to happen as soon as I hit the boost button or soon after, but it's intermittent and doesn't happen all the time. I'm not sure how to reproduce it. But I can say that out of say 20 times, this is what triggered the freeze every time except 1 time when it froze randomly where I wasn't hitting the boost button nor was I picking up powerups nor capturing screenshots.

** EDIT ** I just re-read the instructions and it says to hold the boost button to continue. I never held it more than a second, I was just using it to create a blast. Maybe that's what was triggering the freeze??

Soverance
Honored Guest
I agree that the overload feature could use some polishing into how it fits into gameplay. It's original purpose was to serve as a reset function on your weapons, but also to force the player into strategically choosing when to Limit Break. Due to the game's current level design, the only strategic opportunity to limit break is right as the boss spawns (which generally leads to a high score, if you focus on keeping popcorn enemies on the screen with your limit break instead of fighting the boss).

So the idea here I think would be to make the use of a Limit Break less punishing (such as not resetting back to Level 1, but instead maybe resetting back to Level 4), to encourage players to use it more often. Alternatively, better level design could force the player into situations where Limit Breaking may be the best option to get through unscathed.

I've also toyed with the idea of allowing you to extend the duration of a Limit Break by continuing to collect blue orbs (currently you are unable to collect blue orbs during Limit Break). This could be another possible solution, essentially allowing you to stay in Limit mode indefinitely.

Thoughts on this?

I'd also really like to add one more weapon type or ability (something for the "Y" button...), so if anyone has input on that, by all means let me know!

As for resetting the HMD orientation, currently the only time you can reset is during the opening splash screen (Soverance logo), where the game resets the orientation automatically. The next version update I'll have HMD reset tied to a button on the controller. Probably the back/select button.

As for Level 2's boss, you can avoid his first two attacks by simply sticking to the right. Avoid the third one by coming back and to the left (like the drone needs to be almost under you). After that he'll just loop attacks again. Also, you can fire a homing missile at his head to do some good damage, but there's a bug in it where you cannot see the targeting reticle. You should hear the noise though.

On the freezing... I'm willing to bet it's actually poor audio implementation that's causing this. Hoping to iron out the kinks soon.
Shmups in VR? Yes, please! Endless Reach Beta demo now available at endlessreach.soverance.com

Soverance
Honored Guest
Also... promo images, just cause! [Click thumb for HQ]





Shmups in VR? Yes, please! Endless Reach Beta demo now available at endlessreach.soverance.com