The Big Easy news

Here's a first look at the new track I've been working on. Yes, it's a big oval, and there's a very good reason for that:

I used to love Sega arcade games which basically always had 3 levels of track, an Easy, Medium and a Hard track design. I plan to follow this design ethos with SCO's initial release and have 3 tracks, the track that is playable currently on the online demo is the "Medium" track - however, for the full release I plan to mix it up a bit and add some split jumps - (if I can make the AI cope with them that is!) -- and this is the easy layout...

Another important thing to note about these tracks is the higher quality of detail I'm aiming for on these tracks in the initial release (something that takes me a long time, a none-artist remember!) Here you can see skid marks before the jump, as well as track damage detail and a "jump strip" at the edge of the jump.

I'm adding these details to the entire track, (as you can see in the previous video if you look really closely) - I want the feeling that these tracks have been used for many many great races. I plan (probably not for initial release) to increase the amount of track side detail, with "corner warning" signs ahead of the turns, and other stuff, maybe graffiti like on the real Nurburgring track.

I'm also deliberating on the buildings, and at this point would love some feedback - what's everyone's thoughts on the buildings? should I get rid of them so that the tracks are in a no-man's land desert? or should I work them up and make it more of a "sky city racer"?

This set of split jumps is easier than it looks! As it's the easy track I've made it almost impossible to overshoot these jumps - for the hard track I expect the gaps to be smaller, so overshooting (and over speed) is a real problem and the player needs to maintain target speeds off the jumps. Much like the medium tracks "big jump" anything more than 180 and it's off the corner for you...

The new car is definitely easier to drive and maybe even verging on the predictable. (I certainly find it a LOT easier to drive) - however, getting brilliant hundredth second times really is about the boost button and cornering smoothness - Even on this relatively simple oval track I'm finding millisecond after millisecond to trim off the best lap time.

Other stuff:
I've completely re-written the login system, (hence why I had to take it off line for the online demo) - and now the game will record every lap time you ever do, I'm hoping that we'll have a members area sometime where you can see a graph of your laptimes and [hopefully] your improving performance.

The lap time system also understands the different tracks now (So loads your best time for the correct track) you wouldn't believe how tricky that was to do in an extensible way (did I mention I'm not much of a programmer either?) - Just have to figure out a caching system for the in-game top ten list and we're good to go!

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that the players car in my previous video was a funky new set of colours, this is testing out the "custom skin" system, whether this will make it into the V1.00 release is doubtful as there's a lot of backend systems that would need writing, but basically the game downloads whatever texture you specify and puts it on the car - Oh, and the game also allows you to toggle this - I plan on giving out a little car-viewing app that helps people with more talent than me map their textures to the car... Similar to what Live For Speed does.

And I've put in the capability of having different cars now too, so when I eventually get round to making another car it'll be selectable from the front end.. (which won't be in V1.00)

And finally - I've rewritten the supporters system completely, the game will now check if you've "supported" SCO and allocate you supporter status if you have, I hate doing this really as it's almost Digitial Rights Management (DRM) but I really want to make sure that the people that donate get something for helping me stay motivated. (and help pay for the tools and development/hosting costs)

I expect for the initial release the supporters bonus will be the Hard track - and then when I add more tracks, the levels will roll into the "none supporter" mode... I'm always keen to hear what people think on this, and I understand not everyone has spare cash in times of recession (which is why eventually the content will make it into the "completely free" version)

Remember, unlike most games, any cash donation will make you a gold supporter, pay what you feel the game deserves.