- A serious update - 11 June 2022
Hello peeps! I know we said (multiple times) that we'd do regular updates, but, uh, the universe seems to have other plans. Due to us being a Romanian company, and things not being well on the eastern side of Europe, we couldn't focus on progressing the code or art. I hope you understand and are aware of what's going on. For the time being, there won't be any updates but we're still keeping the lights on for the project. It WILL see the full light of day, someday. Hopefully in 2022. If you are willing and able, consider supporting the Ukrainian people. Here's a website guide but there might be better channels depending on where you live: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/donate-relief-to-ukraine/ Thank you.
- Small progress, slow progress - 14 February 2022
Bruh, ECS is hard. Not only because it's a work-in-progress of the developers of the engine we are using, but because it's not a very intuitive way to program. As a small reminder, we have switched to ECS to have BIIIIIG FPS but it takes some getting used to. Fortunately, we've been hinted at that a new version of ECS 0.5 will come sometime in Q1 of 2022, which means sometime between January and March. For the moment, we managed to spawn physical cars (no models yet) and have a shader render the asphalt on top of the terrain, regardless of the terrain shape. We can control how many lanes there are, how wide they are and small details like colors. Progress will be slow, at first, then when we can migrate the old code, we will have leaps and bounds in stuff to show. For now, most of it is code but here's a quick render: https://i.imgur.com/3jtC1EL.png Next update will be a video when we g…
- We're back! - 23 January 2022
The calm before the storm December and some of January have been the first vacation we've had in like 5 years. It was strange to NOT do things, and we probably cheated by doing some work when boredom was at its highest. I promise to keep it a secret if you will ;) The wind is picking up speed Art-wise, we are doing a makeover on all the graphics. The reasons are: There are some assets from week 1, which were made, integrated, and have since become stale. The png files themselves are exported with old versions of Photoshop and our game engine prefers recent renders. There are some assets that we aren't using anymore and need to be tracked down and removed. To be clear, we're not chacking the art style, merely bringing it to 2022 Code-wise, there is much work to be done, and I will write it in a separate paragraph. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." Upgrading the framework to…
- The good, the bad, and the future! - 1 November 2021
Hello friend, it's been a while, hasn't it? We're writing a short update to let you know what has been going on in our lives, the game, and what we plan to do in 2022 and beyond. It will start a tad bleak, but it gets better, we promise. The bad. Things haven't been the best for us, for years now. When we booted up the project, we intended to get funding via Kickstarter, to remain independent, and, you know, fed. That didn't happen. The backup plan was to find a publisher that believes in us, wants to grow and be successful together and reap the rewards together. That didn't happen either, but we were smart enough to do research beforehand and avoid effectively selling the game, the IP, and becoming mere employees to our own dream. More than 4 years of fulltime / overtime working on the game drained us mentally, emotionally, and financially. Effectively alone, we only had each other to…
- Bee-bop; Update time! - 26 September 2020
Hey, Alex here! My wrist hasn't been getting better and I was gently but sternly told by my beloved to take it easy and lay off the keyboard for some time. Our sweet artist has been taking some R&R as well and both our birthdays are coming up so taking a bit of time off for recuperation is welcomed. I will make a post when we resume the high-level development we've been doing these 3 years and I will have some sweet stuff to show you all. Cheers, Alex
- New feature, small update! - 13 September 2020
Hi all! Alex (Dev) here! I've been having wrist pain this week, probably from keyboarding 14 hours a day for 3 and half strait years, mayhaps. I took a break from terrain generation and work on a secondary feature we just hinted here and there. At the moment I don't have anything visual to show, but I can show you a scene from a game called Path of Exile which uses this technique. I will explain how it works under the video. The easiest way to have an explosion crater, a bloodstain, acid splash, puddle of water, etc. is to take a predefined shape and spawn it in a specific place. The advantage is that it is cheap and fast. The problem is that it requires a lot of work to control the shape and have multiple overlapping blobs looks funky since they don't merge, they overlap. Like adding two pieces of paper on top of each other, they don't make a bigger single paper. It's also costly for h…
- 3D Terrain Generator Update - 4 September 2020
It's been a hard couple of weeks, let me tell ya. Working with math is my least favorite thing to do when programming video games, but it has to be done. Below is a gif showing some of the settings that generate the terrain. No need to explain what they are, I am showing how tweaking them influences, resolution, smoothness, etc. https://i.imgur.com/oD6GLQE.gif View Full Size Here's another that shows the controls over leveling. If this curve would be straight from 0,0 to 1,1 then it would be pure terrain generation. Our wonderful artist can shape it to look like a crosssection of a terrain that heavily influences the final shape. The randomness of natural terrain still comes through, but the general flow is dictated by this little curve. https://i.imgur.com/pACGpn5.gif View Full Size Next on the menu, I will have to find (or make) a road generator. We aim to have a wavy road just like i…
- Still working at it! - 28 August 2020
Lean update this week, Alex has been doing coding and it's not complete enough to show anything new but progress has been going well. Definitely showing something yummy next Friday :D Cheers!
- 3D Conversion Update - 21 August 2020
Hey all! We've been working hard on the 3D conversion and while we're not yet ready to let you play with the new toys, we can give you a few peeks behind the developer curtain :D Until now Levels were generated from a single source of information we called "Countryside". This allowed us to have a handmade feel despite the chaotic nature of procedural generation. We can control the day/night progress, which at Night, tints the graphics towards a cool/dark version of the vibrant green you normally see during the Day. The backdrop elements (buildings, bushes, trees, etc.) are chosen from a list and we show 1-3 types at random densities. Obstacles are generated depending on length and difficulty. There are many other small systems like this that all contribute to unique experiences. The Problem The art our amazing Alex Nae does is done in 2D space, including any organic parts like hills, mo…
- Update v0.1.5 is here! - 14 August 2020
UI Added a little more information in the racing results. Replacing various graphic assets with better, cleaner versions. Attempted to make the game run better on 4K monitors. We need screenshots and/or exact resolutions to make it even better, so if you are using 4k resolutions, please post some screenshots on the forums. Gameplay Added achievements! Brag to your friends and enemies of your accomplishments! Reduced trauma rates down from 100% guarantee. Exploding your vehicle has a chance of adding a trauma for each item, driver, vehicle that participated. Recalculated the number of nights in a week. The initial math was designed for 100-day loop but for now, it's only 30. Upcomming We have good progress on the 2d -> 3d stuff: So, we're going for a realistic approach to level generation, mostly with flat planes / small hills so that the camera isn't blocked by mountains, and we can pla…
- Bugfix for v0.1.4 - 7 August 2020
Savefile Bugfix Ok so until now, old save files were incompatible, which the game ignored. But we just JUST encountered old save games that ACTED as being compatible but were bugged out. You could still load them and crash the game or it wouldn't go past the loading screen. Save files now have a version that, if its compatible with a new update but it's old, it will be ignored. If your previous playthrough has disappeared, it's because of this. When we make a new update, we also tweak drop rates, stats generated & a lot of data, so it's always best you start a new run on the latest build. When we exit Early Access and go v1.0, this system will be turned off as the game will be fully stable. Thank you for understanding!
- Update 0.1.4 is here: Traumas! - 7 August 2020
UI Added icons in the Polaroids that show which stats have trauma. Remade the Newspaper to be more readable, including the new free weekly stuff (read below). Changed the Results popup after winning or losing a race with the standard 2-page popup. We are only showing trauma info (if any) and next update there's going to be useful info about the race you finished. Game Mechanics Added Trauma System! If your car explodes during a race, the vehicle, all occupants, and all items equipped will receive a trauma each! Some Happenings can add or REMOVE traumas, now. All rewards or Shop options have a small chance to come with trauma. Babak and their vehicle now come with 5 points of trauma, each. Ouch! To offset the trauma system, you will be receiving one free driver and vehicle each week! Hey folks! Initially, we planned to bring Achievements with this update but due to some bugs, we felt we…
- Update 0.1.3 is now live! - 31 July 2020
AAAAAAAnd v0.1.3 is now live! This time, we focused on UI/UX bugs and quality of life improvements to make things easier. We are also working on a tutorial to help new players figure out things faster! We also tweaked the rarity rates, core math, and stat intervals and will probably continue to do so for the entirety of Early Access. Every time we add a new feature or fix a bug, it might unbalance the game economy and we need to fix it, each time. UI Centered Happening popup description. Made some corrections in the weekly newspaper popup. Happenings used to be called events, but we renamed them to have more flavor. If you spot the word "event", consider it a bug! , Greyed out old update text in the main menu's news box. New guitar music for the city! , You can only have 1 of each skill type. We now show in the folder the ones that are ignored. The highest levels of duplicate skills wil…
- Update 0.1.2 is now Live! - 25 July 2020
Hey peeps! This week we are releasing bugfixes and quality of life improvements, based on your feedback. It's loads of useful, so keep it coming! UI Replaced all Folder buttons with upgraded & polished graphics. Implemented a new tooltip with fantastic graphics ːsteamhappyː Moved the "Dropped in a" info inside the tooltip description. Fixed the Result popup at the end of a race from being skewed in window mode. Gameplay Removed the UNCOMMON rarity for items and adjusted all drop values. We will continue to make item drops to feel rewarding, and not just a +1 upgrade. Removed the Energy cost of the Brake skill. Losing speed in a racing game is payment enough. Tweaked reward values so you get less negative Coin & Fame occurrences. If it does happen, it means that an item, driver, or vehicle is very powerful, so the coin/fame loss compensates for a lucky drop. There are always spelling col…
- Update 0.1.1 is now live! - 17 July 2020
These were difficult days! We had to fix bugs that had a low reproduction rate or only occurred on specific types of hardware. Some players reported having some difficulties with the text, so we tweaked, resized, adjusted, and you should have an easier time visually navigating the screen. Our fantastic artist, Alexandru Nae, made a mysterious intro animation which some computers could not run (and get an error) but we managed to re-encode it so it works with laptops and older machines. We'll keep an eye on this one in the future. To check it out, just start a new game! You can skip it by holding down any key or mouse. List of changes in this update: Enabled our story intro. Make a new game to see it! Increased tooltip text size. Truncated Happening tooltip description. Aligned the tooltips more consistently. In Happening and Engame popups, the driver grid is larger. All items will be vi…
- You encounter a bug as you run the game? We are fixing it ASAP. - 16 July 2020
UPDATE: Issues are now fixed in the current version! Ty for your patience. A few users have encountered bugs right as they opened the game and/or in the cinematic. We are fixing them ASAP. Join our Discord here: https://discord.com/invite/vDXsEA2 and let us know if anything weird is going on with your game. Ty! Alex Nae
- A near-future update list - 15 July 2020
FIRST - There are several hours left until the game will be available for purchase! (Reminder - the PC version is available for now) SECOND - A near-future update list: The BIG Updates: 1. - We will convert the racing levels from 2D to 3D. While retaining the same aesthetic, we will use the 3d physics engine instead of the 2d one. This allows us to have more optimized game mechanics as well as dynamic lighting. It will also lower our workload as we won't need to make both daylight AND nighttime versions of images. 2. - The DAMAGE stat (sword icon) doesn’t do much right now. We had some attack skills prepared but the physics where a bit wonky and overpowered. We have a stat overhaul planned and will tackle this at the same time. 3. - Traits for Drivers, Vehicles, and Items. Also known as prefixes and suffixes, they modify your items, units, vehicles, and racing pins in various ways, cont…
- Approved by Steam - 9 July 2020
Hello, Hi! Steam approved us... ...and we are SO almost READY to push that green button! OH BABY! What else?! Hm! The virus is still around. I made some killer homemade bread with crushed nuts and other seeds... We reached 666 wishlists for TUK, so if this isn't a good omen I don't know what is. Don't forget, 7 days left! Alex (Nick) over and out o7
- Early Access Release Date - 20 June 2020
Hey hey peeps! After much effort, we are close to being ready to release the game on Early Access. It took a long time and many missed deadlines, but finally, we fixed all the bugs and polished it shiny where we felt it was a bit too rough. As you may know, we aim to continue adding content and clean up, while bugfixing and balancing will take priority. We have a team of testers on standby with fresh eyes and if the players (you) submit your thoughts and feelings to us via forums or Discord (or email), we will improve the game even faster! Keep tuned for more announcements as we aproach that golden day. Prepare to drive, defeat, loot, repeat, Alex P.S. New trailer, who this? https://youtu.be/_xKjWUy9ueQ
- Just a little longer, and the wait is over! - 26 April 2020
Greetings citizens of steam! (Alex here, the artist) I know it took a bit more time since we first estimated the early access release date. We are patching it up as fast as we can, worry not! This is not our full-time job, and we are only 2 people, each wearing more than one outfit at a time. Not an excuse, but the sad reality! TUK will come out! We are pushing it for May, but again, we've been wrong a few times before. Pls bear with us and understand that our heart and soul is in this game. Honestly, we appreciate you all, and your support is extra fuel for us in making something good!
