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: Pre-Production
- Pace: On Track
- Current Focus: Multiplayer Foundation
- Next Milestone: First Online Multiplayer Test
- Monthly Side Quest: Finally watching Fallout Season 2
Welcome:
Hello everyone and welcome to the first monthly update for the studio! I want this monthly update to be a one stop shop for everyone looking for updates to our projects and plans around the studio. I want it to be a chance to connect with the community not only to see how everyone is feeling about the projects, once playtests and demos/releases begin, but also a chance to provide feedback as well. The last month has been the beginning of our first project as a studio Momentum Run. While this is just a placeholder name I hope it lays the foundation of the feeling we’re going for. I want it to be an off-roader that rewards skill without punishing the player. It gives that feeling of when you’re off roading and you see a rough section ahead, you instinctively read the terrain and pick your line. Once you commit, you find the right amount of speed, and begin to feel your suspension working underneath you. As your vehicle and terrain feel connected you come out the other side thinking “Damn, that was the perfect line.”
Right now I’m narrowing down that balance of fun, and off-road realism. I believe the game should first and foremost be fun over realistic. The game is designed to be able to hop in, get into a game quickly, and just have fun.
This Last Month:
Most of my time so far has been spent trying to find that balance. At first I tried experimenting with a vehicle system built from scratch. It had a very arcade feel to it and I realized that just using the Chaos Vehicle system would be better. Our first test vehicle is a 2 door Jeep-looking vehicle. I tuned the vehicle to the real life specs of a 2 Door Jeep Wrangler Sport with the 6-cylinder engine. While this provided a great starting point, the Chaos vehicle system and real world numbers do not produce a similar result. For example, the Mass in-game using the real world mass is way too low. The vehicle simply will bounce over most obstacles. The engine and torque specs produced a much slower acceleration, the suspension just did not articulate enough, etc. I played around with the tuning specs for a few hours and got it to the point to the point where it feels okay. To finish tuning, I really need to be able to test it in racing conditions, I feel like. For me its easy to pick a speed and drive around. But when actually being up against someone is where I want to continue to focus.
This Next Month:
The big focus for the game right now is Multiplayer. This will be my first project implementing multiplayer into a game. I want to tackle this early. I’ll start small by getting multiple players into the same map and making sure the basics work: spawning their own vehicles, driving around together, seeing each other’s movement correctly, resetting vehicles, and connecting and disconnecting reliably. From there, I’ll start moving toward the architecture I ultimately want for the game: dedicated servers. I’ll first get a dedicated server running locally so I can learn how Unreal handles server authority, replication, and Chaos vehicles without adding the complexity of an external server at the same time. Once that’s working, I’ll begin integrating Epic Online Services and working with the EOS framework I’ve chosen for the project. Then comes the exciting part, attempting to move everything onto an actual remotely hosted dedicated server. If everything goes according to plan, by the next Studio Sitdown I’d love to be able to say, “Momentum Run has two players connecting over a dedicated server and driving together.” There will not be any game modes or polished lobbies, but hopefully two players able to connect and drive around.
Wrap Up:
That is it for the first Studio Sitdown! I have a lot to tackle over the next month but I’m excited to finally start getting the project into a multiplayer environment. Outside of development, I’m finally starting season 2 of Fallout. I’ve always been a huge Fallout fan since I started playing the games when I was in high school. I even have a fallout tattoo I got about a decade ago. Thanks for taking a minute to catch up with me, and I hope to have some multiplayer progress to show off soon!