Flash Flash Revolution - Beta Engine: R^3 [Updated 6/5/14]

R^3 Beta :: Direct SWF Link
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Requires Flash Player 9 or later.

April Engine Revamp
This recent release contains a number of modifications to the R^3 engine, the main purpose of which is to gather feedback on some experimental features that may or may not make it into the final version. I'll introduce some of the main new features but please check out the complete changelog below for a comprehensive list of all the new changes. Feature requests, bug reports, and all other kinds of feedback are greatly appreciated :)

A number of new options have been introduced into the game. The no background mod will hide any background images or videos that may distract you during certain songs. A number of randomization options have also been added for those who want to challenge themselves with a new layer of difficulty. The new isolation feature allows you to practice any segment of a song by entering its combo number and optionally the number of notes after. The game can also be used to play additional songs from alternate engine playlists. Note that in the interest of fairness any scores achieved while using these mods will not be recorded -- they exist for practice, fun, or MP handicaps.

You'll also notice that the song results screen has also been slightly revamped, showing some extra info including the mods you have selected, your speedmod, restarts, etc. The displayed time is now always in UTC to be consistent across everyone. The graph has been heavily changed to more accurately depict your progress throughout a song, clearly marking the points where you hit your goods, averages, and boos.

A major addition to this release is the new multiplayer support, which allows for playing in realtime with other players on the Legacy, Velocity, or R^3 engines. It works fairly simply, once you join or create a multiplayer room you can browse and select songs using the regular song selection. Keep in mind that the interface itself is still a work in progress and will seem very bland.

Tips and Tricks
• Use Flash 9 standalone to prevent lag and framerate issues.
• If you're having trouble finding an offset that feels right, a Judge Offset of 1 is common for people switching from other engines.
• If you formerly used the Velocity engine, most people have found that the equivalent in this engine is a Global Offset of 2 with a Judge Offset of 0.
• You're allowed to boo at the beginning of songs now, mash those keys!
• You will find the most activity in Legacy multiplayer, very few players use the Velocity engine multiplayer.
• If you're looking for a multiplayer opponent but no one is online, create a room and sit in it. You can go off and play singleplayer songs and will be notified in-game when an opponent joins your room or someone PMs you.
• In multiplayer, you can click on the song name as your opponent selects it to easily find and load it.
• The multiplayer room list is colour-coded. Green means there's a player slot available, black means it's full, blue means a game is in progress and red means there are no spectator slots available. The number in brackets is the number of spectators in the game. If you single-click on a room, you can right-click it to join as a spectator even when a player slot is available.
• Players can be PM'd by double-clicking on their name. PMs alert you at the bottom of your screen even if you're not looking at multiplayer at the time.
• The Filters tab has that random button you're looking for.
• When you quit or fail out of a song early the results screen will give you a rough indicator of the note number you quit around. This is an easy way to find the value needed to use the isolation feature without actually comboing up to that point.

Changelog

Known Issues

• MP chat autoscrolling tends to be a bit finnicky.

Feature Requests

• Include the rest of the mods from previous engines
• Create MP passworded rooms / limit spectators
• Make date show server time instead? DST makes this very annoying...
• Add sorting, filtering, etc.. See here for ideas.
• Allow R^3 MP players to decide whether to use combo or raw scoring
• Audio alerts, buzz players, etc.