Whiteout Extreme 1.0.0

Major "feature complete" release!

Objective

Race down a treacherous mountain track on your snowmobile against two AI opponents.
Stay ahead of the deadly avalanche chasing from behind.
The first to the finish line OR last racer standing wins!

Controls

Controller

• Left Stick: Steering

• Right Trigger: Acceleration

• Left Trigger: Braking / Reverse

• X Button: Throw snowball

• Y Button: Boost

• Start Button: Pause menu / Return

• A Button: Select menu option

• B Button: Main menu from other menus

Keyboard

• W: Accelerate

• S: Brake / Reverse

• A/D: Steer left/right

• E/Space: Throw snowballs

• Left Shift: Boost

• P: Pause/Resume

• M: Main menu (start game or return)

Debug:

• F: toggle camera type
• V: Turn particle effect on and off
• F1, F2: toggle ImGui panels
• Right click and drag mouse to rotate the debug cameras

What's new

Gameplay

• Boost System: Vehicles can boost for a short time
• Engine Heat & Overheat: Boost heats up the engine and can overheat.
• Apex-Vent: Risk-reward engine cooling bonus (10-50% recovery) when releasing the boost near 90-100%
• Snow cannons: Placed along the track to provide strategic engine cooling zones for the racers
• AI Improvements: Manages boost, throttle, throw snowballs, and better look-ahead targets
• Better snowballs: Shoots directly ahead of the vehicle and successful hits trigger a calculated torque

The boost engine cools down overtime, and cools down even faster when close to the avalanche.
When an Apex-vent is performed, it instantly cools down some of the engine.
It also reduces the time before the engine starts cooling down on its own.
If the engine gets to 100% heat, the vehicle instantly slows down until engine is back to 25% or lower.
Entering a snow cannon's stream provides exponential heat reduction to the engine.

Racing camera

This camera follows behind the vehicle and does not have manual rotation.

• Camera is on an arm with rotational spring dampening
• FOV scales from 55 to 130 based on speed
• Camera shake effect that responds to change in acceleration (jerk)
• Different shake intensity and frequency, depending on jerk and velocity
• F-key toggle between 3 camera modes (for debug)

Graphics

• Render particles: Orange boost particles, white snow particles for avalanche and snow cannons
• Split snowmobile model into separate visual components: chassis, skiis, handle, and racers
• The snowmobile skiis (front wheels) rotate when steering
• The handle and racer arms rotate when turning when steering
• New snow cannon model was created

UI and HUD

• Custom game logo on the main menu
• Splash screen on the main menu (AI generated background)
• "Help" submenus showing the controller and keyboard mappings
• Boost bar that fills up, changes colors, and shows percentage
• Status text appears when "freezing" (close to avalanche)

Sounds

Added more sounds and improved how sound works.

• Sounds for boost, apex vent, and engine overheat/fail
• AI racers have their own engine sounds (different than player sounds)
• Adjust volumes based on distance from the player
• Fade out engine sound when throttle is not pressed

What's Changed

• Refactor rendering shape configs by @SPolton in #64
• Refactor camera classes by @SPolton in #65
• AI Racers engine sounds by @vi-xt in #67
• Cleanup legacy entity code by @SPolton in #66
• Racing camera by @SPolton in #68
• Refactor game loop by @SPolton in #69
• Enhanced UI by @vi-xt in #71
• Boost System & Enhanced driving by @Daftox in #73
• Scaled UI Button Fix by @vi-xt in #74
• Boost sound by @vi-xt in #75
• Resolved sound bugs by @vi-xt in #78
• Add camera shake by @SPolton in #79
• Improve game time by @SPolton in #80
• Pause engine fade out in menus by @vi-xt in #81
• Refactor gears by @SPolton in #82
• Snowmobile Visual Refactor & Steering Fix by @NezlaAnnaisha in #84
• Snow particles by @SPolton in #83
• Fix duplicate component assertions and loose ends by @SPolton in #85
• Avalanche snow effects by @SPolton in #86
• Boost visuals by @vi-xt in #87
• Snow Cannons & Snowballs System by @Daftox in #88

Full Changelog: v0.2.2...v1.0.0