GRANADA RACER RELEASED
Community Forums/Showcase/GRANADA RACER RELEASED
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| Hi Friends. Tomorrow (19th june) is the release date for Granada Racer, but today is already finished and uploaded. So you, as the blitzbasic community, can try the demo from now. It has been 2 years of very very hard work, and i hope you like it. The Demo Size is 160MB (sorry about that, but you will play in a real city!!!). Please let me know if you have any troubles. http://www.granadaracer.com/ Direct Demo Download: http://www.granadaracer.com/demo/setupgrdemo.exe Direct Buy Web: http://www.granadaracer.com/index.php?main=buy.php THANKS TO ALL BLITZBASIC COMMUNITY! P.D: Sorry for the caps in the post title. Too much excitement, xD |
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| Will have a look... suspect the large download size (just for the demo) is going to put off a lot of people... |
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| 160 MB is a lot for a blitz game. Are you sure you have enough bandwidth for the traffic? |
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| Well at least its hosted somewhere reasonable. Coming down at 240k/s here, 3 mins to go. |
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| Yes, it is a semi-professional hosting. We pay a lot for it. The full game is 400MB and is available to buy using on-line download or full boxed send. Thanks for trying GfK! |
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well good luck with this. It's a funny name as I know Granada is a place but Ford also made a Granada: |
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| Looks nice. But 400 MB of data and only 10 pics on the page? :-) think it would not suffer if it got a few more than those, if possible with a "show fullsize" functionality if one clicks on a picture |
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| Dreamora, really thanks for your comments. Now that we have finished the game, we are going to work a full week on the web page :) With nice videos, mp3 downloads, lot of screenshots! Meanwhile, here it is a new screenshot:  |
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| hey GA... that's interesting...i never knew that they had released a Brit granada... check out what i've always know as the Ford Granada...  Kurix... good luck with your game... hope it sells more than a few licenses... a lot more... it looks like it has the potential to be a winner... --Mike |
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| Kurix, CONGRATULATIONS and the very best of luck with Granada Racer. I had a neat idea, you could sell it to the taxi drivers around the city so the can more quickly learn "the Knowledge" of how to drive from place to place in the fastest time. All the best and eep us informed with how sales go. IPete2. |
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| Here are some thoughts from my side: 1. PLEASE convert ALL your BMP images to PNG! I repeat: PLEASE convert ALL your BMP images to PNG! You download will be smaller. Your HDD usage will be minimized. Your loading times will speed up. SO THERE IS NO REASON NOT to use PNG. 2. Convert all your wav files to Ogg. Results in: See 1. 3. There is not much sense having dozens of languages for the setup when you only can select "Espanol" and "English" in game. - So dumb the rest, at least for the demo! 4. Make proper setup images. It will look more professional that way. 5. You should add some kind of loading bar (progress info). 6. RAR or at least Zip the EXE! (saves some MB as well) 7. Add visible "markings" on the street. So I know where I have to drive. The minimap alone isn't enough! 8. Downcase all your filenames. It looks ugly having them set in different ways. Bugs: (mui importante) 1. If the user selects English, you have to give him English exit texts and keys. "Si or No" es no Ingles! 2. If you drive to fast you can cross grassy lanes. This way your car gets stuck inbetween them and you loose the race:  3. The menu images are far too dark. 4. The car physics and sounds need tweaking. P.S.: Yes I know this has been hell of work. But one can always polish stuff. And you should if you want to sell this. |
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| Thanks for all the info, i will take a look. Only two fast things... - Press R to reposition the car in the track when you get stuck. - Publishers wants .exe for the demo :( Thanks again, really! |
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| De nada. I know that Publishers do want an Installer. You can Zip the Installer too! This saves around 4 MB at my test and every bit helps. Also I found out that the lap counter texts (when you pass one lap) is also still in Spanish too. |
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| Oh, one more thing, you can press TAB to see game status! |
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| --------------------------- Error! --------------------------- Memory access violation --------------------------- OK --------------------------- oh- well :( |
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| When do you have that problem? That really scares me :_( Can you tell me your computer specs? Do you have the latest drivers? |
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| I found the problem. If I block your network connection requests (via the firewall) the game crashes. |
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| Mmm, the demo really doesn't need network connection to work... but i think there is still a thread created to manage network traffic, and a possible firewall block could make the thread crashes. The full game is internet based, and the demo is just a cut of the full game, so i forgot to remove some internet requests... Thanks for that! |
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| @Indie - Perhaps a little more info on how the crash occured would be *MUCH* more helpful than to declare ERROR! I mean, come on man, a little help for KuRix would be appreciated I'm sure... @KuRix - Looks great man! Test driving now! |
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| Thanks JoeRetro, indie already discovered the problem. This is what i like from this community, is great!. One more thing, in the full version there is a mode where you can play in FreeCity, so you can go whereever you go, without limits! |
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| ... --- ... |
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| Yeah, I seen it. You posted 4 minutes before I did. |
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| downloading demo right now... see ya after testing ;) |
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| I know that Publishers do want an Installer. Customers want an installer. Publisher don't always as they'll most likey wrap it themselves... |
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| Customers like plain Zips too. So it really depends which party you serve. But there is nothing wrong in Zipping an Installer! ;) |
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| woah... 163 mb... donwloading it now, seems to be coming down fast enough though... good :) --Mike |
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| I guess it depends on the customer type. Maybe you are I like zips but for casual games (puzzles etc) this isn't a good idea. Hey you're obsessed with filename case (I understand), it's like OCD, but as noone will ever see this, it's pretty irrelvent imho ;-) Anyway, we've digressed sorry KuRiX. |
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| Hm. The controls are way too heavy and the car acceleration/sense of speed just isn't there for me. Replace the car model with a bus, and it'd probably feel better. I also noted that two of the AI cars crashed, and appeared to respawn at the same point at the same time - one on top of the other. One of the AI cars started doing "donuts" - I noticed it on the map. I think it was stuck in a circle trying to get to an AI waypoint or something but it couldn't make the turn. You should make it so you can knock down the little parking meter/lamp post things. Its infuriating when you clip one and you come to a grinding halt, and have to mess about reversing to drive around it. The other major point I would raise, concerns the AI. It seems the other cars would rather ram you out of their way to stick to what's apparently the only racing line they know, rather than navigating a path around you. Its so very nearly, but not quite there. |
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| Well, thanks GfK. The most important part of the game is the on-line racing and RPG features (not available in demo). The speed is there when you are at level 100, and in the demo you are only level 50. I have never seen the donuts... you are a lucky guy :) The AI is very basic, and in the demo is easier, to be more playable. They follow a path with some error allowed to be slighty different each time. The controls are customizable in the Garage, with lots of adjustable physics, with upgrades and different character attributes, but in the demo there are only 10 upgrades. Really thanks anyway, all this information is very important for me! P.D: I suppose that people who lives in Granada or Spain and can recognize their city will appreciate it more :) |
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| I'm quite excited about this. |
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| Grisu, thanks for the tips...I just changed all my .bmp to .png. :) |
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| Ok I just checked out the game. Here's what I saw: 1. The car accelerates WAY too slow. It's almost like the whole game is going in slow motion. Needs to be more realistic. I'm not sure what your scale is...but if you're using 1 unit = 1 meter you can do the conversion and see how fast you're actually going IRL. IMO it should be the same. 2. You should let people see the hi-res textures in the demo. It's only makes sense because most people will think the demo textures are the only textures. The whole reason of a demo is to show people how GOOD everything looks. You fix those 2 things and your demo will jump up a few notches in coolness. |
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| The game is a little RPG. If a new character in Diablo2 is too strong the game is too easy. Once you reach high level and you gain strength and buy some good parts the speed and acceleration of the car is 4x. You can improve this in the demo by selling the red car, buying the blue one, and buying some good parts for it. Then upgrade your strength in the garage too! I know that can dissapoint people :( Hi-Res Texture are 250MB... so i didn't know what to do... Thanks anyway :D |
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| quite impressive... a few tweaks here and there, and this one will be ready to roll... most of the critiques have been mentioned above... the langaue thing after i chose English, and got Spanish menu opitons (si or no) stood out most... the car accleration and lack of gearbox indicator (i didn't notice one,was there one there?) could also be looked at... ... otherwise, it looked pretty good to me for what it is. one side note... don't get stuck chasing perfection... i know how that can be... this is not to say, don't try and make it as good as it can be, but a lot of stuff you'll hear is good, but could be overkill for a game like this... again... good luck... --Mike |
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| Personally, I'd go with what Grisu said and change all the .bmp to .png and then include the high res textures. Also, state up front somehow about the RPG nature of the game or some people (like me) will think the game isn't working right in regards to acceleration. I'm only giving you honest feedback because the game has potential and looks good. Good luck Kurix. |
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| .bmp's zip up just as well as .png's do. It's only really needed for saving hard disc space once everything has been unpacked. Have you tried using .jpg's for the photo looking textures? they will cut down the download. Downloading just now :o) |
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| Even converting bmp to png will decrease the zip (when done right). PNG zip better than BMP! JPG is even better though. It depends on how many colors the images have. |
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| Thanks for all, friends. Here in Spain the game is selling quite good (mainly to see the city on 3D, xD). The main reason of using bmp's was the loading time. THe game loads 800+ textures every time you start a new race, so the time was overkilling. Bmp's are the fastest ones because they are just plain images... |
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| I agree with Ross, PNG cannot compress significant better than ZIP, they both use about the same algorithm. Unless you convert your PNG to 8 Bit. There is one thing you could do: convert them to JPGs! The good part is: you don't need to alter the sourcecode, simply replace the BMPs by JPGs that are named BMPs. Blitz will noless load em. You may have to visually check every texture and decide how much loss is bearable. Some textures can be comressed down to 40% quality, some require at least 80%. After all you'll still save about half of the (texture)space compared to PNG. You could also offer two versions of the Demo for download, where you'd explicitely state the small download is using reduced Graphics Details. So people would know about it. Didn't play it yet, but I think generally this is the best Car racing game written in Blitz so far! Nice Idea to add RPG stuff to it! Good luck with this! |
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| Just about to play it ... but after reading this thread I would say just let people download the full game and include a time limit. Let them play the total package for an hour or more so they can really get into the RPG experience (my friend is doing that with Aveyond ... she gives players 10 hours!) With a game of this magnitude you're better off letting them get the full experience and just limiting their time rather than trying to sift through it all and make a half-baked demo. |
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| i have to say im slightly concerned about the points gfk raised - waypoint failure & godlike street lights etc..some obstacles should really collapse/explode/disappear on collision - slowing the player or whatever...they shouldnt stop the player dead..its disrupts gameplay + is very annoying. As for the a.i waypoint & general behaviour - this should be solid..which shouldnt be too hard, the game is essentially 2D..using excuses like "thats not the main part of the game" is a little silly..-all parts of your game should be polished.. and anything that effects gameplay should be considered very important. anyway rant over - it looks very good - one of the best looking titles ive seen created with blitz..well done ;) |
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| Yeah, I have to say I felt the same. The game is huge in scope and it's an admirable attempt but it falls short in so many areas that you can tell you were trying to cover every base and in the process couldn't give each one enough attention. - Definitely make the signs etc... collapsable and make crates etc... physics objects, I was so disappointed when I tried to knock stuff out of my way and it stopped me! - Make a real waypoint system so I can see where I need to turn on the minmap ala Midnight Club/GTA etc... - Make the demo the complete game with just time limitation tied into your online server. Allow players to register and store their information serverside. This game is huge and trying to do a feature limited demo is just crippling. This is the sort of game that you need to allow people to invest themselves in. - I thought the physics and acceration seemed good, but the car sounds suck. I was driving a Z28 Camaro with those beautiful ZR1 rims (I actually had the Trans Am version of that car) but it sounded like I was driving a micro machine, not a 320 HP LT1! This is a good start! I'm sure you'll do ok with it, but you could really take this game to the next level with some more work. Make a Gran Turismo killer on the PC ;) |
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| Error! Unable to create 3D Scene! I'm on a really crappy computer at work with onboard video card, but I've still run many a-blitz3d apps on here just fine. Not sure why this is happening :( |
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| I think you are right with all the things i need to update. Really, i need to consider all of them. The problem is that finally i got a publisher, and i was set a date limit. As Jeremy said, i tried to make too many things, and most of them are not well covered. But i am the only programmer, and most of the 3d artwork was done by me too. I am thinking on a big update, with all that things covered... Thanks friends! P.D: There is a small sign on the top of the screen that appears when you need to turn, indicating the right next direction. |
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| How about having an option to display a "help line" on the street. So the driver will get the ideal route. Most racing games have that (even with a ghost car driving in front of you). I hope you manage to compress the images to jpg, png or whatever tp reduce the size of your installer a lot. |
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| Ok, i will compress the wav to mp3, and then i will convert all bmp's to jpg's, and i will make a demo with hi-res textures. Hope it will be ready for today! Thanks! |
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| And rar or zip the setup.exe at the end. I'm really interested in how small it will be. P.S. Backup your original BMP textures! |
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| How does the multiplayer run on 56k? It looks good, and if I purchase it I want it to run on my machine (of course I'm going to buy the boxed set) and my dialup connection. Thanks, Chad |
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| Well, we have not fully tested it. The full game has an option to disable collisions on multiplayer, so, although you will have lag, the better player will win. With slow dsl (128kbits) the game runs with ping 140, and it is very playable. Thanks for your interest chad. If you have any other question please let me know. P.D: Tomorrow i will upload the new demo version. |
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| MAV error due to my firewall blocking the net traffic. I did not bother enabling it as I hate any program that tries to talk to the web without informing me that it will do it and without asking me if I will allow it or not. This is one potential sale lost I'm afraid... Barney |
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| Sorry about that Barnabius. The demo doesn't try to talk to the web, but creates a pseudo-server using winsock for managing player purposes, and then connects to itself. What i don't know is why firewalls always complain about that... Anyway, i will take this seriously, and i will detect if there is a firewall or antivirus enabled blocking the auto-server, and then i will just show a warning instead of MAV. thanks for your opinion! |
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| Don't get me wrong KuRiX. I have nothing against your proggie and would like to try it out as I like this kind of games. All I am suggesting is, you should inform the customer what is going to happen and anything network code should be executed only when the user explicitly asks for networked features of the game. That way everybody will be happy and your sales will surely be a bit bigger. And we all know that every little bit helps ;-) BTW. I've tried Granada Racer on another machine, which is not connected to the web and I find it rather interesting. There's a lot of potential in it. Barney |
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| No problem! this is the kind of things i want to read about my game! Now it is already fixed, and it just shows a message telling you to please disable the firewall. We have sold some licenses here, and people says that multiplayer is Superb. Cheers! |
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| I like it Kurix! Very nicely done. Once you get used to things stopping you, and get used to the control sensetivity, it works pretty well. Here are my suggestions: Change the acceleration! Yeah, getting a power house off the bat isnt good, but a ford focus fully loaded with 5 heavy guys moves faster than that car (0-60 (120 kpm) in 18 sec is bad, really bad). Add some controls for a joystick (people use the xbox360 controllers on the pc very regularly, and they're easy to work with in blitz), and the driving would be smoother. Just my 2 cents :-) Well done though, nicely finished product! |
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| Kurix, I noticed the indicator that points but I personally don't think it's able to communicate effectively what a driver needs to know to win. When racing I plan much further in advance my route to win than that little indicator can provide ... for example I'd like to see the next 3 - 5 checkpoints so that I can plan where to go and what to look for before I get there. The only reason that idicator works for you is because you know the city and know the game. For someone experiencing it all for the first time it's a real downer. |
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| Ok, Jeremy, i will see what i can do. There is Joystick, pad, Wheel, and Force FeedBack support in the game, just in the options, then configure controls. Does not work for you dark half? Thanks again! |
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| Is the demo already updated? |
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| No, i had to upload a little patch for the full version. The new demo will be with jpgs, mp3's, one more map to try, and better car. You said you prefer a .zip file to download. But what do you want inside of it, a installer, or the game directory compressed? Thanks. |
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| For most users here a compressed directory would do. But if you plan to "release" the new demo to the general public it should have an installer. As Windows / Outlook often gives warnings when trying to download an exe file, you should zip the installer to avoid this. Furthermore I used rar on your old exe and it saved some MB in filesize. So this might be another small advantage. |
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| Well, then i will upload the two options, mixed to publisher-user needs. One exe with installer One zip with full directory Thanks. |
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| Really not needed! Uploading 1xx MB is pain. I just tried explaining the alternatives. - Decide which one you prefer. |
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| But the Exe is zdlib compressed :D |
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| It's YOUR game. So compress whatever you like or not. I'm trying to give ideas. - I'm no omnipotent superhero! ;) |
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| Please don't be rude. I just want to please everyone :) I have changed all Bmp's to Png's (cannot convert to jpg's because the masked images were very ugly). And i have changed all wav's to mp3's. I have added the hi-res textures too, and this is increasing the final size a lot. The final RAR with the DIR is: 218 MB now i know why i did not include the hi-res textures in the demo download... Do you want me to upload the new version? |
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| Wait: I might have an idea. Will email u in 3 mins. For the images, you can only compress images that don't need transparency with JPG. Such images would be the loading and menu backgrounds e.g. Try to sort these out and save them as jpg! |
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| Yeah, that is what i thought, to compress only not masked images... But there are a lot (about 50), mixed with the other, hehe. The problem is that the hi-res textures folder is 150MB with png's !!! But it is ok, i will try, thanks. |
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| If you have pngs with fewer colors in it. You can reduce the color palette to 256 or even 16 colors where possible. This also saves a lot of data. I know this is work, but you only need to do it once... :) P.S.: E-Mail with more help sent. |
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| And the result is: 85 MB of Demo with hi-res textures !!! Uploading new version! |
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| Yeah! Good Job! |
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| The new demo is uploaded. You can use the link at the top of the post or the zip version at: http://www.granadaracer.com/demo/setupgrdemo.zip Thanks all! P.D: It is 100 MB because it includes a copy of the manual in PDF of the full version. |
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| Cool Downloading now... IPete2. |
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| Link(s) not working here... |
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| They work for me... very strange... |
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| Now they work again. But maybe you offer the docs for the demo as separate download? |
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| Well, the manual is 18MB pdf. It can be download separately from the web. Yes, perhaps it is a good idea :) |
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| (deleted as ir was roo big) Your cars always get stuck in the ground at this position it seems. |
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| You've got mails. |
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| Thanks for all Grisu. I have just noticed that in that place there are less triangles that should be. No problem anyway, not a normal place to run, and most of the cases with traffic cars. Here you have a screenshot of the other night at multiplayer game:  Cheers. |
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| nice nice :D a tip: replace the bmp puctures with PNG, there is no quality leak, and scale the textures down to a square size like 128, 256, 512! then tey will look better! |
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| Hey Devils, in the new demo, the extension is .bmp, but the pictures are jpg really :D Thanks! |
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| Is there already a demo3 out? |
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| NO, still not xD i am very bussy! |
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| Sweet work! I have a few things that bug me though: 1) Some of the races go back on themselves, so that when youre heading back to the start you have arrows pointing where you no longer need to go. I've been cought out by this quite often. 2) the cars, even the powerful ones, seem to accelerate like a 1L Engine in a Porsche :) I think more power is needed by default. I tap a tree and it takes me ages to get back up to speed. With the racer Evak and I worked on, I preferred the slow start however we did come to the conclusion that racing needed a bit more of an adrenaline punch, so a faster acceleration was required. Otherwise, this is great, even moreso for a Blitz game! (Yeah, I know it's released, but you know, Who doesn't release Patch 1.1 now?) (Lol: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22Patch+1.1%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=) |
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| Hey Cygnus, thanks for the comments!. In the full version i have fixed most of that things, and i will release a V3 demo with lighter cars, faster, and better collision response soon! Thanks! |
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