D-CELL UPDATE — We’re coming to MAGFest 2022! And, we’ve got a new upcoming crossover, PATCH V1.0.5, and STAR-DIFFICULTY BEATMAPS on the way!

Hey everyone!

Hope things have been well! We’re still working steadily on both UNBEATABLE [white label] and UNBEATABLE (the final game). So much of what we’re doing is stuff that’s still under wraps, so that’s why we’ve been pretty quiet about how things are going. Right now, we’ve been feeling great about the progress we’re making, and we’re looking forward to sharing much more about what’s next for our indie game about the indie band!

In the meantime, we’ve got a special post-Halloween treat for you today — a brand new patch and several announcements!

We’re returning to MAGFest!

There’s no way we were going to miss the return of our favorite con. We’re excited to say that we’ll be back for a third showing at MAGFest’s Indie Videogame Showcase, bringing UNBEATABLE back to the stage! It’s going to be a part of MAGFest 2022, held at National Harbor, Maryland from January 6th-9th!

We’ll be bringing the following:

• Con-exclusive merch!
• The first in-person competitive event for UNBEATABLE [white label]!
• A large CRT to play the game on (and 4 other stations if someone’s already playing on it)
• and a special version of UNBEATABLE [white label], which will contain early sneak peeks of upcoming levels in the game!

The entire core team will be coming. For the record — that’s 8 of us! It’s gonna be a party! If last year was any indication, this year is going to be a blast.

More details on the booth setup, brand new merch, events, and the special sneak peeks will be revealed next month! If you’re coming, we hope to see you there! And for those staying at home, don’t worry, we’ll have you covered — we’ll be streaming a live tour of the booth along with a Q&A session, and we’ll also be hosting a separate competitive event for the DISCORD-CELL GAMES community!

For those interested in attending the event, MAGFest has official details on their COVID Policy here.

UNBEATABLE X NO STRAIGHT ROADS?!?!

KEY ART done by @Elliethopia (Twitter)

It’s time to rock! We’re returning the favor to our friends at Metronomik with a brand new crossover — we’re bringing One Eye Closed’s “Low”, the credits theme of NO STRAIGHT ROADS, will be coming to UNBEATABLE [white label] for completely free!

Here’s a short sneak peek!

It features an exclusive new stage, set in NSR’s “Vinyl City”! You’ll be fighting in our own take of the city’s famed plaza, cameo-ing several of the EDM artists from the game! Shoutouts to the incredible team at Metronomik for their support and to the incredible One Eye Closed for lending us the track! If you haven’t played Encore Edition yet, we highly recommend checking it out! There might be something waiting for you in the city if you do…

Buy NO STRAIGHT ROADS: Encore Edition here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1726190/No_Straight_Roads_Encore_Edition/

This new track will be released in a later major patch for UNBEATABLE [white label] and is the full song, playable in all difficulties! This is handled as a bonus / optional track, unlike our side of the UNBEATABLE X Rhythm Doctor crossover, which will be fully integrated into the main story of [white label] SIDE A TRACK 2 (our next episode)! We’ll be sharing more details on the release date in the future. Stay tuned!

A brand new, improved feedback tracker

Want to keep up to date on currently in-development features, logged issues, and more? That’s where our official BUG / FEEDBACK TRACKER comes in, which you can check out here! We’ll be periodically updating this with our current status on features such as custom color-coding enemies, keybinds (yes, we’re still working on it! UI programming is a butt), and newly logged issues that the team plans on tackling. This replaces the feedback-tracker previously available in the DISCORD-CELL GAMES community and can be found pinned in both our Discord and Steam forums. We recommend checking out this page going forward before reporting feedback, in the event that we may have already got that covered!

STAR-DIFFICULTY BEATMAPS and PATCH V1.0.5

“i am very sorry” — Jeff

To top it off, we’re releasing our next patch, PATCH V1.0.5, today! With this release, we’re testing something new — Jeff has cooked up an even higher tier of levels with “STAR-Difficulty Beatmaps” — which means your favorite songs are about to become even harder. Throughout [white label], we’ll be steadily adding STAR-Difficulty variants of every song in the game.

We’re kicking off with two today:

• Forever Now (Distorted Difficulty)
• Proper Rhythm — MUST DIE Remix (MUST DIE! Difficulty)

Note the BETA label on them; as this is a completely new thing we’re doing, we want to make sure the challenge feels just right. If you have feedback on these new beatmaps, don’t hesitate to share in both our community discord or steam forums! The levels will later exit BETA in a future major patch. If you don’t like these, feel free to yell specifically at Jeff.

Other changes to this patch include fixes to background dimming, a minor rework to invisible notes (see notes below), modifiers now properly saving between sessions, and the implementation of Discord Rich Presence. Here are the full PATCH V1.0.5 PATCH NOTES:

• (RHYTHM) Our first wave of STAR-Difficulty Beatmaps have been added! These are in BETA and may still be in need of some fine-tuning / refinement — these levels will exit BETA in a future major patch.
• (RHYTHM) We’re testing a minor rework for Invisible Notes. They are now telegraphed much more differently — internally, feedback on the change has been positive, but we want to make sure this change is the right call, so it’s not in the current version of the patch, but in a separate branch that’s accessible via Steam settings. You can find more details on how to test this out here.
• (RHYTHM) Invisible notes have received adjustments to improve their visibility when the scroll speed is adjusted from the default setting.
• (RHYTHM) Pausing while the start-up countdown occurs will no longer prevent the rest of the countdown from being heard.
• (RHYTHM) Background dimming is no longer broken! It should now work as intended.
• (RHYTHM) The game now remembers last-set modifier settings (scroll speed, song speed, etc.) between sessions.
• (RHYTHM) Fixed an issue where the modifier settings UI kept resetting to default, even if the settings were properly saved and applied for the whole session. This issue is hard to describe but basically — the settings get properly set, but the UI text keeps resetting back to the default text.
• (SIDE A TRACK 1) The softlock in the tutorial has been fixed — stuttering will no longer lead to the level breaking and getting stuck.
• (SIDE A TRACK 1) We forgot to put in a tutorial prompt for jumping. Now you know!
• (MENU) Added a new option that lets you mute the game when alt-tabbed / un-focused.
• (MENU) The cursor is now made invisible in the options menu narrative/rhythm segments, and the level select. The cursor will still appear in the pause menu, title screen, and exit screen.
• (QOL) Discord Rich Presence is now implemented! If you’re connected on Discord, your status will show your currently playing song, score, and difficulty!
• (QOL) Steam Cloud is now available! If you’re playing the Steam release of [white label], your saves and settings should now carry across several settings!
• (QOL) Logos following the Unity Splash Screen can now be skipped.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• Progress on future features in development, such as keybinds and color-coded enemies, will now be in the new feedback tracker page going forward, so KNOWN ISSUES will be used from this point onward to cover new issues present in a patch release, or updates on issues not previously added to the tracker.
• We’ve heard your feedback on improving optimization and that is going to be a priority for us by the final release, but we figure we’d let you know that we’re starting to more seriously investigate the project now and are looking into improving performance wherever possible! Improvements will carry to both the final game and future [white label] patches!

Extra Custodian Stuff:

• We shared a small trailer for Virtual MAGWest 2021 that introduces players to the game and what [white label] currently has to offer, and this will be airing in-between their major blocks. Shout if you see us!
• For those in the DISCORD-CELL GAMES community, we’re conducting a survey from now till November 13th to get a temperature check on how we’re feeling with the server and what both D-CELL and the mods can do to improve it. If you’re on the server, please check our announcements channel for more details!

That’s going to be all from us for today. Have a great weekend, everyone!

❤ from D-CELL GAMES