Kickstart This: Distance

By: Derek Yu

On: October 23rd, 2012

[This is a guest post by Shinji16.]

The team behind Nitronic Rush has grown up, with three of them forming their own indie group called Refract Studios. Their first project is a game called Distance, which has been called a spiritual successor. As stated by Kyle Holdwick, the Creative Director of Refract, Distance is a chance to do things they wanted to do with Nitronic Rush but weren’t able to.

One noteworthy difference is for Nitronic Rush they built their own engine, but are using Unity for Distance. They’re also putting heavy focus on a powerful but easy-to-use editor, modding support, and live multiplayer. Nitronic’s multiplayer was ghost racing.

Right now they’re using Kickstarter to fundraise and also because they want fan feedback for direction in various parts of the project. With endorsements from Aaron Hightower, lead programmer of San Francisco Rush 2049 (a major inspiration for Nitronic), and industry veteran Cliff Bleszinski, along with proven experience as an award winning dev team, they deserve support. You can find their Kickstarter here and their Steam Greenlight here.

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Zineth

By: Derek Yu

On: August 19th, 2012

Developed by a group of students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute during their Spring semester, Zineth is a non-linear action game that mostly lets you skate around, but also gives you the option to fiddle around with fetch quests, races, Twitter, and a strange Pokémon-esque minigame that’s accessible through the player’s mobile device. The main draw, however, is the skating, and it feels fast and fun. It’s complemented by a cool aesthetic and an expansive world that offers plenty of opportunities to grind, glide, and wall jump across huge distances.

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Comiket 82: Preview Video

By: Derek Yu

On: August 7th, 2012

This is a video that mashes up quite a few trailers for doujin games that will be available at this year’s Comiket (Comic Market), a Japanese self-published comic book festival (and the largest in the world, with half a million attendees last year). The video was put together by Edelweiss, a doujin game developer that created Ether Vapor and is attending Comiket 82 with a new shoot ‘em up called Astebreed. The festival is taking place this weekend on August 10-12.

Links to each of the games featured in the video are available here on Edelweiss’s website.

(Source: Elixir)

Trailer: Nitronic Rush

By: Derek Yu

On: November 5th, 2011

Nitronic Rush, a racing game by students from Digipen, will be released as freeware next week on November 11th.

Trailer: Krautscape

By: Derek Yu

On: August 17th, 2011

From what I gather, these are the two things you should know about the upcoming Krautscape: 1. the player in the lead builds the track, and 2. your vehicle can leave the track and glide through the air.

Proun

By: Derek Yu

On: June 23rd, 2011

Joost van Dongen’s gorgeous abstract racing game Proun has been released today as pay-what-you want. Players are encouraged the try the full game for free if they’re unsure and pay for it later if they feel that it’s worth some dough (I definitely think so!). Proun features 4 tracks (plus one bonus track when you pay for the game), up to 4-player splitscreen multiplayer, 4 speeds, online leaderboards, and an option to race against your ghosts. Players can also create their own tracks in 3d Studio MAX and share them with others.

TIGdb: Entry for Proun

Hot Throttle

By: Lorne Whiting

On: February 18th, 2011

A little late, but cactus recently released a new game through Adult Swim’s Flash portal [With the help of Mark Johns, aka Doomlaser. -Ed.]. Hot Throttle is a surreal racing game where you unleash your carsona, racing against fellow nude carsonas while avoiding garbage cans, hobos, and robots. The graphics are all simple and pastel, lending the game a simultaneously cute and unsettling look, with the numerous cutscenes definitely contributing to the ‘creepy’ aspect of the races.

In other cactus-related news: he posted a teaser image for a new Mondo game on his blog. Alas, one of the only series of games that actually uses the 3D part of Game Maker.

Darkwind: War on Wheels

By: Derek Yu

On: October 7th, 2009

Darkwind: War on Wheels is a physics-based, turn-based, squad-based vehicular combat MMORPG with a real world timescale and detailed economic simulation. And as improbable as that sounds, it’s apparently quite real. Shaun (udm on the forums) writes:

I haven’t played Darkwind yet myself, but I’d be impressed if the game lived up to even half of what it claims to be on the website! I will point out that character permadeath and persistent NPC gangs are two of the game’s features. I just thought those sounded particularly interesting.

If you’re interested, you can try the game for free for an unlimited amount of time. Buying a subscription, however ($20 for 3 months, $34 for 6 months, $58 for 12 months), enables you to buy, sell, trade, and customize cars, own facilities, and participate in subscriber-only events, among other things. And if you subscribe now, your subscription is free until October 19th.

TIGdb: Entry for Darkwind: War on Wheels

Video after the jump:

Swarm Racer 3000 Preview

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: August 17th, 2009

You may remember the original Swarm Racer from Lexaloffle Games. Well this new version looks more polished and sexy than ever. And it provides a good excuse to start tagging the old Lexaloffle posts here on TIGS. (They’ve released some real gems, if you aren’t familiar!)

(Source: T-Dub!)

Classic: GeneRally

By: Guest Reviewer

On: June 6th, 2009

[This is a guest review by Duckmeister.]

GeneRally is a top-down, offline multiplayer racing game by Hannu and Jukka Räbinä that would remind one of Micro Machines. You can play with up to 5 other players, either human or AI, and drive until you cannot drive any longer. At the surface, it’s just that simple, a couple of guys sitting around the computer playing a straight-forward racing game. But once you look deeper, you start to see all the work that was put into it.

I’ll show you a glimpse at some of the features in this game. There are changeable difficulty levels for the AI players. Extremely customizable driver profiles, with custom colors, controls, and full statistics. 50+ tracks and 8 cars, plus thousands of community-made tracks and cars. Semi-realistic physics. An extremely detailed track and car editor. Ghost car (for time trials)! Full mod support! Changeable timescales! Completely customizable race conditions, like how much a full tank of fuel weighs, or how fast the tires wear off and the fuel burns up. That’s right, for such a minimalistic racing game, there are pit crews and pit stops! The list goes on and on…

Basically, GeneRally is everything you want in an arcade racing game and more. If you like Micro Machines, or just fun games in general, you’ll like GeneRally. It’s got features you’d never expect in a minimalistic racing game (like pit crews), full statistics, and some of the best and smoothest offline multiplayer I’ve seen. As a bonus, the full mod support, with the very much alive community means the replay value is endless.

Try this game out, you will not be disappointed.

TIGdb: Entry for GeneRally