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[DareM]

Update March 23,2012:
Work in progress gameplay & replay video:

YouTube video link:

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Buried deep in the Alps of Europe and surrounded by cows, goats and sheep, my partner and I had only two options: become shepherds or do something totally unimaginable here - make a computer game.

In our mind, by waking up slow life with some loud - fuel hungry planes, things could get pretty crazy out here.

Altitude0 (A0) is an arcadish plane racing game in development for Windows PC, flying close to the ground between gates as fast as you can. It can be quite challenging to avoid trees while flying just above forests. So it’s important that you think and feel like an air race pilot, maneuvering your plane swiftly in the air, rolling and spinning to avoid obstacles.

Still a lot to add and polish, but we thought the game is quite shaping up finally (thank God!). I’d still like to improve game play and add more planes, plane add-ons, and also various game modes.

I am seeking some feedback to the following questions:

First, how long are players willing to play - race without feeling bored, 2 ~ 5 minutes? The game scene is quite big, so I am still juggling how long one race / lap should be.

Second, for controls, are people used to two hands on keyboards or gamepad these days? Since it’s a plane game, it requires both hands pressing multiple keys at the same time.
Do many PC users own gamapad and is it popular?
   
Hopefully we can make some game play video soon and a demo afterwards – also set up game website, etc. (it seems endless to get it done). In the meantime, I will try to post more screenshots as development progresses.

Feedback, comments and questions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
DareM  

[J. R. Hill]

This looks like fun, and the graphics look professional to me.

[DareM]

@J. R. Hill: Thank you for your comment.

I hope that we can make the game fun to play.
I will post some gameplay videos soon.

[DareM]

Another gameplay screenshot. Since it's a plane racing game, passing quickly through gates is the main objective.
Next gate is marked with a green circle, while the one after is marked with a yellow circle.
We decided that skipping a single gate is allowed but the player gets time penalty.

Hitting trees & terrain will also be very painful.
Hopefully somebody else finds this entertaining.

[Netsu]

Reminds me a lot of Plane Crazy, looks promising

[DareM]

Reminds me a lot of Plane Crazy, looks promising

Thanks, didn't know about that game, will check it out.

[Pemanent]

Nice work on the graphics! I'm impressed!

[DareM]

@Pemanent: Thank you, hopefully I can create gameplay video soon to show more graphics.

@Netsu: I checked 'Plane Crazy', looks like many people were enjoying the game when it was out.

In this case I am hoping for a more open world but if a player wonders off the course, he/she gets a couple of seconds to return to driving through gates.

Although flying is arcadish we are trying to encourage precison flying, where how you handle gates and turns matters since time will be lost.

[Netsu]

I enjoyed it too, there aren't many arcade'y plane racers out there so I'm glad you're making one

[C.D Buckmaster]

Those are some very impressive looking graphics I must say, and the I like that this is a game whose concept is based on what I inevitably start doing in any flying game.

I'm looking forward to more information.

[DareM]

Thank you guys for positive comments, hope we can deliver what we are trying to do with this game.

Speaking of which, can anybody suggest some other game titles from the past that tackled plane racing well?
Certainly there are enough air combat games but we would really like to focus more on racing - just like car racing but in the air.

Unlike car driving, plane brings another dimension (up & down, rolls, spins) and that could be quite fun.

[Xane]

Speaking of which, can anybody suggest some other game titles from the past that tackled plane racing well?

SkyDrift.

[starsrift]

Your terrain and motion blur looks gorgeous. Is this a homebrew engine, or Construct, or..?

[DareM]

Your terrain and motion blur looks gorgeous. Is this a homebrew engine, or Construct, or..?

Thanks,
Motion blur is nothing special in terms of code but with some parameter tweaking it turned out quite nicely.

Engine is 'home made', actually terrain rendering and vegetation planting comes out of a plugin we did for 3ds max a couple of years ago. Now code is a lot faster and usable in realtime.

@Xane: Noticed that game also, looks nice.

[DareM]

Hello guys,
I promised Altitude0 gameplay video a while ago and here is our first creation.
It's a work in progress gameplay video, therefore a lot of features are still missing or not final - can anybody spot any shadows  .

YouTube video link:

As we add more features like boost, damage, crash, sound, I will show more stuff. Hopefully somebody finds it interesting.

[Netsu]

I don't know if it's final or not, but it would have a better feel if there was some inertia to how the plane moves. For example it doesn't stop turning immediately as soon as you stop pressing a button but instead takes a while (could be as little as a split second) to stop.

The graphics look great already, this could be really fun

[DareM]

...but it would have a better feel if there was some inertia to how the plane moves. For example it doesn't stop turning immediately as soon as you stop pressing a button but instead takes a while (could be as little as a split second) to stop.

We will keep that in mind, certainly it will give plane more feeling of weight. I guess I was quite influenced by Red Bull air racing and similar small planes that are very agile.

[DareM]

Another small update on the progress of development. We've been working on airplane crashing, collision response and boost.
When collision happens it's time for particles everywhere.

Also we added some useful boost feature. Boost amount will be limited but partial refills will be possible by collecting items along the track.
 
Probably video shows it best.

Video:

[stevesan]

This looks very impressive! I have to say though, the game play doesn't seem too exciting. I guess just make sure you play test and "find the fun" in the game rather than just getting bogged down by graphical polish.

[DareM]

This looks very impressive! I have to say though, the game play doesn't seem too exciting. I guess just make sure you play test and "find the fun" in the game rather than just getting bogged down by graphical polish.

You are right to point out "finding the fun" factor should be our main concern. I'm quite tired of working on graphics and these days we are focusing on gameplay most of time.
Otherwise driving against ghost replay (shared online) and online multiplayer will be the main gameplay features.

If somebody has some other ideas on how to make this racing fun (especially online) we are open for suggestions.