Our first update of 2022! [white label] PATCH V1.0.8, keybinds, the NSR crossover stage, and an update on the main game!

Hey everyone! Welcome to our first public update of 2022! Hopefully, it’s been off to a good start — it’s been hectic for us! We’ve got a lot we want to share today, including a long-awaited update on where we’re currently at with the main game’s production…but let’s start with something we bet you’ve been waiting for!

Get ready to ROCK!

We’ve just announced when you can play the UNBEATABLE X NO STRAIGHT ROADS collab… and it’s today! Included in the latest update for UNBEATABLE [white label] (PATCH V1.0.8), you can play One Eye Closed’s Low, the ending theme of NO STRAIGHT ROADS! A new stage inspired by NSR’s “Vinyl City’’ is featured alongside the song. You can check out our new trailer here:

This marks the first new song added to [white label] since May! In addition, both the song and special stage for this crossover will be available in the final version of UNBEATABLE as part of the game’s base tracklist.

:)

That’s not all! We’re happy to reveal that several quality-of-life features, including the highly-requested custom keybinding support, are included with this latest patch! Freely customize the game’s controls to your heart’s content.

[white label] V1.0.8 PATCH NOTES:

• [UNBEATABLE X NSR] A brand new level is here! Bash enemies in NSR’s Vinyl City to the tune of the fan-favorite track Low from One Eye Closed. Available in difficulties from Beginner-UNBEATABLE.
• [QOL] The long-awaited custom keybinding support is finally in action*, available to configure as you please in the OPTIONS menu!
• [QOL] You are now able to configure window settings to windowed, borderless, or exclusive fullscreen!
• [QOL] Controller prompts will now properly show your adjusted bindings/presets. (works for KB+M or controllers of varying kinds, which apparently includes the OUYA Controller. You’re welcome?)
• [QOL] When selecting the hitsounds in options, you’ll hear a preview of the sound upon selecting it.
• [SIDE A TRACK 1] Improved clarity on controller prompts during the Proper Rhythm tutorial.
• [RHYTHM] STAR-DIFFICULTY beatmaps have been added for the NOISZ crossover songs, Done In Love (OVERLOAD) and True (OVERLOAD)!
• [RHYTHM] Our invisible notes rework from PATCH V1.0.6’s Beta is now rolled over into the full version of the game!
• [RHYTHM] Adjustments have been made to True on Hard and UNBEATABLE difficulty to improve flow and timing.
• [RHYTHM] Minor adjustments have been made to make Forever Now — DOG_NOISE Remix less frustrating on UNBEATABLE.
• [RHYTHM] An issue where inputs are dropping against consecutive mash notes has been fixed.
• [RHYTHM] Input latency has been slightly reduced across the board.
• [RHYTHM] Fixed the song names in the results screen cutting off if the name is too long.
• [RHYTHM] When unpausing during a rhythm level, the game will lock until pressing a attack button, allowing you to get your bearings before continuing!
• [MISC.] Fixed an issue where a controller preset (specifically the 4th selectable one) displays the wrong buttons in the UI.
• [MISC.] Added a new, RESPECTful keyboard rhythm preset.
• [MISC.] Fixed an issue where the game still detects inputs even when unfocused from the window.

* Keybind support currently only supports KB+M controls. Custom controller keybinds will be added in a future update. For now, we recommend changing bindings for the controller via presets or through Steam’s Controller settings.

BRING THE BEATDOWN: NOISZ STΔRLIVHT X UNBEATABLE

In case you missed it, the first “ephemeral event” for NOISZ STΔRLIVHT launches on April 9th — featuring a crossover with us! This includes a brand new style to unlock for the character Hakuno, new character artwork by our game’s director, Andrew, and Peak Divide’s MIRROR as a playable song in the game (via the Club Pass)! This is a limited time event — so if you’re interested, now’s the time to give Anarch Entertainment’s take on rhythm-bullet hell action a try. It’s free!

This ties in with [white label] V1.0.8 bringing the finishing touches to our side of the crossover: brand new STAR-Difficulty beatmaps for both Done In Love and True!

MAGFest 2022 Post-mortem

Everyone at the booth! From left to right: DraconicVisionary (Discord-Cell Games Moderator), Eva (Programmer), Jeffrey (Co-Producer / Chart Designer), Vasily (Composer / Sound Designer), TJ (Composer / Sound Designer), Andrew (Co-Director / Art Director), RJ (Co-Director / Writer), Rachel (Co-Producer / Vocalist)

We kicked off the year with a bang by bringing UNBEATABLE back for its third showing at MAGFest’s Indie Videogame Showcase! Our booth featured a nostalgic basement-style CRT setup, exclusive merch, our first in-person competitive event, and an early look at several upcoming tracks that will be available in the final game. We had a blast, so thank you to everyone who stopped by to check out the booth and say hi!

Our booth setup on Day 1! We frequently upgraded the studio with new lights and props throughout the event.

All the merch we were selling at MAGFest 2022! These are exclusive designs for the event, made as a good test-run for our eventual kickstarter / slacker backer merch!

Compared to past showings, the scope of our setup was vastly more complicated and required two vehicles to get everything over to the Gaylord. We even somehow managed to get a 90 pound CRT through ice and snow. Don’t recommend it.

Andrew working on the build after Day 1 to implement several feedback changes.

MAGFest isn’t MAGFest without some chaos. Our larger setup made preparing the booth a hectic journey; everything from loading equipment, booth layout, computers being delayed in the mail, and getting everything plugged in… was a lot! But it speaks well of our teamwork, despite all of us working remotely full-time, that we were able to do all of this with little stress and as effectively as we did.

Only Jeff brought their guitar to the show, but as it was a left-handed guitar, TJ had go get a bit creative when playing it…

It’s been nearly two years since the team got to meet each other in person for the first time; perhaps the best part of the show was simply getting to spend time and catch up together. After the turbulent year that was 2021, it felt right to finally get back together and celebrate, reminisce, and plan what our year is going to look like.

Jeff tries out F-ZERO AX for the first time! The cabinet has incredible motion movement and was a favorite amongst the team. The whole team lined up for a go!

Oh, and we won both Best of Show and Best Music! We had a special guest with us to celebrate the occasion.

How’s production been so far?

The short answer: busy but rewarding!

We realize it’s been a while since we’ve shared development progress for UNBEATABLE. There have been many things we cannot publicly share yet, and for a lot of aspects of the game, that’s still the case. Beginning with our first update of 2022, we want to focus on providing a better look at the direction we’re taking and share more development progress!

With several months worth of [white label] feedback on the table, final narrative outline locked, polishing commenced, improved engine tools, and a content pipeline underway, we’re feeling confident in where the game is at. However, to ensure we get all the way there, we want to make sure the content we’re building is on the right track as soon as possible. We’re in the last stretch of an experimental phase where we can safely try things and make changes before it’s too late — so now’s the best time to make sure everything about the project holds up the best it can!

Here’s an early, very not-final look at the city in Chapter 2.

Our testbed for all of our additional design experiments and pipeline manufacturing is the game’s second chapter. This chapter is the first major area where the group meets up and establishes a lot of our story mode’s main systems — such as the day/night cycle, calendar system, and setlists. For that reason — it’s the perfect chapter to build everything off of, and the one we’ve put a lot of our recent time and asset work into.

A early draft of the setlist system

We field-tested a bit with sequential song circuits in last month’s competitive events, but setlists are ultimately a different beast — you have to ensure that not only does your health not heartbreak, but that the audience is actually enjoying the show. We want to make sure that the result is an endurance run that gives you a variety of options on how to approach the daunting task of running a gig — and for the game’s characters to react to those choices before, during, and after the show.

Beyond that, we’ve been polishing and overhauling aspects of the rhythm gameplay to allow for more flexibility in the game’s story mode; Mireille is programming this with input from Jeff, our beatmap designer. This includes changes to several note types, adjustments that allow for more types of patterns and challenges… all the works! We feel the rhythm gameplay is in a acceptable state as of [white label]’s latest patch, but there’s more work we’d like to do before we can truly call it complete.

Aside from expanding upon our rhythm gameplay, our other programmer Eva has taken on the task of developing the D-CELL YARN validator, which lays out all the game’s cutscene/dialogue nodes in a web. This lets us ensure that broken dialogue paths don’t happen and that everything works as intended.

This should significantly speed up debugging and testing dialogue, a bottleneck we’ve discovered during early development of the project (especially with the large amount of text that’s going to be present in RJ’s final script). Our ambition is to be able to update the Yarn Validator in more ways — such as allowing us to play the dialogue in real-time to see how the final textboxes look, as well as the ability to edit dialogue branches from this GUI setup.

A early look at Vas’s new studio setup!

TJ, Vas, and Rachel have been steadily working on music from behind-the-scenes, stuff we can’t really share yet! Meanwhile, Vas has been exploring making changes to the sound design, starting with the most important one: hit sounds. He’s exploring adjusting the impact and feeling of sounds depending on accuracy. We plan on exploring that as an additional option for hit sounds in both [white label] and the final game, and would be curious in knowing what you think about the idea! Here’s a proof of concept:

NOTE: As with all things shown here, things are subjected to change and may not be final!

We plan on sharing more behind-the-scenes material of the game on our social media platforms, so we’d recommend following us there if you’re interested in staying up to date on everything UNBEATABLE!

KICKSTARTER FULFILLMENT UPDATE

Here’s an update on Kickstarter tier fulfillment: we’ve been waiting on sending out surveys for Kickstarter backers until we have a finalized plan for distributing merch, as well as allowing people some time before they need to finalize details like the name to use in the credits, as well as their addresses. We anticipate sending KS and Slacker Backer surveys soon (likely late April) — keep an eye on your inboxes when that time comes! For backers behind tiers like names etched on the map, custom NPCs, and minigames, your surveys will allow you to submit relevant details concerning those tiers! We’ll also directly message you with more details.

In Closing

If you can’t believe it, next Wednesday will mark one year since our original Kickstarter launch! Time flies by, huh? We wouldn’t know where we’d be without you, and everyone’s support of the project in the past year has meant the world. We’re leaving [white label] V1.0.8 as a gift to celebrate the occasion. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you!

Have a good weekend, and we hope you enjoy the latest [white label] update!

❤ FROM D-CELL GAMES