Snakeybus News — February 5, 2021
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
Notes
Hi all, long time no chat. Thanks for being patient with this one. In this next update, the team continued to experiment with multiplayer gameplay.
Most Snakeybus maps are flat and allow players to B-line from drop-off to drop-off. The flat map style works in single player where the driving experience is more lax but quickly becomes problematic in multiplayer. Coupled with the fact that there is only one drop-off active at a time, players are quickly exhausted from cross-map sprints. Our next map, Tower City, focuses on verticality which moves drop-offs to different height levels preventing a straight shot from each drop-off.
The team also noticed that players can experience bus-constipation where player 1 is hitting all the drop-offs so player 2 is stuck with a bus full of passengers. To address this, we've turned on concurrent drop-offs in multiplayer. In the voice of DJ Khaled: another one.
Because of the added verticality, Tower City is less about "keep moving / don't run into yourself" and more about map knowledge and finding opportune times to use power ups. We tried play testing in single player but found that with the additional verticality, it was impossible to "die." For this reason, Tower city will be multiplayer exclusive - apologize in advance to the single players.
There is also an effort to balance power ups, mainly the shovel-ramp and missile. The shovel has been adjusted to cut up to 50 segments. So if your opponent has 50 segments, and you cut them at the middle, they would lose only 25 segments. Track down the head bus and cut subsequent segments for maximum effectiveness.
The missile impact has changed from OP nuke to a blast radius effect. Aim towards clustered areas of segments for max effectiveness.
Good luck.
Updates
New
- New Map: Tower City
- New Game Modes
- First To (first to X segments)
- Pacifist (longest bus when game clock ends, no weapons) - Multiplayer Lobby UI Refresh
- Multiple respawn points in multiplayer
- "Self Healing" bus (see gif)
Adjustments
- Shovel power up
- Now on a timer. After using the power up, players have 10 seconds to ram into another bus. before the shovel retracts automatically.
- Before: sever all remaining segments. Now: sever up to 50 segments - Missile Launcher
- Before: sever all remaining segments. Now: sever segments within the explosive radius. - Concurrent Drop Offs
- Prevent bus constipation and lopsided snow balling.
- Bus Arrow and Drop Off UI indicates nearest drop off
Fixes
- Before: able to to shoot missile before it was out. After: must wait for missile launcher's animation to shoot.
Discord for community feedback / bugs / play testing
Twitter to say hi or watch me post gifs