PRE 1.0 Update: 1,122 new lyric effects, four rebuilt worlds, 144 fps

Hi everyone,

This is the biggest update Tied to the Beat has ever had. Over the last month I rebuilt almost everything you see while you play: the lyric effects, the four worlds, your character and the engine underneath. I am calling it PRE 1.0 because this is the game you will get on October 9, when we leave Early Access. Until then I want to see how it runs on your machines, so every report counts.

1,122 lyric effects, made again from zero

The heart of the game is the song. When a word appears in the lyrics, the arena reacts. I threw away every old effect and built all 1,122 again, one by one.

• Every word looks like what it means. FIRE burns, RAIN pours, and the rest follow the same rule.
• One effect at a time. A new word takes over from the last one, so the arena stays spectacular without turning into noise.
• Weather over the whole scene. Rain and snow now cover everything while your health, your character and the HUD stay readable.
• Smarter lyric reading. Songs in a language the game does not know are read in English first, so FIRE always sets the arena on fire.
• Colour-blind friendly. Effects that relied on red against green now use the accessible palette.
• A new icon for every word in the glossary, and Choose Your Path uses the new neon icon family.

Four worlds, rebuilt

Evergreen Forest, Neon Desert, Snowy Aurora and Volcano now share one solid base, and each one got its own personality on top.

• Evergreen Forest: oak woods, wooden houses with smoking chimneys and signposts that point the way.
• Neon Desert: a real neon night. Violet roads with glowing edges, palm trees and cacti outlined in neon, adobe houses with lit windows, a crystal dune and neon currents in the rivers.
• Snowy Aurora: snowy pines, snowmen and a frozen lagoon under the aurora.
• Volcano: a redder world with glowing lava, dead trees full of embers, volcanic stone houses and an ash slope.
• Solid worlds. Trees, rocks and houses block the way in all four maps.
• See-through when it matters. Walk behind a tree or a house and it turns transparent, so you never lose your character.
• Cleaner maps. Half the roads and rivers, so every world feels more open and easier to read.
• Living ambience. Dust drifting in every world, camp guards at the doors of their houses, and you always start near the water.

Rivers, bridges and whirlpools

• Real river networks. A main river with branches that fork and join, with currents you can feel.
• Bridges exactly where the roads cross.
• A whirlpool wherever rivers meet, and the Whirlpool Warden is back to guard them.
• River creatures stay in their river and currents only push you while you are in the water.
• The sun is dangerous. It heats the water until it boils and scorches only what it really touches.

Your character, on fire

• Status effects live on your character. Burning ground and tall flames around your feet, a shield bubble, a crown of fire and more, one at a time and easy to read in the chaos.
• A clean hero. The old lyric auras around the player are gone, so your character stays sharp in the middle of the fight.
• Damage flashes you can actually see, and the classic status icons are back on the HUD.
• A cleaner guitar without the old outline.

A brand new minimap

Rivers, branches and roads drawn from the real world, updated as you move and reaching all the way to the edge.

Performance: the biggest pass so far

I spent weeks measuring the game minute by minute on real machines and fixing every place where a frame was lost.

• 144 fps on a strong PC, even with other programs keeping the CPU busy.
• 60 fps on a Mac mini M1.
• No stutters in the busiest late-game moments, when the screen is full of enemies, bullets and effects.
• No hitches while exploring. The world is prepared ahead of you.
• Sharper picture on high-resolution screens, up to 1440p.
• Smoother HUD. Health bars, boss bars and buff timers move without costing frames.

Music

• Starlight by Lin Hoyasi is back. The song had been hidden while I fixed performance and effects. All 52 songs are open again in the Videoclub.
• One way to import, from the same menu in every version of the game.
• Already have a lyrics file? Use it directly.
• Clear about generated lyrics. A notice now comes first, on its own, and you can hide it next time. It is also in the INFO section of the main menu, in all 31 languages.
• The old BETA tag is gone.

Fixes

• River currents no longer push characters around outside the water.
• Fire flames are no longer cut at the edges, and the crown of fire is no longer hidden behind your body.
• Burned trees no longer merge into each other.
• The shield bubble draws correctly around your character.
• Signpost arrows are drawn complete, and signs no longer overlap.
• Gaps and hard edges along rivers, and currents that could disappear when you walked back.
• The pause screen shows only your health bar, centred.
• The Back button in the import screen matches the rest of the menus.
• Many smaller fixes and polish all over the game.

See you on October 9

From now until then I will keep polishing, fixing what you report and watching performance on as many machines as I can. If something feels slow or looks wrong, tell me in the Steam discussions.

Thank you for playing. Your music. Your weapon.
Javier, Lianes8