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Eniimal
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« on: July 03, 2015, 09:58:00 AM »

Untitled Racing game






A mobile racing game with an old-school feel.
The game is based on Drafting, you always loose speed and your only way to keep going is to stick to the other cars.
To move forward you have to take risks, but if you take too much risk, you may crash yourself on another car.
Our goal with this game is to offer the deepest racing gameplay possible while limiting ourselves by having only two buttons (left and right).


A Game made in a month

We will try to make the game in a month and I will post each day an update on this devlog.
A month, that's short, but we thought that this constraint will force us to work as efficiently as possible.
I hope we will have something nice in one month. Smiley



Hi everyone !!!

I'm Eniimal, One half of the indie studio Ducky Games.
We mainly make mobile games and we released our last game Droppy Blocks in the beginning of this week.

We started working on our next game today and we thought it would be fun to make a Devlog and show our evolution, from start to end in a month (we hope Smiley )

So let start with a screenshot :


Antoine, the other half of Ducky Games made a mockup of what could be this game.
This is a really early image, he used some elements of Droppy Blocks to make this scene.
But I think you can get the idea, the goal that we want to achieve.

Our inspiration are games like Out Run or Rad Racer on NES :


These games create a real sense of speed partly because they use an insane amount of duplicated backgrounds elements.
(And this is even more true when you see a

)
We want to make a game that feel like this and you will see all of that here.

ah! and I also tried to make a first prototype :



That's all we have for now, this is really the beginning so I hope you will forgive the somewhat dirty aspect of those images.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2015, 12:42:41 PM by Eniimal » Logged

Photon
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« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2015, 10:11:48 AM »

I find it particularly interesting how gaming seems to lose certain effects and feels (beyond simply being retro) when you move to bigger and badder graphics. Smoother and slicker, in my opinion, is not always better. I like your approach. Well, hello there!
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Eniimal
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« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2015, 09:09:43 AM »

Thank you, We will try to keep this approach during the development, I hope you will like what will come next Smiley
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Eniimal
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« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2015, 10:20:38 AM »

Today I will talk about the Gameplay of this project :


We wanted to make a racing game on mobile, but we didn't want to have virtual buttons.
They are complicated and do not fully exploit the potential of touch screens.

Of course, some type of games needs buttons to be fully playable, but that's not what we want for now.
We want to make a game with simple and easy to understand controls and for that we needed to find the assorted gameplay.

In a game like Forza Horizon or Need For Speed you have those types of controller mapping :



Basic Controls :
  • GAS
  • BRAKE
  • HANDBRAKE
  • 360° STEERING

Sometimes you will also have
  • Clutch
  • Shift Down
  • Shift Up

From this point, you have two options :
1. You decide to take into account the fact that your game will run on a touch screen device and use that as a start to think your gameplay.
2. You decide that it would be stupid to change something that worked on your PC and Console and you do this thing :



That's a lot of buttons...
(Of course, that's probably the best choice for an adaptation of GTA 3, but those controls wouldn't be the best choice for a GTA made specially for a touch screen device.

We decided to take the second option :

We decided to make a racing game that center around drafting and only drafting, you will always drive at full speed and you will use the Slipstream of the other cars to overtake them.



We were inspired by old arcade games and decided to only keep two controls :

  • Turn Left
  • Turn Right



That's all, no brake, no gas pedal, no Clutch or Shift Up or Down.
Only a turn left and turn right button.

The challenge now will be to make an interesting game with only these two controls.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2015, 02:16:02 AM by Eniimal » Logged

Eniimal
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« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2015, 02:28:14 PM »

Hi everyone !!

Today I added an early version of the drafting mechanic inside the prototype and I added multiple cars with different speeds.

I'm pretty happy with what I have, it turned out to be very fun.


Here is a gif of what I have for now.

It's pretty fun to move from cars to cars.

That's all for today, stay tuned for more Smiley
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Eniimal
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« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2015, 02:57:11 PM »

Good News Everyone !!

I made some progress today :

  • Now when you are not behind a car, your speed will decrease down to 0 (km or mph, I let you choose your religion Smiley)
    I'm not really happy with my code, for now, I just use something like that in my Update Loop :
Code:
f_Speed -= (1/f_Speed) * Time.deltaTime * 200f;
  • I also added a rudimentary collision system between the cars
  • Now the IA cars can use Drafting on other IA cars and On the Player
  • More interesting, if you drive behind an IA, It will try to lose you by making big turns


I didn't said it before, so I say it here, I'm using Unity 3D for this racing game.

So Here is what the editor looks like when the game is running.

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jctwood
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« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2015, 07:51:10 AM »

Looks really interesting! Lovely to see such deep thought go into the design. Do you plan to have different vehicle types/sizes which are better at drafting/top speed/deccelaration? Like I don't know Kaneda's bike from Akira would have a high top speed and low deccelaration but due to its small nature be less effective at drafting?
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Eniimal
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« Reply #7 on: July 08, 2015, 12:11:19 PM »

Quote
Looks really interesting! Lovely to see such deep thought go into the design. Do you plan to have different vehicle types/sizes which are better at drafting/top speed/deccelaration? Like I don't know Kaneda's bike from Akira would have a high top speed and low deccelaration but due to its small nature be less effective at drafting?

That's an excellent idea, That's definetly something I want to try.
Thank You Smiley
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jctwood
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« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2015, 05:52:40 AM »

No problem, look forward to seeing development progress Smiley
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Eniimal
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« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2015, 06:03:42 AM »

Hi Everyone,

I made some progress since the last time, and I decided to make a new clean prototype.



I also added a road texture made by Antoine.

For now, you can only go in a straight line, I want to try to have some turns and some ups and downs.
I don't know how I'm going to do that.

ha and also, Antoine tried to change the aspcet of the karts :



What do you think would be better ?
A textured or a flat kart ?
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Eniimal
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« Reply #10 on: July 14, 2015, 05:30:03 AM »

Good Morning Everyone,

I made some progress since the last update, I added some trees and I started to redo the Cars AI.
I also added somme details like the wheels turning when we turn (Antoine really wanted to have that).
Also, the code is cleaner than before.



The next step will be to make the Drift system in this new version.
I will also try to implement other kind of trees made by Antoine.

See you soon !
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jctwood
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« Reply #11 on: July 14, 2015, 07:15:07 AM »

The wheel turning is really slick! Do you think you will have a 90 degree drift or more of a sideways thing?
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« Reply #12 on: July 14, 2015, 10:08:59 AM »

Gotta say I love the art style  Grin
I'll be following your project, looking forward to updates.
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Eniimal
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« Reply #13 on: July 14, 2015, 10:45:42 AM »

The wheel turning is really slick! Do you think you will have a 90 degree drift or more of a sideways thing?

Thank You Smiley
And I'm an idiot, I wanted to say that I will add the Drafting Mechanic, not a Drifting Mechanic.
Maybe I will had a Drift Mechanic after, but I have no idea of how I would do that Smiley

Gotta say I love the art style  Grin
I'll be following your project, looking forward to updates.

Thank You, your game is awesome too !
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Eniimal
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« Reply #14 on: July 17, 2015, 09:50:54 AM »

Hey guys !

I made some progress :

  • Accelerometer : You can use your phone as a steering wheel, It turned out to be way easier than I thought.
  • UI : Added a Speed Counter, maybe I will try to change the speed units based on the country you are KMH or MPH
  • Textures : Antoine Changed the road Texture and added blue lines and some white lines next to them
  • I also added some Buildings made by Antoine
  • And Palm Trees Yeah !!!

Here is a picture of the last version of the game :



What are your thoughts ?
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jctwood
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« Reply #15 on: July 17, 2015, 10:27:02 AM »

Love the palm trees they harken back to the older era of driving games so perfectly The buildings look a little repetitive. Do you plan to have any kind of motion blue effect? I really don't know how it would look but with the drafting mechanic it could give a better feel for how fast you are going.
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Eniimal
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« Reply #16 on: July 21, 2015, 04:51:48 AM »

Hey everyone !

I don't know if I explained it before, but the Cars AI have 3 states :

  • Patrolling - They drive without thinking about you
  • Chase - When they are behind the player, they try to chase him to gain more speed
  • Escape - When the player is behind them, they try to loose him by making hard turns

I  also updated the AI Manager, when the player lose speed, it will instantiate some slower cars that the player will be able to follow.
When the player will gain speed, the Ai Manager will instantiate faster cars.

The next step will be to try to add some level design elements.
I also still don't know how I will be able to add Turns in this game...
The ground move in this prototype, not the cars, so if I add turns I suppose I will need to make everything turn...

I still also don't know what will be the economic model for this game.
Should it be free with ads ? free without ads but with In app purchase ? should we just sell it for a fixed price ? Should it be completely free without ads or in app purchase ?
I have no idea...
What do you think ?





Love the palm trees they harken back to the older era of driving games so perfectly The buildings look a little repetitive. Do you plan to have any kind of motion blue effect? I really don't know how it would look but with the drafting mechanic it could give a better feel for how fast you are going.
Good Idea, I will definitely try to add a motion blur effect. I just don't know if the mobile phones will handle them correctly.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2015, 04:59:27 AM by Eniimal » Logged

jctwood
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« Reply #17 on: July 21, 2015, 05:33:47 AM »

Ahh yeah mobiles and shaders can sometimes not mesh well. In terms of the price model I personally would pay a $1 for the game in its current state as just an endless arcade type thing where you get score and try not to crash. If there were more to it I would maybe have it free with a fixed price to get the extra content?
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Eniimal
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« Reply #18 on: July 22, 2015, 02:23:24 PM »

Ahh yeah mobiles and shaders can sometimes not mesh well. In terms of the price model I personally would pay a $1 for the game in its current state as just an endless arcade type thing where you get score and try not to crash. If there were more to it I would maybe have it free with a fixed price to get the extra content?

Two good suggestions thank you Smiley



I didn't work on the game today and I dont think I will be able to complete it in 8 days Smiley

So today, I'm just going to share with you some articles and works that I found while working on this game and that I found really useful :

"Pseudo 3D is a bit of a lost art. How do you go about placing assets in a pseudo 3D world in the modern era? This is what we bashed our heads against."

"I wanted to try my hand at an old-school pseudo-3d racing game, a-la outrun, pitstop or pole-position. I dont plan on building a fully fleshed out and finished game but thought it would be fun to re-examine the mechanics of how these games pulled off their tricks. The curves, the hills, the sprites and the feeling of speed…
So, here’s a “weekend” project that ended up taking about 5 or 6 weekends…"


That's all folks !
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jctwood
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« Reply #19 on: July 22, 2015, 02:40:07 PM »

Nice articles!
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