OKAY OKAY I GET IT I GET IT!
You hate the menu system, got it, here's a new one jeez...
I kid, you guys are right, the old one was dumb. I was hoping to make a menu with no words to try and remove language barriers, but ended up adding more language barriers in... Buuuut since I was there fooling around with buttons, one thing led to another, hours turned into days turned into weeks, turned into... 1.5 is the biggest update Vecter has ever received. New features, major fixes, and a frankly embarrassing amount of under-the-hood work that I probably should have done years ago. But hey, better late than never.
Let's get into it.
YouTube Integration (The Big One)
You can now play YouTube videos directly in the game. Use them as background music or just have something playing while you dodge windmills at ridiculous speeds. The controls work the same as the music player - volume, skip, all that good stuff.
It also respects your music settings, so if you've got the volume cranked up or muted, YouTube follows along.
To play a youtube video, all you have to do is find a youtube video you like (not a live stream tho, those aren't supported yet, but live streams that have ended are fine as those get converted to videos by youtube later), copy the youtube video URL, and then just switch back to the game. Game will pick it up automatically and start playing.
Alternatively, you can also click the YouTube button in either the main menu or the pause menu. This will open up youtube in the steam overlay, you can then navigate to any video you like, press the share button, and then the copy button, and just close the overlay. The nice thing about steam overlay is you can also log into your youtube account there and just pick up videos from your watch history or subscription or whatever. See this video below as a quick demo: [dynamiclink href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvuUw-IRRe4"]Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS (yes, even Apple Silicon). You can also paste playlist URLs and the game will play through them automatically - same skip controls as the music player. Livestreams work too, though you can't pause or seek them (because... they're live).
Multi-Format Audio Support
Speaking of music, I've expanded what the custom music folder can handle. You're no longer limited to just MP3s. Now you can throw in:
OGG (because why not)
FLAC (for the audiophiles)
M4A (AAC finally cooperates, but only in M4A format... don't ask)
WAV (if you hate hard drive space)
Just dump your files in the Music folder and they'll show up. Magic.
Speaking of music: 0720042025. 8008580085. 0000000666. 9999999999. 1000000007. 3000000003.
Bendy Roads
The road bends now. Left, right, a little bit up, sometimes a little bit down.
I know, I know, it sounds simple when I say it like that, but this was a ridiculous amount of work. The track used to just go straight forever. Now it curves left, curves right, throws you around corners. It makes the game feel completely different - more dynamic, more interesting, and honestly more fun to play.
The guardrails dissolve in as you approach curves so you can see them coming, and there are side indicators to help you anticipate which way you're about to turn. It's subtle, but once you notice it you can't un-notice it.
New DOS-style menus
No idea what to really say here, they are menus inspired by old DOS interfaces. Why... couldn't tell you... because I like them I guess. They weren't particularly easy to make, or to work with, but we suffer for our art! Even bad art I suppose......
Donation Badges
On top of the existing Donation Pack DLC, there's now a new way to support development: Donation Badges. These show up next to your name on the leaderboards, so when you obliterate someone's high score, they'll know you're one of the good ones.
Four tiers:
Vecter Supporter - "Helped fuel the ship"
Vecter Pilot - "A true pilot of the grid"
Speed Demon - "Blazing through dimensions"
Vecter Legend - "An absolute legend of the void"
Unlike the DLC, you can buy these multiple times if you're feeling generous. All proceeds still go towards coffee and pizza. Some things never change. Think of this as a Patreon built straight into the game. And special benefit for the ones with really deep pockets among you, for every Legend badge donation you make you have the option of adding a custom seed to the game (similar to 300000003 or 0000000666) . Email me at [email protected] with your steam username, a screenshot or photo of the badge in your steam inventory, the seed you want to be yours (ten digit number), the youtube video you'd like to have playing in the background of that seed and optionally a custom color scheme hex if you wish for one. Make sure you pick a seed that's not already claimed as I will not be overriding previous ones.
Rebindable Controls
They're back. You can rebind your controls again. I removed this feature in 1.3 because the old system was a mess, but it's been completely rewritten from scratch and actually works properly now. Keyboard, controller, whatever - go nuts.
Be warned though, I only had this old HOTAS to test with, so if it's shit... I'm truly sorry, but I don't have anything else to test with. I spent all my money on that monitor second hand, and it's being held up by an old monitor leg arm with some bolts shoved into it to make sure it doesn't fall over. The monitor arm hasn't been "adjustable" in well over 2 years :D.
Under The Hood Stuff (The Boring But Important Bits)
I did a LOT of cleanup work in this update. Like, a scary amount. Removed about 345MB of unused assets, reorganized the entire script folder structure, migrated to Unity 6.3, and rewrote chunks of the codebase that were held together with duct tape and prayers.
Specific improvements:
Progressive Difficulty - The game now has "relief zones" so you're not getting destroyed non-stop. It ramps up, gives you a breather, then ramps up again.
Save File Protection - Your save files now have rolling backups. If something corrupts, the game will automatically recover from a backup instead of nuking all your progress.
Steam Stats Integration - Your stats are now cloud-synced through Steam. Distance traveled, playtime, all that stuff persists across machines.
Anti-Cheat - Added client-side protection for leaderboards. Those fake 600 million scores should be harder to pull off now.
Death Billboard Fade - Those billboards showing where people died now fade out when you get close, so they don't block your view at critical moments.
Input System Overhaul - Rewrote the entire input system. Menu navigation should no longer miss 40-50% of keyboard inputs (yes, that was a thing).
Performance Optimizations - Object pooling for bullets, cached GetComponent calls, optimized shield lookups. The game should run smoother, especially on lower-end hardware.
Reworked achievements system - I know there were complains about achievements not unlocking. I think/hope i fixed all of them.
MacOS Support
Mac users, good news and bad news. Good news: the game no longer freezes after you die. The 1.4 update had some... issues... with that. Bad news: YouTube integration doesn't work on Mac because Apple makes everything unnecessarily difficult.
The simple explanation: Apple doesn't want to let any Joe, Rick or Stan run a browser in the background whenever they want to.
The Complex explanation can be found here
I'll try to sort it out eventually, if apple are kind enough to not make it a chore, but no promises. This frustrates me deeply as a Mac user...
Mac users, good news: the game no longer freezes after you die, AND as of 1.5.1 YouTube integration now works on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. Took some custom browser compilation wizardry, but it's done.
What's Next?
I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Life's unpredictable and I've learned not to make promises I can't keep. But Vecter is in a good place right now, and I'm happy with where it's at.
I'm going to try to play nice with apple and get the thing notarized or whatever it's called so it can play YouTube videos, but I need to work up the... patience to deal with them and their process.
I also want to get livestreams working, but the process of having to recompile CEF right now to make that work seems very... daunting... so no promises if I'll be able to do it. <- All of this is working as of 1.5.1.
If you find bugs, leave a steam thread or something. I'll look at it when I look at it.
!!!Thanks for playing!!!ːsteamhappyː
Oh and a sneaky note on AI down here because it's caused quite a lot of stir recently and if you're an anti-AI purist then this is full disclosure and transparency as I don't want you going against your morals. All the artistic assets in Vecter are human-made (Music, sprites, fonts, graphics, etc), however the coding part was done by me AI-assisted. This is because AI has the capacity to remove all of the boring work from coding while allowing me to focus more on the actual implementation, design and feature-set.
My stance on the matter is that art should be done by humans and tedious and repetitive tasks should be done by robots, not the other way around, and that's exactly the capacity in which AI was used to make version 1.5.0.0. However, if that's crossing a line for you, and no judgement if it is as I completely understand your point of view, then you might want to give this a skip.
Full Changelog
New Features
Bendy roads - the track now curves instead of going straight forever
YouTube video playback directly in-game (Windows and Linux only)
Multi-format audio support (OGG, FLAC, M4A, WAV) for custom music
Donation badge system with 4 tiers (visible on leaderboards)
Progressive difficulty system with relief zones
Save file protection with rolling backups and auto-recovery
Steam Stats integration for cloud-synced player statistics
Death billboard proximity fade-out
DOS-style menu overhaul with improved navigation
Rebindable controls (keyboard, gamepad, steering wheel, HOTAS, whatever Unity supports really)
Version number display in menu
1.5.1: YouTube playlist support with shuffle and auto-advance
1.5.1: Livestream support
1.5.1: YouTube playback on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)
Improvements
Upgraded to Unity 6.3 LTS
Complete input system rewrite (fixes missed keyboard inputs)
Object pooling for bullets (performance improvement)
Cached GetComponent calls throughout codebase
Optimized shield lookup with static cache
Refactored leaderboard system architecture
Refactored achievement system with centralized management
Improved menu text input handling
Better Steam name handling and leaderboard consistency
Removed ~345MB of unused assets
1.5.1: Browser framework upgraded to 60fps
1.5.1: Custom CEF builds with proper codec support
Bug Fixes
Fixed Mac-specific freeze after player death
Fixed menu navigation missing 40-50% of keyboard inputs
Fixed shield cache race conditions
Fixed early pause+quit in Speed Demon skipping level reset
Fixed leaderboard first page showing more entries than subsequent pages
Fixed road dashes not dissolving at level start
Fixed billboard positioning on bendy roads
Fixed donation badge display after purchase
1.5.1: Fixed crash when loading save files from pre-2023
Technical
Client-side anti-cheat system for leaderboard protection
Save file versioning and migration system
Event system replacing deprecated PubSubHub
Reorganized script folder structure
Removed 33 unused scripts
Added comprehensive error logging
I'm a solo developer building this out of passion. Updates may be slow, but they happen when they happen. Thanks for playing.
