News Archive 2019

These news from 2019 were copied mostly from Rec Room News on Steam. See the News Archive 2018 for older news. See Latest News for more recent news. See the Timeline for an overview of the development of Rec Room.

The Game Rules chip and what you can do with it!

March 9, 2019 - Carthage

Hey everyone! We're still working on getting the next update ready to go, but we thought it would be fitting to give you all a deeper peek into one of the new features which /u/gribbly mentioned a few days ago - the new Game Rules chip. Placing these chips in your room lets you define different game modes which can be rotated through on the scoreboard (just like how Paintball, Disc Golf, and Charades let you toggle between their different game modes) and gives you the ability to change a ton (19 pages!) of settings about how those games work.

Gribbly's post has some details at the bottom about how this will work for existing rooms. Broadly speaking, we don't think this new system will cause issues for most rooms and ideally, any rooms which are broken by this change will be able to be fixed quickly by tweaking a few options in the Game Rules chip.

With that in mind... we thought you might be interested in seeing the list of options you'll soon have access to to customize your rooms. Here's everything that's now tweakable:

Mode Name - sets the name of your gamemode on the scoreboard

Manual Game Start Min Player Count - How many players need to be in the game before the "Start" button on the scoreboard lights up?

Manual Game Start Min Team Count - How many teams must have players on them before the "Start" button on the scoreboard lights up?

Manual Game Start Min Team Size - How many players must be on each team before the "Start" button on the scoreboard lights up.

Automatic Game Start Supported (Toggle) - Should the game start automatically when certain conditions are met? (Like Rec Royale Squads)

Automatic Game Start Min Player Count - How many players must be in the game before it starts automatically?

Automatic Game Start Min Team Count - How many teams must have players before the game starts automatically?

Automatic Game Start Min Team Size - How many players must be on each team before the game starts automatically?

Play Pre-Game Voice-Over (Toggle) - "Press the start button on the scoreboard to play"

Play Results Voice-Over (Toggle) - "You win"/"You lose"

Play Game End Countdown Voice-Over (Toggle) - "5...4...3...2...1...Game over!"

Game Start Countdown duration - How long until the game starts after hitting "Start" on the scoreboard

Game End Countdown duration - How long the scoreboard stays on the results page until allowing the next game to start

Respawn on Game Start (Toggle) - Trigger respawn for players when the game starts

Respawn on Game Over (Toggle) - Trigger respawn for players when the game ends

Join In Progress Supported (Toggle) - Can players join an in-progress game?

End Game If Start Requirements Not Met (Toggle) - Should the game end if too many players leave / there aren't enough players on each team anymore / etc?

Team Count

Team Size

Team Selection Method (Random/Smallest/Largest/Score) - How do we decide what team to put someone on? (Teams can still be reassigned with circuits)

Team Change During Game Supported (Toggle)

Respawn on Team Change During Game (Toggle)

Explicit Team Selection Supported (Toggle) - Can players choose exactly which team to join? (like Rec Royale Squads)

Show Open Slots on Scoreboard (Toggle) - Should the scoreboard add more slots as players join, or always show all of them?

Team Outfits Supported (Toggle) - Jerseys

Teammate Beacom Method (Hide/Show/Revive Available) - When should we show beacons for your teammates (Rec Royale Squads uses "Revive Available")

Opponent Beacon Method (Hide/Show/Revive Available)

Team Radios Supported (Toggle) - walkie-talkie support (like Laser Tag and Rec Royale)

Team Radio Volume

Team Radio Enter Distance

Team Radio Exit Distance

Max Health - This limits what a player's health can be set to (including by circuits)

Max Shield - This limits what a player's shield can be set to (including by circuits)

Suppress Weapon Damage (Toggle) - If disabled, the game will automatically lower a player's health when they are hit by a weapon. [For existing UGC rooms, this will be defaulted to on, since we know any health management you're doing is already in place using circuits.]

Auto Heal Supported (Toggle) - Should players regain health if they haven't been hit for some time?

Auto Heal Delay - How long before players start regaining health?

Auto Heal Duration - How long should players regain health for, once started?

Auto Respawn Supported (Toggle) - Should players automatically respawn after being eliminated?

Auto Respawn Delay - How long after being eliminated until players respawn?

Restore Health on Respawn - Put player health back to maximum when respawning a player

Respawn Invincibility - How long is a player invincible after respawning?

Revive Mode (Off/High five/Handshake)

Revive Required Delay - How long after being downed until a player can be revived?

Max Revive Health Normalized - When revived, what is the maximum fraction of the max health a player can get?

Min Revive Health Normalized - When reviveed, what is the minimum fraction of the max health a player can get?

Revive Health Multiplier Normalized - Defines how the revive health amount decreases with each successive revive. (Like Rec Royale)

Pickup Equipment on Revive (Toggle) - Should a player's equipment snap back to their hands when they are revived? (Like Quests)

Reviver Invincibility Duration - You revive your friend. How long are you invincible for?

Revivee Invincibility Duration - You revive your friend. How long are they invincible for?

Handshake Revive Required Duration - How long do you have to hold that handshake?

Combat Outside of Game (Toggle) - Enable combat logic even when the game hasn't been started.

Team Friendly Fire (Toggle)

HUD Enabled (Toggle)

Opponent Player Health Bar (Toggle)

Teammate Player Health Bar (Toggle)

Teammate Player Health Bars Always Visible (Toggle)

Grayscale Effect When Out (Toggle)

Damage Red Flash Effect (Toggle) - the red flash at the borders of your vision when you are damaged

Hit Feeedback (Toggle)

Revive Feeedback (Toggle)

Downed Feedback (Toggle)

Downed Opponent Feedback (Toggle)

Downed Teammate Feedback (Toggle)

Team Spawn Point Selection Mode (Cycle/Team/Visibility/Random) - How should the game pick which spawn point (of the correct team color) to use?

Spawn Main Hand Equipment Type (a whole bunch of options) - What spawns in your main hand?

Spawn Off Hand Equipment Type (a whole bunch of options) - What spawns in your off hand?

Reset Equipment On Game Start (Toggle) - Put equipment back at their cleanup positions on game start

Broken Equipment (Respawn/Hide/Destroy) - What does the game do to items which have durability after they break?

Infinite Reserve Ammunition (Toggle) - Applies to the Laser Tag power weapons (Sorry, no ammunition system yet!)

Unequipped Item Ring Effect (Toggle) - Should weapons lying around have the glowing ring around them? (Like paintball)

Out Of Bounds Restrictions (Toggle) - If enabled, warn and respawn players who go out of bounds.

Out Of Bounds Grace Period - How long after going out of bounds should a player get a warning?

Out Of Bounds Max Duration - How long can someone be out of bounds before they are downed?

Down Out Of Bounds Players - Should players be downed for going out of bounds?

Many of you are likely very excited by the large degree of customization these options afford, and we are too! We think that exposing all of these things to creators will allow you to build things that, dare I say it, impress us even more than what's already out there. We're stoked to get it out to you soon.

If you've got questions on any of these - what they do, what they don't do - post a reply and we'll do our best to elaborate. We're sorry that this update is taking a bit longer than usual, but hang in there! We think it'll be worth the wait!

The next update - preview of new creation tools

March 5, 2019 - gribbly

We've been hard at work on next update, and it's almost cooked! We're deep into the testing and bug-fixing phase (yes, we do fix bugs!) so it's "some small number of days" away... we're not quite sure how many.

While we wait for the bug fixes, I wanted to provide a preview of the new creation features that are in this update. There's a bunch of new stuff. In some cases the changes may require some tweaks to your existing rooms - we've worked hard to avoid this for the most part. I've listed the known issues at the bottom, and our ongoing testing is largely about squeezing out any remaining issues.

Before I get to the details, let me talk about update frequency. Traditionally we've shipped an update every two weeks or so, but we're going a little slower right now. This is because a big chunk of the team (especially the art team) is super busy adapting the game for new platforms. It's a bunch of work, but the results are very exciting =] More on all that soon... point is we'll get back to our two week update schedule once we're done.

OK, let's get into the new creation tools... strap in because there's a lot to talk about! (BTW, we'll be posting How To videos for many of these features when the update arrives)

We've updated the shape bevels (i.e., what the edges look like)! Shape bevels are now "smart" - they are not simply scaled with the shape. The net result is that large shapes now have sharper edges, a much requested adjustment. This will not affect existing rooms, but newly-created shapes will have the new bevel behavior. It won't be in for this update, but we are likely to add a new "soft cube" shape so you can still have the rounder "soft" bevels on large objects if that's what you want. Please give us feedback once the update is out - we're keen to hear what you think of the new behavior.

We've added a new "State Machine" chip. This makes it really easy to manage any kind of state behavior... whether it's as simple as "door open/door closed" or as complex as managing the states for a custom game mode. We realized that a big chunk of game programming is basically implementing and controlling state machines, so we wanted to make it much faster and easier to work with this important concept in Rec Room. The State Machine chip is extremely powerful, we recommend anyone interested in implementing custom behaviors check it out! Find it in Maker Pen > Palette > Gadgets > Other Chips.

We've added the ability to pack your circuits into "Circuit Boards". This makes large, unruly collections of wired-together chips into a single neat Circuit Board object. You can pack/unpack circuits using the same "Edit/Done Editing" flow as editing Maker Pen shapes. Packing your chips into a Circuit Board makes them a bit cheaper (saving you some ink), and definitely makes it easier to keep things organized!

Circuit Boards also let you protect your circuits when sharing them as an Invention - if you include a Circuit Board in a "Use Only" Invention, other players aren't able to unpack it. So they can't see or change the circuit, but they can use it.

We've added a new "Game Rules" chip that exposes a bunch of the internal Rec Room game systems for use in your rooms. This includes stuff like health, HUDs, reviving rules, spawning with/without various kinds of equipment, team radios, etc. In all there are 19 pages (!) of settings for you to tweak. You can find the Game Rules chip in Maker Pen > Palette > Gadgets > Other Gadgets. Use the Maker Pen "Configure" tool to access the settings.

You can have multiple Game Rules chips in your room. Each one will appear as a mode on the scoreboard. The mode selected on the scoreboard will correspond to the active Game Rules chip.

Scoreboards are now proper sandbox props... so you can move them, delete them, add new ones, scale them.

There's a new Scoreboard Setup chip that lets you rename the scoring units in your room if you want something other than the standard "point".

We've upgraded the Sampler - you can now specify start and end offsets for much tighter control over your sounds. You can also specify which channel it will play through (SFX, music, voice, ambient) which means it will respect player settings (e.g., if you've got music turned down in settings, Samplers playing in that channel will also be turned down).

There's a new Beacon object, perfect for highlighting objectives in your games! Place and scale it like any prop, then you can use circuit inputs to dynamically control the height, color and visibility of the beacon.

SFX chip now has a volume setting in its Config menu.

There's a new "Player Revive" chip. It works like the Player Hit chip - it sends a circuit signal (including player ID) whenever a player is revived.

Breakable objects (like plates, bottles, jugs) now respawn by default. If you want them to break forever, tweak that setting in the new Game Rules chip.

Laser weapons are now the PvP-tweaked Laser Tag variants (rather than the Jumbotron variants). This won't affect existing placements, but new placements will use the new variants.

Trigger volumes are now player role-aware.

Here are some important things to know about the transition to the new “Game Rule chip” based system:

For new rooms, you’ll need to manually add a Game Rule chip.

Existing rooms will automatically have a Game Rule chip next to the scoreboard, with relevant settings automatically applied. If you’re not running any game logic in your room, it’s safe to delete this chip.

Rooms cloned from Rec Room Originals and customized via the Game Setup menu (which no longer exists), will need their settings re-applied via the Game Rules chip that has been spawned next to the scoreboard. So if you cloned ^Paintball and tweaked it to spawn players with bows, you’ll need to make that change again and re-save your room. Sorry about that, but it takes only a minute and it unlocks huge amounts of new stuff for you to play with!

If you were using the old “Game Duration” setting in the (now defunct) Game Setup menu, you’ll need to re-configure this using the new Scoreboard Setup chip.

We are testing existing rooms with the new tools to make sure everything keeps working seamlessly. If you own a popular room we may reach out to you to work with you if we find an issue. You can also just reply in this thread if you have any concerns and I’ll check it over the next couple of days to answer questions!

OK that's it! Looking forward to shipping the new update ASAP... BTW there's more in it that just the list above... I'm staying focused on creation stuff today =]

Rec Room MINI UPDATE for the “Published Inventions” Edition!

February 14, 2019 - magglerock

We're stoked to announce that Rec Tokens are (finally =P) available for purchase on Steam and Oculus (coming soon for PlayStation®)!

While playing via Steam or Oculus, find Rec Tokens for purchase in your Watch > Store > Get Tokens
Note that due to Sony policies, Rec Tokens purchased on PC and items purchased with Rec Tokens on PC won't be accessible on PlayStation® (and vice versa) - though earned items will always be available on all platforms!
If you have any issues with a purchase, please reach out to tokens@againstgrav.com

Plus we've got some updates to the screen mode Quick Select menu:

While playing in screens mode, hold the "Backpack" button (Triangle, Y, or ~ depending on your platform) to see the tools you have equipped.
Move the left stick and release the button to swap to that tool.
This also includes quick access to the share camera, maker pen, and Rec Royale map.
Tapping the Backpack button will switch tools as usual.

And a few bug fixes to round it out =]

Bulletin boards no longer render on top of the watch menu!
Fixed a bug that allowed you to fire guns through walls, fences, etc.
Fixed a bug where taking a picture to publish a room would freeze the game

Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://www.againstgrav.com/community/

Thanks for playing Rec Room! As always, don't hesitate to give us your feedback =]

Rec Room UPDATE - the “Published Inventions” Edition!

February 7, 2019 - magglerock

This is a super exciting update for us - check out what's new:

You can now publish your Inventions to share with other players!
There's a new Inventions tab in the store, where you can find Inventions published by other players and download them to your Maker Pen palette!
When you publish an Invention, you can choose what permissions it has (giving you control over how other players can use it). The permissions are:
Publish (the default): Other players can make major changes to this Invention, then publish the result as a new Invention. Choose this permission if you’re cool with variations of your Invention being published in the store.
Use Only: Other players can’t make major changes to this Invention. They also can’t create a new Invention that contains any part of it. Choose this permission if you want don’t want people copying/modifying your Invention.
Edit and Save: Other players can make major changes to this Invention, but they can’t create a new Invention that contains any part of it. Use this permission if you don’t mind people adapting your Invention for your needs, but you don’t want them to republish the changes.
You can also set permissions on an Invention without publishing it first - find this in the Invention's Setup menu!

Screen mode creation has had a major revision to make it easier and more fun to create with! We'd love to hear feedback on it!

You now use the Maker Pen in first person and have access to the majority of the building tools and options (there are some missing pieces yet, we'll clean them up soon...)
Follow the onscreen prompts for the various buttons and options!
Like in VR mode, if you fly while holding the maker pen you can clip through objects. This makes building much easier!

Plus a few other fun creation updates:

We're excited to share the new self-scaling tool! This is experimental and only in VR so far, but we're excited to hear what you think! You can toggle this mode on in the Maker Pen Palette > Settings menu, and use the grip triggers on Oculus/Vive, and upper outer buttons on PSVR (left hand square, right hand triangle)!
The Maker Pen tubes got some major updates! Set the number of sides, the roundness and the width of your drawings. Keep connecting to the end of tubes for precise creations and use the manipulate tool to move control points around for that final tweak.

But wait, there's more! Screen mode players can now fly!

Access to flying is configured exactly the same as for VR players (i.e., it's a Room permission).
To start or stop flying, double tap the jump button.
If you want to try it out, here's the incredibly intuitive and easy process to enable flying in your Dorm Room: Open your Watch, tap This Room > Setup > Roles, then tap the gear icon for "Dorm Room". In the Shared settings, tap Override on the "Can Fly" option, then move the slider to "Yes". You may want to save the room after doing this so you don't have to do it again! Could this flow be made simpler? Nope. This is fine.
We now have to keep updating this flow, it's totally fine

And that's not all!

All quests are now in first person mode for screens players!
The Report Player screen got an ease of use update - there are now dropdowns with canned report categories!
The Code of Conduct got a spruce =]
Melee weapons in Isle of the Lost Skulls now automatically lock to your hands

Plus a bunch of bug fixes, including:

A bunch of PS4 crash mitigations! Let us know if you continue to experience performance problems on PS4.
Fixed issue that would cause all room saves in a room session to spin indefinitely
Added back snapping and shape preview for trigger volumes
Fixed some bugs with the layout of dorm dresser items

Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://www.againstgrav.com/community/

Thanks for playing Rec Room! As always, don't hesitate to give us your feedback =]

Rec Room PATCH - for the "Social Dorm" edition

January 29, 2019 - gribbly

Fixes that should reduce crashes
Further tweaks to paint grenade tuning (damage falloff)

Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://www.againstgrav.com/community/

Thanks for playing Rec Room! As always, don't hesitate to give us your feedback =]

Update on how grenades work!

January 28, 2019 - gribbly (via reddit)

Details on the grenade updates that happened in the latest patch:

Damage falloff working correctly for enemy and self damage
Grenade blasts no longer change team of grenades in other players' hands
Grenades no longer explode when shot in a player’s hands
Picking up a live grenade will switch the grenade’s team to the player who picked it up.
Self-destructs in Lasertag discount 10 points from score

This should have been included in the patch notes, but we forgot =]

Rec Room PATCH - for the "Social Dorm" edition

January 25, 2019 - gribbly

Fixed bug that caused screen players to soft lock when they grabbed a traffic cone. Oops :-/
Fixed bug that could cause tutorial to get stuck for new VR players
Fixed several bugs that should reduce crashes on PS4
Fixed a loophole with invention permissions
Fixed issue where you couldn't delete old message notifications
Fixed a bug where paging buttons weren't showing up when you opened clothes drawer in your Dorm
Fixed some issues with loading Dorm in "Safe Mode"
Fixed bugs that were allowing you to get too far outside your Dorm Room
Maker Pen Palette no longer collides with anything

Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://www.againstgrav.com/community/

Thanks for playing Rec Room! As always, don't hesitate to give us your feedback =]

Rec Room UPDATE - the "Social Dorm Edition"

January 18, 2019 - magglerock

Before we dive into the first update of 2019, let's take a moment to appreciate what a fantastic 2018 Rec Room had! Check out our 2018 in Review post for details. It truly was an amazing year, and each and every one of you played a part in that - so thank you! We can't wait to see what 2019 has in store for Rec Room =]

Without further ado, let's dive into the update!

You can now customize and save your Dorm Room!
You can save the state of your Dorm Room by going to This Room > Save
This saves the location of all objects in the room (including maker pen objects)
Next time you go to your Dorm Room, the saved state will be restored
Use the button in the upper right hand corner of the login profile select screen to toggle "Safe Mode", to load the default dorm room without any of your saved customizations - useful if you accidentally save in a bad state and get stuck!
Note that Junior players cannot save their Dorm Rooms

And that's not all! You can now invite other players to your Dorm Room!

You can invite up to 3 other players to join you in your Dorm Room!
Players can request to join you in your Dorm (the Go To button will send an invite request)
Juniors, unregistered players, and players under moderation cannot be invited to a Dorm Room
You can instant kick everyone from your Dorm Room at any time via the “Evict All” button on the home screen of your Watch

Another big update - screens mode is now a first person play experience!

This is a work in progress, so feedback is welcome!
First person mode also means you can now manipulate objects (so you can play all your favorite escape rooms!)
Just pick an object up and carry it around - you can use controls to rotate/manipulate/etc
Note some objects specifically require you to press “Manipulate” first to do so (such as basketballs, drinking bottles, etc)

Next up, we’re excited to announce that rooms can now optionally allow Junior players to visit!

Junior access if OFF by default; creators can opt in by changing the setting (find it in This Room > General Setup)
This means that Juniors can now see and browse #community rooms in the watch
Please note that Juniors still cannot create, share or publish rooms, use the Maker Pen, or visit ^charades

There’s more... we heard you loud and clear (so, so loud =P) - we’d like to introduce the Auto Mic Muting feature!

Microphone spam above a certain level triggers a warning, causing other players to hear you at a reduced volume
If mic spam continues after the warning, you are force muted (other players can't hear you)
If the spam volume is reduced, the force mute will end
Note you can disable this feature in user created rooms, for all your sweet sweet DJ needs (find the setting in This Room > Setup > General Setup > Disable Auto Mic Muting)

This update also includes some (minor) updates to the Rec Center!

We added an information kiosk in the middle of the Rec Center, to better break up the larger space
We also added full Ping-Pong Tables, and another Basketball Hoop!
We also moved around the Merch Booth, Puzzles & Art, the Mirror, the Community Board and Dart Board
We hope you enjoy these changes to our Rec Center!

Plus we've updated Grenade behavior in some activities - note we're reworking how Grenades work overall, so this is a work in progress and does not necessarily reflect what final functionality will be! Feedback welcome =]

In Laser Tag, Rec Royale and JumboTron Grenades do not have friendly fire (but can hit yourself)
In Paintball, Grenades act as they always have

But wait, there’s still more!

There is now a "Can Save Invention" permission, so room owners can allow Maker Pen use in their rooms (but prevent people from making inventions)
We added paging for outfit items in your dorm
You can now merge shapes into costumes! To do so, select a costume and some shapes and click Merge! The palette will let you select which piece of the costume it should get merged into
Cheer & 'Go to Room' buttons added to Rec Center projector room

Plus a bunch of bug fixes, including:

Made a few tweaks that should hopefully help with performance and PS4 crashing - note we will be making some larger changes to address these issues in the next update!
Daily challenge reward fixes
Fixed a bug causing all the Cyber Junk City videos to display as black screens
Grenade bug fixes across activities
Fixed a bug that allowed players who were out in Dodgeball to walk onto the court
Fixed Paintball sniper scopes not displaying correctly in Spillway
Fixed bug that prevented screens players from writing on drawing surfaces
Fixed bug where trigger zones in object mode sometimes output a player ID
Fixed a bug that would cause Objects to be off by some number of centimeters on multiplayer room restores

Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://www.againstgrav.com/community/

Thanks for playing Rec Room! As always, don't hesitate to give us your feedback =]

See the News Archive 2018 for older news.

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