Finally! An arcade racer that doesn't feature any crashing/weapons!
Distance
- Thread starter Anguish
- Start date
Finally! An arcade racer that doesn't feature any crashing/weapons!
M
Mopower
Guest
This looks pretty awesome for it's genre, but I'm not into these types of games. I hope they get some support so that you can enjoy more of itDominatrix said:
I made the $50 pledge. I like the idea of getting a special car to use to show you were one of the kickstarter backers. ($35 pledge get you this car too)
Some the features in the game won me over:
Multiplayer: LAN, Online, and Split-Screen [NEW] play in several modes, such as Classic Race mode as well as Tag, Capture The Flag, Stunt mode, and many others including cooperative modes. We're targeting to support as many players as is fun for each game mode!
Level editor and modding tools: We're developing a powerful, user-friendly level editor where you can create levels from inside the game and share them with players around the world. We'll also be releasing other tools used to create content in the game in an effort to best support modders.
Exploration: Since the car can jump, rotate, and fly, you're able to explore the city to find hidden paths, as well as find secrets that reveal the city's past. Fans loved this aspect of Nitronic Rush and really want to develop a deeper city with a backstory of its own.
I did take a look a Nitronic Rush, but the graphics are to "bright" for me. Glad they have tone it down for Distance.
($35 pledge get you this car too)
Some the features in the game won me over:
Multiplayer: LAN, Online, and Split-Screen [NEW] play in several modes, such as Classic Race mode as well as Tag, Capture The Flag
, Stunt mode, and many others including cooperative modes. We're targeting to support as many players as is fun for each game mode! Level editor and modding tools: We're developing a powerful, user-friendly level editor where you can create levels from inside the game and share them with players around the world. We'll also be releasing other tools used to create content in the game in an effort to best support modders.
Exploration: Since the car can jump, rotate, and fly, you're able to explore the city to find hidden paths, as well as find secrets that reveal the city's past. Fans loved this aspect of Nitronic Rush and really want to develop a deeper city with a backstory of its own.
I did take a look a Nitronic Rush, but the graphics are to "bright" for me. Glad they have tone it down for Distance.
Here link to new video for Distance:
You got 12 hours left to make a pledge. Distance has reach it goal of $125,000 in pledges. Look like we will see a new racing game next year. Tentative release date of August 2013.
Distance - A Next Generation Arcade Racer
Here a interview with some of the Devs:
Nitronic Rush developers discuss Distance, Kickstarter, and who or what is in that flying car
You got 12 hours left to make a pledge. Distance has reach it goal of $125,000 in pledges. Look like we will see a new racing game next year. Tentative release date of August 2013.
Distance - A Next Generation Arcade Racer
Here a interview with some of the Devs:
Nitronic Rush developers discuss Distance, Kickstarter, and who or what is in that flying car
Distance will be a great race game. I loved Nitronic rush so mush oh god.. Nice music, night ambiance. A skill based game
I just read about this feature that going to be in Distance:
Jason’s been working on some really sweet technology for splitting the car as the result of going through a laser or another obstacle. In Nitronic Rush going through a laser would just blow up the car, but we always dreamed of having the car be sawed in half like we imagine a "real laser" would do. He’s actually built it in a way that allows the car to be split from any angle and still look great. Here's a screenshot of where he's at so far:
Jason’s been working on some really sweet technology for splitting the car as the result of going through a laser or another obstacle. In Nitronic Rush going through a laser would just blow up the car, but we always dreamed of having the car be sawed in half like we imagine a "real laser" would do. He’s actually built it in a way that allows the car to be split from any angle and still look great. Here's a screenshot of where he's at so far:
Here some tidbits from an update from Refract. Be sure to checkout the video, with footage of the track editor they are using. I hope we get to use at least a lite version of this track editor when Distance get release:
Some backers have asked for "documentary-style" videos of what it's like working at Refract, so as a small Valentine's Day gift to all of you we've included a video of us talking about some of our latest levels/features to accompany the update below.
Distance Backer Update (February 2013)
Jason's been working on many of the moment-to-moment interactions that the car can have with the environment, which largely has been in the area of car damage. For example, you can currently split the car up to 4 times with the laser, scrape up against walls and other cars to get red hot burn marks, and damage the car by smashing into pretty much anything.
He's also been improving the camera and developing a procedural explosion system for the car. In the past (i.e. Nitronic Rush days), creating a car took an unbelievable amount of time largely due the fact you had to create the dozens of car chunks needed for the car explosion. Now he's created a system that dynamically grabs all of the separate pieces of the car and blows them up.
*********************************************************
Distance is #2 at Steam Greenlight with over 66,516 yes votes. If you have not voted yet, please visit Greenlight and vote Yes for Distance.
Greenlight - Distance
I hope we get to use at least a lite version of this track editor when Distance get release:Some backers have asked for "documentary-style" videos of what it's like working at Refract, so as a small Valentine's Day gift to all of you we've included a video of us talking about some of our latest levels/features to accompany the update below.
Distance Backer Update (February 2013)
Jason's been working on many of the moment-to-moment interactions that the car can have with the environment, which largely has been in the area of car damage. For example, you can currently split the car up to 4 times with the laser, scrape up against walls and other cars to get red hot burn marks, and damage the car by smashing into pretty much anything.
He's also been improving the camera and developing a procedural explosion system for the car. In the past (i.e. Nitronic Rush days), creating a car took an unbelievable amount of time largely due the fact you had to create the dozens of car chunks needed for the car explosion. Now he's created a system that dynamically grabs all of the separate pieces of the car and blows them up.
*********************************************************
Distance is #2 at Steam Greenlight with over 66,516 yes votes. If you have not voted yet, please visit Greenlight and vote Yes for Distance.
Greenlight - Distance
Distance was given the GREEN light yesterday. You will be able to buy Distance at Steam when game is done.
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=765&browsesort=pending&browsefilter=pending&p=1
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=765&browsesort=pending&browsefilter=pending&p=1
A Dev responded to my "Multiplayer Do's and Don'ts." thread over at the Distance forum today.
Multiplayer Do's and Don'ts.
Multiplayer Do's and Don'ts.
Jordan said:Hey Purple! Thanks for taking the time to organize and share all of your thoughts. It took a while for a few of us on the team to work through it all, but you make some good points that were interesting to read.
As usual I can't guarantee what features will be available through the various stages of development (and release), but we appreciate you sharing what you enjoy/dislike. We definitely have the challenge ahead of us where we're one of the first "indie" racing games to ever come out (at least in the sense that we have a tiny team), so consumer expectations for content and features in Distance are often dictated by the incredible AAA racing games to come before us. In other words, picking our battles is really important for us since we can only fight so many fights before we ship
Definitely need to check out GRID 2 at some point. It's a bummer to hear that they moved so far from GRID 1 in multiplayer
Here new video of online Tag with alpha version of Distance. Bump up quality to 720p and then watch video full screen:
Distance - Playing with the Developers! (Holdwick and Torcht!)
Going be different doing tag in a 3D environment.
Distance - Playing with the Developers! (Holdwick and Torcht!)
Going be different doing tag in a 3D environment.
The Refract Devs have been improving on the code now that Distance is in alpha testing:
How’s Development?
We've been trucking along nicely with development since our last update. Initially after release Jason and I took a step back and looked at the way our codebase handled certain things like game modes, car actions, as well as solo, split-screen, and online play. To be frank we weren't happy with a lot of the code since it was very special-cased on many things and was a bit confusing to understand. This inspired us to refactor and rewrite large portions of our codebase to dramatically improve how the game handles things like adding and keeping track of players, unique car actions, and game mode logic.
Jason implemented a new event system that can easily handle unique actions locally and over the network. It took quite a lot of work and time but we were able to convert over a lot of our codebase to use this new event system, and now we’re happy with where it’s at. Overall these changes should allow for more stable code and faster iteration time going forward.
I also spent a good amount of time looking at our game’s performance since it was clear that Distance has been running slowly for many of our players. The latest build has a good number of performance improvements that were added. This includes static batching, only displaying animations if they’re in view, greater shadow detail scaling, improved particle culling, and performance tweaks to a number of our scripts.
************************************************
Want to race on a glass road?
Here link to recent changelog to get an idea of some of the things in the game:
http://refract.com/post/64760220264/distance-alpha-2078-changelog
How’s Development?
We've been trucking along nicely with development since our last update. Initially after release Jason and I took a step back and looked at the way our codebase handled certain things like game modes, car actions, as well as solo, split-screen, and online play. To be frank we weren't happy with a lot of the code since it was very special-cased on many things and was a bit confusing to understand. This inspired us to refactor and rewrite large portions of our codebase to dramatically improve how the game handles things like adding and keeping track of players, unique car actions, and game mode logic.
Jason implemented a new event system that can easily handle unique actions locally and over the network. It took quite a lot of work and time but we were able to convert over a lot of our codebase to use this new event system, and now we’re happy with where it’s at. Overall these changes should allow for more stable code and faster iteration time going forward.
I also spent a good amount of time looking at our game’s performance since it was clear that Distance has been running slowly for many of our players. The latest build has a good number of performance improvements that were added. This includes static batching, only displaying animations if they’re in view, greater shadow detail scaling, improved particle culling, and performance tweaks to a number of our scripts.
************************************************
Want to race on a glass road?
Here link to recent changelog to get an idea of some of the things in the game:
http://refract.com/post/64760220264/distance-alpha-2078-changelog
Oh, my eyes T___T
Here a new video of some guys playing TAG online with alpha version of Distance on a couple of custom tracks.
DISTANCE ALPHA: Stream and Hosting of custom level updates
DISTANCE ALPHA: Stream and Hosting of custom level updates
It been a year since Refract did the Kickstarter for Distance. Refract did a recap update. Here some things I found interesting:
Steam Workshop
Testing out Steam Workshop after uploading a few levels
One big feature I've been tearing through over the past few weeks is Steam Workshop integration. If you haven't used a game with Steam Workshop before it's essentially a standardized platform for mods (i.e. modifications to the game). In short, you can publish levels from the level editor in any state of progress and other players can "Subscribe" to that content. From then on, each time you run Distance it'll download the latest published version of that level to your machine. For now we're only supporting community levels, but I'm looking into what other mods Unity allows us to enable down the road.
Gameplay Improvements
Now that we're finally at the point where we can focus more on content instead of new assets and system architecture (though those will never go away) the team has been talking quite a bit internally about creating memorable moments in gameplay. Many of the existing levels have functioned well as tools to test level editor functionality, core game logic of the car, multiplayer, etc., but it's only now that we're able to feel somewhat confident on how much or little those variables will change.
Using this we're figuring out what really feels engaging with the car, and we're doing our best to truly experiment with every aspect of the game that excites us. Along these lines we've been trying a new team experiment where each Friday is a day where everyone can work on anything they're excited about and take a break from their normal weekly obligations. So far these Fridays have been extremely productive, and some of the coolest stuff in the game is owed to work started and sometimes completed that day.
New soccer blades to help guide the soccer ball
One great example of a new experiment is work done by Kyle, Eddie, and Laura to improve Soccer mode. A new bulldozer-like blade was added to the car to help guide the soccer ball better across the field, a new soccer level was created inspired from one of Chin's early Kickstarter concept pieces, fireworks and new sound effects were added to better reward scoring teams, and the goal was functionally and visually redesigned to funnel the soccer ball towards the end zones.
Showing some of the new features of Soccer mode
Steam Workshop
Testing out Steam Workshop after uploading a few levels
One big feature I've been tearing through over the past few weeks is Steam Workshop integration. If you haven't used a game with Steam Workshop before it's essentially a standardized platform for mods (i.e. modifications to the game). In short, you can publish levels from the level editor in any state of progress and other players can "Subscribe" to that content. From then on, each time you run Distance it'll download the latest published version of that level to your machine. For now we're only supporting community levels, but I'm looking into what other mods Unity allows us to enable down the road.
Gameplay Improvements
Now that we're finally at the point where we can focus more on content instead of new assets and system architecture (though those will never go away) the team has been talking quite a bit internally about creating memorable moments in gameplay. Many of the existing levels have functioned well as tools to test level editor functionality, core game logic of the car, multiplayer, etc., but it's only now that we're able to feel somewhat confident on how much or little those variables will change.
Using this we're figuring out what really feels engaging with the car, and we're doing our best to truly experiment with every aspect of the game that excites us. Along these lines we've been trying a new team experiment where each Friday is a day where everyone can work on anything they're excited about and take a break from their normal weekly obligations. So far these Fridays have been extremely productive, and some of the coolest stuff in the game is owed to work started and sometimes completed that day.
New soccer blades to help guide the soccer ball
One great example of a new experiment is work done by Kyle, Eddie, and Laura to improve Soccer mode. A new bulldozer-like blade was added to the car to help guide the soccer ball better across the field, a new soccer level was created inspired from one of Chin's early Kickstarter concept pieces, fireworks and new sound effects were added to better reward scoring teams, and the goal was functionally and visually redesigned to funnel the soccer ball towards the end zones.
Showing some of the new features of Soccer mode
The guys at Refract put out an end the year update, might be worth checking out. There some new pics and videos:
Merry Christmas! December Update Recap
"Kyle also recently added a (Nitronic Rush-style) Challenge mode into the game, which is essentially a 1-shot, no checkpoints, sprint-like mode. These tracks are generally really short, but incredibly challenging even if a perfect run is only 15 seconds. We set it up so that once you finish or explode before finishing you can spectate other players (somewhat like Counter-Strike), and if no one makes it to the end, the level auto restarts. Playing on LAN to test with all of us at the office was really fun trying out Kyle's levels made specifically for the new mode, and it's pretty addicting to just keep hitting restart in the effort of getting a better and better time (or just to see if you can edge out your opponents on the next run)."
"Another cool part of this event was getting a chance to check out levels being uploaded to Steam Workshop in an online setting. Fzeroman has been busting it out as usual creating several epic tag, soccer, sprint, and even challenge maps. Haligen (creator of the story levels, old levels, and most of the hardcore tracks in Nitronic Rush) has also been contributing some crazy creations which have been exciting to play as well. Check out the videos below to see a couple of these in action. As I'm sure both of these level creators would say the level editor still needs some serious love before it's ready for prime time, but it's definitely on our list following the holiday season."
Merry Christmas! December Update Recap
"Kyle also recently added a (Nitronic Rush-style) Challenge mode into the game, which is essentially a 1-shot, no checkpoints, sprint-like mode. These tracks are generally really short, but incredibly challenging even if a perfect run is only 15 seconds. We set it up so that once you finish or explode before finishing you can spectate other players (somewhat like Counter-Strike), and if no one makes it to the end, the level auto restarts. Playing on LAN to test with all of us at the office was really fun trying out Kyle's levels made specifically for the new mode, and it's pretty addicting to just keep hitting restart in the effort of getting a better and better time (or just to see if you can edge out your opponents on the next run)."
"Another cool part of this event was getting a chance to check out levels being uploaded to Steam Workshop in an online setting. Fzeroman has been busting it out as usual creating several epic tag, soccer, sprint, and even challenge maps. Haligen (creator of the story levels, old levels, and most of the hardcore tracks in Nitronic Rush) has also been contributing some crazy creations which have been exciting to play as well. Check out the videos below to see a couple of these in action. As I'm sure both of these level creators would say the level editor still needs some serious love before it's ready for prime time, but it's definitely on our list following the holiday season."
New video for Distance:
Distance Alpha Gameplay Experiments
From the Devs:
"This video briefly highlights some of the experiments we've been developing such as the music syncing tech, the stomper drone obstacle, soccer mode, teleporters, and more. To be clear, not everything shown is released in the latest alpha build as we're currently moving many features from the prototype stage to a functional/releasable state. Since we haven't released anything publicly in a long time we've decided to just open the video to everyone. If you like free to share it on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc!"
For those that are looking fora track editor in a racing game, Distance has one:
"Jason's new teleport visual effect in action"
Distance still in alpha, I have to wait until beta version get release later this year before I get to take Distance for a spin.
Distance Alpha Gameplay Experiments
From the Devs:
"This video briefly highlights some of the experiments we've been developing such as the music syncing tech, the stomper drone obstacle, soccer mode, teleporters, and more. To be clear, not everything shown is released in the latest alpha build as we're currently moving many features from the prototype stage to a functional/releasable state. Since we haven't released anything publicly in a long time we've decided to just open the video to everyone. If you like free to share it on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc!"
For those that are looking fora track editor in a racing game, Distance has one:
"Jason's new teleport visual effect in action"
Distance still in alpha, I have to wait until beta version get release later this year before I get to take Distance for a spin.