A new chapter of diabolical levels, rule-breaking challenges, a bunch of marbles, and tons of new features await you in The Challenge Update. You should really just jump in to check them all out, but for those of you who like lists, well we have one for you a bit further down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zibRjEWY6Cg
First, the major changes and additions -
Chapter 6: Play For Keeps
The all-new Chapter 6 brings you 10 new monstrous challenges sure to keep you on the ball. Ruthless spinners in Danger Zone, mind-melting gravity changes in Confluence, and the breakneck pace of Stratosphere might have you jumping back to Big Easy to calm your nerves.
Also, we’d like to credit community member Three for his fantastic level contributions to Chapter 6 - Head in the Clouds and Centripetal Force.
Weekly Challenges
The Challenge Update also brings you an entirely new way to play each week with the Weekly Challenge system! Each week a selection of official levels will be made available to play with gameplay modifiers that completely change the routes.
Reverse Sunspire with gems? Archipelago with double-jump and no powerups? With tons of modifiers and the ability to combine them, the possibilities really are endless!
And what’s a challenge without some competition? Participating and competing against your friends earns you new marbles and, of course, some bragging rights. You’ll be able to see your standing in realtime with the new datagraph, keeping you focused on improving your time and beating your friends. The previous week’s challenge is viewable as well so you can see the top replays and pick up some tips for the next time those modifiers roll around.
New Marbles
The Challenge Update introduces over 30 new marbles to unlock. Rewarded for level progression, trophies, challenges, and more!
In addition to the marbles included in the base game, we’ve also added some new features that give us the ability to add more marbles in the future without requiring big content updates. This new marble-download system is still a work in progress but we hope that it will pave the way for tons of new and interesting things in the future!
The Other Awesome Stuff
There are a ton of other, smaller features included in this update as well, so here’s a list of other ‘new things’:
- Completely redesigned main UI
- Mouse input redesign with clickable buttons on all UI panels
- Better support for hot-swapping between controller & KBM
- Improved controller support on both macOS and Windows
- Improved cosmetic UI selection and navigation
- Added achievement progress bar in cosmetic UI
- New marble unlock system
- Dev Console added ( ` to open) with some basic commands
- Improved older marble shader rendering
- Improved marble texture resolution at close range
- Removed the Start Pad for a better new-user experience and future-proofing cosmetic options
- Added new respawn animation system
- Friend & Global high score lists now show marble used in replay
- Score selection now persists after playing a level
- Fixed issue with level selection pulse not working after entering level select
- Level lightmap compression improved for smaller level sizes
- Added some initial stat tracking systems
- New Confirmation Window system
- Added ability to clear local score data on a per-level basis in game
- Improved marble reflection resolution
- Significantly improved marble shadow rendering performance
- Improved powerup/gem rendering performance with LOD system
- Added new marble-crush system for elevator wedges
- Dedicated custom level chapter select UI
- New custom level organization by author
- Many new features in the Level Creation Kit
The entire team is thrilled to finally be able to release this update into the wild. Please report any bugs you happen to find either in the forums or on our Official Discord Channel!