Back from oblivion

True to ourselves, here we are showing up after 4 months of blackout.

Things went slow during summer, but we are getting back to work. We are currently making a lot of small incremental changes to every aspect of the prototype: Camera, track visibility, controls and ship behaviour. Every aspect is reconsidered to add some layers of polish.

This means the current build is a real mess, but when all the tweaks comes together, we hope to have a more polished prototype gameplay wise.

Summer break was also an opportunity to look into the visual part of the prototype. As we’ve stated in the past, we are mainly focused on gameplay right now and for a reason; None of us (two people) is an artist.

Just as an indication of the current direction we are taking vehicle design wise, here is some shape research we’ve performed back in August. Keep in mind this is just some shape research.

You can of course express your thoughts and maybe give some guidance as well regarding this direction. You can do so in the comments or in our TIGSource thread.

Hopefully, in our next update (let’s face it, in a few months) we shall have something clean to show you.

Still looping around

5 long months since our last update, but we are still on track!

We’ve been hard at work improving the ship handling and simplifying the control inputs. We’ve achieved some encouraging results, but there is always room for improvement.

Since we’re satisfied of the current state of the handling, we’ve shifted focus to the track design.

We are still toying around with the different possibilities, figuring out the workflow and the tools we might need. One thing is sure though, we’ve decided to include flat sections in our tracks.

The main focus of the game is still the tubular gameplay, but for various reasons (diversity, rhythm, visibility …etc), introducing non tubular sections is somewhat necessary.

So with that said, we go back to our tests.

Camera Test

Here is some random footage showing our camera solver at work.

Still a lot of work to be done, but we feel this is a step in the right direction.

If you feel dizzy watching this, it means we better get back to work!

[Warning: the Gif is a bit heavy, 50Mb]

Exposure

We are still prototyping and thus not completely ready for media exposure.

We are currently taking a “bottle in the sea” approach in our communication through this blog, and  gauging potential reactions to it.

If you made it until here, you can follow us on twitter to express your interest and hear from us in the future.

Your comments and thoughts are also much welcomed!

The Progress

After 1 year+ into active development, we are still in the prototyping phase.

We are focusing on the handling, hovering feeling and the 360° camera solver. Those are, we believe, the core differienciating elements of the game.

The Pitch

Tubular 360° Anti-Gravity driving.

Welcome to Project HoverDrive!

WIP Prototype Gameplay.