Hey GB Crew,

You may have noticed the release date for Graffiti Bombing has recently changed to an actual day…

T-minus 7 Days Until Launch

I'm happy to confirm it's official, we'll be launching into Early Access on Friday, 28th August, 2020!

That's not to say things are final and 100% bug free - however we are in a much better place than we were 4 months ago - and considering we are releasing Early Access, I cannot delay things any longer.

Getting to this point has been incredibly hard work, and so I'd like to thank all the supporters that gave encouragement and helped motivate me to keep going. Special thanks to the Discord crew and beta testers who have tested, given feedback, found bugs and offered their suggestions for improvement.

Early Access Plans

This is just the start of the journey for Graffiti Bombing - we've got to the door and are about to open it, launching into Early Access on Steam!

Over the next 1-2 years we have a lot of plans and ideas for where we would like to take the virtual graffiti experience. For those of you that intend to join us on this journey, we look forward to sharing the ride with you, which should hopefully be a real mission of discovery, creativity and fun.

If things go to plan - by the end of Early Access, we'll have a graffiti art experience that we can all enjoy and be part of as a community for years to come. The best part of course is going to be the art, and I cannot wait to see what you all create with Graffiti Bombing and share in the coming months!

As a reminder, here are a few of the planned features for Early Access:

• V2 Paint system: a realistic, more physically correct spray paint system (more details soon).
• Additional Areas: more bombing zones and different locations to travel to and experience.
• Advanced Paint Zones: management for saving / loading / sharing / importing content etc.
• Custom spray caps configuration and a utility tool to help you create your own caps.
• Player Home: chill-out area / hub, complete with mini-games, media and social features.
• Play Modes: full version offers three different modes of play - Creative, Challenge and Multiplayer.
• Community Content: SDK / tools for content creators to help create their own locations / zones.
• GRAF-CAM: video director system, allows placing of virtual cameras for in-game recording.
• Social Media: more types and different sharing options, to get your content noticed.

Image above - lift area exit from the underground bunker base (All City Edition DLC).

VR Hardware Support

Another thing to highlight now we are closer to launch are the various VR headset, controller setups that Graffiti Bombing supports, and that have been tested. Also to discuss some of the technical differences, configuration options, and performance considerations.

List of supported / tested VR hardware:

• HTC VIVE and Wand Controllers
• Valve Index and Knuckles Controllers
• Oculus Rift and Touch Controllers
• Windows Mixed Reality and Motion Controllers
• Oculus Quest (link cable or Virtual Desktop streaming) and Touch Controllers *

Note: items marked with a * are experimental support only at this time.

All headsets listed have a custom controller configuration setup and have been tested. Depending on the controller type the experience will default to a 'click to grab' or 'hold to grab' style, i.e. on the Knuckles it defaults to a 'hold to grab style'. You can override the preferred grab style in the game options. Button configurations also change slightly depending on the connected controllers.

Performance varies slightly depending on the hardware, as does the accuracy of the movement tracking. Room-scale tracking setups with base stations are of course more accurate. If you are on a headset with inside-out tracking the level of tracking accuracy is noticeably different, particularly when drawing outlines for example. We do plan to revisit in the V2 paint system and see if there are ways to smooth out the tracking accuracy more for devices that use inside-out tracking.

Oculus Quest support is experimental at this time, and only with the link cable or via Virtual Desktop streaming. Initial beta builds showed poor performance with the link cable, and although it has improved in recent builds, the performance is still not good enough to say we officially support the headset. If you use the link cable then expect to dial down quality settings and tweak your configuration to get things playable. Virtual Desktop streaming in comparison seems much better, as long as you have a fast WiFi setup I would recommend this approach. The experience and performance with Virtual Desktop streaming is very playable on our test systems.

Feedback & Bugs

Building great software is not easy, and creating VR experiences that are glitch free and without bugs is nearly impossible. That said, we are committed to making the Graffiti Bombing experience as solid and bug free as possible. However, it's going to take time and a lot more work to achieve this goal.

As we launch into Early Access I'd like you to consider and understand that we are still in a beta phase of sorts, as that is how we are viewing Early Access. You will encounter bugs, and possibly performance issues, depending on your computer rig and VR setup. Make sure your computer specs meet the minimum requirements to run Graffiti Bombing, also ensure your systems are patched and all drivers up-to-date etc.

If / when you do encounter issues the best thing you can do is report it back to us. Then I assure you that we'll investigate and try to fix it. We'll prioritize bugs in order of severity and will release regular patch updates for any critical issues that may arise.

Please understand though, that fixing bugs takes time - particularly difficult or hard to recreate issues - so I thank you for your patience in advance and ask that you bear with us for the first few weeks after launch.

Note: you can report any bugs or issues direct to the development team at:
support@graffitibombing.com

Community

As always - you can interact with us via the Steam community features. We do read all posts, and reply where and when it makes sense.

The Graffiti Bombing group on Discord continues to grow, and now has more than two hundred like-minded people that are into VR, graffiti and street art! So you can jump on there to meet other potential players and artists.

Note: that we'll be adding more community setup and features to Discord in the coming months.

Discord server: https://discord.gg/UM4nyT7

—

I look forward to seeing you soon in Graffiti Bombing!

// Wildstyle @ Graffiti Bombing