Articles

  • "Alpha V" is our internal codename for the next major alpha of Project OutFox, Alpha 5.0; we have a number of new things planned for it, and one of them is a new default theme.

    While Soundwaves served us well as a transitional interface, it was still built around many of the same behaviours associated with StepMania, including a "one size fits all" approach to handling game types that is less than ideal, and dizzying options menus that even we have trouble navigating. Long story short, on Alpha V we plan to replace Soundwaves with a new default theme, which will be modern and better-suited to our current direction.

    Actually, no. There will not just be one replacement for Soundwaves, or two, or three. Our goal will be to give every major game type its own default theme. Each game has its own requirements, including different ways we need to render gameplay, different behaviours we have to simulate, and so on, so it quickly becomes unwieldy to put everything in the square hole as we have in the past. A general goal with these new themes will be a narrower focus, modularity, and improving support for different input methods. We are also aiming to support frequently-requested features, such as song favourites and different sorting methods.

    In this post, we will be previewing just a few of the new themes we have been working on, with a focus on those that have had the most in-engine work so far. You may have already seen in-game footage of some of these new themes in the OutFox Serenity trailer, or teased in discussions on our Discord server.

    Some of these images are mockups, and in any case the designs are subject to change based on feedback and implementation. If you have any feedback, ideas, or questions regarding these Alpha V, we have added a new #alpha5-wishlist channel to our Discord server where you can discuss them.

    pump

    Our new pump theme features a more familiar layout and control scheme, integrated with OutFox features such as our chart statistics and NPS displays, as well as mouse/touchscreen support.

    All screenshots are in-engine.

    dance

    The new dance theme is also being designed with mouse/touchscreen support in mind, carrying over popular features from Soundwaves, but with an overhauled codebase, a revamped workflow, and official support for vertical aspect ratios (portrait mode). The color scheme system from Soundwaves is also being revamped, making it easier to share your creations with the community.

    All screenshots are mockups except for the gameplay screenshot seen below, which is in-engine.

    para

    The para theme is designed to reflect the aesthetic of Eurobeat, downplaying scoring and visual chrome to put a more prominent focus on the gameplay and routines.

    All screenshots are in-engine.

    beat

    The beat mode is also set to receive a major overhaul, and we have some internal design concepts with a redesigned user experience, and a steampunk-inspired design.

    All screenshots are mockups.

    taiko

    This mode will feature a theme comprised of original assets, arranged to resemble a popular franchise involving a Japanese percussion instrument. Though, we've also brought in some of our original ideas, including an optional stats and NPS graph to show just how much of a storm you're drumming up.

    All screenshots are mockups.

    gddm/gdgf

    Also internally known as "concert", this theme is designed for both gdgf and gddm, and has a visual aesthetic inspired by live music. The gameplay screenshots showcase a combination of noteskins, theme-level code, and new theme features introduced on Alpha 4.9.10 that enable a more familiar gameplay layout.

    All screenshots are mockups except for the gameplay screenshot seen below, which is in-engine.

    gh

    Our new gh theme will have a more streamlined look and feel, and a more familiar workflow. We have also been testing out a new system for customizable "backplates" for notefields; while it was designed with gh in mind, it is also usable in other game types with a few simple theme metrics.

    All screenshots are mockups. Backplates are avaliable now in a nightly build.

    pomu

    And finally, Halloween is coming a little early! With a classic design, original characters, and being the first PMS/pomu client with multiplayer support, we hope that you'll have a lot of fun with this.

    All screenshots are mockups.

    This is just a small taste of what's to come; we will have more to share with you over the next few months, so stay tuned! Once again, if you have any feedback or suggestions about Alpha V, visit the #alpha5-wishlist channel on the Project OutFox Discord server.

  • Dear OutFox Community,

    As we move closer towards the release of Alpha V, and after the issues we had with the release of 4.9.9, we would like to address some of the things that as a team we have noticed over the past few months. As a community, we're not sure if the addition of a Discord server has caused some of these issues and behaviour, or if it's the fact that we are more easily accessible than if we were on a forum or IRC channel. We are writing this post to make our stance and that of our staff and volunteers, as well as those who contribute time or content to make the game better.

    We love OutFox, and still love a lot of the things that StepMania was. The name change was needed so we can sign our MacOS (and soon Windows) builds. There is no conspiracy about moving away from the core playerbase. There are no other issues about us 'abandoning' our dedication and efforts on improving StepMania via it's own repository in the future with some form of update from our team as discussed with Shakesoda. There is also no conspiracy theory about us hating 'dance' based games. Just because 4/5 panel is not literally everything we live and breathe does not make it correct for you to throw out misinformation or treat us in a way that moves toward literal cyberbullying to the team. We understand your passion and drive for the modes that you play, but this does not give you any right to try to enforce that view in a negative manner towards us.

    What we don't love at all is continued demands and entitlement - something that over the past two to three months has begun to get extremely volatile from certain communities and individuals. OutFox is not our life or existence. OutFox also is not our job. We code and develop (and support) OutFox as our fun and to drive us to do better. We will always do our best to fix things or do things as fast as possible, including updates, bugfixes, support, handling feature requests, supporting legacy 5.1/5.0 code, providing support for players who don't even use OutFox, etc. This also is true when that demand is your first or one of your only interactions with our team or server.

    Before you ask us, (or anyone else in your life) to do something for you, please take time to carefully consider what you are asking for, and where this expectation has come from. We are extremely patient and generous here at Project OutFox, so some expectation of us for very little in return is something we have become used to; including community support, bug support, even code support and providing test builds to fix issues folks have. What you are not entitled to however, is to expect some defined service level or response time, or to demand information at a whim. We do things as quickly as constraints of life allow. Whether that be minutes, hours, days or weeks, you have no entitlement to expect one or the other. The game gets improvements as and when - if you cannot see the improvements this brings to your specific mode of play, then that is a shame. As we improve the engine it benefits more than just a specified mode, and this is the future of OutFox. It will become more than what it was when we took the reins, and that is to support a brand new rhythm game sandbox moving forward.

    We thank you for continuing to support the project, but for the sanity of the team, we felt this issue needs to be addressed before it gets out of hand, or worse we suffer from the demands of people who do not consider how their actions affect the team.

    ~Project OutFox Team

  • Hi everyone, what a busy month, we managed to get one of our biggest projects done and we're definitely gonna talk about that, so get ready to read!

    OutFox Serenity

    If you haven't seen it already, a community pack was in the works and is now released with OutFox Alpha 4.9.10, the community team worked hard on this with the help from you to make this possible.

    You can read all about it here, but let's talk more about it, the progress, the problems we faced, and solutions, after all, transparency is the source of trust.

    The announcement of a community pack

    A new version of OutFox was coming, and it was one of our best-known versions yet, it added support for many gamemodes, new functions, new features, it was awesome and our team was also hyped about it so much that we came with the idea of a community pack after we saw the old attempts of it. We didn't really expect it to be as big as it is today but many people found the idea awesome so we ran with it.

    Submissions

    Now that we know a community pack is what people expect we need to open the contributions, with the help from Lirodon we created a page to open content submissions (which is still open btw) and saw the wave of people wanting to help, after some time we also created categories and channels for our Discord server as almost everyone who wanted to contribute was already there.

    Chart Organization

    This is the part where things get a bit tricky, we had internal files for up-to-date submissions and templates for our members, it felt good enough at the start but we quickly saw the problem.

    Most submissions included other charts from notes that are not completed yet, attacks were also affecting charts from other people, speed mods, changes, warps, and we had to waste way more time than expected fixing that.

    An unexpected situation happened with one of our community members where helping us manage the content got almost impossible so we had less management than usual which made things slower.

    We also noticed some of our internal files were in an unexpected folder, and more than half the files were missing because of that, WHOOPS.

    The testing week

    After some time we were able to things done to launch a testing week were people to help find missing content/issues with release candidates, it was really important and helped us discover what we couldn't find.

    The first day was a bomb of issues, but it quickly turned into just a few issues here and there later, this means the community is active and helpful and we thank everyone for that, really.

    Oh wait a second, this is a community pack and it includes charts, charts have notes and people want to know how hard those notes are, this means...RATING!!

    Yes...we didn't have a standard rating yet, but thanks to our active community we quickly were able to decide one, for dance, it was very split with ITG and DDR X, we choose DDR as more concrete reasons were given for it. The community then helped by re-rating every chart for every mode, which you can see here, again thanks to everyone for helping.

    Music license

    Some content wasn't licensed with CC, it was only given as a right for Project OutFox to distribute, while is good enough for us to release a game with it, it isn't for us to host on Github, we choose to respect the artist license decision and remove individual files from music that do not include/use a CC license and improved our credits to reach out to more content of the artist.

    Launch!

    With charts, graphics, music, everything ready we decided to launch the pack with next version of OutFox so branding content started to be made, Lirodon created this awesome trailer and the new splash screen which calls back to Serenity, our website was also changed to fit with those changes.

    What we learned

    Making a pack is both fun and rewarding for both the team and the community, it requires great work but it sure pays off. For the next volume, we will be using our Github repository to better manage the files with the content creators so they can interact in real-time with the files we have. With the experience we got, expect fewer errors and more communication between you and the team on how everything is going, this is also true for OutFox Development Team.

    New Project

    konko-module-system (by Sudospective)

    Konko is a module system based on the Kitsu template that allows for beat-based tweens without a gameplay screen or even a song.

    Konko is object-oriented. You can create nodes that act as extended actors that can have beat-based tweens appended to them. You can also create a global-ready or update function to add beat-based tweens to existing nodes.

    Projects Update

    Tiny-Web

    Updated to add konko-module-system

    Aqui-Alpha-Noteskins

    Got a 2021 update (part 1) with updated noteskin graphics.

    smtheme-soundwaves-community

    Got update with Alpha 4.9.9 theme content.

    kitsu-template

    Updated code structure, nodebuilder, and more functions.

    OutFoxWeb

    Updated content to reflect website changes.

    Tiny-Webini

    Update content to reflect with OutFoxWeb changes.

    RyutoSetsujin-Customizations

    Got a major update to its repository, content, and naming.

    TF_Wheels

    Fixed sorts, added new splash, added taiko support, fixed metrics, and new DDR HD note skins.

    OutFox-ja, OutFoxPTBR, OutFox-fr and OutFox-Translation

    Updated to add the new lines for OutFox 4.9.10


    That's it for this month, everyone, the team is gonna rest a bit and update the community pack with leftovers, but this doesn't mean exciting content isn't on the works, something new is coming to OutFox...just wait.

  • Today we have not one, not two, but three big announcements:

    Project OutFox Alpha 4.9.10

    Project OutFox Alpha 4.9.10 builds upon the work and bug fixes from the Alpha 4.9.9 hotfix builds, and also contains some new internal features that serve as building blocks for current and future content:

    Alpha 4.9.10 contains a number of new details, features, and bug fixes for some of our game types;

    modes-diagram.png

    • The interactive sync/calibration process now supports other game types besides dance.
    • We have fixed issues with rate mods and the sound resampler.
    • In pump and taiko, we now support timing windows from both games (with pump having Normal, Hard, and Very Hard settings), and have added judgement fonts to them as well.
    • In pump, we also gave the default noteskin a refresh to improve visibility, and changed the design of the center panel graphic in response to feedback.
    • In gddm, we now support the older GDA format for BandJAM/GDAMania-era six-part drum charts. We also fixed a bug that caused crashes when loading DTX charts that don't use all nine lanes.
    • In beat, the noteskins have been updated to have button sprites under the receptor line.
    • As demonstrated in the OutFox Serenity trailer, we now support showing judgments per-column. By default, per-column judgements are displayed in modes that typically use them, such as gddm and popn.
    • We now support displaying a loading screen before gameplay when the game needs to load keysounds in game types such as beat and popn. Previously, this occurred over a black screen with the game appearing to hang, which was just a little disconcerting. The default theme features a reference implementation of this feature, but themers can customize it to their heart's content.

    As always, this is just a recap of the major, user-facing features. For a full change log, as well as a developer note from Squirrel over what had happened with Alpha 4.9.9, see the Alpha 4.9.10 page on outfox.wiki.

    Download

    OutFox Serenity Volume I released!

    serenity-bn.png

    OutFox Serenity Volume I has been released! Formerly known during development as the OutFox Community Pack, it features music by Aspid Cat, Drazil, Jack5, Matduke, mmry, PizeroFox, Seo, and Sevish. Alongside 4-panel (dance) and 5-panel (pump) charts, some of its songs also have beat, popn, techno (8- and 9-panel), gddm, and gdgf, and gh charts.

    More information

    A lot of (out)fox to give

    Project Moondance was a legacy brand used by our team early on, often in parallel with "OutFox" and "Team Rizu" (the name we used to initially refer to our main dev team). As our project and community evolved, however, this nomenclature became confusing, and we began the process of phasing out the "Project Moondance" and "Team Rizu" names in favour of just "Project OutFox", because everyone called it just "OutFox" anyway.

    As of today, we are beginning to migrate our main website from projectmoon.dance to projectoutfox.com. Right now, it is a redirect, but it will become the main URL soon (the old domain will still redirect, though). The site will also be updated over the next few weeks to reflect the new direction of our project, so stay tuned for future details!

  • Edit 3 (2021-08-08): We have released a third hotfix build; we finally fixed the annoying RageFile glitch that was causing the hash system to be different from StepMania 5.1/5.0.12. Sorry about all this hassle, we fixed a wedge of bugs in the loading system, but did not expect everyone to have built massive amounts of stuff on top of these bugs being there, so we have adjusted the system so backward compatible themes/API/ScoreShare/Groovestats/etc. work again once more. A build is also avaliable for Intel-based Macintosh again; we had run into difficulties preventing an Intel-compatible build of the previous hotfix build.

    Edit 3 (2021-08-06): We have released one more hotfix build, HF2. It includes a few things we were going to leave to the next release, but as we had to fix bugs in them anyway, it was easier to just add them now.

    Alpha 4.9.9HF

    We had pulled Alpha 4.9.9 shortly after release in order to fix some late-breaking bugs. But now that those are all taken care of, we have released Alpha 4.9.9HF!

    There are some additional highlights in this build on top of what is already in Alpha 4.9.9, including:

    • We have fixed the signed macOS builds. In order to fulfill security requirements in newer macOS versions on Intel-based devices, we also performed some fixes to gh mode; way the notes were cast have been fixed, fever/star power has been sorted to be more GH3-like, and taps and open strums are also tweaked to be better. Please give them a try and let us know! A theme for this mode is in the works, so apologies for the barebone approach we have at the moment. It's also why we are an alpha after all...
    • There were several issues with the notes loaders and how antivirus/security software apps were seeing OutFox when we were loading simfiles. We have addressed this by allowing you all to add more than one simfile (i.e. .SSC, etc.) in a song folder, cutting down on the folder rabbit hole. As we move to a more multi-game engine, this will also allow you to keep things tidy on your drive, and ensure it is a seamless experience for you all. Of course, please check the audio files are the same for the chart you are going to add to the folder, as you may find you have a nasty sync issue, but we also now support multidifficulty setups, as this is required for pump and taiko specifically.
    • This hotfix also sees a tweak to the difficulty system used in OutFox. In the past it was tied to the DDR paradigm and then left to rot as one of those "StepMania Things". This however really stifled what we could do within the engine, especially with modes with different names/brackets etc. With the release of gddm and taiko we needed more difficulties than the game offered, so this has now been resolved. Themes which are based off of 5.1/5.0.x will still work due to the numbers being the same as before. If there are any issues with your theme, do let us know, but we have tested several with no issues.
    • We now support the #VOLUME and #PAN parameters for keysounds in BMS-derived formats.
    • We have fixed a 17 year-old bug where the engine would attempt to run commands on tweens that don't exist during transitions.

    The original post follows:


    Common splash.png

    Project OutFox Alpha 4.9.9 has been released! Given how long it's been since our last alpha release, there's a lot to go over with this version. This is a summary of most of the major changes; you can read the complete changelog on on OutFox.wiki,

    Gameplay

    Game types

    modes-diagram.png

    Project OutFox has begun to position itself as a multi-game engine, designed to be more of a working museum dedicated to preserving the history of rhythm gaming. We have been building upon and fixing game types that were inherited from the StepMania codebase, as well as implementing new game types that have never been implemented in StepMania before. Carrying on from 4.9.8, there have been various bug fixes and enhancements to some of our non-dance modes, as well as one brand new mode:

    • beat: There are bug fixes for the BMS loader array and missing difficulties.
    • dance: We have preliminary support for a new hold type known as a minefield (also colliqually known as a "mine hold"). They are a hold that is a mine, penalizing you each time you press the corresponding input.
    • ez2: A new default noteskin has been added.

    127696702-dcbe2713-3976-4396-8ca4-e64784957d84.jpg

    • gddm:

      • We have added a parser for loading DTX files; we have planned to 'straddle' support for the DTXMania NX/Ver. K layouts for the specified channels from the documentation, as these appear to be the most popular branches of this. It will be improved in time, as we get better knowledge of this system. For more information on supported DTX/BMS/PMS channels, see the related section on the official changelog.
      • We also support the combined" lane system which adds lane 2 and lane 3’s extra notes, and Real mode (again, REAL filenames are yet to be parsed as such, the engine makes a ‘guess’ on this!)
      • gddm still needs a lot of work and optimisation before we will consider it ‘ready’, so do expect the odd quirk or weird behaviour, and let us know what you think/would like to see as we define the mode and its featureset and support.We will be working on the gdgf parser in the coming months so that the guitar/bass charts will work as well.
      • We do not support XA file decoding at this time, we are looking into options. If you have a DTX file with XA files contained, they will just be played as silence, but won’t crash the game.
      • The game does not currently support the #PAN and #VOLUME configurations as of this alpha, so some keysounds will be louder than expected. Apologies for this in advance; we wanted to get a release out as it’s been so long, so this is still being worked on.
        • #PAN and #VOLUME are now supported on 4.9.9HF! They are completely supported in gddm from the parser, (do reset your cache of course!) and they also work in beat/popn. taiko will need the support as well, so shout out to Jous for putting up with my waaaahh-luigi on getting it added to the game. This build also supports the hidden chips/keysounds for gddm and we'll work on getting the final compatibility added in due course.
    • gdgf: Community member yaladre has contributed a new DTX noteskin with a more familiar appearance.

    • gh: A note positioning bug has been fixed, while the gameplay screen in Soundwaves has been tidyed.

    127721393-c4cd720d-b98a-4c60-b592-d36b34be31e7.jpg

    • para: We have added a new eight-sensor style, adding back-left, back, and back-right directions. This mode was originally designed for the arcade cabinet for when the player twirls or turns, but was never actually implemented. The sensors for the back are actually there! For those who feel adventurous, we will be publishing some information on how to make your own 360-degree 8 sensor controller in due course.

    127715610-ba677562-b567-4ef6-b56b-293b199d75ae.jpg

    • popn:
      • This mode also had a few tweaks and adjustments mainly in how keysounds are loaded within the game, which should make it smoother overall.
      • A bug was fixed that prevented some seven-button charts from being parsed correctly.
      • In addition, we have also added two-player (versus) and 18-button (double) modes! This was not available on the original client, but it did always irk us how there were never two-player options other than three-button battle. We plan to have battle mode, as well as a dedicated experience for this game type, in a future build. There is no PMS/PME support for this style yet.

    126884299-09ee5a5c-dfa5-4e4e-bbfa-6d9d157fcd5f.jpg

    • pump:
      • We have fixed the scoring bug that was in the previous build; thank you for those who took the time to report the issues. Keep in mind that Soundwaves still uses dance paradigms for scoring, but other themes that use different scoring systems based on the official games should work correctly now.
      • The tickcount for combos on holds has been tweaked to work correctly, as there was a miscalculation in the offset math inherited from upstream. This now behaves as expected.
      • We have added support for co-op charts; the included co-op noteskin currently supports up to five different players, but charts can support up to ten.
        • The player numbers on the noteskins are separately labeled, so with a few adjustments and extra assets, you will be able to update any noteskin to work with co-op. Co-op charts made on StepF2/StepP1 should work on OutFox,
        • Co-op charts made on StepF2/StepP1 should work on OutFox, however, better note types are currently being developed by Jousway so that there can be more than four real players defined. Stay tuned!
        • We're still working on improving SF2/SP1 custom charts parsing. Except for a few charts, you can play the majority of content made for it on OutFox with no problems. As always, if you find any oddities make sure you report them to us!
        • Those of you who have reported that we still have a ‘superb’ bug on holds, this will be fixed when we introduce the new piu mode . Remember that the pump mode is getting quality of life updates for now, before we move over to updating things properly in the future.
        • Micro/mini-holds also do not trigger misses/cause a weird tick to happen anymore, and there also are no ‘phantom’ mines in long (5+ measure) holds - this was an oddity which has been fixed now.

    Last but not least, we have added a brand-new game type as well, taiko (also referred to in the context of OutFox as "TaiTai"). It simulates a popular rhythm game where you hit a drum in its face.

    127720652-944671e6-b52d-46f1-9924-fe41d0e18349.jpg

    As with gh on the previous alpha, this is a "preliminary" implementation. Some of the quirkier parts of this mode are a work in progress; bear with us as we also write new parsers for this mode, and develop a dedicated theme/interface for it. We plan to add support for the special note types and other effects in the game, as well as improve timing and other bits and pieces that are still yet to do. We still have the scoring and timing system to finish, along with effects on double notes/taps and the "roll" notes which you hit as much as you can. The autogen for this mode has been rewritten by Jousway to generate charts more approriate for the game from existing charts in other modes, so that you don't get odd holds/overlaps in things.

    Feel free to give it a try and let us know what you think!

    All game types have access to features such as the built-in chart editor and modifier systems, allowing you to extend your content to as many as 56 styles in 15 gametypes as of this release.

    Technical changes

    MIDI input

    Due to the interest we had been getting from the past two alpha releases in the form of gddm and techno, several players that were not on Windows did inquire about the possibility of there being a new MIDI driver available for Mac and Linux users, So we decided as a team to move forward and produce one. This enables you to play Project OutFox with MIDI instruments and controllerd, such as electronic drums, keyboards, DJ mixers, and a prototype mini FSR pad we made using a Teensy LC and some tiny FSR sensors.

    IMG_20210724_2026112.jpg

    It uses the PortMidi library, and there is no need to have any extra applications "translating" it to keystrokes (unless you're doing MIDI via an iPhone something like that of course), but native MIDI controllers work a treat. If you have a midi device and want to try this out, you will need to load up your preferences.ini in your save folder, locate the inputdrivers= part, and then make sure it looks like this inputdrivers=portmidi,SDL

    This driver works on Windows, Linux, ARM (rPi and Rockchip aarch64 SoCs), and macOS. To enable the driver, use the line InputDrivers=SDL,portmidi in Preferences.ini. We have currently coded it for a single device at a time, but do let us know if you feel there is a need for multiple device support, or if you find a device that doesn'’'t behave.

    Linux

    We have added a preference, TurnOffWMCompositor, to disable compositing effects in window managers when Project OutFox is running.

    We have also fixed a renderer bug that was causing edge case crashes under KDE Plasma Desktop, and added a stub for an upcoming Pipewire audio driver.

    macOS

    On macOS, our builds are now signed and notarized. You no longer have to fiddle with Gatekeeper/quarantine/etc. to run Project OutFox on your Mac. You can now just download and install it as you would other applications.

    We also fixed an edge case lag spike on M1 Macbook Air models when using a Bluetooth audio device or controller.

    Windows

    There has also been work done on a small side part of the game, while we have been waiting for a fix from upstream in regards to the "polling/framerate" "issue that a lot of folks have helping us diagnose for some time. The long and the short of the issue, it meant on some songs, the input would skew towards the update loop rather than honouring its timestamp, thus producing spikes on the scoring graph on the results screen, and make a odd looking ‘stair’ display on the scatterplot of the steps and judgements taken.

    To resolve this while we’re waiting a fix, we have reimplemented the old legacy driver that was on 5.2/5.1 and adapted it for OutFox. This driver can be tempremental, but it seemed to behave with the devices we tested it with. If you tend to find that your input is affected with the message loop issue, you can set up the driver with the following instructions:

    • Open Preferences.ini in your Save folder
    • Locate the line InputDrivers
    • Change the line to InputDrivers=legacy,minisdl
    • If you wish to use the new portmidi driver as well you can use InputDrivers=legacy,minisdl,portmidi

    This will allow you to run the game with minimal resources, keeping vsync on, and should remove any previous issues of FPS/rate/polling problems. When we have the fix from upstream, we’ll revisit and modernise this with the newer drivers and processes.

    On the Test Input screen, you will see a new Window Handler ‘Aux’ driver. This is just the driver that manages the window controls, maximises, fullscreens, etc, so no need to worry about it. This will also show you that you have the correct drivers selected in the InputDrivers setting.

    Rate and Pitch

    Due to an overwhelming set of requests, we have taken time to fix and modernise the rate/haste system which had been broken for a bit since this project began.

    Pitch seemed to be a lottery (though we had not seen it work) and all the rate mod used to do was seemingly speed up the song with no other effect or option being honoured.

    We have fixed the way the off/speed/pitch/speed and pitch options work, so they actually work. This took quite a bit of time to fix the internal pipelines for these, but the end effect is definitely fun. Thanks to Squirrel, Jousway and Jose for bringing this one up the pipeline to get it done for this release! To ensure compatibility with legacy themes, the system ‘defaults’ to how it was in 5.0.12, with a 0.01x increase, and being on the main menu as folks requested. This is a long overdue Quality of Life update for this, so we’re really pleased that its done.

    Thanks to the stamina players that popped in to request this, and to mattm for saying that most wanted a speed and pitch option, which we have called ‘both’ internally to signify this change.

    Default theme

    • We reordered the Select Game menu to move prominent game types closer to the top, and lesser-known/niche games towards the bottom. Please give us feedback if you feel a mode needs more representation/love!
    • We have been shortening and toning down excessive transitions and animations to make the menus in the Soundwaves theme faster.
    • We added the rate and sound effect settings to the first screen of Player Options (in addition to its historic location on Song Options) to make them easier to find.
    • A contributor to Tiny-Foxes' Soundwaves Community branch has added the capability for Soundwaves color schemes to specify custom difficulty colors. Whilst integrating this feature, we have also added all *The gameplay screen in gh mode has been tidied up to put more of a focus on the notefield.

    Release notes and download

    You can see the full changelog for Alpha 4.9.9 on OutFox.wiki, which has details on the other improvements and bug fixes featured in this build.

    Download

    Give all of the new features and modes a try and be sure to give us your feedback! If you encounter any bug in the game, please report them on our bug tracker or our Discord server. We won't be able to fix bugs that are not reported to us. If you feel adventerous, also consider requesting access to our nightly build testing programme, as we are seeking testers for builds containing major internal changes.

    You can also visit r/OutFox on Reddit for support and discussion of Project OutFox, and stream Project OutFox on Twitch.

    This release of Project OutFox is dedicated to the memory of SHIKI, a Japanese musician who was an influential figure in the worlds of doujin trance, BMS, and rhythm game music. Our release artwork for Alpha 4.9.9 pays homage to Reach's classic simfile for "AIR"—one of SHIKI's most well-known songs.