We’re getting closer and closer! The last couple of weeks I’ve been tweaking a bunch of stuff to juice the game up a bit more.
The game now has it’s own music thanks to the talents of Gavin (http://gavinharrisonsounds.com/). We kept it very close to the Mad Max movie stuff, but different enough so we won’t get in trouble! This allowed me to work on the trailer and also a smaller teaser (the one at the top of the page).
I worked on loading+saving games. Which was less work than expected, but had a few more bugs than I hoped for. I do believe it all runs smoothly now, so that you can continue your game at all times. This won’t be a perma-death game, so you’ll be able to load your previous game/checkpoint at all times. There’s a lot to do if you want to 100% the game, and there is a bit less replay value than my normal procedurally generated stuff, so this way I think it balances everything nicely in terms of play-time and enjoyment.
One of the weaknesses in my game is most likely the car collision detection. I’m not a Box2D user, so all the collision in my games is always my own code, but for car chases there’s a lot of new math that needs to be figured out. Interestingly enough, spending a bunch of hours googling for examples on this, it’s hard to find! The first bunch of results are all related to doing car physics with Box2D.. which is a bit worrying for future game developers in my opinion… I’m pretty sure that 10 or 15 years ago you could google for car physics and get a bunch of tutorials on the math behind it. With various degrees of difficulty.
Anyway.. I didn’t manage to get my car physics at the point where I would have loved them, so I decided for an alternate solution: cover up the shaky physics with big explosions and burning car crashes. It at least keeps things fun and not frustrating to the extreme.
I’m also at the wrap-up stages of this game. I’ve been spending too much time on it already, and I’m far from certain on how this game will do (actually very nervous about it!).. so my goal right now is to have a working game in February, and release in March. Which should be do-able as long as I focus on my work and not get distracted too much.
The only things left to be done are:
- add achievements+leaderboards
- add the final couple of missions (2 or 3 missions)
- add a sort of “well done” reward for those that manage to complete it 100%
- do some final work on the mobile controls
- and test, test, test!
Any time left will be for small tweaks and improvements and possibly some small additional stuff (like adding another weapon, or other pickup items which is really simple stuff to add without breaking things).
I’m ready to move on to the next game, so we’re gonna wrap this one up in the next 4-5 weeks.. that’s the plan!
