Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood Outrider is back to bring you the latest news and updates from around the ForzeBreak-verse. We’ve got a few things to cover this week as the team has shifted to a polishing phase instead of new implementations. Nevertheless we got some juicy stuff on the way ready to be shown in the next few weeks. Let’s dive in!
Gatling Gun cannon is easier to aim and is more likely to hit opponents
Missile power up now has lock on reticle and only hits one player
Explosion impacts have a decreased effect for balance
Both weapon power ups have limited ammo
New particle effects for our power up collectibles that makes them easier to spot for players
New tune up controls for War Buggy. Players can now boost while in midair
Game winning condition bugs fixed
Improved spectator mode
New post processing effects for in game visuals
New overall visuals for most of our models including War Buggy, Arena, Power ups, boosting effect
New Ram power up
...Take the Wheel
These last few weeks feedback has been really valuable as we pinpoint the major areas that our game needs work to be the best it can be for the next couple of weeks. Starting with the core basics, Robin has continued to adjust our War Buggy controls as we get closer to getting the feeling right. As mentioned before our main challenge has been realism vs what we need our vehicles to do in the game. Though we have tweaked them constantly, balancing them to allow players to make quick sharp turns and drift has been the major obstacle as it has been a constant back and forth of between feeling too smooth and responsive at the slightest input, and feeling no control at all during a battle’s crucial moments. Nevertheless progress towards that points seems closer every week as we try to adjust and experiment with some variables. Don’t skip your math class kids! But with that aside, one really cool improvement for this week is that players can now boost while in midair to propel themselves. In previous versions they were only able to do it while on the ground but it makes sense that they should be able to do it too while in midair considering all the crazy collisions we expect on future matches.
High speed shooting gallery
As fans may have heard from our previous updates, power ups in our game are a big hit and have a significant impact on how a match plays out. Perhaps a bit more than we originally intended with both its pros and cons. To quote Bob Ross, “there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents”. Briefly explained, people are using power ups but they aren’t quite getting how they are supposed to be used. It quickly becomes what I like to call a “high speed shooting gallery” instead of the original “robot sumo” concept as players gather more and more power ups to blast their opponents away. In some ways it feels like the personification of “when in doubt, blow things up”. In brief, players acquire power ups and try them. Before you know it the battlefield is filled up with explosions which leads to some really fun experiences with vehicles flying over the place (Michael Bay would be proud!). On one side we are quite happy that power ups are that fun already but on the other hand we didn’t quite expect them to take the spotlight from boosting and clashing into players to push them off. We want power ups to enhance the experience and not be the core of it as it seems that way for players right now. So it is a little tricky to find that balance of rewarding the players who make the effort to put themselves at risk to collect power ups while making sure that other players don’t end up in a huge disadvantage if they prefer to just use the basic mechanics of boosting and clashing(which is the main feature of the game).
Continuing with the theme of “happy accidents”, in our effort to reward players who chose to get up close and personal to push others, Jason created the game’s first iteration of our “physical weapon” power up type. With our focus on wanting to make the “sumo” aspect more relevant, it made sense that our first prototype would be a “ramming grill” that will take your opponents on a wild mid air spin as they wonder what just hit them. To our delightful surprise, even in its prototype stage, it is one of the most rewarding power ups. A few more tweaks to it and perhaps players will be yelling “ramming speed!” soon enough.
(Ramming speed!!!)
(Survey says...power ups are fun is the number one answer!)
More weapon tuning
Our projectile weapons are continued to be revised and improved as we go to make sure they don’t break the game as mentioned on previous updates. One of the biggest changes for this week would be Jason’s addition to the missile power up as it now has a reticle that locks on to an enemy opponent thus allowing players to see where their target is. Not only that but the missiles now only target a single player instead of many at the time. This makes it more effective as well as more balanced with other aspects of the game.
Following this trend, Robin also revised our gatling gun cannon to be able to hit targets more effectively and adding a laser sight that will give players a better idea of where they are aiming at. On our previous version our gatling gun cannon used to be at the top of our vehicle so it was pretty common that shots literally went over the opponents head.
On top of that, both power ups have their explosion impact effects reduced as well as having a new ammo system implemented so that players do not spam them as much as they did when they were first introduced.
New paint job
As we get closer to more stable gameplay, we’ve also had the opportunity to revamp visuals to our overall game. Starting with our main star, our main vehicle has now new materials and textures applied to it making it feel that it packs a punch. If one looks close enough, players should be able to see the small details from to tire textures to the metals that make the War Buggy feel closer to fighting machine. Some other changes include headlights that allow players to differentiate a little more easily the direction that they are facing, boosting flame effect and motion blur for more speed adrenaline.
The same treatment goes for our power ups as they are no longer just greyed out models but rather menacing weapons that one doesn’t want to mess up with. Not to mention that the mysterious box collectibles are now really easy to spot and players knew where to get them even if it meant getting closer to the edge.
(New textures and materials for all models!)
The visual overhaul also applies to our Arena as we added some more lights for more clear vision, a more flat arena to allow easier probabilities of players ramming into each other without having to go up and down slopes or ramps. Ring has also applied some new post processing effects to the game that really sells that outer space setting.
Following the new visuals, we’ve also got our first patch of custom sounds from our sound team. Engines, crashes, boost, weapons, and music, we got a few new things to implement and play around as we define what ForzeBreak sounds like and make the overall experience of the game even better.
That would be all for this week, but stay tuned as we come closer to one of our biggest milestones in the next couple of weeks. Until then!