Vecter 1.5.1 - The "I Told You I'd Try" Update

Remember when I said I'd try to get YouTube working on macOS? Well... I did it. I also hate myself... thanks for that Apple... but it does work now!

Also playlists work now. And livestreams. And I fixed a crash that was nuking save files from 2022. You know, the usual.

Let's get into it.

macOS YouTube Support (Yes, Really)

The thing I said might never happen? It happened a lot sooner than I thought.

YouTube now works on macOS. Both Intel and Apple Silicon. I had to compile custom versions of the Chromium Embedded Framework for both architectures, figure out Apple's whole "notarization" song and dance, wrestle with Sequoia's new security requirements, and probably lose a few years off my life expectancy.

But it works. Copy a YouTube URL, paste it in the game, watch videos while you dodge things at unreasonable speeds. Just like Windows and Linux users have been doing this whole time.

Apple users, you're finally free!

YouTube Playlists

Speaking of YouTube improvements - you can now paste entire playlist URLs and the game will play through them. Same controls as the music player: Period/Comma to skip forward/back, and it respects your shuffle setting.

When a video ends, it automatically moves to the next one. If shuffle is on, it randomizes the order (but keeps your first video first, because that's probably why you clicked on it). If a video is unavailable or region-locked, it just skips to the next one instead of dying.

You can also paste playlist URLs directly without needing a specific video selected - the game figures it out.

Livestream Support

Remember how I said livestreams weren't supported? Well now they are.

To get this working I had to recompile chromium from scratch for windows, linux and mac (twice on a mac because intel and arm CPUs). It took... ahm... 3 days in total as apparently you need something like 32 GB of RAM on each computer to compile it successfully and even when it works first try from start to finish it takes like 6 hours. I did at one point move RAM from my NAS server to my windows dev machine so that it has enough ram to compile the thing. It was certainly an experience...

Live streams work, but they behave a bit differently because... they're live. You can't pause live content (what would that even mean?), and when you die and restart, it just resumes from wherever the stream currently is instead of trying to seek back.

Think of it less as "watching a video" and more as "having a live stream on in the background while you play." Which is exactly what it is.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a nasty crash for old save files - If you had a save file from before January 2023 (back when multiplayer was still a thing), the game would crash trying to load it because it expected your camera settings to be in a format that no longer exists. Now it gracefully handles the old format and converts it automatically.

Fixed dissolve materials on bendy roads - The fancy dissolve effect that makes things fade in and out wasn't properly accounting for the road bending. Objects would dissolve at weird points on curves. Now they dissolve correctly relative to where you actually are on the track.

Billboard improvements - Split the billboard rendering into separate background and text layers with independent opacity controls. Technical stuff, but it means the death billboards look better and fade more naturally.

Under The Hood Stuff

• Switched to a custom fork of the browser framework that runs at 60fps instead of... less than that. Theoretically this should make youtube videos smoother but that's extremely dependent on your resolution, performance of your computer, etc etc. It's a best effort at most

• Compiled custom CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) builds with proper codec support for all platforms

• Stripped debug symbols from Linux builds to reduce file size

• Cleaned up a bunch of unused code signing logic that was just taking up space

What's Next?

I don't know. I keep saying this and then immediately starting work on something else. Such is the curse of the solo developer brain.

The game's in a good spot. macOS users aren't second-class citizens anymore (THIS INCLUDED ME BTW AS I'M A MAC USER). Playlists work. Livestreams work. Old save files don't crash the game anymore.

If you find bugs, you know the drill. Steam thread, I'll see it eventually.

Full Changelog

New Features

• YouTube playback on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)

• YouTube playlist support with shuffle and auto-advance

• Livestream support (plays live, can't pause or seek)

• Next/Previous navigation for playlists (Period/Comma keys)

• Direct playlist URL support (without needing a video ID)

• New secret seed with curated YouTube playlist: 6000600006

Improvements

• Upgraded to custom CEF builds with additional video codec support

• Browser framework now runs at 60fps

• Billboard opacity system with separate background/text layers

• Dissolve effects properly scale with road bending

• Reduced Linux build size by stripping debug symbols

Bug Fixes

• Fixed crash when loading save files from pre-2023 (multiplayer era)

• Fixed dissolve materials not accounting for bendy roads

• Fixed livestream handling (pause ignored, restart resumes live)

Thanks for playing. Happy New Year and all that!