Getaway to Nowhere is a hybrid racing and memory game for Windows. You can download the self-installing executable here. Although there is sadly no in-game sound or music, I recommend playing this in the background: Juno Reactor, Pistolero. In case, it’s not obvious from playing, you must follow the signs and memorize the directions that they lead you. Each time you complete the route, one addition intersection is added, and all of the previous signs are broken. Enjoy!
Original Starting Post:
I really like the style of this case, and am going to try to reproduce the feel of it in game form. I was originally excited to use GM:Studio (which I recently purchased the license for). But I feel like I have a much better shot at capturing this style with some custom shaders in Unity3d (which I haven’t used in the last year).
The plan for gameplay is to create a top down racing game. I’d like to play around with dynamically tweaking rendering styles to draw attention to different areas. I was also thinking about a Bastion-esque build the world in front of you effect, but there are many other details to work out before playing too much with that.
Still very early in research and design. I’ve collected some reference art and music, and done some very primative shader tests in Unity. I’ve also modified a free 3d car model (from google’s sketchup database), and attached physics and controls based on the Unity Car Tutorial. Not much to look at yet, but it’s progress.
I’ve tuned the camera and controls… while thinking a lot about the rendering style. The perspective in the screen above seems to lend itself best (better than a top-down view) to the kinds of motion strokes in in the case art. I just learned how to replace Unity’s default terrain shader, and really need to spend some time experimenting with shader-texture combinations to get the right look. In terms of gameplay, I want to have some objectives beyond simply out-running the police. I’m currently thinking about it like a pac-man through the canyons while completing mini-objectives and evading police. I think there will need to be some shooting while driving as well… but am still brainstorming.
I’ve sadly not had much time to work on this in the last week (work+holiday+spelunky), but I have run into several problems with different attempts at cartoon style shaders. I believe these problems largely come down to the mesh connectivity and uv mapping of my car model, so that’s the next thing on my list to rework… In fact the model is such a mess, I’ll probably just create a new one from scratch (using the existing as a guide for proportions). It’s great to see the progress others are making though, keep up the great work guys.
For some reason thought the deadline was in July instead of August! I didn’t think I’d have time to learn Blender well enough to model some cars, but maybe I will have time. The only down side to this realization, is that I still have to wait another month to play everyone else’s cool entries. Back to work this weekend!
Just released my first game as a full-time indie: Twenty Twelve. So now I can get back to working on this compo. Ever since making this posting in the TIGSource forms, I’ve been thinking about changing this game’s direction accordingly. Thinking about making it more of a top-down racer in GameMaker as well.
I’ve been super busy, but am determined to crank out a game by the 18th. On Saturday, I sketched some overhead cars for the player and police. Then yesterday, I created road and back ground graphics and put them all into a new game maker project. Right now the camera zooms out, as the player speeds up, driving off-road slows the player down, and an infinite series of random street segments are generated in front of the player as they drive. There’s currently a green line (for testing purposes) to indicate the correct direction to stay on the infinite streets. Here’s what it looks like: And here’s a link to the executable: download.
I’m currently in the progress of adding lights: head lights, tail lights, and police siren lights. Then I’ll be adding some more environmental objects, and turn my random road generator into more of a memory game. The idea is that you’ll be directed through a stretch of road with a few turns, and then have to re-drive the path without directions. If you take a wrong turn, the cops will have road blocks set up for you. Each time you successfully drive a path, you’ll be shown a few more turns and then re-drive the entire path with those new turns from memory.
Graphics: 50%
Gameplay: 60%
Not sure how polished this will be, since we’re so close to the end now. But it’s awesome to see all of the progress everyone has been making! Can’t wait to get a chance to start playing all of the entries!
The memory game is now implemented, utilizing signs that direct you along the infinite road. You start out following the directions on three signs. Then you repeatedly drive the same route with broken direction signs. Each time you drive it, one extra turn is added with a sign showing you which direction to follow. I think I’ll try rotating the route, so you always start driving up (on the screen). Currently, the route’s initial up direction is whatever direction your last turn left you driving.
What else… The world is now being randomly populated with misc object (they are consistent within a single game). And there is a police car at the beginning of the game, but it doesn’t chase you yet. Wrong turns currently lead to dead ends, but those will eventually be protected by police barricades. The police will chase you closely enough to keep you on the road, but otherwise shouldn’t be too competitive.
Are you planning collision detection with the objects?
My only issue is with the sand texture, when you zoom out it causes crosshatching, you can see it in the screen grab above. I find it really annoying, but that could just be me :[[
Actually the zoomed out version looks closer to the texture on the case. But maybe I can get it to tile/wrap a bit more seamlessly… I think I see what you are talking about now. Actually I initially had that background sand texture not move… maybe I’ll play around with changing that back. And, there’s almost no collision at all at the moment. It would be nice to add, but we’ll just have to see how much I can get done in the last couple of days. Thanks for the feedback!
Just uploaded a new build for Windows: download here.
Most of the game is now playable. The game will end when you collide with a police, but that’s awaiting some kind of start and end game GUI, and a way to display the score. Getting very close now!
Ahhhh I get it now, that awesomes, its like simon but with roads! Really great job! The controls could use some tweaking, but I love the concept of this game. I like how the camera angle straightens itself after you finished patterns, this is definitely a feeling to a gateway to nowhere! Graphics are excellent too!
Thanks Drexegar… It’s amazing (to me) how much easier the game is with the camera angle straightening. Prior to that, you really had to memorize turn directions… but now it’s much easier to construct more of a map in your head. I’ve been thinking I should make it a bit harder now, but I’ll wait and see what kind of feedback I get. It also seems like there might be an interesting psychology/neuro-science research paper in here about the difference with versus without this feature in our ability to memorize directions. Again, thanks for checking it out Drexegar!
Cool. Getaway has been sighted on: IndieGames.com and FreeIndieGam.es and GameTunnel.com. It’s awesome when people pick up your work without you having to lift a finger. Just like the first AGBIC!
And here’s a link to the executable: download.
