Blog for Christian Siebmanns at GarageGames.com

Wheels 3 Update 1

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-07-10T08:11:06+00:00

Hi,

I released Wheels 3 a few days ago and based on the feedback I made an update which will do the following:

fixed DefaultCar turn errors, now you are able to play every mission with every car
fixed a lot of mission errors
switched installer to NSIS to be able to provide smaller Updates
removed some unused things
changed car values a bit

So download link is
here

As always keep on giving me feedback.

Christian

Next Wheels out now

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-07-08T17:50:39+00:00

Hi,

today I finished the next version of my game series Wheels. It took quite long to get this version out and I even if I said I won't use TGEA anymore, a new version of TGEA was out and I made this game with it. So, what did I do to improve quality?

1. I tried to use results of the Wheels survey as a starting point, to fix everything annoying.
2. I discussed the gameplay with a lot of people(by the way you all rock!)
3. and I let the game test during development by a lot of people(you rock as well!)

So, what's new?

The best vehicle physics I ever put in a game
New networking(which is working a lot better)
game is easier to play now
game is a lot more realistic
You don't need to unlock a mission now, so if you are not to finish one, just play another

Now let's come to the developer part. This release is based on TGEA 1.7.1, which made it a lot easier to develop missions. But I really had a lot of work to do when trying to get nice vehicle physics. Material compiling seems not be working as well as gamepad support and even if it is working what does it bring you if you cannot navigate though menus with it? Wasn't able to get the speedometer control working as well and got a lot of little that had to be dropped because engine isn't working. I think a lot of TGEA users know what I mean... This little part was just for you to know why some of your requested features are not in the game.

Ohh, and the link:
Download now

Like always feel free to give me feedback and tell me what you like dislike.

Thanks,
will end with some pictures of the game:

Wheels 3 Development diary - The problem with the size

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-04-30T14:58:13+00:00

Hi,

This is the first part of the development diary. It'll give you some information on how I try to keep the size of the download package as small as possible and why I am doing this. So, why needs the download to be as small as possible? One reason is that a smaller download size cuts down the download/upload time. Another thing is that I try to make the game Xbox360 compatible and the Xbox360 has a size limit of 150 MB. So for the Xbox360 version the file limit is set to 150 MB. Currently I try to make the Xbox360 version also work on Windows. There is currently no difference between these two and my goal is to keep it like this until release. Currently my whole solution with backups is about 800 MB and the game Content itself is about 490 MB. A nightly build is currently 108 MB big. So, how do I get it that small? The solution is very easy: I compress the Content folder. The Content archive is 106 MB is big. Simple zip compression, but it does the trick. The performance? It takes only a few seconds to decompress the archive and it's only decompressed on startup. That's a nice solution!

-Christian

What I am currently doing

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-04-29T13:11:50+00:00

Hi,

I had nothing but problems when I made the first two Wheels games. So after they were done, I looked around for something better to make the next game with. After the surveys it became clear that there were two main things that needed to be supported: Xbox360 support and gamepad support. I asked a few people what they think and they told me to use XNA. At first it was quite bad. Nothing was like I needed. But with the help of a few people it was working as excepted. So, now I am able to tell you that Wheels 3 is under development. This doesn't mean that it will be released soon. I don't know when it'll be finished, but sure NOT in the near future. To make the time not that long here's an early screenshot.

This is a very early screenshot, so there will be changed during the next months, but this gives you a basic idea about how the game will look. Because it's so early, I cannot tell you much about the game play, but I can tell you a lot about development process. That's all for now, feel free to tell me that it looks nice:)... Other feedback is welcome as well:)

-Christian

ITunes vs. Windows Media Player

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-04-27T08:43:07+00:00

Hi,
I am currently working on the music functions for my next game. It's a bit too early to tell you details about the game itself, but I can tell you something about the game music. All my previous games didn't have background music, something that will change in the next game. The goal is to give the player the possibility to play his favorite music. For this I started looking around. There are some libraries on the internet, which are able to playback a lot of music formats. But there was nothing really fitting my needs. So, I decided to use something most users have already installed. I found two nice players, iTunes and the Windows Media Player. I started with iTunes. It was quite easy to get it play a song and to get information about this song. I thought that would be enough, but as I tried to put it in, nothing worked nicely. I played around a bit, but it seems to be that in this iTunes version most methods just do nothing. So, I started trying the same with the Windows Media Player. It took the whole day to find some useful information, but it works great. It's a lot faster than iTunes and the performance is a lot better, too. So, what are we going to see in the next game, you might ask. I think it's currently too early to say what music functions you will see, but if you have suggestions feel free to post them.

-Christian

About myself

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-04-27T08:41:42+00:00

Hi,
As I said in my last post, in this post I'll tell you something about myself. I am Christian. I am a 15 year old German student. My hobby is to make games. As you can imagine these games are not perfect, so I am gratefully for every tip to make the games better.

-Christian

Wheels2 released for free!

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-03-22T11:56:28+00:00

Hi Again,
I am happy that I can tell you, I released the complete Wheels 2 for free! To answer a few of the most asked question I got a little FAQ here:

How many missions does this version contain?
This game contains 15 missions.

Sounds not that much...
The missions are very big and complicated sometimes, so I think 15 missions are really enough.

Is there a countdown mode like in the last game?
No, there is not. As mentioned above missions are very big and it would be difficult to complete them with a time limit. If you think the missions are too easy, I'll think about an update with the time limit, but currently there is none.

Is this based on the new TGEA 1.7 Beta 1?
No, it is not based on this new TGEA release. Release 1.7 is still in Beta phase and it brings a lot of cool new stuff, but for Wheels 2 I made a lot of source code changes, which I cannot add to TGEA 1.7 on the fly. During the next week I'll try that new release out and maybe there will be an update someday, but at this time Wheels 2 is finished.

Is the "create a simple mission" tutorial still usable in Wheels 2?
Yes it is.

Plans for the future? Will there be a Wheels 3???
Yes, I got plans for the future I'm working on some awesome stuff, I'll tell you a bit about me, what I am doing and what you can expect for the future in my next posts. I am sure there will be a Wheels 3, but not that quickly. At the moment I am just collecting a few ideas and I am thinking about some general questions. I have got no plans for a release date, could be next year or something else.

Okay, here's the link:
Download here

As always feel free to tell me what you think.
-Christian

Wheels2 Update

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-02-22T14:59:54+00:00

In my last post I said I'll release a mission update for Wheels2. It's here and it brings a few improvements as well. So, what's new? I added 9 new missions, with a lot of different environments. The graphics now look a bit better and I made a new loading screen, with a little help screen on it, because there are a lot of features people still don't know. Have fun playing it, and feel free to make comments.
Download now

-Christian

Releasing the complete Wheels for free

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-02-16T11:35:19+00:00

Hi,
After a few days of thinking I decided to release the complete Wheels for free. As I said I was trying to get some money back that I put into development. But now I decided that it would be the best way to release the full game for free and get more feedback. So, I'm happy to announce Wheels has been released for free this morning. The game now contains 60 missions. As little bonus I added the creator mission, which helps you to create new missions yourself. Now download the full version of the game and have fun!

Download Wheels!

Please take the Wheels survey:
survey

By the way: A mission update for Wheels 2 is on the way and will hopefully released soon.

-Christian

Wheels2

Christian Siebmanns — 2008-02-14T17:09:07+00:00

Hi,
I promised to tell you something about Wheels2 now. I thought a lot about what I should tell you, at the end I decided that it would be boring just to tell you a bit and show you a few screenshots... So, here it is: The first preview of Wheels2. It contains only one mission, but all features. So, what's new? I added a "slow motion" function, which slows down time for a few seconds, if you hit an object or do a big jump. I improved the vehicle physics, now vehicles can hit each other. A few improvements to the controls have been made. The new world brings a complete new look to the game:

As you can see on the picture a new control has been added as well: A compass. Some people asked me to add an arrow that guides you to the next box, but this will be never added to Wheels2, because I think it is fun to search for the boxes and to explore the city. That's enough about the new features for now. Just download the game and find out yourself:
Download Game
To get more feedback I made a new little survey:
Survey

As always feel free to tell me what you think.

-Christian