My Indie game Karmageddon Khaos Thread

Hi guys I've been making a retro tribute to the might Carmageddon from the 90's since August and just thought i'd share it with you guys.

It's not gunna be finished anytime soon as didn't realise what a massive task I was undertaking.

So basic idea of the game is its a driving game were you either run over all peds to complete each level, destroy opponents or get through all the checkpoints before time runs out.

So far I have got 4 different car types, Sports, Muscle, Heavy and Compact and they all handle differently.

The game runs on a handling engine I have been working on for over two years called the Retrolistic engine (love that name lol)

Anyway heres some screenshots.

Comments welcome

Oh yeah i've got a Facebook page if anyone wants to follow this more closely

If you search Karmageddon Khaos it's there

Update

Next update should be out before the end of the week, i've added a loading screen now so it's not annoying waiting for the next frame to load.Damage is now on 3 cars although 2 have detachable parts and the damage is graded.

For example; in the Caddy (Muscle car) if you hit a wall/building you damage the front spikes, hit it again and the spikes fly off and possibly your bonnet may get damaged, sometimes it doesn't though to keep it abit more interesting. After the bonnet is damage if you hit it again your bonnet flys off, same with the boot as well.

I'm really excited by the latest changes and hope you like how the game is coming along. Remember if you have any ideas, requests or want to be on the dev team please comment on here and let me know.

Heres a pic of the damage model of the Caddy

I was doing the damage for the pick up tonight I made even more stages of damage and I'm really happy with the results.

That's 9 levels of damage and obviously you can have various bits damage and others not depending what you have hit.Here's a new pic from my few hours on it tonight.

Update

Well here it is, it's been a long long time but its finally here the next demo of KK.

New things worth noting is the collisions are far better, some other bugs fixed also.
3 vehicles to try out each in a different class so you can see how that makes them handle different. Some of the textures are different too and take a look at the random quotes on the new loading screen, quotes were made by me and my team

Anyway hope you like it remember arrows to move, space is handbrake

Dl.dropbox.com

Update

The basics for the Pathfinding Engine have now been completed by my Lead Coder.

The idea is that all CPU cars will head to the next checkpoint while avoiding things like walls etc, when a CPU vehicle sees player it will then pursue, if player goes out of range CPU will revert back ot Pathfinding Engine and look for next checkpoint.

Heres a pic, yellow is the CPU's path from start to finish.

little update

new car added (Vectraaah)
cars bounce off objects less now
fixed some graphical bugs when sliding
added collisions for all peds now, no more walking through buildings
added a meter which means the more people you runover in a row the more blood tyre marks you get

Ok so last night was a late one, was up till nearly 4am making some drastic changes.

My handling engine runs with a base extension called Arco2 which does the basic rotations, collisions and speed. Last night my lead coder held my hand through the tough process of coding the basic handling engine myself.

So far I have the rotations, speed, acceleration and braking working and the good news is that this means there is room for a lot more features like scraping against walls instead of sticking to them as it is currently.
The big thing is though is that the Retrolistic Engine will then be 100% original instead of using Arco2 as a base model.

Man this game looks awesome! Downloading the demo now! Its nice to see some love for Carmageddon style games they were awesome back in the day. Have you got a page up/ will be putting one up on Indie DB for it?

[Edit] Just played the game, Found a little bug I got stuck at this point!

I think this has real potential, if power ups are added like bouncy bouncy etc! I could see it being a real fun game! Well done on the progress so far keep up the good work!

Edited by: AlloydGD

Yeah that does tend to happen right now but i'm in the middle of recoding the basic movements and collisions to include scraping walls at moments like this. My latest progress is underneath this response.

It's always great to have feedback especially such positive stuff like yours.

How did you like the rest of the game before you got stuck on a building? I've got some great ideas for it such as hitting objects into peds, crushing them against walls, lots of original power ups including some of the good old original Carma ones. The car count will be massive as well, looking at around 15 at the moment but may be more muscle cars added and some bonus ones too each with there own characteristics.

Once the new handling and collision is in place i'm also working on a combo bar which will be a risk vs reward kind of idea based around repairing your vehicle...not 100% on it yet.

Anyway latest update below.

Very nice! The handling wasn't too bad took a little getting used to but certainly better than some bigger games I have played (Flatout3, Renegade Ops) come to mind. I loved the damage system, its very true to the original carmageddon! I think what your doing is great I really miss the Carma series so its nice that people are taking the time to emulate and code games similar to that! Also got the blood splatter/skeleton/gore level spot on!

I enjoyed the experience overall but like you say you need to add the powerups etc in, in the current form it felt a bit aimless and in need of clearer goals and subgoals e.g destroy so many peds in X time or get through checkpoints in a timeframe. You could even look into doing what a game like GW2 does so have mini goals like Killed 100/1000/10000/5483072 peds like!

I like the sound of movable objects crushing the peds too! its something that I always found annoying in the original Carmageddon that there were like barriers which you crashed into but they were an immovable object so they instantly killed your momentum! I liked the car art, think its very impressive! The game experience was an enjoyable one, I don't know if its a bad admittance to enjoy running people over a lot for no reason!

I think that KK does deserve positive feedback, it reminded me much of playing the GBA Carmageddon that came out so to some extent already simulating the experience of the original in an improved form. The top down perspective is certainly interesting. The combo bar idea sounds like a good one, maybe like have a damage multiplier or something so the more damaged you are and the more kills you can string together the higher points you get.

Will download again and test out your sliding system! Seems like you have a solid architecture behind the game, which like you say is always helpful when modifying and changing properties! I think your doing an awesome job on KK so far! Am following this with great interest!

Wow to be compared to bigger titles is really good but to hear that my indie game handling is better then them is amazing to hear. It made me well happy to hear that it feels like a Carma game.

I've had a few people saying its not gory enough I didn't want it to be sick which I know sounds weird for me to say when I'm making a Carmageddon tribute lol, I just wanted funny violence. In regards to the goals there will be the same ways to win as Carmageddon.

Looking forward to you trying the new engine

looks like the cars were ripped from gta1-2 modding sites

Stimor I can assure you all the cars are original and drawn by my artist, the reason you might think this is because she used to make cars for GTA2 back in the day so shes very good at replicating that style.

Infact currently she is doing a 1970's mod for GTA2 with all new missions and vehicles.

Ok the time has come to try my new handling engine all code no fancy extensions or anything.

Features

- Engine braking
- Handbrake turns
- Braking makes car unstable
- If above medium speed letting off power makes car unstable for a short time
- 38 different angles of slide per side
- Reverse sliding
- Suspension meters that have to fill before sliding can happen

Obviously it still needs work but me and my coder are working on making this better all of the time.

Dl.dropbox.com ... 20v2.8.exe

Arrows to drive and Spacebar to handbrake

Edited by: rosse119

well if you say so, i guess i will trust you. the dropbox link does not work though

Yeah just fyi, if you're trying to hide the fact that you're using MMF2 try to at least make sure you're not using the default icon .

Its looking good, with the collisions I'm guessing you're not using fast loops to detect them, you might want to look into those because your current versions occasionally screw up and let you drive through objects- which I'm assuming is because you're using the default 32 directional vehicle movement that is stock with MMF2. Its extremely buggy when it comes to collision and the only work around I've found is through the use of fast loops.

The pathfinder confuses me a bit.. for a GTA like game it seems very overkill, since GTA itself didn't use pathfinding at all (as I understood they just used a series of paths that the cars followed and collision masks to stop them getting stuck in things). Pathfinding is really only useful in MMF2 if you're using a grid based movement solution- though I've seen people try to do it without a grid with mixed results. If you can just try to keep it as simple as possible that way overall it'll be a lot quicker on you- the biggest thing that kills MMF2 projects is fatigue caused by the fact that development has slown to a crawl once that occurs you'll likely find something new and exciting to go work on, and forget about your current project... rinse and repeat over and over lol. I know this from experience. So yeah try not to get too stuck on complex things.

Haha thank you for trusting me lol, I designed several of the cars hence I know :p.

Hi thanks for your comment mate if I'm honest I'm not looking to hide that it's an MMF2 game, the collisions was a bit funny yeah hence me and my coder are doing a full coded engine rather then using an extension for the 360 degree movement, I don't use any of the default movements apart from for the peds.

The reason for the pathfinder engine being developed is because its a Carmageddon tribute meaning your opponents have to follow checkpoints and try to destroy the player so the only way to go was this way. I think there might be some confusion in what the game is all about.

It's a driving game were you run over pedestrians to earn time, destroy all your opponents (a bit like Twisted Metal but no guns) the other options are to make it to the end of the race or to run over every pedestrian on the level, the game features mental mad max style cars and crazy power ups.

That's the feel I'm trying to recreate.

Here's the new vehicle engine 360 degrees using just code no extensions or built in movements, still got more work to do on it though.

Dl.dropbox.com

Just tested the new and improved engine! Can see a considerable improvement to the handling, was able to pull off a full power slide in the demo world (always a plus!) and the reversing/breaking mechanisms felt more responsive than the previous version. Its definitely heading in the right direction now!

Cant wait to see it with the powerups in!

awwww cheers dude, I'm so much happier now I know we can do pretty much anything because its hard coded instead of using an extension.

Oh some more good news too, you will be able to read my interview in Indie Magazine by Indie Function regarding KK as well as a preview of how they feel its coming on.

It will be in the January issue available in the 3rd week of January.

Heres a link to the mag, it's really good.

Indiefunction.com

well as your loving it so much i'll show you some secret work in progress footage of the next feature

Edited by: rosse119

Someone wrote: The reason for the pathfinder engine being developed is because its a Carmageddon tribute meaning your opponents have to follow checkpoints and try to destroy the player so the only way to go was this way. I think there might be some confusion in what the game is all about.

well its just with racing games they don't tend to put any pathfinding into the AI, they make them follow waypoints. A* would be overkill but anyone here's welcome to prove me wrong.

360 degree movement extension was a good choice- tends to be smoother than the default. But you'll still need to work of those collisions- again only method I've found to fix it is with fast loops. I made the comparison to GTA because its an overhead car game, Carmegedon is more a 3d Racer- you still kill people for points in GTA (killingspree mode).

and yeah it looks great btw, those new burnouts look good. Was kinda shocked when I noticed you had damage in the game lol very cool feature.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

Yeah I think it's because they have to have so many things they can do that having them just follow checkpoints wouldn't cut it on this type of destruction derby style game, I don't have the know how so glad my coder does :p

I'd just like to point out I am not using any 360 movement extensions to create the engine it is 100% hard code using "sin" and variables to create the rotations.
I'm not great with collisions but my coder said he can sort out collisions and take me through how to do it myself.

We have found an example of how to add scraping of objects so that's also going to be implemented, the prob with collisions before was I was using the collisions in Advanced Race Car Movement 2.

Yeah my coder sent me that footage last night and I was like WOW! Yeah you know the damage was really easy for me to make, basically my artist made the parts of the car and how car model would look with out the car parts on. ( she insisted she made the damaged parts).

Anyway I just cloned the base car model then added the part and removed the other bits and then it meant the parts would stay with the car. Really chuffed with how it turned out.

Thanks for the link to Indiefunction.com I will check it out, got it bookmarked for later! Also followed on Twitter, its good to be able to find new games and projects that way! Will be sure to keep my eyes peeled for the KK article!

Just checked out the vid as well! Very nice! The features your adding are keeping it more and more realistic to the Carmageddon games! Could use burnouts effectively to replicate some of the stupid acceleration on cars like the drag racer (Vlad the impaler) type cars! Is there going to be capability to mod the game or contribute our own car models as there are probably some from Carmageddon TDU 2000 and stuff that would be desirable to put in. Also with the tyre marks as well are you going to replicate the bloody tyre marks once you run peds over then fade back to the normal rubber/black?

I meant to say also if you want any sound snippets doing or anything I'd love to be of assistance if you need any even temporary sounds as I have a bit of sound recording/Foley experience behind me and I am always looking to expand my knowledge and portfolio.

One feature ive wondered about it self righting, is there the potential to flip a vehicle over at all in the game and end up needing to self right on your roof or does this engine limit you to X, Y axis? Keep up the good work man cant wait to get to the final game stage/multiplayer/lan lobbies possibly!

It's a really great little magazine, I'm going to start reading the back issues. Thanks what I like about the burnout is it will be a slightly different take on the Carma burnout, you will be able to go in circles but with ours you are able to do a turbo boost too.

People won't be able to add cars into the games them selves but if KK gets a good fan base then ill be happy to add the most requested cars and make new updates from time to time, then all you do is move your save file to the new game.

Added blood tyre marks to the game yeah, but not been added to the engine yet.

I am more then happy to have you as the sounds man, pm me your MSN messenger address or Skype and we will have a chat. I need help on a perfect seemless loop for the engine sounds.

Rolling the car would be cool but as you say it is indeed limited to x and y. Not thinking of multiplayer right now.

Sent you a PM man! Thats cool, got to take baby steps with the project, its coming on really nicely! Haha just seeing what you have makes me see the potential for all sorts with it!

I've added you to Skype mate, welcome to the team mate.

Ok new demo with collisions and burnout/wheelspin mechanic with screen shake.
You can now do donuts on the spot too

Db.tt

Thanks man!

Just tested the new engine, again an improvement to the handling its shaping up really nicely now for the driving, One thing I did notice, but not sure why its doing it, occasionally when I'm completely holding one directional key down and I then press the other one down the car will immediately snap to the opposite direction I press even though the car is rolling and you would expect a gentle turn, this doesn't happen every time just odd times and most times the car does follow a nice curve whilst turning the opposite direction.

The new collision seems vastly improved as well on the whole as far as 2D collisions with a 360 rotation goes! Wasn't so sure on the yellow effect on collisions though, is this just a placeholder for damage? Wasn't quite sure apart from notifying me of a collision what information it was feeding back.

Nice progress though, the engine in this state feels very "Racey" for lack of a better description. With other AI in there too it will feel pretty much how you would expect a Carmageddon style game to handle with some variance on the speed and turning circles of all vehicles! Really nice job!

will also be on Skype later to talk about sounds etc!

what a awesome thread and read, this is what indie development is about.!! good work!

Great news that you feel it just keeps getting better and I look forward to our first dev chat regarding the sounds in the game, not sure on that big you mentioned but ill look into it.
Haha fab another fan I'm so glad I carried on with this project now it's really getting a following.

If you want to please Like my Facebook page at:

www.facebook.com/Karmageddonchaos

Ok a few bits to update you on. I have now fixed an issue were after hitting an object while sliding the car would self right while stationery.
Another improvement to note is that the rotation now alters depending on what speed you are doing.

Update

The Retrolistic engine is finally polished enough to add to KK! Added a new feature to the handling, replaced mesh backdrop with sandbox level again and added all the objects to collide with and the collisions are great this time round no more sticking to objects and going through other ones.

Here is a pic of the latest feature.

Follow KK on Twitter for daily exclusive updates

@kkindiegame

Update

The team have been working extra hard to give you some news before the big bearded one comes down your chimney :p

Here's the latest.

We have peds! Not just one type or two we have 9 different types of ped to splat now, if that wasn't enough the way they splat is far better then the original KK, peds now have different dead poses, so sometimes they are on their fronts, sometimes their backs and sometimes even chopped in half.

My fave bit is that blood flys off when you hit peds which splats either when it hits the ground or hits a building.

Is that all your christmas presents from the team at KK? No! My sound man is in the middle of making all the cars in KK sound big and growly, the splat sound has now been added which I can report makes run over peds even more satisfying

There will be a different splat sound for each ped type which should add some variety.

Right to finish all this off have some pics.

And here's another

And one last one

The AI engine is once again underway now we have the new handling engine more or less sorted, i managed to knuckle down and get some work done on it last night.The car collection is building once again, so far there is now 2 cars in the game, one of them is my take on the Mighty Eagle with the roof mounted exhausts. More cars coming really soon, you will only see so many of them though as want to keep most of the mottahs as a surprise.

Well i was up till nearly 3am last night but man i got a lot of work done so its worth it! I've fixed some bugs, altered frame rate so it runs a little smoother, it now runs at a steady 45 FPS.

I've sorted a system so i can easily keep adding cars, all cars have different stats and won't be just different skins. The main stats for each car are speed, handling, acceleration and braking. In reality though i have many ways of making the cars different, i have turning grip, front end lightness, reverse turning, forward turning, drift settings, brake settings, top speed settings, acceleration settings and what speed the car becomes unstable at as well so a heck of a lot of perimeters.

KK has now got 9 vehicles split into 4 categories.

Just a quick update to let everyone know i've not given up on the project.

Sumo is hard at work on the AI Pathfinding engine and we are all currently designing the next enviroment which is a dark futuristic city.

Update

I thought id give you an update of the goings on regarding Karmageddon Khaos as it's moving along at a great pace, should be finished this year (i hope) and if all goes well should be converted to Ouya sometime in 2014.

Right then on with the update
Firstly i had an interview with Indie Function Magazine which you can read below

Bulletin.indiefunction.com

After that i had a pretty big break, things got complex between me and some of the team,
After the long break i got straight involved in adding power ups to the game as the AI development was put on hold and actually still is till Summer.

Started with adding

Glove of Doom

Then got all the damage working for all the cars in the game (all 19 of them)
fixed collisions further, then it was time to add.

Blow me

Then it was time for the Twatcat to enter into KK, a very tongue in cheek version of another cat that went Viral on the web

Twatcat

What could be more mighty then a double ended axe spinning on your roof?

Mighty Chopper

this is getting to be pretty long now hmmm, ok so next there was work on the car select screen, adding more cars, adding achievements which save when you get them, menus, new risk vs reward gambling mechanic added, loads of bug fixes, peds don't stick inside walls and you now know how many peds are left to splat.

Combos and streak bonus are now in too, new HUD, collisions for cars improved again, funky blood mist effect was added as you can see below.

Erm what else oh yeh started work on the next power up called BBQ Bonus.

And finally i can now announce the two bands which will be making the music for KK, they are;

Bassquake8

Soundcloud.com

Terminal Fear

Soundcloud.com

Well that's it so far, any questions just ask

Bump

Edited by: rosse119