Project Aftershock - Indie Multiplayer Co op Sci Fi Racing Game

[yapdakilla]

Hi guys,

Just wanted to post a project I'm working on with a friend of mine called Project Aftershock which is multiplayer co op racing game. Still in its early stages as we have yet to include gameplay elements to it. However we posted some screenshots here at Flickr:



And a roundabout video tour of the first track work in progress:

[andrew]

Wow, that's the best-looking game I've seen posted around here in quite a while...

- andrew

[Moose2000]

That's some gorgeous track design!

[Game Producer]

Looks bloody awesome. (Reminds me bit about UT3)

[Twitchfactor]

Looks awesome!

Any insight into tools & tech?

What are the tracks built in?
Running your own engine?

Planned platforms?

How far along?

Kick butt Wip3out soundtrack coming??

[Bad Sector]

As said, its the most impressive thing posted here since a while :-). Add some flames or "something" behind that vehicle though :-P.

Also mentioning more info about the tech would be interesting.

[vjvj]

MOST IMPORTANT:

• Are you working with a contract art house?
• If so, who? (We are in need of a reliable 3D art house after the last one bailed on us!)

In all seriousness, your game looks great! Please keep us updated... One of my best friends is really into this type of game, so I'm sure he'll be interested in checking it out as you guys near completion.

Keep up the good work!!!

Originally Posted by Twitchfactor

Kick butt Wip3out soundtrack coming??

WORD. I hope it has Wipeout's speed, too

[yapdakilla]

Hi guys thanks for the encouraging feedback so far

Originally Posted by Twitchfactor

Looks awesome!

Any insight into tools & tech?

What are the tracks built in?
Running your own engine?

Planned platforms?

How far along?

Kick butt Wip3out soundtrack coming??

As for tools and tech. We used ogre3d as our rendering engine and built our own level editor around it. Art is done using Blender and GIMP as we're on a tight budget.

The planned platforms for release are: PC, Mac and Linux.

We've started slowly in Feb 2008 doing mostly research and learning Blender from scratch (wasnt easy as I have been using 3ds max for a very long time) things began to pick up speed in May and we're hoping to complete the game by end of this year or early next year 2010.

Lol as for wipeout soundtrack we have yet to source out any musicians .If you do know of any please recommend to us. Thanks ! Budget price range of course.

Originally Posted by Bad Sector

As said, its the most impressive thing posted here since a while :-). Add some flames or "something" behind that vehicle though :-P.

Also mentioning more info about the tech would be interesting.

Yes we'll definitely have engine glows and trails and some heat waves, i think. The level itself still has some minor details which we're working on such as lotsa wild grass, fallen leaves on road and pebbles. Once the level is done we'll be focusing more on the craft and gameplay such as interactive traps and using environment props as obstacles to slow your enemies down.

Originally Posted by vjvj

MOST IMPORTANT:

* Are you working with a contract art house?
* If so, who? (We are in need of a reliable 3D art house after the last one bailed on us!)


In all seriousness, your game looks great! Please keep us updated... One of my best friends is really into this type of game, so I'm sure he'll be interested in checking it out as you guys near completion.

Keep up the good work!!!

WORD. I hope it has Wipeout's speed, too

Its great to know that the artwork is acceptable. Thanks For our game we do our own artwork using Blender and GIMP (basically its just 1 artist and 1 programmer and myself being the artist).

Hopefully the completed game would up to your friends expectations We may not be able to pull off all the fancy graphical stuff as larger studios such as Sony Liverpool's Wipeout studio but hope the gameplay would make up for it.

p/s: The speed set on the craft is for video recording purposes to showcase the current track level. Any faster I would be crashing into everything else. But rest assured speed enhancers such as boosters will be in the completed game.

[desmasic]

Wow, have to agree with andrew. Really impressive work.


PS: Free to play?

[JGOware]

Originally Posted by desmasic

Wow, have to agree with andrew. Really impressive work.

PS: Free to play?

Let's hope not. This looks very awesome. You could probably get some funding from a publisher after seeing that movie.

[desmasic]

Originally Posted by JGOware

Let's hope not. This looks very awesome. You could probably get some funding from a publisher after seeing that movie.

I know it's not the same thing (SciFi vs Real Life'ish), but it's racing and it's MP.. AND Indie. It's all fine except for the part about NFS Online coming up soon as a competition.


EDIT: BTW, I wasn't really serious about them making it free (hell, I wouldn't if it was my game).

[Ciardhubh]

The low res video looks very impressive (high res kept showing the "buffering" animation endlessly although the red bar progressed all the way through).

Will there be single player too? Indie multiplayer games often fail to attract enough players. As sad as it is, there are so many fun indie MP games with no players that MP-only might not be enough.

Anyway it's about time for a nice Hi-Octane, Wipeout successor. The name reminds me of Project Aftermath (http://www.gamesfaction.com/project-aftermath), though. PA has been released recently but its gameplay is totally different.

[saintxi]

Looks fantastic, the broken roads and magnetic track section are great. And the vehicle design is excellent too. Best of luck taking it forward!

I have had good luck sourcing music from the artists at www.newgrounds.com it is easy to browse and there is some great stuff there. You shouldn't have trouble getting licenses given your demo - try adding a track to your video and watch the jaws drop even more

[desmasic]

Originally Posted by Ciardhubh

Will there be single player too? Indie multiplayer games often fail to attract enough players. As sad as it is, there are so many fun indie MP games with no players that MP-only might not be enough.

I think they are just aiming for MP. But yeah, I would definitely be interested if it had SP version as well. Still, it looks great, which should attract a lot of racing fans (who are mostly interested in Graphics + Good Gameplay combo, not just one).

[yapdakilla]

Originally Posted by desmasic

PS: Free to play?

Hi desmasic, to answer your question we will only be releasing this first track with few weapons and crafts with special abilities for free. Which we hope the community would help us stress test the gameitself as well as build up a small fan base of gamers who are interested in our game idea.

Originally Posted by Ciardhubh

Will there be single player too? Indie multiplayer games often fail to attract enough players. As sad as it is, there are so many fun indie MP games with no players that MP-only might not be enough.

Anyway it's about time for a nice Hi-Octane, Wipeout successor.

Well if you meant by single player campaign by the player beating all computer opponents. No. The game is built specifically for multiplayer with AI bots to help the gamers practice and learn the tracks well before facing off with better gamers. Think of Battlefield 2142, Quakewars,...you get the picture. Also I'm not sure if our game is worthy enough to be called a wipeout successor though but we'll try our best to make Aftershock a unique experience where players must make full use of destructable environmental props to slow down their opponents and their environment such as planting mines on narrow pathways *hint* *hint*

Originally Posted by saintxi

Looks fantastic, the broken roads and magnetic track section are great. And the vehicle design is excellent too. Best of luck taking it forward!

Thanks saintxi. We wanted a different feel and look from other racing games where its mostly the same track all the way from start to finish. Even though the surroundings change but most of the time the track is usually the same. Roads...roads...roads... or magnetic tracks...and more magnetic tracks. So we thought about making it a little varied which affects the gameplay such as when the player races through dirt track they create a dust trail or water vapour trail which would obscure the players view behind them making it harder to aim.

[yapdakilla]

Hi guys,

Just created a developer's blog here :http://liquidrockgames.blogspot.com/

Feel free to drop by and post some crits and comments. thanks!

[Dyno Kid]

I'm loving that 2nd ship !!!

Can't wait to play.

GL

Darren.

[Aleksi]

Way to go! Your game looks very promising!

I must say, after seeing the video, i wish we'd had a better feeling of speed. Seems like it drags a bit... But, your game really looks good! Looking forward to check out the mac version!

[hippocoder]

The art is the strong point here, looks very nice.

I do not like the "feel" of the craft, it looks like it is nosediving all the time and when it lands after a drop it doesn't have a thruster feel, it has a sort of boyancy effect which isn't the nail scraping white knuckle shower of sparks that would be expected.

I hope the water sections kick up a big firefox style spray behind the player and obscure the view for other players to give a tactical edge and that it kicks up dust over broken parts of the track, electric interference over the magnetic bits etc....

I know its early days yet though.

I would definately be making this game under XNA so that it would be distributed via xbox live + pc if I were you though. Since its high tech, you might as well max your revenue streams by getting it on xbox as soon as possible

Nice work, I really enjoyed the visuals.

[jefferytitan]

Wow, that's fantastic! I am officially gobsmacked. On the down side, I was planning to do a weird experimental little racing game (procedural landscape, not strictly a racing game), and its incredibly demoralising that I'd be comparing it to your game! lol

[aiursrage2k]

Looking good.

[yapdakilla]

Originally Posted by Aleksi

Way to go! Your game looks very promising!

I must say, after seeing the video, i wish we'd had a better feeling of speed. Seems like it drags a bit... But, your game really looks good! Looking forward to check out the mac version!

Hi Aleksi, the craft speed has been reduced to make it easier to record this video which otherwise I would've been bumping around at those tight corners. Hopefully the Mac version will work as well as the PC version.

Originally Posted by hippocoder

The art is the strong point here, looks very nice.

I do not like the "feel" of the craft, it looks like it is nosediving all the time and when it lands after a drop it doesn't have a thruster feel, it has a sort of boyancy effect which isn't the nail scraping white knuckle shower of sparks that would be expected.

Hello hippocoder, one of the biggest issues we are facing for the craft is trying to fake futuristic hovering using real physics, especially handling tight or odd corners as with most hover racing games the tracks are usually very smooth. But this is something we will address in time.

Originally Posted by hippocoder

I hope the water sections kick up a big firefox style spray behind the player and obscure the view for other players to give a tactical edge and that it kicks up dust over broken parts of the track, electric interference over the magnetic bits etc....

Hey you read our minds !The purpose of having different tracks is not only to give a more varied feel and look to the game but also for different gameplay strategies. For example planting mines while your crafting is racing through the dust track making it harder for enemies to target you and spot the mine on time.

Originally Posted by hippocoder

I would definately be making this game under XNA so that it would be distributed via xbox live + pc if I were you though. Since its high tech, you might as well max your revenue streams by getting it on xbox as soon as possible

We're not too sure bout using XNA as it uses C# which may not work too well or slow down our game's performance. It is a good idea to maximize revenue streams though.

Originally Posted by hippocoder

Nice work, I really enjoyed the visuals.

Glad you enjoyed it

Originally Posted by aiursrage2k

Looking good.

Thanks aiursrage2k, I've always been a big fan of Alice and Grimm.

[jefferytitan]

I had a look at your game blog. Getting hovering right is tricky. Perhaps you need to view it from a robotics control perspective. Imagine your "hovercraft" can provide thrust as needed within a certain range (whether it be rockets or some other kind of force). It's computer controlled, so the computer tries to make you not hit the ground or blast off. So how would you design the program to control the thrust if you were building it yourself? I guess you'd designate a "safe zone", e.g. 1-3 metres off the ground, the computer would calculate the current trajectory, and apply enough thrust to keep in the safe zone. It would only hit the ground if the computer couldn't react fast enough, or the engines could not provide enough thrust to damp the fall.

Either that or treat it like some kind of force field where the force is proportional to how far you'd penetrate the ground if no force was applied. That way it applies more force if you're near the ground, and more force if you're falling fast. It applies no force if you're moving upwards (bouncing) and minimal force if you're in a comfortable hover. Perhaps smooth the force over time to give a more bouncy feeling rather than being on a rail.

[yapdakilla]

Thanks for the recommendations jeffery, will pass this on to my programmer to test out.

Appreciated.

[ChrisP]

Might be worth checking out the literature on robotics control; I'm sure a decent book on the subject would have some implementation tips, since collision avoidance is a real problem for autonomous aircraft. Can't recommend any I'm afraid, as I'm not really into the subject.

Anyway, yeah, game looks awesome!

[yapdakilla]

Hi guys just to let you know we've just created our own forums. Please drop by and leave a post guys !

Liquid Rock Games Forums

[Acord]

Hey - as an artist who's had to transition from 3DSmax, I heartily suggest taking a look at wings3d to generate your base models and using blender for texturing and anims. The interface is REALLY similar to 3DS, and it has those tasty features that blender just lacks.

http://www.wings3d.com/

[yapdakilla]

Hey Acord, yeah its really tempting to try Wings3d but i think i'd try to live with Blender and all its limitations at the moment. Used to be really difficult switching from Max to blender but i think i'm slowly getting the hang of it. Thanks for the recommendation though