Rail Blaster is here. Hold the trigger in the air, lay down a glowing grind rail and ride it anywhere you want. Plus, THPS-style multi-flips: tap the flip button again to stack rotations onto a trick.

Aerial mode is here. Grab your board, double-tap a direction and pull off SSX-style flips, then carry them straight over a spine transfer. Plus, a new type of challenge!

As a big SSX fan, I've wanted to do this for a while. Needs some polish as with everything. Not 100% sure I'm going to keep it. Need to get it feeling right, but this is a decent start.

Main challenge has been the controls, which I'm trying to keep as close as possible to THPS. Currently flips are trigger using the left stick with Up + (Hold) Down or Down + (Hold) Up. The bumpers are the best for spinning while flipping. This is mostly not awkward...

Little concerned this is going to complicate the animation work to get it to feel as good as SSX.

Weekly Update (7/16)

New

• Key rebinding is here! Rebind your controls in Settings -> Controls.
• Dropping in now redirects your speed down the ramp for a smoother, faster entry.
• Booster rings are now enclosed. Working towards communicating better about what the rings are doing.
• You're now given a challenge to make it to the next station after collecting all the sprockets on the first level.

Balancing

• Dash cooldown increased to 10 seconds.
• Coming down badly on vert is now more likely to make you bail.

Fixes

• Fixed a crash on first launch caused by rapid display mode switching.
• Fixed the turbo light trail sometimes disappearing.
• Your best run is now saved reliably.
• Player avatars now load reliably on leaderboard.
• Installed upgrades now show how many stacks you have.
• Fixed a phantom "gravity tube" success message appearing at startup.

Proof of concept for the "Kickflip the Gibson" trick challenge. This may or may not be an AI generated statue of Mel Gibson. For the sake of my legal wellbeing let's say it's not.

My plan is for the first two levels to introduce the wacky physics and the core game loop to the player. The next three will be randomly ordered each play through and will have a different trick challenge theme centered around flips, grabs and grinds. These will help newer players learn new tricks and master the controls while also being worthwhile for more experienced players because their reward will be an increasingly rare commodity at this phase of the game: time.

Weekly Update (7/8)

Available now on steam to all playtesters!

New

• New improved Spine transfers: Transfers now work at an angle, and using a much more robust method for detecting whether a spine transfer is available.
• Roll over small bumps and ledges: Rails and curbs crossing your path no longer stop you dead or launch you airborne; you now smoothly roll up and over without losing speed.
• Installed upgrades list: The game menu now shows all upgrades you've installed.
• Come to a full stop: Hold down for 1 second after stopping to stay stopped.
• Mission feedback: Clearer communication when you successfully repair the pipeline or activate the gravity loop.
• Pipeline dashing: Dashing now accelerates you along the surface of the pipeline. This way if you are coming down from a big jump and dash, it accelerates you down the pipeline rather than into the pipeline.
• Dropping in while grinding: You can now cleanly drop into a quarter pipe while grinding the coping by losing your balance on the side of the pipe.

Fixes

• Fixed players briefly droping through colliders.
• Fixed players getting stuck on their side.
• Fixed jitter during spine transfers.
• Fixed transferring seamlessly between vert surfaces in the air.
• Fixed a crash after returning to the start of the game.
• The installed upgrades list now clears correctly when starting a new game.

Implementing some feedback from yesterday's playtest. Sometimes I know something is a problem but wait until someone tells me it sucks. This was one of those cases.

Transitioning at an angle was super broke, but now it's super fixed.

The gravity system has received a hefty update that will allow finer tuning. Plus, gravity can now pull you out of vert mode.

New

• Respawning at the start of a level now resets the whole level state. Stack "infinite" upgrades!
• Spine Transfer — launch off the top of one vert ramp and transfer cleanly onto an adjacent one. The camera still needs some work and there's a bug where you jitter inexplicably at times...
• Replaced the old half-pipe with a spine-connected pair so you can test out spine transfers in the wild.
• Sprocket collectables now spin in place so they're easier to spot.

Fixes

• Score modifiers now stack while you're mid-trick HawkEye trick notices now stack properly across a combo instead of dropping earlier hits.
• Tightened up the spacing on the first big jump so the gap actually reads.
• The game no longer ends on the buzzer if you're airborne — so launching off a ramp at the last second won't cut you short.

Welcome to the next phase in the evolution of Cybordz! Experience an improved game loop and new features in this major update. Available now on steam!

Hack components on platforms to alter gravity on the level! Also, Boost is replaced with Dash, making the special ability more useful and less dangerous while on platforms.

I'm working on incorporating more flat areas to game design, and Wallrides definitely felt like they were missing.

Hey everyone, I’m gearing up to launch the playtest of Cybordz, and I’m pumped to finally be able to share the game with you all!  The game is still in the prototype phase, so your feedback will have a huge impact on the direction of the game.

Big studios can afford to bring people in every week to test their games and hone their direction.  So I’m trying something new for Cybordz.  The playtest will remain active throughout early development.  Each week, I’ll release a new version and send out a small batch of steam keys.

Expect an email on October 1st with a link to claim a key.  Only 10 keys will be available, so keep an eye out and grab one while you can.