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This week I finally managed to create a course which feels very arcady and is fun. I've been a bit concerned that the courses just aren't fun enough but now I feel more confident that I can make good levels. Making games is like riding a roller coaster, some times you feel awesome and that everything is going great, and at times you hit really low points where your confidence starts to crumble. For the last week I've been lacking confidence and that's why it feels awesome that I'm happy with the new course. 

What have I been up to this last two weeks?

A new update is ready for you to try on itch.io v0.2.6 🥳 which includes the following improvements. 

Gates Feature
One reason why the level feels fun is because it's using the "gates" feature that I recently implemented. This gives drivers with fast reactions the ability to skip part of the course. The gates also acts as an obstacle for cars that have passed the normal route and if you are not careful they will give your car a good whack. 

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Better AI
The AI has been improved and now have the ability to reverse when it's stuck. It also reduces speed when it hits sharp corners. The AI also have a skill level which can be 0-100% and will make it easier in the future to implement different difficulty levels. 

More fair online multiplayer + Online leaderboard
The most common feedback from testers is that online multiplayer isn't fair if you compete with different cars. To make it more fair I've changed so that you get a random car on each race and it will be the same car for everyone in that race. I also added an online leaderboard where you get 1 point for winning a race. 

Online race alerts
Currently Total Arcade Racing doesn't have that many daily players so finding someone to race against online is hard.  To make it a bit easier I've integrated the game with my Discord server where an alert it posted if you enter an online game that doesn't have any opponents. 

New logo
The old logo of Total Arcade Racing was quickly created using the game assets but it was quite ugly and use the abbreviation TAR.  The new logo focuses on the complete name instead and is much cleaner. 

There has been quite a few other improvements that you can read about below. 

Detailed changed log

v0.2.6
* Added new Course, Gatewood.
* New Feature: Networked synced movable objects, movement is time based and the start is synced so it should be the same for all clients regardless of the FPS they run the game at. 
* Improved: Created new logo.
* Improved AI driving skills + stuck check + skill level (skill 0% - 100%) low skilled forgets to brake and also tend to drive faster all the time.
* Fixed Bug: Cars get stuck when hitting certain walls or like the bridge edge. Changed to continuous collision detection to try to resolve it.
* Fixed bug: Certain countries flags in the Discord alert channel are wrong. Example there is no flag called uk however in the game it's called uk so I need to change that to gb when I send it to discord.

v0.2.5
* New Feature: Support for Hall of fame in online mode. 
* New Feature: In the Hall of Fame you can now see what car was used for each record.
* New Feature: Added Discord alert when a new race is started.

* Improved: All players race with the same cars in online races to make it fair. The color is assigned to the player based on their position in the starting grid.
* Improved: Players own car flash when a online multiplayer race start. That way you find your own car fast.
* Improved: When an online race starts it shows the name of the drivers.
* Improved: Added 4 new color skins.
* Improved: Changed name to Total Arcade Racing in PC builds

* Fixed Bug: After each connect/disconnect the car spawns further back in the start field.
* Fixed Bug: If you connect to a race that is in progress you need to wait until the race completes. During this period you can get kicked as the idle detection notices that you are not moving.
* Fixed Bug: On Nintendo Switch after uploading a new high score the new score was not downloaded, the cache was used.