Viva la Vroom
Something you never hear about in game development is the challenge of capturing footage for a trailer or some amount of publicity. Few games, particularly those with any kind of randomness or procedural generation, look 100% perfect at every moment during development. Even if th
Something you never hear about in game development is the challenge of capturing footage for a trailer or some amount of publicity. Few games, particularly those with any kind of randomness or procedural generation, look 100% perfect at every moment during development. Even if there aren't bugs, you're trying to take a slice of time, a single image, where the game shines as what you envision it to be. It can take weeks and weeks and at the end of the process you feel a strange mixture of pride in what you have created and despair over all the things you have left to do.
So over August and September as I've been catching snippets for use in the Seattle Indies Expo, I got a face full of the driving experience at times when I wanted to feel the Drive Magic. However, as you drive and shoot there are stalls (put in there intentionally) as the game resolves projectiles and impacts. That sort of turn resolution is pretty common in tactics games, it lets you see the results of your attack (or attacks against you) and process the result before moving on. I originally set the system up that way because "that's what Roguelikes usually do"
However, the frequent halts during my drivin' and skiddin' started to bug the crap out of me, especially when there were a lot of enemies nearby. Of course I don't pause the game when something happens offscreen, but when there are a lot of enemies it can happen often, especially in the arena where enemies were attacking each other.
So, to the experiments! I decided to try a couple things:
Original post
So over August and September as I've been catching snippets for use in the Seattle Indies Expo, I got a face full of the driving experience at times when I wanted to feel the Drive Magic. However, as you drive and shoot there are stalls (put in there intentionally) as the game resolves projectiles and impacts. That sort of turn resolution is pretty common in tactics games, it lets you see the results of your attack (or attacks against you) and process the result before moving on. I originally set the system up that way because "that's what Roguelikes usually do"
However, the frequent halts during my drivin' and skiddin' started to bug the crap out of me, especially when there were a lot of enemies nearby. Of course I don't pause the game when something happens offscreen, but when there are a lot of enemies it can happen often, especially in the arena where enemies were attacking each other.
So, to the experiments! I decided to try a couple things:
- I removed the projectile pause entirely and let attacks just resolve while the various vehicles moved to new positions.
- I adjusted the speed at which the turn played out based on the player speed, so turns (including those of opponents) just play out faster when the player vehicle is moving at higher speed. Turns at 25 MPH play out faster than turns at 100 MPH.
- Bullets don't yet "lead" their targets so they are striking behind the vehicle.
- Some slow weapons like rockets that take longer than a typical move duration (generally between a quarter and a half second) need to be converted to take multiple turns to reach their destination.
- (...but hey that's gameplay, y'all!)
- I still need to make sure combat resolution is as readable as possible, such as:
- Armor impacts and damage numbers are still getting obscured.
- The armor side that gets hit isn't as obvious as it should be
- And of course, special moves will still need to stall the game, but that's fine for something that doesn't happen often.
For outposts, however, that was only part of the equation… I needed walled areas, I needed an “inside” and “outside” area. I wanted buildings to make the interior more interesting. I managed to piece together features like the walls and special setpieces like water towers and little dwellings. In the end the placement of buildings were random, which created a lot of unbelievable areas and many dead-ends… a curse for a driving game where speed is king.
The buildings were also single-tile affairs… This scale mismatch was deliberately set on early in the game’s development for cities, but have since been changed to a double scale that allows buildings to be more interesting and for roads to have more width in cities.
What I realized is that I had a really refined measure of control in cities, with varying width roads, support for passability and large crafted areas, and just overall a less random feel.
Cities are constructed using 8×8 blocks (which was 4×4 back when buildings were single-tile) that are crafted to hold a 2 or 4-lane road connector or a 1-lane alley (either left or right side). Each block has one or more exits, and a bunch of places where optional exits can be punched through if the system needs to create extra loops.
So why not do this with desert maps? Walls can be made this way of course, but we don’t want a desert map to look like Manhattan… Luckily there are a ton of tricks to keep roads from being straight and buildings falling in irregular patterns. This generator set used 4×4 tiles and almost entirely 1-lane roads, which can meander within a block like a 
And so it did! Parts of the terrain generator came over to the block generator to give the map a more natural appearance… considering it was largely giant squares. With it we got terrain rendering thanks to 
That’s the big news of February… Stay tuned to this channel for more developments. Excelsior!
Something that seeps from of the cracks of Auto Fire's early footage is the standard desert post-apocalypse Mad Max thing. That dust-n-misery vibe is actually not quite accurate. Yes, there are deserts, and yes there was an apocalypse... of sorts. However, most of humanity is holed up in high-tech walled cities, protected from the dangerous world outside, and they are... bored. Drivers are their heroes. The life of a driver is both a fight for your life and a hustle for followers... and the new UI helps reflect that. Rusty metal is out, smart tablets are in.
There is a larger emphasis on characters... They are more prominent in encounters and they now are equipped to refer to each other in dialogue (which will continue to grow). The player's "feed" takes the place of a traditional Roguelike combat log, fielding Toots by your opponents as well as the chatter of each sector's residents.
The core fantasy of any vehicle game is acquiring more awesome cars and decking them out, so now the player can purchase better rides in citadels, and swap them out as they desire. Some of these professional rigs look pretty great, but just remember that the scrubs out in the wastes have new gear also... it just happens to be cobbled together from whatever rusty scrap they could find.
Sectors are now connected to each other via a highway map that must be braved to drive across the state. These are lawless routes with all the hazards of traveling long distances, and will ultimately be the setting of convoy missions as well. Eastbound and down!
The cars are always the stars of the show in Auto Fire, and originally the buildings were deliberately scaled down to help communicate the gridlines and avoid obstructing the player. However, those tiny structures inspired city roads to be two tiles across... this was just a little too cramped for enjoyable driving. As a result, everything has received a scale overhaul, bringing the world up to give a greater punch. City roads are still two tiles across, but there's now room for sidewalks that you can drive on if you need more space to maneuver.
The past year has had a lot more than that, and there's more to learn as the weeks continue forward:
More importantly, I started setting an eye to a longer play arc than I have now. That includes laying the foundation for loot, health and damage that’s defined by a progression arc. This means that I can balance numbers globally, as well as more easily drop in enemies and items to the game and have the system distribute them more easily.
This wouldn't affect your experiences that much just yet (aside from some new items dropping!) but I’m looking forward to bulking up the content soon.
Finally, I've been having fun 
The 
This is super-exciting and my inner 1984 kid is absolutely nerding the hell out right now. Denis has created art for a lot of my favorite things from that decade from