ThunderWheels [Demo 0.6] + track editor 2009.09.06

[luis]

Hello Ogre users!
Finally after a year spending our spare time in this project we have a playable demo to show !

Edit 2009.09.06: new demo 0.6 ! -> download
Changes 0.5 -> 0.6:
- bugfix: crash with non-ANSI characters in non english Windows
- Auto updater, this version checks for new available versions and download. TW game now installs in ThunderWheels folder
- Settings GUI, now you can configure graphics, gravity and speed simulation
- New GUI skin
- small adjustments in AI engines sounds

New features:
GBEditor:
- It is now 100% functional!
- Mask support with alpha blending, it is baked in final texture and is affected by lightmapping
- Top-down camera preview. You can set top-down camera configuration for each track!
- Support for bigger tracks (up to 16 times bigger than previous version)
- New objects (bushes, old cars etc)
- Thumbnail generation in tracks
- Snap option for coordinates/angles to precisely place objects
- Arrow showing checkpoint orientations
Game:
- New wheels friction model (finally we're happy with the simulation result). Much more fun!
- Graphic performance improvement using LiSP shadows by default (x2.7 FPS faster in our tests)
- New car: Buggy
- Brand new GUI, now you can create new players, change your current car and it's skin
- Track preview in track selection
- New track (user created content, thanks to Giopanda!) added: Fandango
- Improved track named "Editor" created 100% with the current editor
- Cars are shown before race starts
- Season/race results GUI can be skipped by pressing space bar or enter key
- Networking 40% done (wait for the next version!)
+ lot of fixes and improvements based in our users feedback

Here are some new screenshots:





Older images:









The keys are (press the "help" button in the main menu for more info):
Arrow UP: accelerate
Arrow DOWN: break + rear driving
Arrow LEFT: left
Arrow RIGHT: right
S: reset car's position
F1: 1st person camera
F2: 3rd person camera
F3: top-down camera
F4: bird-eye camera moves with AWSD + mouse right click


And our teaser (everything is in-game), please turn on the sound!
YouTube: ThunderWheels teaser #0
As you can see in the screenshots this game is a racing game with top-down perspective (plus third and first person view) we wanted to re-create the feeling of those games made in the 80' but with more realistic physics and better graphics

Besides Ogre we used NxOgre (thanks Betajaen!), OpenAL (with a custom wrapper), CEGUI, pthreads and dotproject.
We're planning to sell this game in a near future but after a series of free demos and when the game is mature enough.
Our next milestone is networking and a track/circuit editor and of course polish and fix tons of bugs and adding features specially in the GUI and the graphics side.

This is our website: GBoot team web site
And the download link: ThunderWheels demo

We really want to hear your opinions and get some feedback, we also have our own forums and a tutorial explaning how to create tracks and edit heightmaps.

Thanks!


Perhaps someone remember "LightningWheels" we made a post some time ago here but I wanted to own the first post to edit and put some inline images, and since we renamed the project... we hope nobody takes this post as a double-posting

[spookyboo]

Looks fun. Great work.
A small comment: Create some dust so it looks like the cars actually interact with the ground.

[KungFooMasta]

Those tracks look identical to "Super Off Road", but its been a while, so I could be off.

I loved that game, and this reminds me of it a lot. Good work!

Are you going to have the ability to buy better tires, nitro, engine parts, etc.?

[Edman]

This is great
It reminds me of the good old IRONMAN... Excellent job

[betajaen]

It reminds me of the good old IRONMAN... Excellent job

If I remember correctly. Luis told me one day that was the game Thunderwheels was inspired from. Looks like Luis and his team honoured that game well.

[KungFooMasta]

I looked up Ironman and it looks like the same game I'm talking about. I must be confused.. but I remember playing that offroad game on a console, I think the NES. Anyhow that game rocks.

[betajaen]

I never got to play Ironman. But I remember playing Skidmarks on the Amiga, which seems to be quite similar (except Skidmarks scrolled across the track, rather than at fixed point). I remember playing the demo to death from a copy from Amiga Format, I even redrew the bitmap level in Deluxe Paint to add extra people or make the track a grassy colour.

When I actually bought the game, one feature stood out. When the game was being loaded from disk, it allowed you to play Pong whilst you waited. With the gigabytes of game resources you have to install these days, it's a shame you have to stare at a bar moving very slowly across.

[jjp]

My critique is solely based on the look: on your screenshots the colours look very brownish and partly oversaturated. This might be exactly what you want but I think more balanced colours would look more appealing. To show what I mean I took the liberty of taking one of your screenshots to Photoshop and played around with the colours a bit.

[KungFooMasta]

Wow, that looks nice!

@Betajaen:

Loading times are definately a downer. The DragonBallZ game on the wii has a minigame you can play when you're waiting for the battle to load, I thought it was cool to have also. But then I also wondered if that mini game detracted from the time to load the level. Either way, it's definately more fun to do something rather than stare at a loading bar.

[Jerky]

Wooo! Mickey Thompson's Off Road ftw! Looks great. That was one of my all-time favorite arcade games ever.

[luis]

@spookyboo:
We have trail dust in the demo but the teaser was made with an 'old' version without dust

Seems that a lot of people remember the Ironman offroad racer!! it definitely inspired us, hence the colors on the sides in the second track.....

Are you going to have the ability to buy better tires, nitro, engine parts, etc.?

I'm not sure about the nitros but probably we'll let the user edit some of the parameters in the cars. Right now you can do it just editing those .cfg in the 'cars' directory

@jjp:
Nice screenshot!!!
you could edit the file:
Thunder Wheels Demo\media\tracks\la_falda_terrain.jpg and apply those changes i'd love to see the results in the game....


Thanks for all your comments please if anyone has some time, play it!

[Aladrin]

I used to love those games, too... But with such an awesome looking car, it's a shame it's SO small on-screen.

Great job!

[sinbad]

Looking good, very stylish teaser. I'm downloading...

[Chris Jones]

i downloaded it and worked out how to acclerate/brake, just not turn... what keys to turn?

also, how to you exit a race and quit the game? when it exits with escape it takes me to a new race

[luis]

I used to love those games, too... But with such an awesome looking car, it's a shame it's SO small on-screen.

no! you can drive using first or third person camera also

[CABAListic]

Very nice, I spent hours with an old DOS game of this style (can't remember the name, though)
However, the controls feel a bit awkward. For one thing, you should really map them to standard cursor keys, but I've also found it very difficult to steer my car. Maybe I just need to practice, but I say you should tweak them a bit

[luis]

Looking good, very stylish teaser. I'm downloading...

thanks Sinbad, please tell us you opinion after playing it!

i downloaded it and worked out how to acclerate/brake, just not turn... what keys to turn?

The keys are (see the "help" button in the main menu):
A: accelerate
Z: break + rear driving
X: left
C: right

also, how to you exit a race and quit the game? when it exits with escape it takes me to a new race

yes, to leave the game you have to cancel all the races in the season.... i know it is a pain if you are hurried.... it is in my todo list....


@CABAListic:
We're planning to use you scene mgr to make our track/terrain editor, and we are going to make it open source.....

the controls feel a bit awkward. For one thing, you should really map them to standard cursor keys

You can change the keys selecting your driver (wildcatmonster by default) and pressing "set keys" button

I know the controls are a bit strange at the begining but we had to make a 'balance' because the driving is really different when you drive using top-down perspective than if you drive using first person camera.
BTW you can tweak steering editing:
wildcatmonster.cfg (or any other car_name.cfg)
It will be possible to edit from the GUI in the future....

[walaber]

I LOVE the old Off Road arcade game, and so I really like your concept for this game.

however I agree that the controls and vehicle handling currently make the game quite frustrating.

so, here are my comments:

1. the default keys are non-standard, and confusing.

2. the default steering speed (rate at which the tires turn) for the monster truck is WAY too slow, it makes driving extremely difficult. I edited the CFG file to set the steering up to 4.0, and could still barely drive around the track

3. The friction between the wheels and the ground is too low... the cars slide around so much it is very hard to stay on the track, even after adjusting the steering settings like I mentioned above.

4. I know the scale of the cars here is trying to match the old arcade game, but the realistic physics when hitting other cars causes much more mayhem than in the original. I think you should reduce the size of the cars relative to the track, to allow a little more room for passing, and recovering from collisions.


these problems make the game frustrating to play right now, but I really like the idea, and look forward to playing the next build!

[celic]

Looks great!!
downloading..

[luis]

@Walaber:
Wow, thanks for your small review i'll take in count what you said in the next demo release...

3. The friction between the wheels and the ground is too low... the cars slide around so much it is very hard to stay on the track, even after adjusting the steering settings like I mentioned above.

Yes, you're right and you made me realize with your physics expertise that we are calculating the friction in the wheels in a wrong way....
Basically we're using the same coefficient for dynamic and static friction.....

Next demo will solve this and make the cars behave better, the problem became evident after changing the steer_factor to 4.0. Thanks again !

I'm wondering if anyone here was able to win a race, perhaps the AI is too hard....

[Aladrin]

I used to love those games, too... But with such an awesome looking car, it's a shame it's SO small on-screen.

no! you can drive using first or third person camera also

Oh! I didn't see all the pics before... I'll have to check it out.

[mako]

it seems really cool

[Red5_StandingBy]

A fun game. I am sure the next version will be even better.
Current controls are difficult, but I think AI is fine and the game makes you want to play.

Nice work

[luis]

Current controls are difficult, but I think AI is fine and the game makes you want to play.

we have changed the controls and gameplay in demo 0.2 i hope you like it !

And thanks Simbad to add ThunderWheels to the 'featured projects' ! we're proud to have our place in Ogre's gallery

[CABAListic]

Excellent! That's a major improvement - I finally feel like I'm in control of my car I even managed to win the first race now, hehe.