Don

In February of 2003, I posted a development snapshot of the day that introduced my now aging flagship game concept to the Garage Games community.

I must admit, the realization that it has been over two years since that fledgling snapshot was posted infuriates me.

It infuriates me because really, with the exception of a few minor advancements here and there, nothing has been done with it to-date. Of course, I have no one other than myself to blame for this - which makes it all the more frustrating.

In my own defense (of myself, to myself), there have been a number of things during this interim period which have *by necessity* taken precedence over game-development. Not the least of which was graduating college with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Information Systems.

Suffice it to say that I'm behind the curve as it were, and not nearly as close to the goal of releasing a game as I'd like to be. Nowhere near it, truth be told.

It is this perceived lacking that has spurred me forward in the endeavor of completing this game - as Phil Carlisle so eloquently stated:

Quote:
Shipping shalt be the whole of the law.

... And I so desperately want to see this game shipped.

For those who either don't remember (2 years is an eternity on the Internet) or had never heard about it, the project in question was tentatively titled "Terminal Velocity".

Yes, it was "spoken-for" although I hadn't been able to locate any specific copyright information with regards to that title prior to posting that image.

Since that time, Terminal Velocity has indeed proved to be off-limits from a legal standpoint, and thusly, the game has been re-dubbed "Afterburn". Consider it a working title for the time being, though based upon some limited research into the legalities of that name, it promises to stick.

To provide you with a (very) brief summary of the concept:

Twisted Metal + Jet Moto = Afterburn

At this point, I'm hoping that I've managed to hold your interest thus far. If not, you're probably wondering what the point is and why you should care that someone you know next to nothing about is rambling endlessly about a 2+ year old game idea that never saw the light of day?

Well if you are wondering this, I apologize for not being more entertaining up to this point - but here's your answer...

Things are different this time around.

Aside from the obvious (like not having full-time classes on top of a full-time job sucking my life away), there's the wisdom gleaned from previous forays into game development.

We (my partner and I) have returned to this project with both a renewed sense of enthusiasm, as well as a clearer understanding of what needs to take place at a fundamental level to take this from a cool idea in our heads to a playable game on your computer screen.

We have scrapped virtually everything we had previously done (just the art and code - not the knowledge mind you) in order to better leverage both our own improved understandings of the engine, as well as to take full advantage of the many great advancements which have come along since then.

The first thing we had to do was simply map out a development plan that would logically take us from a raw prototype to a finished product. The result of this endeavor is a 12 milestone project plan which I affectionately refer to as our "12 steps".

For those who have not yet taken the time to map out a development plan, I encourage you to do so. Promptly.

It's been said a thousand times before, but I'll say it again for good measure: "Failing to plan is planning to fail."

Having a clear roadmap of what needs to be done and how we're going to do it has already proven to be invaluable and immediately led to one of the smartest decisions I've ever made as an aspiring independent developer to date. (Aside from moving the project to Torque.)

While perusing our development timeline, it became immediately apparent to me that, despite the relatively narrow focus of our project, the amount of art assets, coupled with the code and scripts required was simply more than a two man team could hope to accomplish in anything resembling a timely fashion.

It was because of this revelation that we began to search for an art contractor.

After a week of searching (a quick kudos to the Garage Games staff on the new[er] search features), I had a laundry list of artists whose portfolios captured my interests.

*A quick note to any aspiring artists out there: if you're looking to secure contract work, it is without a doubt in your best interest to provide potential employers with an online portfolio - if we can't see your work, we most likely won't call.

At the very, very top of this list was an accomplished artist by the name of Joshua Singh.

Not only was the work in his portfolio absolutely top-notch (there are some renders of an Iron Man model he did that are simply inspiring), but it was also obviously poly-count conscientious.

Of course, it helped that his style is so appealing and, ironically, in keeping with my over-all vision for the games' aesthetic.

I was sold.

I knew that, not only were we going to have to hire help, but I knew that Josh was the right man for the job.

I am happy to say that we have indeed secured a contract with Josh, and he'll be conceptualizing our characters and vehicles as well as translating them into 3D.

As a teaser, here's a recently completed concept for one of our pilots:


Obviously, we couldn't be happier.

Our intention for this project is to adhere to the highest possible production standard we can achieve and, if this is any indication of what's to come, I think we're off to a good start. Don't you?

While Josh is busy working on new art for the game, we have begun the process of re-prototyping using older art assets.

Basically, there were a few areas we weren't really happy with from the get-go last time around, and we've decided that we couldn't really call it a complete prototype without addressing those issues.

Aside from a few quirks regarding the behaviors of the hover vehicle class - issues that should be overcome by simply tweaking the data block to eliminate or minimize the undesirable behaviors - there's the issue of collision.

You see, last time around one of the issues that plagued us throughout the entire process was the fact that the vehicles would frequently bypass ground collision and literally "pop" right through the terrain when moving at extremely high speeds.

My belief was, and still is, that the vehicles were moving so rapidly that they were overextending the time-step routine.

What I mean is, by the time the engine could predict the imminent collision, the vehicle had already stepped beyond that point - resulting in the vehicle traveling right through the terrain into the never ending limbo below without so much as a ding in the fender.

Make sense?

Obviously, we have two primary means of dealing with this issue, one being to increase the rate at which the engine tests for collisions (and no, simply upping the integration rate doesn't cut it. I've tried.) - a solution that would seem to have potentially undesirable ramifications on performance - the other being to quite simply slow the vehicles down.

Believe it or not, we're opting for the latter.

We believe that through creative use of certain screen effects (like motion blur), we can reproduce the illusion of extreme speed while actually keeping the vehicle within the expected parameters of the collision forecast and maintain an acceptable integration rate.

It may sound like a strange decision, given the nature of the game and vehicles in question, but the truth is that they are currently just that fast. We feel we have room to slow them down and still maintain significant speed. That coupled with a few optical illusions (for lack of a better term) should provide us exactly the "feel" we're looking for.

The other primary issue we had previously was with targeting.

In our previous prototype, finding your enemy was no problem. In fact, you could not only find them, but reach them within a few seconds through the liberal use of the jetting function. Shooting them, however, was a different issue entirely.

The control structure of the vehicles accounts for forward, backward and lateral movements, as well as jetting and the like. By combining these available movements, one could avoid the bulk of enemy fire with surprising ease.

This made for extremely long lived death matches and, ultimately, proved to be more of a bane than a boon in the end. Essentially, it was downright frustrating to actually apply any damage to your opposition.

What we've come up with to alleviate this is a sort of "auto-targeting" system that will allow the weapons, and in turn their projectiles, to alter their vectors to match that of the selected target.

For those of you old enough to remember, think "Blue Thunder".

Our feeling is that because we simply change the vector prior to firing the projectile, it should make combat a bit more frantic without necessarily "handing" kills to you "on a silver platter". After all, the target is in motion (if he's smart) and the standard projectiles will still follow a straight path, therefore, making contact would not be guaranteed.

Of course, getting a simplified prototype up and running will tell us much more about how the game-play would evolve. Everything prior to that is merely speculation on my own behalf, but I have faith that this will make the game-play much more solid.

I am now realizing that I've written far more than I originally intended to, so I'll wrap this up for now with a quick summary for the attention deficient:

This project is seeing new life as we resume development with a renewed enthusiasm...

... But don't call it a comeback.