Welcome to the Studio Sitdown!
Studio Sitdown is a monthly chance for everyone to sit back and catch up on what’s happening around the studio. This is a chance for us to step away from the quick updates and talk about where we stand, what we have learned, and what’s coming next. Less like a formal development report but more of a chance to connect and see what’s been going on.
Status Update:
Current Project: Momentum Run (Placeholder)
Current Stage: Alpha
Pace: On Track
Current Focus: Clean up and Core Design
Next Milestone: Baseline polished experience
Monthly Side Quest: Try not to spend every minute working on game
Welcome:
Welcome back to Studio Sitdown! It has been an interesting month working on the project. I feel like huge progress has been made yet some of the core things I shifted away work from for now. Examples include the dedicated server. I was able to get Steam integration working in the game so as of right now you are able to join and play online with friends by joining through Steam. I had started work on the dedicated server the issue I was running into was updates were happening at too quick of a pace that I was having to stop and export the server build too often, really slowing down progress. For this reason I have temporarily put it aside so I can focus on the core of the game first. Speaking of the core game, it is playable and the full game play loop works! Right now the game has two main modes. Free Roam, allowing you to drive freely around a open map. And (tease for the full game name) Peak Pursuit. Peak Pursuit is our main mode where players will need to win and progress through multiple mini games and be one of the first to cross the finish line! Early testing so far has went well. Many bugs have been ironed out and its stable enough to do full play throughs without running into major or game breaking issues.
This Last Month:
This last month so much work has been completed but I want to do my best to catch you all up as best as possible. You can see our graphic below about the major tasks we accomplished so here I just want to go deeper into the thought process I had while developing. Peak Pursuit was my main focus during pre-production. It started out with building a overworld for players to spawn into so everyone could see who they were playing with and what vehicles they brought. During this time since this is my first major multiplayer project I learned a lot about transferring player states, game states, and keeping variables through server travel. During this testing I made a few test maps and tested one main mini game type, a race. I build a few test maps and was able to confirm the game mode was able to randomly select maps and modes (once there is more). While testing races we also found that our initial player count of 20 was way too much. We still want the game to fill chaotic and hectic but 20 was just too many. We have cut this back 12 players. As of right now this balance feels really good. Still enough going on that crazy things happen but not too much its frustrating while playing. So far we have tested the game with 2 players, me and Braxton. I implemented a bot system that has definitely needed some work but its at a point now where it works good enough that bots actually are able to be somewhat competitive and finish races. Bots can even advance on the leader board too if they beat you.
The game has been out of pre production for a few days, the last few days I’ve been finally adding art elements so we can lock in the design of the game.
This Next Month:
This next month my priorities are making the game look like a game. I finally started adding UI elements, building real maps instead of gray box test maps, and just trying to replace empty buttons and areas with artwork to make the game feel cohesive. We also commissioned an artist for our first vehicle. Its based roughly on a Jeep Cherokee XJ. We think it will be a fun addition and so far the WIP photos provided by the artist are looking really good. Once we get this vehicle and a few maps together we will use it to start working with artists for the games logo and capsule art work for the Steam store page. We are hoping to have the game listed on Steam sometime in October.
Other than art direction I plan to add more game modes, maps, vehicle options, SFX and VFX. My main goal is getting the game feeling like a game.
Wrap Up:
Thanks for stopping by this Studio Sitdown for the month of September! I realize I really need to start taking notes so I can provide better updates so they can be more in depth. I am really excited to see what this next month brings for the Project and the studio! This month we will finally start showing off more of the game. So be sure to follow our socials so you can stay up to date, and tell us what you think. Hopefully soon we will be able to invite more people to test and provide feedback! As for my monthly side quest of watching the second season of Fallout. Yeah i didn’t get too far. I restarted the first season since my memory is horrible and have only watched the first episode of the second season so far…
