so I have been really busy lately moving to a new place and dealing with all that fun stuff, but I recently started working on the "garage" environment, which will be a little room that your kart sits in where you can customize your looks, your kart tuning, etc. Hopefully we will end up supporting custom garages too so people can download new garage environments.

Here is the lift that you and your kart will be sitting ontop of:


and here is a toolbox prop that will be sitting close by, I still need to texture it.

We have considered whether or not the customizations should have gameplay effects, and we are kind of on the fence either way. Having them just be cosmetic would simplify things a lot, and free us up (and the community) to make whatever they might desire without having to factor in how it fits into gameplay.

I also have bought zero-gear.com as suggested by Radnom, I haven't had the time to re-direct it yet though.

I put up a stand alone site for the game, you can view it here:

http://myzerogear.com

I'm very glad to hear you're against all-powerful powerups :D I think that's one area Nintendo fails... they always put in these crazy powerups to make whoever wins and loses more random. Not good when you want to prove you're better at something than someone... haha.


you should have bought zero-gear.com though  

I actually think that those big items that really shake things up are part of what makes the whole kart racing thing damn fun and leads to a lot of crazy events. I just really hate when items with powerful effects are really easy to get and are incredibly easy to hit people with (75% of kart rider items.) (and thanks for the tip)

yep, I have played a lot of hours of Kart Rider. I even played the Chinese version before there was a US release!

My impression of Kart Rider is that it has the most jarring and fun-destroying battle items I have ever experienced in a kart racing game. They are practically binary in their ability to control whether you are having fun or not. Also most of them are fire and forget which leaves me with no satisfaction of firing them other than knowing how annoyed the other person will be when it magically hits them out of nowhere. The ones that do try and require some sort of skill to fire, like locking onto other riders for the missiles, are horribly broken and the 50% of the time you screw up targeting someone it just completely throws away your item which only serves to double your frustration. 

Thanks for the reminder about putting up some dedicated game page Mass, thats on my to do list which is shockingly large for one person :/  at least I bought the url already, http://myzerogear.com  ( zerogear.com was taken  )

updated the first post with 3 new screenshots and some wallpapers

yup, the driving model is nowhere near finished. The karts don't really feel karty at all yet.

well we currently don't have either of those so you are set!

All I know is my computer wont be able to run this 
But awesome 

I dunno, it's actually not that graphically taxing. We are trying to keep it as low spec as possible. We don't have any fancy or taxing graphical effects. We want to keep it as lightweight as possible.

Unless you don't have a video card or a 3d chip :p

This looks great, but everytime I look at the logo it reminds me of Lego.

lol I see the same thing! I like the association though - I think it gives off the right emotion. It makes me feel nostalgic and fuzzy.

well, it's going to be very centered on personalization and multiplayer. There is still a long way to go in development and I am sure on the way we will run into some features that set it further apart from other kart games - but we are not going out of our way to to try and seem innovative for innovation's sake. We are big mario kart fans, and we want that same pace of fun and graphical appeal in an online PC game, with more emphasis on personalization and customization. We would also like to have map formats and scripted game rules as well as karts and characters that are open to customization and modding, so that people can come up with new content.

I haven't played a kart game on the PC that I thought was good yet, so we are gonna give it a shot.

Zero Gear is physically-fueled, online multiplayer kart combat PC madness that me and 2 other developers have been developing for the past 2 years and change.



HD Trailer:



official game website: http://myzerogear.com

we have been keeping a development blog for almost the entire time that has a lot of the details behind the project. You can check it out here: http://nimblebit.com

Steam Official Game Group: http://steamcommunity.com/games/zerogear

screenshots: http://myzerogear.com/media.htm

Zero Gear is available for pre-order! Players who pre-order will get 25% off the price of the game, as well as immediate access to the beta version! Visit the Zero Gear product page for pricing information. Zero Gear is slated for release on January 12th, 2010. Stay tuned for more release information in the weeks ahead, including a 4 package deal!

ok, I was up late last night making a new character poster

Robo Viking will pillage his way into your heart <3



small rez

medium rez

large rez

basic texture, still deciding how I want to divide up the coloring customization areas. On to rigging!

unwrapped and AO bake base

texture painting time

You might be interested in Steamworks.
http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/

yep, I am very excited that valve is opening up steam to some extent!

here is an article I wrote a few months ago that finally got put up on gamasutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3547/nine_paths_to_indie_game_greatness.php

It's about different things independent game developers are doing to develop games with very few resources.

spent some time on the head today


textures

got the neck down textured. The blue and white parts will be separately customizable in terms of color.