Archief - Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter

Siamese Dream (wet)

I might as well have a standard Apology Notice that’s attached to the beginning of every one of our blogs…

The problem we constantly find here at Carma Towers is that we’re all always working on the game, and it’s rare that we really have time to sit back and write about it. But I know how you all crave information about development progress, so once again I have to say sorry for the gaps between updates and blogs.

The second part of my apology concerns something endemic to the process of game dev – that of the phases in the process where there’s a lack of visible progress. At the moment, we’re right in the midst of one of those phases. We have a LOT of great work that’s on-going, but if I was to take screenshots to illustrate it in a blog, we’d be inundated with unfavourable feedback due to the lack of visual polish! One very significant case in point here is the tech I was planning to discuss in this blog: the Car Crushing. Obviously, this is something that EVERYONE wants to see, as it’s absolutely core to the Carma experience. And the current state of Patrick’s code is “well advanced” – we know everyone is going to be blown away when it’s revealed as we’ve been blown away by the results we’re seeing from it in its current state. But right now… we just can’t show it. The code needs some further tweaks, and then the cars that have been made so far need to be properly set up to utilise it. It’ll be great – soon – but for the moment, it has to stay under wraps. Sad face.

So, what I’m going to do instead is talk about something else that we’re obviously beavering away on – the CARS! More specifically, the all-new cars!

One of the very best tasks when we worked on the original game was obviously that of designing the cars. In those pre-internet days we had to find ways to gather our references, and a lot of the automotive inspiration came from a local chemists shop (no, not from some kind of under-the-counter “powders” they sold – stop sniggering at the back there, McDermott S.). Because this chemists also (bizarrely) sold die-cast scale model cars – the Burago 1:18 scale jobs. Which are great things to hold, and pore over, and push around the office carpets going “brmm BRMMM!!” and smashing into each other. So company money was spent on getting together a sizeable collection of cool toy cars, which then fed into the decisions made on what sort of cars got adapted and modelled for the game. And by and large, those toy cars were based on big manufacturers’ shiniest and sexiest creations.

One of my big regrets in terms of “long lost work” is that we no longer have my Big Doc o’ Car Drawings. I drew every car for Carma as a side-on and front view, which became the master blueprint for modelling. Now forever lost. Which is a shame, as my drawing abilities were lost with it. See below and here…

So anyway, all these years on, as I sit here looking forward to the Google Glasses world of tomorrow when I can just mutter, “Oy Google. Fuckin’ show me some COOL CARS. NOW.” and have dazzling images flash across my field of vision, just prior to walking under the all-to-real bus I failed to realise was bearing down on me, I can already bathe in an almost limitless stream of online inspiration just by typing the same thing into Chrome (other web browsers are available). So, what the hell is this massive meandering preamble all in aid of, I hear you grumble. Well, with great internets comes a great deal of RANDOM SHIT, and it was one example of this – forwarded to me by Dave “Trifle” Hosier, Carma Exec Producer – that inspired the car I’m revealing today. Here’s what Dave found, while no doubt browsing online for photos of “hot chicks out of the ‘60s wearing sailor outfits”. Like he does.

http://87a05d1ba1ec8bc0f3eb-38ef210...rackcdn.com/blog/siamese_dream/Silver_Fox.jpg

These sophisticated ladies have just been for a drive in their “Silver Fox” – a classic of 60s fibreglass and rivets creativity. What a shame that this prototype by Italian “designer” OSI never made it into mass production...

http://87a05d1ba1ec8bc0f3eb-38ef210...kcdn.com/blog/siamese_dream/Silver_Fox_07.jpg

I initially just LOLed at the thing, but there was something about that twin-hulled configuration, with its potentially deadly front aerofoil, that stirred something in my imaginations… And very shortly thereafter I was hit with inspiration, and an idea for a car and its driver(s) sprang into my mind. My powers of pencilling having long since deserted me, I set to and tried my best to scribble down the idea…

Presenting an all-new awesome nobcar drawing:

Siamese Dream
Driven by
The Terrible Twin

http://87a05d1ba1ec8bc0f3eb-38ef210...ckcdn.com/blog/siamese_dream/SiameseDream.jpg

What we have here is basically two jet fighter fuselages, joined at the nose by a razor sharp ped slicing aerofoil and at the stern by a jet turbine engine and tailfin.

Ped hits spoiler, and some if not all of the resulting parts are then often sucked into the turbine, processed noisily and spat out of the afterburner, barbequed.

The driver(s) is/are the Terrible Twin. Previously conjoined and now separated, if they feel lonely they can always zip themself back together. The half with the small head has a big arm, so he usually wins the steering contest. One has a big foot (not pictured as I only thought of it afterwards) and operates the throttle, the other has the small foot and is the brakeman. Natch.

In hindsight, the first sketch seemed too car-like, and so what I did next was try to express the idea as a simple model in Max, so that I could work on getting the shapes of the twin fuselage looking right. Here’s where that got me to:

http://87a05d1ba1ec8bc0f3eb-38ef210....rackcdn.com/blog/siamese_dream/siamese01.jpg
http://87a05d1ba1ec8bc0f3eb-38ef210....rackcdn.com/blog/siamese_dream/siamese02.jpg

And at this point, I felt happy to hand the new creation over to one of our PROPER artists Stuart, to take this crude starting point and polish it into a stunning piece of automotive silliness. What he will do next, is work the idea up into a more precise model, and then create some concept sketches by working over renders from the model, so that we can sign off on the detailed sketches before he goes ahead with the final modelling.

The idea is that the car will be powered by the huge central turbine jet engine. But, if it’s damaged, there’s a good chance that the whole structure will split, and in that situation one half of the car will continue to be able to be driven!

And as for the final concept drawings and progress on this car? Well, they’re almost finalised – and will be revealed in Part Two of this blog, to be published here VERY SOON!

User account | Carmageddon

Greetings Carmites from Batwick, the one true hairy one, custodian of the beer gut of doom, Stainless co-flounder and lead code copy-and-pasterer on Carma 1 and 2.

Despite now being engorged with nearly 90 lovely juicy staff at Stainless, I'm also still trying to keep my binaries-a-bubbling, and code on Carma: Reincarnation when I can - which is as much as possible. I'll always rather be up to my elbows in physics code than attending a management meeting or discussing the colour of replacement stair carpets for the office (admittedly because I destroyed the old ones by throwing Nobby’s 42" plasma telly down the stairs one Christmas party...).

What this dual role does do however (if I can attempt to be serious for half a sentence), is to give me a clear perspective on the balance between the needs of running a business and the creative forces behind the best games. Which, are to be honest, one and the same in the end, as you can't create great games without being able to pay your staff to do so!

What I am increasingly aware of with Reincarnation though is how little we have been able to show you in the way of visible progress on the game up ‘til now.

This is resulting in people being understandably frustrated (and in a few cases ANGRY!!!!). Whereas within Stainless we understand the reasons why, and that it's for the good of everybody including all of you out there, we've been too busy getting on with writing the game to appreciate the paucity of communications with you all. So I'm going to make an attempt at setting the record straight here.

So, firstly, why the delay? Why have we not got off of our fat arses and released the game yet?

This is due to two reasons, one a lot bigger than the other (in which respect, and this respect only, they are reminiscent of some men’s testicles).

The little reason is that we needed to get Carma classic for mobile things out to all of our fans. And with over two million downloads and counting across iOS and Android, it’s proved to be a great success and an excellent way to re-establish the Carma Brand.

But the big reason is that the whole scope of the project expanded a great deal. From our original plan of using Kickstarter to fund a game that would get Carmageddon back on the map, in a fun but ‘indy’ way, the project has grown into a ‘proper’ game, that will blow everybody’s socks, underpants, and peep-hole bras off.

This was due to the budget increasing considerably. Why did the budget increase? Well it was a side-effect of the support we received from Kickstarter. Because this showed that you, the lovely juicy giblet-filled public still loved the game, our shareholder and ex-Bullfrog meister Les Edgar became willing to put serious additional funds into the project, as was Stainless itself. We have ploughed almost all of our profits into Carma: Reincarnation. Which means that I’ve still got a mortgage the size of an elephant’s arse. But it’ll be worth it. Les has put his money where his mouth is, and so have I.

So we now have the sort of funding to do something that is fitting to the brand. Something REALLY REALLY COOL. But, these things do take time. Reincarnation is no longer the short project that it was originally meant to be, because we can now afford to make it not so.

Which all means a BETTER GAME for all of you! Why am I SHOUTING? SHUT UP!!! Sorry.

It also means a better game for us. Which is good, as we can’t wait to play it either. No really, we actually can’t wait. We were still playing Carma 2 networked in the Stainless offices for years after its release. We want another one, but unfortunately we have to write the damned thing first. How inconvenient.

By the way, I’d like to allay any fears brewing out there that any console versions of Carma: Reincarnation are in any way impacting the schedule of our PC (and subsequent Mac and Linux) releases. They are not – there is nothing but BIGGERness and BETTERness of the desktop version behind the prolongification of the schedule.

Really – I cannot stress this enough: we are aiming much higher than we’d originally planned for, due to having the money to do it. We are going to make this game vibrate with tasty goodness. Get nailing your socks onto your ankles, as they’re gonna blow. As are your pants, but that might just be due to “old lady problems”, which let’s face it, are entirely your concern, not ours.

But, we just don’t want to show the game to anyone, until we feel it is good enough to survive scrutiny. And ironically enough, it’s our fans and (especially) Backers who we feel the most sensitive about showing something to prematurely.

This has then been exacerbated by the additional budget. How come? Well because the bigger scope has allowed us to be considerably more ambitious with many targets within the game spec – including the visuals. We aren’t using any graphics or physics middleware - we explored the options extensively, and concluded that it would be better to continue developing our own. But this has meant an enormous rewrite of our engine tech. Which in turns means that right now, the game looks untextured and well, a bit shit to be honest, surprisingly far into the project (on the surface – but it’s all in the schedule). Eventually though, everything will come together and then it will blossom into the knife-wielding butterfly that we are all longing for.

So, thank you all SO MUCH for your patience. It will be worth it in the end, we promise. And we also promise to start showing you STUFF just as soon as it meets our quality thresholds. Frustrating though this may be, if we didn’t have such high standards, the eventual game wouldn’t be so amazing either. No, each splattered piece of granny liver must be hand-crafted with care, attention and diligence before we are prepared to fling it against your monitors.

Yes, I’m making a Big Fat Hairy Batwick Promise to repay your confidence in us... Whilst revolting your mother/wife/lover/sister/etc. as they stand there watching over your shoulder, the cup of tea they’d been bringing up to you smashing to the floor in sync with their lower jaw as the screams of the innocent are cut short by the circular saw mounted on the front of your car, severing both legs and flinging them so hard into the awaiting flank of a nearby cow that it is knocked straight into the path of an oncoming train.

Killing things has never before been so much fun! Isn’t that great? We think so! We’re performing a service to humanity, but to be deeply offensive in such a technically accomplished manner takes time.