StuntCarOnline - The New Car (day 1) news

Hello there!, first up, Apologies for the lack of interesting updates lately. I've been mad busy in real life and unfortunately for some reason, I've been really busy in this place called Skyrim? Perhaps you've heard of it.

However I'm back here and now and going to post something every day this week to make up for my extended silence. What am I going to post about you may ask?

Well how about a new car?

And here it is! - Isn't she a beauty? What do you mean "is that it?" it's a work of art that, (with semi-sarcastic annotations) - you can see I'm so poor I can't even afford unlined drawing paper!

So the new car then...

Here's a prototype image of the car. Mostly made up from old bits of the original buggy. (The suspension rods are the same, The only new bit is the wheels. (which I got a bit obsessed about) - because this is a 3dsMAX render, it's not really helping you see the detail I've put into the wheels, who knows I might put some sort of post about them tomorrow :D

So I've basically started by cutting and pasting the various elements that the car needs and putting them into the right place. As you can see from the screenshot, the car is going to be a front engined - rear wheeled monster. (or FR if you're a gran turismo kinda person)

What else?

Well, one of the big things that I've had feedback from everything I've done in Stunt Car Online is that people want the same "flame effect" as Geoff Crammonds Stunt Car Racer.- Okay, lets get one thing straight right now.

This is not a remake of Geoff Crammonds Stunt Car Racer - It was never going to be, and will never be. Sure, the name might be similar, and sure, the GAME might be similar. (in so far as it has raised "roller coaster style tracks") - but SCO is supposed to be it's own game. Sure that might disappoint a few of you, but there's some very good valid reasons for this.

1. I want to make money from this one day, not enough to retire or buy an Audi R8, but some beer tokens would be nice.
2. If it was a remake of Stunt Car Racer - I would be infringing copyright, and wouldn't be allowed to sell the game.
3. No assets of anything from this game are from Stunt Car Racer. I've not cut and paste the cars, or anything of the sort. Sure, it's A LOT like that great game, but that's as far as the similarities go. It's the same as the Terreria / Minecraft argument.
4. I won't be INTENTIONALLY trying to copy anything from Stunt Car Racer (like it's iconic red and white side panels to it's tracks, or it's league racing system) - and this is where the murky world of car similarity comes in.

Phew!, Anyway, now I've got that off my chest.

One of the big things I've got in the feedback is that people want to see flames from the engine whilst in the cockpit view. Indeed, that's been a big design decision of mine on the current car. The big problem is when you're boosting in the cockpit view, you don't get to see all the effects going on behind the car.

So lets address this! :D

Here's a *very* rough preview of the Point of View from the cockpit of the new car. Because the player is sat much further back, they can see a lot of the wheels and suspension. (Although in this screenshot you might be sitting a little high)

Also, the engine isn't a top-exiting V10 monster.. (V12? dunno yet!) - but when it is, it's going to have flame vents at the top..
Because the car is rear wheel drive, it's going to be a lot more tail happy than the current car (which is supposed to be the safe newbie car. it might not seem that way in the current online preview, but in the new build, it's a heck of a lot easier to drive!)

this car, isn't going to be easy to drive. And that's intentional. I want the car to feel like a wild stallion that wants to actively ruin your lap times. but if you're skilled enough to drive it, it's going to drive a lot faster. (I'm turning off Traction Control on this car, as well as the active stability management and 4x4 drive) -

So that's about it. Hope you like it, if you've got any comments for anything posted above please feel free to comment below - I'd really love to hear them! :)

I'll leave you with one last screenshot of the new car with it's old parts (I'm going to replace most of these as I go through the week!)

(oh and it needs a name.. Winner gets a free copy of a free game) ;)