You’re welcome! I hadn’t even published the release notes or launch discount yet, and y’all are already taking things for a spin. That’s nice news to wake up to!

Hello! It’s good to hear from you. Thanks for already checking things out and letting me know how it’s going so far. The release notes and launch discount are now live.

The portals spawn similar to the cities: regularly in chunks, except with about double the frequency, and if you miss a chunk it will try spawning in the next. I understand this isn’t quite fair to folks with existing saves, but the hope is that they should appear naturally as you play. Each world has exactly one portal for each other world. Right now, there’s just the one to find. They have a collectible on top, which the proximity cues will lead you to, and when collected (or scanned) it will be discovered. They also have a unique droning sound which then activates by standing over it.

In my ATH-M50x headphones, the proximity cues are right in the sweet spot for me, but I understand that not all headphones are built equally. I’d say that I mixed them rather conservatively low in the mix because I was afraid they might be too annoying. Perhaps it’s just my sensitive hearing and how so many sounds bother me.

I’m open to tweaking both! That’s the purpose of this preview. Cheers! 🤘

I want to make an amendment, something I’d forgotten about until today. The drift sound is considerably louder than the normal reactor sound and makes it difficult to keep focus on an item since the tone drowns it out. What I have to do is listen between the beating of the drift tone.

I might also recommend rolling off the volume as the speed decreases. A good model for this is the reverse gear of a manual transmission car, which is straight cut rather than helical cut like the rest of the gears, so you hear the whine more. Backing up, then letting off the throttle, the whine will lower in pitch, and as the vehicle’s speed drops, the volume of the whine does as well.

Right now, if you hold the drift key and are at a dead stop, you’ll hear a low drone, which I think should not be present until the suit’s wheels begin to rotate and it starts picking up speed.

To my way of thinking, the drift tone should be slightly quieter than the reactors, as, by my understanding, the reactors ramp up to provide power for the suit to move.

If the above sounds like a bit much, I understand. I would just ask that the volume of the tone should be lowered.

Thanks so much for taking this thread seriously and providing so much feedback. I appreciate your time spent playing and writing this up.

I’m starting to get back into the project. My immediate priority is to prepare the demo for Steam Next Fest, beginning June 19. There should be an update with some changes around then. After that, I’ll definitely be tweaking things as I continue working toward the Side C release.

Cheers!