Crea-ture Developer Blog #5 - December 2022

COMMENTS FROM THE STUDIO

Hey Folks,

We released V1 over 2 months ago, and we’re loving all of the content being pumped online by players and skaters alike. From clips, to full edits, the community posts never cease to amaze us! We’ve seen everything from buttery back tails to recreations of classic skate parts, there’s no shortage of unique gameplay content being produced with the in-game Replay Editor.

September’s V1 release of Session was a major milestone for us as a team, but even bigger for us as a studio. Building a game studio and shipping an original IP is a huge feat, and we’re beyond proud of what we’ve been able to achieve with our limited resources.

2022 was by far one of the more challenging years for the Session team with the release of the Public Update 2 build, the closing of Early Access, and culminating in the launch and release of V1. All of these deliverables were achieved while also managing the ebb and flow with the growth of the studio. The road to release was almost 5 years long, and over that time the size, dynamics, and composition of our team changed considerably. We had departures from Key roles - but nonetheless managed to push on with solidifying our vision and ensuring we provided the most balanced experience at launch.

The two months since launch have therefore been calm after the storm, but we have been more than busy during this time!

Since the last update

In-game improvements:

• Continued optimization for performance - Our cities continue to get optimised to ensure we provide the best performance on all supported platforms!
• Pause Menu restructure - In order to improve visibility, as well as ease of access, to core menus & settings, we have cleaned up and restructured the Pause menu.
• Mission Tracking - Improved mission tracking will allow you to jump between main path, secondary, and Pro missions on the fly.. It will also improve visibility of all mission options available at that time.
• Mission Completion - If you complete steps of an untracked mission - you are now notified
• Mission progression - You are now fed side missions to meet the required EXP before proceeding to the “Skateshop meetup” and all other arc gates.
• Mission detection improvements: Throughout the mission arc based off of player feedback
• Transit Improvements:
  • The transit map now identifies the single stop nearest to the required location - from any city
  • The transit map now Identifies the nearest stop to the destination within the same city

• Replay Editor updates:
  • Now stores TOD changes made in the editor
  • Added a check for existing save files with conflicting name

• Brandalised DLC content is now FREE in the shop - once the DLC is purchased
• Audio improvements:
  • Wind Effects - Wind sound plays when going fast. Different sounds will play depending if you're in the air or on the ground.
  • Attenuation Settings - Tweaking attenuation falloffs, adding occlusion, focus effects, doppler, reverb distance

• Footstep Materials - Added sounds when walking on different surfaces. Grass, cars, plastic etc.
• Manuals - Added wheel impact sounds when exiting a manual.

• Effects - Testing a stereo delay on certain sounds to give more width.

• Grinds - Added unique sounds when grinding the top of a fence.
• Board - Added improved board impact audio

• General Mixing
• Daily Challenges
  • Grind challenges are now tracked in Metres

• Historical Challenge trick detection:
  • NolliePop shuv - M.Mcbride
  • Inward Heel - M.Mcbride
  • Brooklyn Banks 2010 Best Line - Nate Rojas
  • Welcome to Hell - Jamie Thomas

Onboarding Improvements:

We know that we have the best skate sim on the market - our goal now is to improve how we introduce newcomers and players in a fun and progressive way to our extensive gameplay. As of the next Patch planned for early 2023, all new players to the game, or new characters created in your current game, will experience a new onboarding flow.

The original Brooklyn Banks tutorial has been scrapped for a better paced and more transitional introduction to the gameplay mechanics. Feedback from new users was clear - the learning curve was too steep, and was becoming a barrier to entry - creating frustration for players as opposed to empowering them!

In order to tackle the various barriers to entry we had identified, we’re delivering a combination of changes to gameplay and exposure at a base level.

The new default difficulty preset will now account for basic Left Stick navigation, and does not require mirrored input for Switch tricks, amongst other ease of access changes. This default setting will now prove as a transitional step into the full Session feature set, once players have found their comfort in the core navigation and tricks sets.

The tutorial is now considerably longer than before, but provides the foundation of exposing and confirming key elements from navigation, to tricks, and supplemental features. As we found that even as an experienced skater - there were some core gameplay features that were poorly, or not at all, exposed.

Not only are we tackling the First Time User experience, we've also made various improvements to existing features. The Mission Log is now toggled on/off HUD, it now allows for scrolling between current mission options without having to enter the pause menu and skater log, leading to more time for you to work on your tricks and clips. It also provides input per step of the tutorial as to what is expected of the player.

While we’re tackling how to improve the first time user experience, we’re also working on elements for our existing player base. As mentioned before - the content being produced is awesome, so it is only logical that we pursue features that promote the challenging of friends and sharing of content in the game world. To this extent we’re currently scoping and designing the potential for future features that will help transition your offline gameplay with the Session community in a seamless manner.

Upcoming Content:

• New and unique Object Dropper assets!
  • For both the next free patch & the subsequent DLC

• We’re working on the next pro-skater who will be coming to Session. He’s a pro known for his absolute love for skateboarding and throwing backside 360’s into his trick sets. Some call him the NBD king, and we really feel he has the same level of passion we have for skateboarding.
• We’re also working on a new map, this is our first foray into a non-city setting (not including the skateparks), and we’re loving the variety it’s bringing so far. This map will be a part of a future DLC drop, so take a look at the image below and guess where you’re going to be skating next.

DLC dates will be announced after we release our next Free patch in early 2023!

Whats Next:

Our next releases are now planned for Early 2023 - starting with a free patch - and will be tackling the overall accessibility and onboarding of players into Session as well as the many quality-of-life fixes listed above. This free patch will be followed by the first official DLC drop.

Finally - To keep up with our players and fans we just opened our own Tik Tok account - run by our community manager, Donovan Strain!

Keep an eye on our Social channels and Steam for future updates and Dev Blogs.

Peace,
The Crea-ture team!