Demo - Pré Alpha Drive to hell

Hi,

This is the game that I am working on.

I would like to know your oppnion about it.

Use arrows or joystck to drive,
press key 5 to turn on your weapon
press x to turn on your armous or swith it. (not make this with the car runing.
C - Camera
F1 mini help.

http://www.drivetohell.com/uploads/demo8.zip



I hope you enjoy.

Best regards,

Marcio

Hi!

I've tested your little demo (shown here in showcase II?).
Here my first impressions:

- an interresting and funny idea to mix up a racing game where you are under attack with some economic parts (collect ca$h)
- sound and special effects generates a good ambiente
- the rain on the road is extra-cool!!!
- too bad your game runns with only 2 fps on my system
- low detailed textures and no shadows
- the panels are a little crowded

keep on work and post in showcase II if the game is more advanced.

mercuryus

Too low frame rate. The screensize is nonsense: 1280x1024(!).

I think the game is nice, but its hard to say because of the problems said aboce. And if you are working on this game it's definitly never ever not and no showcase II.

well this demo was awsome i like the boombs and loosing wheels and stuff .. but the bomb sounds are standard right ? they suck .. the rain is cool .. but low res .. and yeah .. ad shadows change the font on the fps .. well your probably not gonna use that in the done game right ? well keep up the good work .. and make a menu ;P

Hi,

Thank you all for feed back and comments.

I would like to know the kind of computer that we are using to get this low FPS ?

I test here with one AMD 2ghz with MX 4000 128mb(I believe it is not the best card in the world) and get 13 - 16FPS in 1024x786 (this computer not suport the 1280 because the old monitor.



With a Dell GX620 P4 3ghz with ATI x1600 ( midle range new card generation) +- 30 FPS 1280x1024


The worst FPS that I get was in a old laptop HP celeron 1.5ghz with built in video graphics, 1024x768 just 1 to 2 fps, but this computer not is for games and it is natural the low FPS.

The FPS is show in this screen shots in the up left corner (the numbers in yellow) , I use Fraps to get this FPS

Best regards,

Marcio

Do you think the screen switches by itself to 1024x800??? On my screen I can´t see anything whats outside. Because the game has a too high resolution almost the half game is outside of the screen.

I have a 1.8Ghz AMD, 324something MB RAM, and some ATI grafic card with PS and VS 2 (can´t be that old). And the framerate is for every test you did much too much too low.
I guess the terrain has too many polyies and the clipping is maybe too far (should be adjustable by the user to raise the fps by the user). But you should know better why it is that slow.

For swith the resolution just use the F5 key, if you get a black screen, press again until you have a 640x480 resolution and increse it until you get a good image with a best FPS in your machine.

The final game will have a configuration menu to the player select before play.

the panels in this demo is made to use mode 8 and 9 resolution.

The next demo will have a more options panel for fit best in lower resolutions.

This is a 33 * 33 terrain, maybe the car need redution of polys, it have +- 5000 polys or the size of textures.

Thank you for test the demo.

Best regards,

Marcio

Optimizing can be the hardest part of any game's development.
I will say this, the title gave me all sorts of ideas for a game,and I sortof expected a slightly different game. But this one is neat also.

If your top end system is only getting 30 FPS +- , then you should wonder what leser systems are going to play it at! Keep at it though, I see hope for this game if properly optimized and tweaked!

Jason

Hi,

Thank you for comment.

Yes, optimize a game is a very hard task.

I made a new version of this Demo with a litle more FPS in my tests.

It is not the next demo, just the same with some improvements and more light than other one.

If we can test again to me know if ir run best with litle fps in your machine I apreciate.

http://www.drivetohell.com/uploads/demo9.zip

Best regards,

Marcio

I can't tell if the FPS is better or not, cuz it ran pretty good before for me on my machine.

Some thoughts though..
It's hard to get very far since the gunmen are 100% accurate too

One of the things that I don't like, is when driving full speed, the car is way too far ahead of you to see whats going on.

I noticed when the car goes off the track on to the terrain, you cant get back on the track unless you drive back to the starting line.

Kepp hacking at it, this is a neat project!

Jason

Ummm, Ok so I start the game click enter or the mouse key and then the game just starts... The car is going backwards and I can hardly control it. I have no idea what is going on. The first time I ran it it just crashed. Second time this is the behaviour. Then I ended up crashing into a wall and loosing my trunk hood a few seconds later magically appeared back where I started only now with some weird thing on the hood of my car... Almost looked like a kayak.. still driving backwards. I try pressing up key,w ect nothing happens. I can steer tho very little while traveling backwards tho. Sorry wish I had something good to say but its just not working for me.

Ok I realized that pressing Q blows the trunk off and restarts me back on the track. Is that suppose to happen?

Still keeps going backwards tho no matter what I do . I tried restarting it a few times but same thing.

Hi,

To control the car use the arrows keys

Up engine power
left / right = direction.
back = brakes
Space = hand brakes
5 - turn on the gun, 5 again change the kind of fire of gun
Ctrl - fire
Shift NO2 - you get it geting the frogs on the road
L - Lift
Q - restart.
F5 change screen size
F6 - screenshot
ESC - exit
1 - 2 change car skin
3 - change car interior color
4 change pilot cloth
R - change road skin (just for test.)
H = horm
C- camera (just the cam 2 are done, the other are in the build, but can bet used for test)

a new verion of this demo here http://www.drivetohell.com/uploads/demo10.zip

In the start menu, just start and exit are working, the other options are in the build proccess.

Best regards,

Marcio

LOL, OOOOPS!

Ok figured out what the problem was Seems I forgot I had my controller plugged in and it was laying on the floor which is what was causing it to continue to travel backwards no matter what I pressed

The cars a little hard to control by the keyboard but driving with the controller seems to be alot easier.

I like the new menu but I now kind of miss the Q restarting me back on the track where I began. Prehaps add a reset button so that when I go off track I can just jump back to it with the press of a button.

The cars colors when 2 is pressed still leaves the trunk orange Is that suppose to be like that. I assume its still just a test.

Are you going to make the controls configurable? I think you should as I dont really like the set up as is but im sure other may.

As I said its very promising keep at it.

Hi,

I am puting new scrrenshoots.

Soon a new demo will be available.









Best regards,

Marcio

Looking nice Marcio Esper !!
Can't wait to play the new demo

Cheers

Frazzle

well i think the game looks ok, now for some c&c:

there seems to be too low of an fps problem, where is this caused from? maybe the particle effects have too many at a time or something, this should be fixed. I like the effects on your car and stuff, the pc i own isn't that great, but if i have a big problem on a store bought pc, then most gamers will also have these problems. you want to optimize the game to run at a decent speed on off the shelf pc's. in 640x480 i got a playable framerate, until it tried to add some more particle effects. you need to have a good framerate of at least 60 when in 1025x768, if you have a frame limit set, try playing the game without any frame limiter, you may get a better framerate. altogether the game looks good, but make sure that all particle effects aren't creating 20 at a time, or you will have unstable framerate. you want a good solid playable framerate.

I really like the idea of combat racing games (one of my fav's is spyhunter on the gamecube) and the screenshots look real nice but the game itself I find rather frustrating.

For one the fact that you can end up on your side after which it takes a lot of work getting back up straight.

And when I ride through the money pick ups my cars slows or stops as if it crashed into something
Also it is a little strange to put all the enemies next to the road when your gun only shoots forwards.

Anyhow keep up the good work it does look promising.

i agree, you need a reset button like nfs hot pursuit had, this way you could reset on the road really easy, it would add to the fun, plus i agree with cartoon_baboon, it is way too easy to end up off the road or on your back, but this game reminds me of demolition racer

Hi,

Thank you for comments.

I will put a reset buton

It is really very usefull.

best regards,

Marcio

@Manslayer101

Hi,

I reduce the particles and won much more FPS.

Thank you for the sugestion.



Before with the normal old particles amount this level work with 29 to 35 FPS in 1280x1024 in the GS panel, now, it work from 45 to 75.

I reduce too the car polys, I think it help too this FPS.

Best regards,

Marcio

one more suggestion, don't leave the camera.clip_near and camera.clip_far at the default, this will also increase the framerate, play with it a bit to get it at the perfect setting, this game does have promise

Hi,

A long time I not put news about the game here, now it is close to be done.

a little video you can get here.

http://www.psychobyte.com/upload/dthcine.wmv

I hope you enjoy.

soon the final demo is done I will put the link here.

best regards,

Marcio

Looks cool....

I think some motion-blur would be nice...

The physics seem to work very well, nice job
Great to see this game is still updating !!

Cheers

Frazzle

Hi,

Thank you for coments.

an other video about the game.

http://www.psychobyte.com.br/upload/dthMovie.wmv

I hope you enjoy.

Best regards,

Marcio

Great work, like I've mentioned in my previous post the physics are great which the most important item of this game I guess. The environment could use some 'cleaning-up' but like i've mentioned, it's the great physical system that makes the game nice to play

Cheers

Frazzle

Great game

Not lot of people in indie game making reach to finish a complete game
or some times they put 2 or more years !

So fantastic work for an indie game and to have reached that level of completition

Keep the work friend

Congrats from me as well! Very cool looking. I like smashing cars ...
looks like tons of fun!

Impressing indeed. Very good work. Only critics I have are: Lightning can be improved, colors can be improved, partially levels (cities) and typography could be improved sometimes. Others than that professional work! Looks fun!

Hi,

Thank you for commentes

One more video with some car crashes in the end.

www.psychobyte.com/upload/dthcrashes.wmv

I hope you enjoy

BR

Marcio

Hey, looks great.

Quote:

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and no shadows

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More shadows = lower frame rate!

What engine are we using here?

Gamestudio A6 or another different $200,000 engine? lol