Tricky Tracks - New Demo (v1.01) Available
Community Forums/Showcase/Tricky Tracks - New Demo (v1.01) Available
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| Pending the discovery of any last minute major bugs the Tricky Tracks game is finally ready for release. Some features :- - Realistic Physics. - Customisable car settings, suspension, gearing, etc. - Full featured Track Editor, with random track generator (infinite number of tracks!). - Ability to create, edit and share your own track creations with others. - Comprehensive record system, stores the fastest times and by who on which track. - Eighty plus track tiles, with track packs available in the near future. - Complete replay system, save and share your best moments.     You can get the latest demo here :- http://www.wildebeestgames.com/TrickyTracks/TrickyTracksDemov1.01.zip (Approx 15Mb) The demo is fully functional, except for an occasional nag screen while driving. The bundled track editor is completely free from any limitation.  Competition! I'd like to invite you to have a throw at creating your own tracks, since i'm offering five full copies of the game for the best tracks received before the end of March 2006. e-mail your tracks to :- trackcomp-at-wildebeestgames.com The game should be available to buy within the next week or so, as long as the bug reports are not too bad! Many thanks to you all, for your comments and suggestions on this game over previous threads, they have been a great help. Special thanks also to VIP3R for his help and support. Let me know what you think, cheers, Mark Judd |
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| First things first its all looking great. Love the graphics. Menus are very nice. Very professional looking and slick. But..... 45 seconds play time !!!! how can we tell if we like it from that. Could not configure my controller to work at all, PS2 via USB adapter. X axis worked as steering but could not get buttons to do accelerate/brake although it lets you set them to do those functions. Also allows you to set the same joystick axis/button to do multiple things ??? Played with keyboard, and the steering seemed very slow to respond. i.e. you had to hold the key a long time before it had any effect, by which time you were oversteering madly. Also had to drop the display stuff down to minimum on my machine to get it smoother. I know my machine is not the greatest spec, (700mhx Athlon, 512ram, geforce4 MX 4000, XP SP2), but any chance of some lower still settings for us poor people. The previous demo played very nice and smooth on my machine, but so far I could not play this version for any length of time ..... no just 'cos of the time limit ;-) Are there minimum machine specs detailed anywhere?? I was looking forward to this, but can't justify upgrading my machine to play it. Graham |
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| Couple of extra things. Be nice to see the car colour choice reflected in the car image on the selection screen, and to use the numeric keypad to enter figures in the setup screens. |
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| 45 secs? i've not downloaded it yet, I loved the last demo's. If this 45 sec limit is the case, I won't be getting this one i'm afraid. Spend more time downloading than playing... |
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| Another one - I'm trying not to be picky honest. I've just spent ages sat going no where revving the engine like mad. Could not work out what was wrong. Solution. When changing my gearing in the setup I'd managed to leave it blank ??? No gears, no go ;-) Also, forgive what might be a very stupid question, but what are the 'R' settings for steering etc.. for??? |
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| @GeeHawk : Thanks for taking the time (seriously!) - I have had some issues with the cloud detail on some peoples machines - try turning this off in the display settings and see if this helps some. Other testers haven't reported slowdown issues even on very old machines. Also, there is a 'Warning Low FPS' message if the framerate drops below the threshold level - were you seeing this ? - The 'R' setting reverses the chosen axis for the joystick / wheel. I am feverishly working on an FAQ as we speak .....! @Cygnus : The 45 second limit is per race - not in total! - Most of the demo tracks can be completed in 30-40 seconds anyway so it s not too hampering i thought. Mark |
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| I did have the cloud detail turned off, and yes I was getting the FPS warning. I've dropped the draw distance down to 150, and now its much better. 800x600 full screen. I'll try higher settings and see where I end up, although TBH so far at 150 I've not noticed and viewing distance problems. I guess that unless there are very long straights I wouldn't. Completed in 30-40 seconds !!!!! You've playtested this a lot then. lol. |
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| The previous demos had a hard coded draw distance of around 150 if i remember. I think i might amend the demo so that instead of 45 seconds each shot, you get say 10 minutes total each execution of the game, and then nag screens or similar. Was just a bit worried about putting a version out that wasn't crippled enough !! - guess i've gone a bit too far the other way, i'll see what other feedback comes from other sources. cheers Mark |
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| Demo wise, I think you should actually cripple the content itself, because in terms of piracy, it isn't very hard to just bump the timer of the thing up to play it indefinitately. This be for a final demo of the game btw, not a public-test version as you've linked us up to. Currently at school here so I cant give it a whirl yet, but I will the second I get home! (in about 80min) Loved playing the old demo (especially making my own tracks manually via notepad >.>), hope the joystick controls have a dead-zone option in them. |
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| 45 secs are nightmare for a demo. Request: In the options menu: make the selected car color visible on the car picture being displayed. |
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| Good game, but 1. you need a 1024x768 pixel screen to play the game (you can't reach the icon DRIVE...) 2. 45 secs are impossible (for me...:D) |
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| Hmmm - It seems i've messed up on the 'giving a taste - but not too much' front ! I'm working on a slightly modified demo, but am having problems on pitching it right. On the one hand i want people to be able to create tracks and try them, on the other you don't want the game to be so complete it means people feel its unnecessary to splash the cash. An arbitary time limit seems to not work too well. Anyhow, thanks for your comments :- @Grisu : Its possible for the player to create a 'skin' (should that be 'texture') for the car, rather than just a modification of the colour - so i held off changing the appearance of the menu car. @degac : You didn't ought to be able to lose the icons off the bottom of the screen - however if you find the display settings are messed up you can delete the display.dat file from the \settings folder and the game will revert to default (800x600 windowed). Hope this helps. cheers again, Mark |
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| I'll get the constructive critism out the way first .. [-] I too find the 45 Sec limit annoying but I'm pleased you are looking into alternative ways around this. You could allow folks to edit tracks and only physically race along say, 10 pieces before a nag pops up and returns you to the start. [-] I dislike both camera views. Can you stick in a view like the previous demo where the camera is higher above the car?:  [-] The handling of the car seems to be far more unforgiving than the previous demo. Its too easy to lose control of the vehicle. It seems to skid for no apparent reason. Especially at higher speeds + turning. To be fair though, tweaking the car settings helps. I increased the suspension and lowered the ride height. I found this gave the demo the 'feel' of the previous one. [-] Can you speed up the time it takes for the TT image to scroll across (when you press SPACEBAR for example). Again, the older demo was more fun because you could get straight back into the action after pressing SPACEBAR. Ok, the good bits .. [+] Much better graphics [+] Like the tilting ramps [+] Presentation is very nice [+] Great car design [+] Love the digital display Suggestions: [?] For the car tweaks can you replace the value boxes with sliders? [?] Is it worth adding tyre types such as wet, dry, soft, hard? [?] Individual car settings per track? I reckon most of us Blitzers would not mind paying for the game anyhow because it has good 'community' aspects such as track sharing. Keep at it Mark. |
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| Hey excelent. I agree that a 10 minute max playtime is a way better idea. Can't wait :) |
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| Just gave it a shot, and got some things to note : - Setting controls for Joystick was a bit confusing, possibly add a "hit axis/button to set function" option? If not, maybe add a "+" & "-" to each axis? Took me awhile to figure out I could apply both Accel & Brake to Z-Axis, and that it was handled the way I wanted it too. (where tilting axis forward accels, tilting it back brake/decell) - No dead-zone setting for joystick/gamepad, it's a must for me - Car accelerates freakishly fast when I tilt my right joystick (which I set to accel/brake) fully upwards from a stopped position, giving joystick/gamepad users a major advantage over keyboard users for reaching highscores - Music for the menu would be nice, and possibly some low-key music during play - Slamming the brakes while turning gives undesired results for me, I was expecting the vehicle to still turn slightly while slamming brakes, where from my experiance it ignores front-wheels, whether this is done on purpose or not I haven't concluded yet. - Sliders would be very nice, beats inputting numbers, speaking of which, if you keep to input, possibly add numpad support? (didnt work for me with numlock on/off) - This is just personal, but the game menu feels a bit lonely without a background image - What Jim said regarding the TT image Aside from that, love the progress so far though, has that real polished feeling in the actual game itself, looks really nice and clean, no disruptive graphics of any sort. |
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| Played this quite a lot now and have not completed any track yet :( After a while of playing last night I started a game and was presented with this.  I had no control, the car just sat there. Esc took me back to the menu where agin I could do nothing, except esc. On restarting the program all was fine ??? Wierd. Tried out the editor, and it is quite nice. It will obviously benefit from the instructions you are no doubt writing ;-) I do think that the order of the track pieces could be improved as currently it is difficult to find what you want. Particularly the blanck space for jumps which is not next to the jump sections. Perhaps you could group similar pieces together with some method of jumping directly to that section ? Also some sort of automatic method of showing the description of the piece, rather than having to move the mouse from the scrollbar to the piece to see what it is. What sort of price can we expect this to go for? |
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| Hi all, Firstly, thanks again for all of your efforts - i appreciate you taking the time to test this. I have removed the time limit from the demo, you now get a nag screen based upon the number of tiles driven over (Jim - read your mind!). The archive in the original post is updated, but for those of you who have downloaded it already here is a link to the amended .exe file (700k) :- http://www.wildebeestgames.com/TrickyTracks/TrickyTracksDemoExev1.01.zip @Jim Brown : The reset scrolling graphic is to hide the car being plonked back on the track and is the speed it is so as to cover the behaviour of the camera and car during this brief peiod. I tried sliders to adjust the car settings, but struggled to get them to give you the fine control i wanted. I am intending to have a 'custom' camera view, where you can zoom, raise or lower the camera and then have this as your chosen view. The car settings per track is an excellent idea - although i think i may just add the ability to save the car settings as a set, and then you can save / load them as you wish. @Genexi2 : There should be a slight dead zone already with the joystick, but i'll add a custom size option on the controls menu. As far as acceleration goes, yes, the car does accelerate like a nutter ,but if you mess with the gearing you can alter this. I liked the insane power (!) perhaps it needs pulling back a bit ? On the braking and turning issue, if you lock the front wheels the car will not turn at all, i suspect you are doing this. I find if i lift off the brakes to let the wheels turn a little then steering becomes possible again. @Geehawk : Wow, over all of the time i've been coding this, and the testing thats been done i've never seen a screenie like that! no idea what has caused the game to die in that fashion - any chance you could replicate it ? Grouping pieces in the editor is another great idea - i'll look into having tabs down the side of the selection box for turns, etc Price wise i had thought of around 10 euros / dollars. Depends on the sort of feedback i get (i.e. this game is worthless or wow when is it out type comments!) Also a friend of mine is working on a site where you can upload replays / records into a league, so i may have to fund this work ! thanks again for all your comments, cheers Mark |
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| Funnily enough I've never had it happen again, but rest assured if it does I'll let you know. New version is great. Can now experience some of the different obstacles, and complete a course. Nag screen is good. Annoying enough to interrupt your flow, but allows you to get more of a feel for the game. Any chance of a volume control? Now I really should get on with some work ...... well perhaps just one more go ;-) EDIT: Okay a few more goes. Any chance of resetting the records for a track if it is edited? I have a track which I am never going to be able to beat the record of because it is now much longer. I know I could save it as a new name or manually delete files, but that could get complicated during track development. Maybe reset records could be an editor option for the track?? Also random track creator (unlimited tracks) is a great idea, but both tracks I created using it so far were unplayable due to intersecting track pieces, or track pieces being to close together.  EDIT 2: Right I'm now in danger of looking very sad. There does not appear to be any support for lots of tracks in the game or editor. Only 23 tracks are selectable in the game, although a couple more are listed, and only 18 in the editor. This is at 800x600. There are more listed in higher resolutions, but again some are not selectable....it seems to be those that appear over the drive button text. Sorry. I'll go now. |
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| @Mark "car skins": You could still check if the current player uses a "normal skin" or a selfmade one. For the sefmadeone display a car skin with "?" on it. Or load the custom texture and create a pic with it! Still this would be better than just letting it stay plain red. |
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| @Geehawk : Wow! you've created 20+ tracks already ! - Yes i need to change the GUI to a scrolling window. The track records are in the \records folder and can be safely deleted using explorer (each one is named after the track it is for) - i can add a button if you think that would be of benefit. Also , when you create a random track in the editor, it checks for intersections (clashes) and warns you if there are any - like in your screenie, so you can adjust the layout before saving the track out. Look out for the 'Clashes detected' message. New version of the editor will rip up and replace track until there are no clashes, but its still a little buggy at the moment - too much so for public release anyhow. @ Grisu : Yeah, fair comment - i think i will paste the relevant portion of the texturefile into a transparent window where the car image currently is - that should do the trick. Thanks folks for commenting. cheers, Mark |
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| Mark, Are you planning on having different lighting conditions and skys? Examples being Dusk, Morning, Noon, Evening. I've had a good play with the demo (Nag version). Much better! I've got some good settings in place now and the car is therefore easier to control. Something else I miss from the previous demo was the camera-catchup delay. That kind of gave the game a more RC-Control look. Hopefully you can accommodate for this with the proposed custom camera option. |
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| 20+ tracks. Yep told you I was sad. Probably already on your list, but can the available tracks be listed alphbetically. Have to admit I never saw the 'clashes' message in the editor. My mistake. Apologies. However IMHO it would be better not to include the random generator until it can do error free tracks. I have clicked the button lots of times now and it has never created one that did not have clashes. Many of which are really difficult to see in the editor and hence difficult to put right. Does the clashes message appear on user made tracks too? As I managed to make one that had a clash. Not deliberately but when editing a section it moved another section into a clash situation. As far as records go, I think that they should be more tightly linked to the track, i.e. reset when edited, incorporated into the track file even?? At the moment its far too easy to cheat the system, especially if you are going to have online records etc. Although that may well be using a completely different system? At the very least a reset record button would be good just to make it easier when people like me forget and then spend hours trying to beat an unbeatable goal becuse they've made the track harder and forgotten to delete the record file. Graham |
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| @Jim : Hadn't planned on different conditions, although it had crossed my mind to have icy, foggy, etc but dropped this fairly early on. Not sure why i tightened up the smoothing on the camera, but i have to agree with you, the more sluggish camera did give a better sense of speed possibly. I think i might change the default back. @Geehawk : Another fair point (rapidly heading towards the gold testers badge and free copy at this rate.....!). Will certainly implement the link between track and record, so if its edited the records are re-set - also it never occurred to me that i will have to delete any saved replays for that track as they will become broken as well. On the clashes front, i must have been fairly lucky because i usually got around 1 in 4 tracks with interference, but with a tiny bit of editing (i.e. inserting an extra turn) seemed to be able to fix most of them quickly anyway. If i'm honest i don't think the random tracks are up to much, a human designed track always plays better, although they're OK for a bit of light relief (ooh-err matron) cheers Mark |
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| Is there a "TEST TRACK" button somewhere in the editor?!? If not, please make it possible to "autorun" the track currently in making. <> Flyby! You could do so by passing the track name via command line to the main game. |
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| If when you complete a track, you choose to Restart to have another go at it, I notice that the moving obstacles are not reset to their starting states, i.e. moving platforms are still swinging, roundabouts facing the wrong way. This does somewhat ruin your chances of improving on your best time without quiting to menu and restarting. On a similer vein. Will constantly moving platforms/spinning roundabouts be a possibility in future releases?, as crossing a steadily swinging platform does introduce another fun element. As I said I have come across them on restarts and whilst knackering your chances of a better time they were great fun ;-) |
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| @Grisu : Nice idea, one day i might incorporate the editor into the game, seamless and all that - but not for a while, but i will look into having a command line option to autorun a level. @Geehawk : Yeah i noticed this myself but never really got around to doing something about it. The flip flop see saw type thing has an offset hinge so as to return to the correct 'side' after the car passes, but the other physics pieces do not. They do have damping though, perhaps not enough - you must be really moving them ! I think i'll record their positions at start and then re-set them when the car is re-set - this should fix this problem. As for having moving pieces (i.e. swinging platform) i had similar problems to yourself in that you could be on a fast time, but then encounter a tile in a bad position and it stuffs you through no fault of your own. I'd prefer a driver to fail to beat a time due to bad driving rather than a random pieces positioning - thats imho - would you mind if some pieces were constantly moving ? @both : Thanks again for taking the time to comment. cheers Mark |
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| It was particularly the side to side swinging platforms that I have encountered still swinging merrily away, and once or twice a roundabout that was at 90 degrees to the track. Even once managed to get onto a still rotating roundabout and wait a full revolution before I could get off it again! I suppose it would be harsh to fail due to waiting for piece timing, but then again you could argue that you would just have to get to that piece quicker next time ;-) BTW Have managed to crank the draw distance up to 500 with only the occasional FPS warning, but no noticeable slowdown :-) |
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| Geehawk - just tried to mail you but it's bouncing back ? (address from your profile). Mark |
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| Ooops! ditched that address long ago. Try again. |
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| How about you release the current version as freeware and add more features to be sold as a "full version" no timelimits. |
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| How about you release the current version as freeware and add more features to be sold as a "full version" no timelimits. |
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| Another suggestion. It would be nice to have the option to save various car setups, rather than have to change them every time for different styles of track. I currently have 2 lots of settings which I use most and a quicker way of swapping between them would be useful. |
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| @PCD GUY : To be honest I don't think I could offer enough extra features to pursuade someone to part with cash. The full version will be pretty cheap anyway I think! @Geehawk : Yeah, it needs doing - i'm just looking at tidying up the front end - another thing i'm looking at is the pull downs that store the track and replay files, and changing them, so that there is no upper limit on the number of entries. cheers, Mark |
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| yep, I agree, never got to enjoy the game. The pausing thing was getting on my nerves. Won't consider buying this one until I can play through it for a while. |
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| I couldn't enjoy it either. The nag scree came up when i was turning a corner mostly. Then when off and i shoot right off the track. Why not releasea demo, no nag screen and two tracks, and low quality media. I found it a bit hard to control the car too. It would skid far too easily. The barriers on the high speed track are pretty pointless i felt. Even slightly fast contact with them and you go off the edge. But, i guess that's why it's called tricky tracks! Good points: It looks very well presented, so good job on that one! Some nice sounds you got in there as well :o) I wish the nag screen would go, so i could enjoy it more. Looks like a very well made game, so keep up the good work man! |
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| I will second the motion for removing the nag. Just include 1 or 2 tracks in the free version, with the promise of some extra features in the full version. Perhaps have a video on your website of a run through of some of the tracks available in the full version? |
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| Has there been any further progress on this?? I'm still playing away on it from time to time as its a good "quick fix" type of arcade game. |
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| I don't want to kick a software designer when he's down, but I agree with the anti-nag crowd. I've been following this game since it was nothing but gray polygons and a text file you edited to create new tracks but I immediately lost interest when I downloaded the polished-up naggy version. SpaceAce |
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| 15Mb download for a 45 second demo? You gotta be kidding! |
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| I agree that the nag screen is prolly not the best idea. It annoys people and annoyed people are much less likely to press the BUY button. There are surely ways to limit the demo without ruining the actual gameplay value and fun factor. You need happy customers that want to see more of the game when they reach the limits of the demo. |
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