Ponykart

[nec]

It's cute

[Pyritie]

Chances are good that they don't mind as long as you don't make money out of it. The moment you start selling things you can be sure those lawyers will be paying you a visit.
I think this is a very reasonable and fair policy. After all, who would really mind some free advertising, as long as your image isn't being put in a bad context. Rather, having people that pay tribute to your original work like this should really be received positively.

Not all game companies think that way unfortunately, and I know of a couple of fangames which have been cease & desisted from the IP owners even though they were free as well.

Hasbro at least doesn't seem to care at all. The only thing they've ever taken down was this one website which was offering downloads of the versions of episodes you could only buy on itunes, for free

[Pyritie]

[youtube]wyMSoaMMYyY[/youtube]

[zarlox]

Congrats Pyritie, the game look very polished and i like the cartoon look'n'feel very much.

[Jabberwocky]

That artwork is oozing cute.
It has a very "soft" look too. Looking at a screenshot instead of video you might think it was 2D.

I really like the narrated dev update. Hearing a real developer voice talking about the game just kinda makes everything more interesting. I've been thinking of doing the same for my game.

[Pyritie]

I really like the narrated dev update. Hearing a real developer voice talking about the game just kinda makes everything more interesting. I've been thinking of doing the same for my game.

I got the idea from the "overgrowth" videos, if you're familiar with them

[Jabberwocky]

I'll have to check those out. I know overgrowth, but haven't seen the videos.
I've watched cliffski do it (Gratuitous Space Battles, and some other games), which was used to great effect.

[duststorm]

It's getting more and more amazing.
And the background ponies are just too cute! I'm glad you got them working . Them looking at the cart is a really nice feature.
You say you'll be adding some more interesting animations later, but I must say, even with the few simple variations you have now they already look like a lively audience.

About closing the track a bit for performance reasons, I agree that's a good idea. Although the far views you have on the first track are pretty cool too.
If you study tracks of mario kart, for example, you see that they have some open tracks, which are uasually quite plain, and then they have pretty much closed off jungle tracks or castle tracks (or anything else that kind of contains walls around the track) which can have amazing details. I really hope you can include that cliff view with large waterfall with lots of nice particle effects of splashing water and foam. Maybe even some mist as you get close to the waterfall? Just close off the rest of the view with high cliffs, and maybe let racers exit through a tunnel through the rocks so you don't get performance issues.

[Pyritie]

It's getting more and more amazing.
And the background ponies are just too cute! I'm glad you got them working .

Actually we still don't have them looking at the kart completely working... they only work when they're in +Z

Them looking at the cart is a really nice feature.
You say you'll be adding some more interesting animations later, but I must say, even with the few simple variations you have now they already look like a lively audience.

About closing the track a bit for performance reasons, I agree that's a good idea. Although the far views you have on the first track are pretty cool too.
If you study tracks of mario kart, for example, you see that they have some open tracks, which are uasually quite plain, and then they have pretty much closed off jungle tracks or castle tracks (or anything else that kind of contains walls around the track) which can have amazing details. I really hope you can include that cliff view with large waterfall with lots of nice particle effects of splashing water and foam. Maybe even some mist as you get close to the waterfall? Just close off the rest of the view with high cliffs, and maybe let racers exit through a tunnel through the rocks so you don't get performance issues.

That's the plan! Loads of tracks in kart games are essentially tunnels, with either a high wall on both or one side. We've learnt a ton from the first map, this being one thing... might end up redoing it at some point.

[duststorm]

I just need to stress that on the other hand I really liked how you can see far across a wavy landscape in the first track. So, at least in some shots, it's really a plus.
Did you try some LOD techniques for simplifying the scene in the distance?

[Pyritie]

Kinda, yeah - far off trees are converted into billboards, and some of the smaller props are hidden

And although you can see far across "a wavy landscape" from the trailer, when you're driving around you really don't see it all that much

[EricB]

I really like the narrated dev update. Hearing a real developer voice talking about the game just kinda makes everything more interesting. I've been thinking of doing the same for my game.

Just make sure you have the voice for it. I tried to narrate my video and it was a horrendous failure.

[Pyritie]

[youtube]hVBgmSY-dRM[/youtube]

new (very silly) update

in the meantime we've got two new programmers who'll be doing some things, though I'll still be handling all of the ogre stuff for now. One of them got some basic waypoint AI working, then I wrote up a nice trigger region based waypoint system, where upon entering a trigger region, the kart receives a new coordinate to drive towards based on where it entered the region. This way, karts on the left side of a track tend to stay to the left side of the track instead of everyone just driving in a straight line down the center. You can also use it to make the karts drive correctly into a narrower part of a road and then spread out again when it widens. I'll go into more depth in the next (proper) update video.

Also the other programmer is doing some basic networking for us, mostly so we can test balance of karts and items, so it'll be pretty crude.

oh and we upgraded to mogre 1.7.4

[areay]

new (very silly) update

Could you please ship me some of the LSD that you were on when you made that clip?

That was freakin' brilliant

[duststorm]

Haha, awesome video.
You obviously had some frustrations to get rid of.

[Pyritie]

nah it was just for fun

[elgregor]

Ponies! Ponies everywhere!
On your website in FAQ section there's info that your graphic engine supports only Windows. But OGRE is multi-platform (I guess you know that). Can you clarify it?

[Pyritie]

Ponies! Ponies everywhere!
On your website in FAQ section there's info that your graphic engine supports only Windows. But OGRE is multi-platform (I guess you know that). Can you clarify it?

Mogre isn't

[elgregor]

Ok, thx for answer. I'm a linux enthusiast, so I hoped for a linux version to try out. But I think I'll try this on Windows.
I didn't watch even a single MLP episode, but after all those pony memes I kind of like them. Now they are part of the Internet culture.

[Pyritie]

Ok, thx for answer. I'm a linux enthusiast, so I hoped for a linux version to try out. But I think I'll try this on Windows.
I didn't watch even a single MLP episode, but after all those pony memes I kind of like them. Now they are part of the Internet culture.

Maybe you could give the show a shot then!

[ethankaminski]

Yeah, I was gonna ask about platforms, too. The hardcore brony in my gaming group is primarily a Mac user, and I know that OIS doesn't work on 64 bit OS X, even if Ogre itself does. But, if you're using Mogre, then that's probably a moot point . Although he does have access to Windows, at least.

The game looks very pretty, btw ! You've got some nice modelers on the team, and the cel shading and such you've got going on help it keep the same visual feel as the show itself.

[Pyritie]

new update video!

[youtube]bGUp12z9BRA[/youtube]

[Slappy]

Video #3 looks amazing!
Do you have commercial planes with your game?

[Pyritie]

on one hand, if hasbro sees it, they might like it and help or something. On the other hand, I'm afraid that if they did see it I might get a cease and desist

[bstone]

Awesome work guys. Eye-candy galore!