URLATE Development Progress Update

Hello, this is Kang Hyeokjin (Coupy), the developer of URLATE.
This is my first update since early access began.

It's already been a year and a half since my last post.
Since joining the Navy last June, I've tried hard to keep development going, but it turned out to be harder than I expected.

The biggest obstacle was making patterns.
Since early access began, only three patterns have been made.
I talked about how hard pattern production is in a post from 2024, but now I really think I need to find another way.
At this rate, I might end up making patterns for the rest of my life..

But it wasn't all obstacles.
Thanks to advances in AI, I was able to keep improving the game even with so little time.
v1.0.0-rc.1 was released when early access began, and since then there have been 789 commits.
Considering that the whole project has 1,451 commits in total, that's a huge amount.

That was a long introduction.
As of writing, v1.0.0-rc.6 is live.
Let me go over what has changed since early access began, and what's left before the full release.

Landing Page

• The landing page has been completely redesigned!
  • You can see the latest announcements and blog posts right away.
  • A short introduction to the game has been added.
  • The version of the game you're on is shown in the top left corner.
• One-click sign-in is now available through the FedCM API.
• The info, privacy policy and error pages have been redesigned as well.

Gameplay

Judgement and Score

• Judgement windows have been redefined in frames, and the combined accuracy and score multipliers have been recalculated.
• Hold notes now have release judgement and ticks.
• Timing judgement is back for wheel notes.
• For details, see Refactored Judgment & Note Handling Mechanics.

Effects and Sound

• Judgement effects have been reworked.
  • A lens flare effect appears on Perfect judgements.
  • FAST/LATE text is shown depending on your timing.
  • A dust effect that scales with the judgement has been added.
  • A wave effect has been added to the text.
  • The ripple effect has been slightly tweaked.
• I made six hitsounds you can choose from.
  • Each hold note tick plays a tick sound that matches your hitsound.
• The bullet destruction effect has been improved.

Controls

• AUTO PLAY has been added.
• You now have to click where you paused to resume the game.
• The cursor is locked during play using the Pointer Lock API.
• A Raw Input option has been added.
• Input through pointerrawupdate is supported, so the cursor is tracked more quickly.
• Sensitivity can now be set anywhere from 0.25x to 3x.
• Playback speed can be set from 0.5x to 2x in steps of 0.1.

Sync

• A V-Sync option has been added.
  • When V-Sync is off, the screen switches to low-latency mode.
• A visual sync offset has been added.

Song Select

• Mod settings such as sort order and difficulty are remembered.
  • They're saved to your account, so they carry over when you play from another device.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed frame drops when the AP/FC effect was shown
• Fixed the combo text causing performance drops
• Fixed the explosion effect appearing multiple times
• Fixed the bullet destruction effect appearing in the wrong place
• Fixed the visualizer on the song select screen not displaying as intended
• Fixed several songs playing at once when switching songs quickly
• Fixed bullets moving along a different path than the angle they were drawn at
• Fixed three issues with retry

Settings

• The settings screen has been redesigned!
  • The offset and visual sync pages have been redesigned with it.
• Sliders and dropdowns can now be adjusted with the mouse wheel.
• Slider values can now be typed in directly.

Editor

Test and Preview

• AUTO PLAY has been added to both test and preview.

Timeline

• Triggers and hold notes now have a bar showing their duration.
• Scrollbars have been added for easier navigation.
• Filters by element type have been added.
• Note and trigger types can now be told apart.
• The overlap prevention algorithm has been improved.
• Fixed various small but annoying issues.

Selection and Editing

• Horizontal, vertical and point reflection have been added.
• Multi-selection has been added.
  • Select or deselect with Ctrl/Shift + Click and Drag.
  • Drag selected elements together, move them by the beat division with Alt + Arrow keys, or reflect them.
  • When elements of the same type are selected, their properties can be edited all at once in the settings panel.
• Range Copy/Paste has been removed and merged into Copy/Paste.
  • Combined with multi-selection, it gives you a familiar editing experience.
  • The clipboard is saved, so you can paste the same elements after reloading, switching songs or moving to another tab.
• With the File System Access API, saving a pattern now overwrites the existing file instead of downloading a new one each time.
  • As of writing, this only works in Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome and Edge.
• Unsaved changes are marked with *, and you're warned when leaving the page.
• A metronome plays along with the beat.

Pattern Version 1.1

• Triggers that change gradually toward a target value over a set duration are now supported.
  • They're available for Speed, BPM and Opacity.

Road to the Full Release

With this many changes, I think the game's fundamentals are now mostly in place.
From judgement and controls to effects and the editor, I was able to fix most of what had been bothering me.

The biggest task left is, of course, patterns.
So that you can enjoy a range of difficulties on every song by the full release, I'm rethinking the pattern production process itself.
The big editor overhaul this time is part of that preparation.

Here's roughly what's left to do.

• Making patterns
• Improving the song select screen
  • Reorganizing mods (playback speed, etc.)
• Adding profile reporting
• Security review and improvements

Closing

Balancing development with military service, it took me over a year to share an update.
I'm sorry for the wait, and grateful to everyone who stuck around.

Going forward, I'm thinking of running MIRAI more like a tech blog.
I plan to write about stories from making the game, the choices I wrestled with, and the technical side of things.
I'll try to come back more often with all kinds of stories.

I'll keep going and keep making URLATE better, so I can give back to all of you.
Thank you, as always.

Stay Connected

If you have thoughts from playing, ideas for improvements or bug reports, please feel free to share them in our Discord server.

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