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[Berick]

Flying racers are one of my favorite genre of game. Especially ones like what this appears to be.

Does this have true flight controls or simplified ones? I'm really hoping for true controls, as there has only been one game like that (N-Gen Racing for PSX) that I know of and it was incredible. All the simplified ones are... well, cheap feeling in comparison.

[DareM]

Flying racers are one of my favorite genre of game. Especially ones like what this appears to be.

Does this have true flight controls or simplified ones? I'm really hoping for true controls, as there has only been one game like that (N-Gen Racing for PSX) that I know of and it was incredible. All the simplified ones are... well, cheap feeling in comparison.

Thanks for letting me know about this game, I will check videos and reviews, it looks like many people liked it.

About controls. We decided that we want players to be able to fully control plane (roll, pitch, yaw), although this could be a challenge to beginners. So for example, pressing left only rolls the plane but it still goes forward. To go left you have to also pull plane up at the same time (hope this makes sense).

I noticed that many arcade airplane games make it very simple to turn left/right by pressing a single button, while barrel roll and similar acrobatics are cheated by pressing some special buttons.

I guess we'd like to encourage players to experience full airplane acrobatics, our world has also a lot of up & down movement (ex. climbing over the mountain).

If enough people like that, we'll see 

[Berick]

That just doubled my excitement for this game!

I read back a bit and saw that you are considering not supporting flightsim joystick controls though. I think that would be a big mistake. You should have it as an option for us diehard pilots. Personally, I can react quicker, fluidly, and more naturally with a joystick than with any button or joypad. It's like saying you can't see how anyone would use a steering wheel for a racing game

You should include "Arcade" controls for the 1 key left/right type scheme, and "Pilot" controls for more the full flight controls. That way you're not alienating either player type.

Personally, I would love to see a "stunt" challenge mode, where you have to perform lots of acrobatics to complete the level. Like flying through a cave, weaving in and out of city skyscrapers, etc... Not necessarily as a race, but more a series of precision flying challenges.

[DareM]

That just doubled my excitement for this game!

I read back a bit and saw that you are considering not supporting flightsim joystick controls though. I think that would be a big mistake. You should have it as an option for us diehard pilots. Personally, I can react quicker, fluidly, and more naturally with a joystick than with any button or joypad.

You should include "Arcade" controls for the 1 key left/right type scheme, and "Pilot" controls for more the full flight controls. That way you're not alienating either player type.

Personally, I would love to see a "stunt" challenge mode, where you have to perform lots of acrobatics to complete the level. Like flying through a cave, weaving in and out of city skyscrapers, etc... Not necessarily as a race, but more a series of precision flying challenges.

Thanks for your response. One question about flightsim joystick. You mentioned that you can react quickly with joystick. I found them very big and that it takes a lot more energy than just pressing gamepad buttons. I guess I have to update my tools, I've been using an old 'Wingman Extreme' joystick and it feels very heavy (hard to move).

I noticed that N-Gen racing had 2 control modes : arcadish & pro. Did pro mode controls allow any better results or was it just more realistic and therefore harder to use?

We could support simpler controls (single button to go left/right), but I don't like the idea that players with simpler controls would achieve better times than players with pro controls.

About precision flying. In the current version of Altitude0, I love flying tight through gates (knife edge) to shave off a fraction of a second here and there while making sure not to hit too many gates.
I hope many players would appreciate this aspect of the game.

[Berick]

I haven't used a 'Wingman Extreme', but my own setup is nice and easy. Especially with rudder foot pedals. You lose a lot of 'feel' and precision when you play with keys, as keys are either on or off. Which means that you have to perfectly time your key presses and / or tap them rapidly for precision movements.

In N-Gen, I was able to perform much tighter, low to the ground (in that game, the lower you were to the ground, the faster you went. It was a great mechanic, as it naturally rewarded skillful flying) maneuvers without crashing than my opponents who were using arcade controls. So yes, there was a distinct benefit.

I highly doubt that anyone using arcade controls would be able to perform better than full controls. Especially with your description of flying knife-edge to shave time. That generally requires more precision than arcade controls can give.

As for my challenge idea, I'm thinking more along the lines of individual short challenges. Like (forgive my lack of artistic skill):



That would be one "challenge level".

[DareM]

I haven't used a 'Wingman Extreme', but my own setup is nice and easy. Especially with rudder foot pedals. You lose a lot of 'feel' and precision when you play with keys, as keys are either on or off. Which means that you have to perfectly time your key presses and / or tap them rapidly for precision movements.

I see you even like controlling rudder separately. Currently I added switch to make rudder automatic or manual but playing with keys makes rudder hard to control. I guess there are players that could appreciate manual rudder although this game is not a full blown flight sim.
And yes keys are annoying with the tapping approach, certainly gamepad helps with that.

In N-Gen, I was able to perform much tighter, low to the ground (in that game, the lower you were to the ground, the faster you went. It was a great mechanic, as it naturally rewarded skillful flying) maneuvers without crashing than my opponents who were using arcade controls. So yes, there was a distinct benefit.

Since Altitude0 is about flying low we will also reward low flying with better acceleration. I wonder, was N-Gen speed close to the ground better just a tiny bit or was it a big advantage?

As for my challenge idea, I'm thinking more along the lines of individual short challenges. Like (forgive my lack of artistic skill):

During the race we added 2 sub-games (aka short-runs) for now: 
- 360 barrel roll; between start and end point you have to do 360 roll.
- flying very low; fly under bars that are placed in sequence within some small amount of time.
- probably we will add more short runs in the future

Otherwise thank you for taking time to even sketch the idea, I assume the plane in the sketch is climbing up and going down with a sequence of rolls between gates. Good idea I believe.

[Berick]

Even though its not a full blown flight sim, just having the option for rudder control is nice.

In N-Gen, there was a small, but noticeable difference between someone flying high and someone flying low. You weren't exactly "boosting" when you were on the deck, but that speed increase could make all the difference in the race.

Glad to hear you're adding little challenges like that! And yes, you interpreted the picture correctly. I was thinking that the square block could be a building (for example) that you go up and over. You could even give it the same "The closer you are to it, the faster you go" principle as the ground. I would have a lot of fun trying to get the best time I could on that by keeping within inches of the walls!

[DareM]

A quick update:
Since my last post, a lot of effort was put to present Altitude0 as a full blown game: more sound effects, menus, race replays and other basic ingredients that most racing games require.

Video:

YouTube video link:



And garage screeny:


Cheers

[kz012]

Looking really nice!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Just checked out the video. Graphics are looking really polished, nice job 

[DareM]

Thank you guys for your kind words.

These days we are working on the open beta demo of the game.
It will be an online game and the first version will have a small taste of it, namely achieving good race times and sharing high-scores and replays with others online.

Hope some of you guys may want to test it when it's ready.

[DareM]

Hi guys,
It's been a while since my last post regarding our plane racing game Altitude0.

Not out yet, but please check this teaser trailer we just put out:

Youtube link:

[DareM]

Hi all,

I wish you all the best in 2013!

Check out our burning greeting card.




Cheers,
DareM

[Mittens]

This game looks great fun! Cant wait to play it
I especially like the vapor trails, those are really well done

[DareM]

This game looks great fun! Cant wait to play it
I especially like the vapor trails, those are really well done

Thanks. Closed beta testing is on currently. If you are interested, you can join by visiting our website. That is, if you don't mind unfinished features and some bugs

Otherwise, have a Happy 2013!

[impulse9]

Looks very cool. 

[DareM]

To anybody reading this thread, what kind of music do you think would fit this game (Altitude0)?
We have almost 0 resources to pay for music and on top of that we haven't decided what style of music to use for the game. For now, our promo videos use fast paced rock music, but I am not sure we should rather use more electronic beat sounds, something to make it feel more contemporary. All I know is that it should be fast paced music score.

Any suggestions?

[Mittens]

I plade the beta!
In terms of polish, graphics, sound, effects, etc. everything is top notch.
It might be just a matter of familiarity, but I found myself being terrible at this game.
The flight physics didn't feel natural to me, and not because I don't play many aeroplane games, I used to play MS Flight sim as a kid and consider myself somewhat of an ace in Battlefield 2 and 3, I just never got comfotable with the flight physics of Altitude0

It's hard to put my finger on why, but I think it's because of a couple of things
1. Changes are quite slow. to roll the plane over from one side to other has quite a long minimum amount of time to perform. I often found myself crashing just because the plane wouldn't respond to controls fast enough.

2. There is no momentum/weight/acceleration to the yaw/pitch/roll of the plane. In most games, as you roll the plane it's rate of roll will accelerate and when you let go of the controls the plane will still have rolling momentum, it wont stop immediately.
In contrast the physics of the aircraft in Alt0 feel much more rigid/predictable/mechanical, It might just be my personal taste but I don't dig that feel.

Anyway, if you were looking for a chunk of feedback on your flight physics, there is some.
Otherwise the game is looking great, keep up the good work!

[DareM]

@Jackson31: Thanks a lot for your suggestions. It means a lot coming from a beta tester. I totally get your point about topics 1 and 2. We will work on tuning the plane physics in the following days. I will let you know when the update is ready. Thanks again!

[DareM]

We have second Altitude0 beta version ready.
We made some adjustments and fixes to plane physics: throttle was implemented properly. Manual rudder was also added with professional controls.

This is still a closed beta version. But whoever is interested in testing, please join us on our website. Thanks.