v1.1: Dreaming of a full water polo mode and a lot of quality of life fixes

We've just made our first significant update, and although it's mostly a laundry list of small tweaks and bugfixes we wanted to put something fun in there too. That's why we added this inflatable goal that you can unlock.

Once we add real-time multiplayer we'll definitely revisit this and flesh it out a bit more but for now you can practice your shots in the pool ;)

Here's the full changelog of the patch for those interested, it addresses some common feedback like an improved tutorial, increased sharpness, improved bird speed / behavior:

• Added an inflatable goal to the Sea Miles shop

• Added a lesson that explains how to turn the kayak by leaning to the left or right

• Added a lesson that explains how to make sharp turns when the kayak has speed by holding the paddle in the water

• Added a ghost kayak to the lessons that demonstrates the technique of the lesson

• Added the option to enable Texture Streaming under advanced graphics in the menu. This could fix (out of memory) crashes and reduce loading times but might introduce hitches.

• Improved seagull behavior and speed in Antarctic and Norway

• Reworked a few of the kayak / paddle friction sounds

• Added a safe mode that sets all graphical settings to low, this should be used if you accidentally tweaked your settings to the point that the game is not stable enough to revert back through the regular menu. To utilize this add `-safe` as launch parameter to the game in Steam. Don't forget to remove it once you've reset it or the settings will keep getting reverted.

• Added some experimental support for launch options to force SteamVR or the Oculus SDK to run. If you want to force the Oculus SDK use `-hmd=OculusHMD` (or if that doesn’t work – and please let us know if that is the case – `-hmd=Oculus`). If you want to force SteamVR use `-hmd=SteamVR`. You can add the launch options under Kayak VR: Mirage > Properties > General > Launch Options in Steam.

• Tweaked sharpness to improve clarity when default Anti-Aliasing is enabled

• Exposed a sharpness slider for FidelityFX ’s own sharpening solution (Contrast Adaptive Sharpening).

• You can now choose to race against the top 5 times on any level

• You can now adjust the haptic intensity under general settings

• Added more fish schools and dolphins in Costa Rica

• Restarting after finishing a race is now equally fast to restarting during a race

Minor fixes:

• Fixed leaderboards not always showing up after a race

• Added a splash sound to the penguin jumping in the water in the Antarctic

• Fixed paddle water splashes being too bright in night time levels

• Fixed the magical flying turtle in Costa Rica

• Fixed the vignette option not staying on, even when 'always on' was selected

• Fixed strange reflection edges out in the sea in Norway

• Fixed falling off the map at the edges in Norway

• No more continuing collision sounds when pushing off against objects

• Improved the strange strobing effect on water in Antarctic

• Improved sound design in Antarctic

• Ambient sound now properly loops in Antarctic

• Fixed a few missing translations

• Fixed missing collision on rock in Norway

• Fixed mistake in the lessons where the reverse turn lessons were...reversed

• Reduced the amount of time required to unlock the thalassophobia achievement

• Added an extra trigger on the other side of the jungle for the Turtle rescue

• FidelityFX and DLSS can no longer be on at the same time

• Added an icon for desktop shortcuts