Update for January 2014: Website, Multiplayer & Races news

Welcome back to another monthly update!

As you can see from the title, I have been spending some of the past month working on a website for IRL. This is the first website I've made from scratch, so it's been a bit of a learning experience.

You can visit the website at: Irlgame.heliohost.org

The website will be kept up to date with news, alongside IndieDB, it will also get screenshots and videos uploaded to it periodically.

Now, onto the main focus of this update, multiplayer.

Looking through the suggestions I've received for IRL, multiplayer was actually the most suggested feature for the game. Although it was something I really wanted in the game, those of you who are programmers will know that network coding can be a huge pain, especially for this type of game. Therefore much of the last month of development was spent on the website, and testing out network code for the game. It's still in the early stages, and I haven't got very far with it, but there are some basics in place.

From the main menu you can choose to host or join a game, hosting a game will start a server on your computer, and put you in the game world, however instead of having a player character, you can use the arrow keys to scroll around the game world, observing other players. Joining a game will ask you for an IP address of a server, after entering one, you will be placed in the game world with a player character.

I'm also trialing car races in the game, I thought there should be more ways to earn money, so I'm considering adding races or time trials to the game, good money, but car maintenance will cost you, so be careful.

So be sure to check out the website, and let me know in the comments below if there's anything you want to ask or suggest. Also follow me on Twitter and Track This Game to be kept up to date with the development.

As soon as the networking gets to a good stage, I'll upload a video of the progress on IndieDB and the website.