Just in time for Christmas, this new update gives plenty of new additions to help add more strategy. It hopefully fleshes out the game more to help replayability and showcase the planned features to come.

Summary of changes:

• Custom Tournament mode
• Basic weather system with weather tracker UI
• Wet tire added
• Autosave system added
• 4 new tracks (Blossom Hill, Santa Verde, Einsenring, Zig-zag Arena)
• Tweaked tracks (Milestone & Crossover)
• Early controller support
• Post-race podium cutscene
• Improved main menu UI and added background scene
• Improved race UI design
• Basic tournment/championship garage scene and menu
• More car colours
• Pit totals displayed during race and tire strategy shown on results screen
• Pit timer progress bar appears above all racers during pitstops
• Added out of bounds to all tracks (Auto respawn)
• Once race leader finishes, every racer finishes lap they are currently on
• Improved AI and balanced difficulties

Bug Fixes:

• Loose props reset position when restarting race
• Fixed various UI bugs
• Prevent resetting car during pitstop, when paused, and after finishing race
• Immune racers are now correctly reset if restarting race.

Changes in more detail:

Custom tournaments

The biggest implemented mechanic in this update is this game mode. This mode allows you to play a selection of tracks of your choice and length, you receive points depending on your finishing position. You can choose and customise your opponents too. The racer who has the most points at the end of the tournament, wins. This is a basic version of the planned championship mode, which will have a lot more options and depth.

Once you've set up the tournament, you'll be presented with a garage menu, this'll act as your hub between races. In the planned championship, there will be a lot more options and things you can do, such as upgrading the car. There is an autosave feature, so your tournament progress will be saved when you exit the game.

Weather system and wet tires

I wanted to get simulating weather into the game as its not something many racing games feature. It adds an extra layer of challenge as it forces racers to potentially take risks with pit strategy. It can also completely change the order of a race. At the moment the rain visual design is super basic and will be developed further later. The on-screen weather tracker shows when rain is approaching, so you can alter your strategy in advance before conditions change. Pitting for wet tires makes driving in wet weather easy, but are quite slow in dry conditions.

4 New tracks

Tracks are now classed in 2 groups, race circuits and arenas. Race circuits, currently 7 of them, are traditional tracks with more expected flow to them. These will be standard in the championship gamemode. Arenas, now 2 of them, are more novelty races with unpredictable results. They are fun and less serious, but won't feature in the championship gamemode due to their unpredictable nature. However this doesn't stop you using them in custom tournaments.

Blossom Hill - Set in some Japanese fields, this thin yet bendy track offers plenty of fast turns and elevation. Blossom petals blow in the wind as you race by. This is my favourite of the new tracks.

Santa Verde - A figure of 8 track situated in Brazil. Quite a short track, but the bridge climb and descent offers some challenge and exciting hazards.

Eisenring - This track takes you through a German forest. Lot of fast and banked turns to tackle. Often rains here, so prepare for some wet races

Zig-zag Arena - A track where you must zig-zag through, then turn around and do the same all the way back. Offers lots of chances for collisions.

Tweaked tracks

Some minor changes have been made to all the current tracks. The biggest changes come from Milestone Circuit. As this was first track I made, it was becoming a little outdated as I honed in my skills with track design . Even though I improved it in V0.2, I still felt it was too long, wide and boring. So I have tweaked most of corners, particulary in the first sector, where its been cut down a little and the hilly straight changed to a chicane. It brings a standard lap down to just below 30 seconds, which is the sweet spot.

This gives you an idea of the the sheer size of the original layout. Long and wide straights are just not very fun. Easy, but not fun.

Crossover Arena has also had significant changes. It's now much smaller and compact for closer racing and a higher chance of collisions.

Improved UI

As you boot up to the main menu, you'll notice a lot of UI improvments. Not only is there now a menu scene, all the UI has a had a refresh to accomodate the expanding mechanics now present. The 5 custom racer slots have been ditched for just the one racer that can be customised in Single Race setup. How to play screen, garage scene, customise tournament screen have all been added. Also the UI during the race has had some upgrades. Now it displays how many pitstops each racer has done and tires used on results screen.

Controller Support

I've added some early controller support for Xbox controllers. You can navigate the menus and race with just the controller now. Its the best way to play with controller as you can turn and accelerate with minor movements instead of the full 0 to 1 of a keyboard button.

AI Improvements

This area of development is still ongoing as I try to make them as fun to play against and as balanced as possible. My latest addition to the AI is to allow them potentially have a slight delay when turning. Depending on their individual skill level, they may make a turn a little late, causing them lose time in the turn. Higher level AI wont likely make mistakes like this. Also have adjusted the difficulties to be far more balanced.  On easy the AI will be prone to making mistakes and missing turns, on hard they will all drive pretty much perfectly, on balanced you will encounter a mix of both skill levels.

The next areas in development will be exploring are damage mechanics and team races. Of course I want to work on fleshing out the main championship gamemode at some point, but I feel the custom tournament mode is enough for now, so I can focus on actual race mechanics and more tracks. The next update will be out sometime next year.