v0.48.0

Map editor

• New placeable: Zipline. A two-post cable — a boon. Drive onto the start post and you're carried along the line, sailing over everything beneath you: lava, hazards, water and rivals all pass harmlessly under you while you ride (you hang from the cable on a little trolley), and you can't be punched off. It's a slow, deliberate glide — slower than driving — so it's not a fast-travel shortcut; it's a safe one, trading speed for a lava-proof crossing. Punch to drop off early — and however you leave the cable (early, at the far post, or if you run out of juice) you keep the line's speed and fling forward off the end. The catch: holding the cable drains your punch meter, and if it empties you're dropped right there — so a long zipline is a real gamble over whatever's below. Authors place it from the boons palette with two clicks (the start post, then the far post), which sets the cable's direction and length. Rival AI racers understand the cable and route through it when it's genuinely the best way across (e.g. a lava chasm they can't drive), but skip it on open ground where driving is faster.
• Map balance check now catches zipline traps. A zipline auto-grabs anyone who drives onto its start post, so one placed on the natural racing line over open ground is a trap — a racer driving the line gets snatched onto a slow ride and loses time. The fairness/balance score now measures that setback and docks the map for it (a catastrophic one fails outright), showing the author a ziptrap line and dropping the map from Featured until it's moved off the racing line — while a cable that genuinely spans a gap (a lava crossing) is left alone. Ziplines must also start and land on solid ground (the cable itself can fly over lava/water/holes, but boarding on or landing in them is rejected).
• New placeable: Lily Pads. Drivable stepping-stones over deep water — a boon. A pad is solid to drive across (you skim over the water instead of having to punch-swim), so a cluster of them makes a path across water that would otherwise slow you to a crawl, and standing on one recharges your punch meter faster — a quick breather to win back the strokes the swim cost. But a pad sinks while you stand on it — linger and it slips under, dumping you into the swim below — so you have to keep moving from pad to pad. Step off and it bobs back up, ready again. Authors place them from the boons palette (over water only — enforced) and can resize each pad with its handle — big stable stones or tight skip-stones — to shape a route across the deep. Rival AI racers understand a pad path too: they'll skim across a line of pads instead of taking the slow swim around, when it's the faster way to the goal.