So after nearly 8 years of work, I've finally released my racing game...

Anyone whose been around the Unity forums now for a while will probably know I've been working on SuperTrucks Offroad for quite a while now.

While I don't have any children, so to speak, I like to think of this game as my 8 year old child that I've invested pretty much all my spare time and money over the past years into, much like a parent will spend a lot of money and time on a real child, to get it to the point where it's 8 years old and can walk, talk and be fairly independent.

I am busy writing up a blog post, that goes pretty deep into a post-mortem of lessons I learned in the 8 years I've been working on this project, and I'll also go into detail of how much the game cost to make, and why things took so long, as soon as its up I'll be sure to post a link, I believe there will be a wealth of information in there that any indie dev can learn from.

The first platform I released the game on was the Windows Store, and I've already gotten some good feedback, although for some reason a lot of people seem to be dropping off on the first race in the tutorial, or the second part of the tutorial, where the player is shown how to customise and upgrade their truck.

I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could give my 8 years of hard work a spin, and any feedback would be much appreciated, specifically around the tutorial, and if you lost interest, why it was you lost interest.

You can download the game on the Windows Store here...
Since it is a UWP app, it requires you to have Windows 10 installed.

Much Appreciated!
Meltdown

 

Looks neat. Are you going to release it on Steam as well?

 

Eventually, yes. I'm kind of going through a soft launch phase at the moment, and just trying to get things finely tuned before releasing on more platforms.

 

I can't actually test it because I am on Windows 8.1 BUT wanted to give you a

BIG CONGRATS!

...for getting it done!

 

Downloading now...

 

+1

I was starting to doubt that you will ever release it @Meltdown, but I'm super glad you did it! Looking forward to that blog post. You give me hope I might finish my own game eventually as well, even if it takes many years.

 

Huge Respect!
I'd like to buy it. But I'll wait until you publish it on Steam, or itch.io

 

Congrats! Always nice to hear from someone who has finished his game.

Also congrats for staying on course for 8 years... that is quite the achievement!

 

I don't have a Windows 10 machine I can play it on, so I'll be hotly anticipating your other platform launch, and even more excited to read that post mortem.

But most importantly, congrats on launching your game. I can only imagine what it feels like to have worked on something this long and now releasing it to the world... I suspect it's a mix of emotions across the board. Brace yourself for the opinions of those that don't understand how much of yourself you've sacrificed to make this game happen, and keep in mind that in every criticism, there's a chance to improve (this game or future ones!).

That said, judging from the screenshots it looks really neat!

 

I assume you want feedback here, rather than (or in addition to) the Windows Store?

 

You should support older Windows versions too. I have 8.1 and can't even try it.

 

Have to ask. Will every platform make use of IAPs? Or will we be able to just purchase the full thing on some platforms?

 

I'll wait for it on Steam. I'm gonna show it to my friends, though!

 

Ultimately this game was built for mobile, but when I release on Steam I may consider this, although that will be quite a while still.

 

Yes, I was looking for some feedback, especially around the tutorial and the first time user experience.

 

Congrats!

 

I'll probably give it a look when it comes to other platforms. Unfortunately, Windows Store doesn't really agree with my busted copy of Windows.

 

The tutorial mentions these things (use nitro) but doesn't actually tell you to use them. Is this a conscious choice or merely what happened? It might be better to actually have (require) the user use the newly introduced mechanic.

The sound for nitro is rather weak, to be honest.

When I pause (to write this out), the sound of the truck remains, while others seem to have stopped. This is...really annoying, actually. The sound of the truck should pause. You might have sound fade out when you pause, and fade back in when you continue.

I "hit" one of the nitro tanks on the track, which filled up my bar, but the tank didn't disappear. It definitely should (even if it reappears on the next lap). Now whether it disappearing is just a visual effect that only affects one person (meaning in multiplayer, others can still see it until they hit it), or is a gameplay component (it disappears for a certain amount of time after use, meaning you have to be the first to hit it) is another thing entirely.

Not a huge deal, but the text (mainly in the upgrading tutorial) separates independent clauses with a comma. That's not correct. They should be separated by periods (entirely different sentences) in most cases, and maybe semicolons in a few places.

And I can't scroll down in your "about" popup.

And it looks like the only way to exit is to just "X" out with the Windows button...

Edit: Nvm, it's the escape button. That should have a "confirm" dialog to check if you really want to quit.

Despite all this, pretty fun game! Cool to see something live from this community. Congratulations.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

When you hit one of the nitro tanks, was it in the tutorial, or in a race after the tutorial? In some cases a new nitro can spawn immediately in the same place you just collected one. Every few seconds a pickup spawns at a random point, so this is possible. But you still should have seen the nitro floating up into the sky and disappearing?

I'll look at the other issues too, thanks so much for the feedback.

 

Congrats on getting it out there!

 

Congrats, I really hope it's a success

 

That was in the tutorial. Both by myself and racing against that first person.

 

Congrats!
Looking forward to seeing the blog post.

 

Congrats!! Finally!
Of course I will download / buy it.
Will get back here after some laps
Cheers!

 

Congratulations!

 

I greatly admire your resolve. To stay the course for 8 years is quite a feat, your passion for your project must have been great. I am just getting started with unity, but this story is definitely and inspiration.

 

Congrats on release. Hope it does well

 

Yeeeeahhhhhh!

Incredible resolve, 8 years of work and you saw it to the end, that's unbreakable morale.

Congratulations!!!!

 

Well done @Meltdown . Solid resolve!
When you last posted for feedback I wanted to provide some insightful help, but every decision I thought about suggesting a different approach, I could justify if I put myself in your shoes so I just followed the conversation instead.
Been looking forward to your release.
I have fond memories of that first off-road race game on the Sega Saturn with all my friends, a little under age, drinking low budget beer options Keystone and Natural lite.
Good times!

 

Thanks

If you could give me feedback just around the tutorial that would be awesome, no matter how crazy it is. Even if you tell me, get rid of the tutorial, I would consider it to be honest.

 

My current game has a tutorial to cover its unique mechanics, and it took months of testing and iteration to make it work well.

 

The only really unique mechanic in my game is making a pit stop before you run out of fuel.
And in the upgrade screen, being able to drag cards into empty slots to get a free upgrade.

Perhaps I should just focus on those two?

I guess players can figure the rest out for themselves quite easily.

 

Hang on. Nobody actually said anything about your tutorial being bad. Don't talk yourself out of it without a good reason.

 

Congrats @Meltdown

As far as feedback/issues go:

-When you pick a name you should be able to hit enter not just click the button.

-My first attempt at a name was already taken, the game wouldn't let me do anything then (textbox lost focus). I had to exit the game and reenter to pick another.

-tutorial should have audio as well as the text. It wasn't easy to read and drive at the same time. I'm sure I missed some of the things to learn because of this.

-Upgrades screen tabs at the bottom were clickable (tires, etc) and highlighted but it didn't actually change to that tab. It stayed on the upgrades/cards for the previous category.

-With the cards you expect a drag and you do mention to do that in text. You should probably add an arrow or animation the first time as well. The screens are a bit busy with text so it's not always obvious which text I should be reading.

-Add game controller support

A good soft launch. Happy bug hunting!

 

And the reset of the truck. That being said while most players would figure out the arrow keys, they wouldn't guess z is for nitro and definitely wouldn't guess x for reset. Having the tutorial is completely fine. If you add audio in addition to text you can probably speed up your rate of learning and get the tutorial done in less than 3 laps (maybe 1 with a pit, 2 laps tops). The upgrade tutorial as previously mentioned would benefit from some animations for the gestures in addition to text.

 

Where's the "BIG, FAT, MEGA-LIKE" button?

Fantastic, man!

I can't wait to check it out.

 

Now that the game is done, the adventure begins ...?

Congrats!

 

Congratulations!
I tried it out and love the look and feel of the game, especially the jumps.

However I must have messed up during the engine upgrade part of the tutorial because I get smoked in the first race with the girl. I tried 3 times and can't get close to competing. Then I tried to get out of the race and go back into upgrades and could not... probably I am locked out. So basically I'm stuck losing over and over. Good luck!

 

Well done! 8 years is a very long time. You should be very proud!
Nice job on the trailer, too, btw. I'm not sure if the windows store allows, but if you can, you should definitely add it there as well.

 

Thanks for the feedback. The reset is certainly another unique mechanic. I'm thinking a better idea might be to just show a popup saying PRESS Z TO USE NITRO, and it shows a picture of a keyboard key flashing and pauses the game temporarily for a few seconds.

The audio would be great, but my build size on Android is already 160mb and I'm trying to figure out ways to shave that down. I'll also be localising the game into 8 languages to start, so having localised audio for each version would not only take up a lot of space, it would would be quite expensive too.

Thanks, Windows Store doesn't allow video on the store front unfortunately.

 

If you're looking for a visual way to do it I would definitely do it like you just mentioned. It's essentially how rocket league does the reset as well, it detects when you're in a not good state (like on your hood) and then says press x to flip your car. Being compact and having graphics corresponding to the key press gets more attention than a full sentence where the steal of attention is too long.

 

Yeah, I'm starting to think so too. I'm also thinking of throwing the player directly into a race, i.e straight into the action. Instead of this long drawn out tutorial...

It's amazing how key the design of the tutorial can be to the success of your game.

 

8 years. Wow, Congrats.

Feels good.