The Nitrous Racing Underweight

[momentus]

Hello,

Here is my first flash game. It's a driving game with money, pickups, a store, opponent AI, a simple culling engine, and plenty of opportunity for feedback/comments/criticisms ;)

Here's the link and thank you very much :)

http://216.126.25.195/devstudios/emedia/rev1/lucas/index.html

[vilehelm]

Very choppy gameplay, lose some of the pretty stuff, slim it down and jack up the frame rate and lessen the movement incremnents. That should smooth things out...also when you start the game off you should be going up screen so that the user can get used to the controls, the way you have it the controls start off reversed...

[momentus]

It runs fine on my system (1.5gHz which admittedly probably isn't the best testing machine) but I've tested in on 1 gHz and 600 mHz pcs and had to turn the high quality off. I can certainly lose a lot of the details and can play with the culling engine though. I'd hate to limit gameplay to those with souped up machines. I'll tweak is some more. Your suggestion to start out racing upwards is... well... definitly something I should have done. What was I thinking?

Anyways, thanks a lot for your feedback.

[momentus]

I spent most of the day optimizing the graphics and changing the main HTML to allow the user to resize the screen. There should be a noticable improvement in gameplay.
So I know for the future, what sort of frame rate is generally accepted for flash based games and what sort of machine should I be testing on?
Thanks in advance.

[hip_atrip]

I enjoyed myself while playing the game.

The scripting you use is great and the game runs fine on my computer.

I absolutly love the navigation for selecting a track. Probably that image you use is a wheel of a car? Am I right? I’m not sure cause the rubber is white.

The font is’nt really my favorit, it’s a little bit too ordinary. Did you consider to use a pixelfont?

Technical your game is great, for me the design is lower. I’m not really sure about the background (the blue squares with the gradient) The image of the car is ok, I haven’t any suggestions to change that one.

Keep up the good work!

[momentus]

Thanks a lot!

I'll admit I'm more of a scripter than a designer, so any comments from designers are greatly appreciated.

Regarding the track selection image it wasn't meant to be anything. A tire metaphor is a much much better idea. Thanks :)

I've switched fonts a few times and am not 100% satisified with the one I have now. I'll try a pixel font next.

The blue square background was just an experiment. It'll be changed eventually. I'm thinking of going to probably a solid colour for the whole bar or maybe with just a subtle gradient. What would you suggest?

Thanks again. :)

[Ivar]

Nice game dude!!

I think it«s a lovely game but, the design could have been better.. I think it«s a lot of things on the track and that makes it looks a bit chaotic.

Maybe if you reduse all the "pick-up things" and make it accure randomly, that will make it cleaner and better?

I«ve been working on a similar project myself, though I haven«t completed or at least neraly completed one track... I«ve used bitmapped background, but that will increase the file-size and will probably make it run slower...
You can see my prosject at (unfinished): www.saxen.as/raceordie/raceordie.html (http://www.saxen.as/raceordie/raceordie.html)

I saw that before you start racing you choose if you what single player or multiplayer. Do you know how to make it a multiplayer game? Maybe we could co-operate...?

Cheers:D

[momentus]

Your points are well taken Ivar. I'm still in the Demo stage and hoping to have all the scripts working before I dive in again and start redoing the design. I totally agree though - the design/layout does need some work.

It's a great idea to take out some of the 'pickups.' I think in general the game has to have less going on on-screen.

I checked out your game. It's really slick! I'll put some feedback in your thread. It's interesting how we both approached essentially the same project with two entirely different results.

In terms of multiplayer, I haven't explored that yet. There is a book though here: http://www.friendsofed.com/books/studio/games/ and the final chapter is building an online multiplayer racing game.

If you'd like to collaborate on a project, I think that would be a great idea. After I'm done redoing the design for Nitrous I'm starting an array-based top-down shoot-em up style game. I may come back and implement the multiplayer but I want to start something new now that I've had a little bit of experience. You obviously know your way around the actions panel and I have not seen a project where a group would have produced an inferior project than a single member of that group.

Thanks again for the feedback. I really appreciate it. :)

[Ivar]

Shoot «em up... sounds like fun :cool:

If you want we could collaborate on your shoot «em up project. That«s up to you. I«am down and ready to kick ass... (as soon as my racing-game is finished too.)

You could send me a mail on ivar@danielsen.no (mailto:ivar@danielsen.no) if you want me to join in!

Hope to hear more from you!
Good luck anyway ;)

[momentus]

Sounds promising. :) Ivar, I've sent you an email. Let me know what you think.

I did find a few spare moments yesterday to update the design for the driving game. I think it looks a lot better (It was actually the very very first design I did for it, before I thought I'd be all fancy), but, again, I'm not a designer, so if anyone has any tips, please let me know. They are greatly appreciated. :)

*nods*,
Momentus

[hip_atrip]

Hi momentus, good changes, it looks a lot better with changing the background and the font.
But not all your text looks crispy. Be sure to use them in multiples (like 8pt-16, ...)

your logo isn't really tastful, but I'm a very critical person. I know that you are a good scripter!

the co-orporation with Ivar sounds great, hopefully I will hear from you both in the near future.

[momentus]

Hello hip-a-trip,

Thanks (again) for the feedback. I never really realized how the logo looks kind of.... uh... corporate. Yuk. I'll have to change that for sure.

I'm glad you like the design more than the previous one. I tend to get carried away and lose site of what's important in design.

I was hoping I could use 12 point for the text in some spots. 8 was too small and 16 was too big. Rats.

Anyways, your concerns are greatly appreciated and noted. Thanks again. *nods*

momentus.