Hey everyone sorry for the huge wall of text, it’s been a while since we pushed an update out, we are now far enough along with the online multiplayer that we want people to test it out, break it even so we can improve and fix it further. JOLT is being developed by a small team and as such it is still under active development thus the early access. The keen among you would have noticed a new branch appear recently, this was so we could remotely test it with some of the developers, so if you have used that already you know what to expect, and that branch is likely to be removed over the coming weeks leaving just the beta and the normal branches.

This update itself shouldn’t have broken single player, nor local multiplayer if you spot anything which isn’t ‘quite right’ then let us know!
So the current state of online is as follows;

You can join 1 of 4 pre-set rooms, up to a maximum of 4 players, upon 4 players joining the room or if the game stats the room will lock, 1 round is played then you can either play again, or you can quit back to the lobby, where you can join another room. If all 4 of the rooms are full you can make your own by entering its name on the right. This isn’t broadcast to anyone and as such could be seen as a private room to play with your friends. One point to note, the lobby requires a mouse for the time being, as the game evolves the HUD and Menus are likely to change so that hasn’t been completed yet.
What you can expect from the online experience? You should be able to join a room, customise a character and then progress into a level. Inside this level you will be able to race against the other players within that room. What you may notice is occasionally the other player’s may seemingly vanish, or they may ‘jump’. This is due to latency and is being improved upon each update. So with that said, if you notice the other player going off screen and the round doesn’t end, chances are it’s the latency. When you or someone else dies a message is sent out informing the other clients of your demise.

Online multiplayer is still where the focus has shifted, there were a few hurdles which had to be overcome, as well as a few oversights so although we had previously had the character builder ‘working’ there was underlying issues which needed fixing as well as a whole load of HUD to link up. While fixing that we noticed a big glaring issue with the character builder in general (was memory leaking badly under certain circumstances which was then exacerbated with the online) which further sapped time, that’s all mostly under control now (let us know of any crashes obviously)

So with that said, the main aims currently is to improve the auto prediction, the latency issues. The team here feel it is playable as is, but it isn’t where we want it to be so the main focus over the coming weeks is to improve this and obviously fix any bugs we come across.
We also need to add in the players steam name rather than player 1, 2, 3, 4 as well as the ability to unlock the robot parts after defeating someone in the online environment.

We also require either some HUD changes or a voting type system to vote on the rounds/ game mode, and I suspect the level (although that is currently controlled by player one)


There is also a random bug whereby the character model isn’t displaying so you may occasionally end up in that predicament… If you could find a way to replicate it for us that would be wonderful! We think it is fixed but are not 100%

There is also another random bug whereby the checkpoints do not 100% work. You may notice the person in first place loses, it doesn’t happen all that often, at least it hasn’t for us but again if you can find a way to replicate it each time, please let us know. This can also happen during start, just press continue the race from the game over screen if this happens.
Within sandy times as well, the pillars may look slightly dodgy when starting, this is as they are being synced with each of the clients.

These are the only issues we’re aware of at the moment, some are a pain, but mostly it shouldn’t impede your game that much.






Apart from that, have fun. And if you read this far, well done!
As said single player is still the same as before really (minus some bug fixes / tweaks). And the online should work enough for you to play with others.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the delay, we had hoped to get this out last month but, certain things came up resulting in us being slightly behind, rest assured we are still actively working on it.

As is usual if you have any queries, any features you'd like added or even removed or altered please let us know, you can contact us here, on Twitter, or through out website.


Not a lot new this update unfortunately, its been a heavy bug fix and tweaking update, you will notice REZ is in this version(the 4th smaller robot) he is new as in you would not have seen him before, but ultimately he was supposed to arrive when the larger robots got added, REZ himself had some major issues which our QA did not pick up(as he wasn't actually visible for them to test).


There has been so many little things adjusted it will be hard to list, however;

• Altered the AI so they are better at wall jumping []
  
• Altered some of the checkpoints so they made more sense
  
• Altered the landscape in Echo Mountain to stop a quick win exploit
  
• Increased some framerate's throughout, mainly due to not caching some variables.
  
• Increased the button sensitivity on the menu's, some of our players were having issues getting into game(which is understandable as we were using == on floats, which is a big nono)
  
• REZ was actually in the game as an AI Personality, however his parts were incorrect, so they are now fixed.
  
• Material issues on some of the robots in random circumstances
  
• Improved the spawning(see note at the bottom)
  
• Removed issue on Humdinger and Big Pits where the draw calls were almost twice as much as they needed to(our blocking mesh system changed after these levels were properly done)
  
• Adjusted every level slightly, whether it be AI or checkpoints, or moving/adding blocks.
  
• There is more but this is the jist of it, they have all been similar to this.

A note about both the AI changes and the Player Spawning update, this was a rather large update, but it needed doing. What we ask from you players is that you let us know if you spot anything which isn't behaving quite right, now that could be you spawning not in the right place(we have hoped to have fixed this with the changes) or if the AI gets stuck or anything else...please let us know!


Unless any major bugs make an appearance it looks that our main focus is going to be on the online multiplayer(no eta still), we have of course been doing this since the early dev but as major single player issues cropped up the fixes have broken some of the online config. So currently(although very much alpha) we are able to build a robot(4 original ones as the scene needs fixing for the newest ones), then race within a game(only sandy times at the moment as that is one of the more complex levels to sync). So as you can see there is still lots to do.


Just to reiterate, if you have any queries, concerns, features or if you just want to talk, drop us a line either on here, or on twitter(twitter is checked obsessively so if you want a fast response go there).