- Sumo is now Free - 6 May 2024
Free! First and foremost, we want to thank our few Early Access adopters when this project was in development in 2018. This started off as a learning project and it succeeded in that, but ultimately, Sumo did not end up proving a viable commercial product. We don't want to leave it in "Early Access Limbo" forever, so instead, we've made the call to release the project as a free title. Sumo will not be receiving any further updates, as if we decided to go back to it, it would be wiser at this point to rebuild the project from scratch with everything we've learned as developers. Since Sumo, we did find footing with a new title, one that has been published and is already successful, and will continue to be our focus in the near term future. That game is called Tales & Tactics, a roguelike autobattler, and if you'd like to know more about it, you can do so here: https://store.steampowered.c…
- Sumo Summer Sale! - 29 June 2019
Sumo has joined the Steam Summer Sale with a discount of 50%! As the title is still in Early Access, we value player feedback and testing and are happy to set a significant discounted price for the sale event. We've also just released Update #18, which brings a ton of UI revamps and visual upgrades to the game. Check out the patch notes in the previous post!
- Sumo Update #18 - Lookin’ Good! - 29 June 2019
In our first update purely focused on game polish (and just in time for the Steam Summer Sale, where Sumo is slated to be 50% off), we present a massive overhaul to some of the game’s older or placeholder UI elements, updated environment quality, and introduced a new post-process shader to enhance the in-game visuals. In-Game Shader Prior to Early Access, Sumo used a cel shader to stylize the game’s visuals, but it was too large of an impact on performance. We have introduced a brand new shader that is better on performance, creates the cel outline we wanted, and improves the game’s overall visual quality. If you have any performance issues with this build, please let us know. Environment Textures The Skirmish Arenas ‘Classic’, ‘Railway Rumble’, and ‘WaterWorks’ have been updated with all-new textures and materials on the environment and arena components, giving them a fresh updated loo…
- Sumo Update #17 - Let the Games Begin - 13 April 2019
Hot on the heels of our previous update, two more game modes have been added! Sumoball Taking place on a new sports-arena-themed environment, Sumoball presents a less violent mode of play in the form of a sports match. At the center of the arena, a ball will appear - grab the ball and take it to your goal, located on one of the four corners of the arena, in order to score a point. But beware - any touch from an opponent will cause the ball to transfer to them! If a player is knocked off of the arena in Sumoball mode, the same respawn system used in the Hazard mode will allow them to get back into the action within a few seconds. The first player to score 5 points wins the game. https://i.imgur.com/58z2on6.gif Chaos In many tests, especially in the younger crowd, we’ve seen an affinity towards playing against the bots as a team, and we’re supporting that with a dedicated game mode. In Ch…
- Sumo Update #16 - Blaze Mode, Hazard Mode, Localization and more! - 21 March 2019
Our first content update is now available! A new game mode selection screen now lets you choose between the THREE game modes Sumo now offers. Skirmish remains as the default Sumo experience, but in addition, you may now play… Blaze - Flying high above the surface of the Moon in a brand new environment, players are contained within a glass arena, completely surrounded by walls. Unlike Skirmish, there is no ‘ring out’ - you must actively defeat your opponents by utilizing a trail of light emitting from your character at all times. The arena will continually shrink over time, ultimately leading to a close-quarters cage match. In Blaze, characters always move - you can’t stay still at any point. This means maneuvering around the arena is more difficult than in Skirmish arenas, but utilize the walls lining the edge of the arena to your advantage - hitting one will repel your character away f…
- Sumo Update #15 - Early Access Initial Bugfixing - 13 December 2018
Welcome all new Sumo players! We’re happy to have you with us, and would love to hear your stories and experiences through either our Steam community boards, Steam’s review system, or on our official Discord (https://discordapp.com/invite/rAcFmZt) This update focuses on some early bugs that cropped up in the initial Early Access build we wanted to squash, but we’re already hard at work on new content updates, including a new Sumo challenger… https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F33699477%2F240b158674393833d6d28c7a7f2e9bf5985c94f4.png Patch Notes All background music now fades out and fade in at appropriate times rather than cutting out. Bug Fixes Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause Right inputs to fail in the character select screen if all 4 slots had been filled. Fixed an issue where the main menu button prompts appeared during gameplay if using a gamep…
- Sumo Update #14 - Early Access Launch! - 8 December 2018
Sumo is going public soon! We’ll be launching into Early Access with this build - thanks to everyone who’s helped get us here. More updates, more content, and more features are on the way. Our community forums are now set up, so feel free to start discussions and post feedback. Changes The long-standing placeholder countdown announcer has been replaced with a new unique countdown, recorded by one of our friends and contributors. New music has been added for the Classic Map, the Opening Ceremony, and the post-round score screen / victory ceremony. The automatic in-game voice chat for network play has been disabled. We may bring this back in the future with more polish, but for now, using Steam overlay voice chat, Discord, or another app of your choice is a better solution than what the in-game options can offer. After getting hit with any bump, using a character abiliity, or using a Quic…
- Sumo Update #13 - Early Access RC 3 - 23 November 2018
Massive Performance Improvement Well… apologies on this if anyone on a lower end machine has played recently. A change made several weeks ago had no noticeable impact on my PC, retaining a strong 60FPS, but what I did not realize was that 60 FPS was suddenly pushing my GPU to its absolute limit. Unlocking FPS to benchmark test only got me up to 70-80 FPS. A simple flag in the post processing effect was eating a ton of resources for almost no visual gain. That same benchmark test on my machine now runs the base environments at 220-250 FPS. So, I’m happy to write the patch note… Fixed an issue that was cutting your framerate in half or more! And while we were in an optimization mode… Classic Map - Removed two dynamic lights that weren’t providing anything that couldn’t be done with finer settings on the main lights and post processing, reducing lighting rendering time. WaterWorks - Culled…
- Sumo Update #12 - Early Access RC 2 - 21 November 2018
“First Impressions” Update A polish pass has been made on the core gameplay, specifically looking to improve the first impressions of a new player or new group of players. This resulted in the following changes: Friction amount on character movement increased 5x. This is a pretty drastic increase, but after much debate, the decision is that it doesn’t take away from the momentum and inertia-based gameplay of Sumo, but does make the game easier to control for a first timer. Turning and stopping your momentum will be significantly easier from here on out. The Classic Map is now 20% larger. This makes it more in line with the other arenas in terms of total play space. Since most new players are likely to start here, it didn’t feel right for it to be the smallest (and thus most likely difficult) arena for a first impression. The Classic Map’s initial boost stations are now about twice as fa…
- Sumo Update #11 - Early Access RC 1 - 15 November 2018
Though we still have some work to do, it’s getting close to time to bring Sumo online for Early Access play. This patch focuses on more bug fixing and polish passes. We’ll keep the focus on polishing with likely smaller, more frequent updates until we reach a point where we’re comfortable opening it up for a public release. Today’s update is focused on making testing easier for new beta players by way of updating the tutorial and fixing the character ability preview system. New Features Credits - The game’s credits have been implemented and are now accessible from the Main Menu. Gameplay Changes When a player is furthest behind, they now begin the next round with a fully loaded boost bar rather than gaining just a single increment of the bar. They can use their ability immediately at the start of the round. Art Updates In the Character and Level Select UI menus, the button that exits ba…
- Sumo Update #10 - Pre-Beta Polish - 12 November 2018
For this update, we’re pivoting to getting things polished and ready for an early access release candidate. Lots of bug fixes, balance changes, art polish, gameplay improvements, and more controls options. New Features Mouse Controls - The game’s UI and character controls now support Mouse and Keyboard rather than just Keyboard-only. Gameplay Mouse Controls Left Click can be used to Dash to the cursor location, and Right Click can be used to activate your character ability to the cursor location. Jump can be activated with middle mouse button or either Mouse 3/Mouse 4 (usually the first two thumb buttons on the left). Characters with channeled abilities will continue to use cursor location instead of keyboard turning if Right Click is used to activate. WASD is still used for character movement. Both forms of controls are automatically active and will seamlessly switch mid-game - try for…
- Sumo Update #9 - Steam Powered Multiplayer - 1 November 2018
We are now public on Steam! Check out our store page, screenshots, and best of all - our spiffy new game trailer! Hop on the community forums and let us know what we could improve in any of these regards. Our next update objective is to get back to focusing on polishing the game itself. We’re excited to have a new audio expert on board who is processing and improving the game’s sound effects. We’ll be focused on tuning, visual polish, and more work on the environments while awaiting the new sounds. New Studio Logo - The intro splash screen has been changed to use our new Table 9 Studio logo! ONLINE MULTIPLAYER! Online functionality has been implemented! There’s still likely a lot of kinks to work out here, but we’re very happy to have it online and working. To play multiplayer, enter the Skirmish (character select) lobby. The UI has changed a bit here to make room for a friends list and…
- Sumo now in the Steam Store! - 2 October 2018
Hey everyone! Thanks for participating in Sumo's Alpha test. From here on out, all patch notes will be listed here in the Announcements section. As of tonight our Steam Store page is live and the game is public knowledge. Tell your friends, follow the game, add to wishlists! These things greatly support us and the project.
