JARPUG alpha 0.5 is out now for Windows AND Meta Quest 2!
posted 21st Jun 2023 by Tyrus Peace

JARPUG alpha 0.5 is out now!

This update adds:

  • more story!
  • Pet Hell: new enemies, new friendlies, new puzzles!
  • a new playable character, Rex. He specializes in traps
  • battle combos let you combine any two character skills, sometimes stupidly
  • combo crystals for charging said combos and getting stat boosts in battle
  • much more mobile enemies
  • pouncing on enemies in the field to gain advantage before battle
  • improved player battle movement: more responsive, arrows show where AI is going
  • "knock" attacks that launch enemies into each other, traps, etc.
  • big battle UI updates
  • coins!
  • battle loot
  • sounds
  • improved battle effects
  • gooey new VR player hands
  • many, many bug fixes
  • updated VR frameworks
  • SteamVR support
  • Quest 2 standalone support

I'm unfortunately removing the demo build for now. It's just not representative of the current build any more. Right now there are separate versions for non-VR and SteamVR users. That makes the maintenance for the demo too silly. I plan to get one singular build out for all Windows users that supports VR and non-VR before putting out a bigger, better demo in the near future.

This update took forever! Adding SteamVR support and porting to Quest 2 required that I also update the underlying versions of Unity Engine and various VR support frameworks. It felt like doing 2-3 separate ports in a row. I don't recommend it!

The plus side is that a lot of the underpinning tech, especially in the new Pet Hell areas, runs a lot better than it would have otherwise.

jarpug-rainbow-stairs-sm

Some of the new VR frameworks required that I switch JARPUG's lighting model. I had to go through every level and bit of popup text to make sure the colors and brightness were right. I've taken this as an opportunity to darken some things and crank other things up. I hope you like the new look!

I'm not providing a standalone Oculus Rift PC build at the moment. I didn't see any performance benefits to it in testing, so the effort didn't seem worthwhile. It could still be supported if anyone wants that, though!

This has also been submitted to the Meta Quest App Lab. I hope that works out.