zaphod

I thought that was the point of WiiWare and presumably DSiWare. No idea on how you get your hands on the SDK though, but they did tout it as though anyone could make stuff to get on there, not just the big companies. Yes, but if it is like WiiWare, then there is still a lot more hurdles in place between developing something and getting it on the device compared to something as open as the iPhone. They need to sell developer accounts to anyone willing to buy them (for a modest price) and then have a way of using normal hardware as an SDK (don't need to get a special dev kit from Nintendo). Then they need to put every submission onto the store provided it lives up to the terms they set. If they did all that then it would be as open as the Apple app store, and the systems would be flooded with games. Right now as far as I can tell, they are still using the system of picking and choosing among developers who pitch things at them.

this is freaking rad! I must know what it is for!!!!

I wish Nintendo would open up the SDK for this and make an open app store like the iPhone has. I suppose there are a lot of entrenched companies who would be extremely threatened by something like that though. I keep seeing stories stating that nintendo wants more independent games on the Wii and DS . . . thats pretty much the best way to do it.

we have to use real physics because the entire game is built around and utilizes a realistic physical simulation. I understand exactly though the point you are making, it is all about adjusting the physical values of the kart and suspension to appear the most stable, while still allowing for movement over any shaped track or terrain. It's a tricky tightrope but it is slowly evolving to a happy place. Since that last video I have lowered the restitution of the kart body and of the game world dramatically, which really cuts down on any amount of bouncing around you do before regaining control of your kart. It gives you a much better chance of staying in control when landing from a long jump if you are somewhat level. So we are going to keep tuning it as much as possible, but we will never be able to or even desire to use "fake" physics since physics is pretty much what our entire game revolves around. It is a physics-based kart combat game much more than it is an on-rails racing game.

I sure hope we are in the last 10% We pretty much have most things that are going to make it into the first release done at least in terms of the framework, right now we are standing back and re-working the weak parts of our technology that testing has indicated needs more work. Once that is smoothed out, we will be focusing on a few more minor features and adding as much new game modes and maps as we can. We need to have something ready to release by the summer, or else figure out how to fund more development since we are both closing in on the home stretch of our savings. Both mine and Brian's lives have pretty much become consumed by this game, and we will be extremely excited to release it no matter what the reception. We have put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money into this project!

Here is some more progress on dressing up the space jump obstacle map - I added most of the space dressings and put some signs directing you in many parts.

The karts never randomly start rotating, they do bounce around on landing (monday I will try ratcheting the kart body restitution down) - the kart physics setup is something I am endlessly wrestling with. We are using bullets built in vehicle model which has a lot of suspension values to tweak, all of which dramatically change the way the kart behaves. It is easy to get it set up to perform well in some situations, but there always seems to another situation you just broke while tuning it for another. It is a long and slow and painful process. Also, definitely not my benz

yea I have gotten a few comments about the thickness as well, I was going for like a rainbow road type vibe but I will probably end up adding just a little bit of thickness (and tripling the polycount) I was planning on putting the checkpoints at set places, mostly after each tricky part - it is kind of supposed to play like a rocket jump map, where you have to get through each part in stages ( unless you are a master like me ) We hope to release the game sometime this summer, at least that is all the time we can afford to continue development.

long time no updates, I am in the middle of making a map to test out a new gameplay mode that will basically just trying to be the first to get from start to end, with checkpoints along the way to save the progress you have made should you fall off. In other happenings, I just moved into some new office space with my brother eeenmachine. I'm looking forward to having a nice quiet place to work on Zero Gear!

Why not make an indie game instead of custom maps?

I am trying to get a little more exposure for ZG before we come out with the next beta version, I submitted our trailer video to digg, http://digg.com/pc_games/Trailer_released_for_physics_driven_PC_Kart_game_Zero_Gear if you want to toss a digg our way.

I can make tracks but I can't script new game modes. I already have one in the pipe ready to be scripted (hockey map) I will start on more after I make a few more items since they are quick to do. We can't really work on more than one thing at a time with only one artist and one programmer.

the other half of NimbleBit is busy deep in an underground bomb shelter banging out new networking code, and he goes into an animalistic rage if I bother him so I am just doing whatever art I can do right now that doesn't require programming.

made a new character over the last few days, say hello to Cacti the cactus I am trying to get to 9 (stock) items in every custom item category (karts, characters, wheels, hats, accessories) and this makes 9 characters. I think I just need to make a few more accessories to fill everything out. *edit* actually I can't count, this makes 11 characters

I hope that the new networked physics system we are in the middle of writing is going to address a lot of those issues. Basically everything right now is server side, so the physics will only look as smooth as your connection is fast to the server. We are in the middle of trying to work in a mirrored physical simulation that will be running on the client to help decide where things should be while the game is waiting to get data from the server. It will also prevent things like clipping through walls for a split second before the server corrects you. Hopefully it will be a big improvement, cross your fingers for us. "Let's make a multiplayer game with networked physics!" "sure, how hard could that be!? :p" talk about a learning experience Another reason to cross your fingers for us, they will announce the IGF finalists around the 7th of this month!

QFT My only issue with it is that the carts are lagging slightly and it drags down overall impression. do you mean in the video or in the game in general?

I just finished editing a trailer for the game that will hopefully be posted on our IGF entry page, take a look.

just finished doing a new character. this one is a silly sally, he looks quite ridiculous in all our hats and accessories.

because a lot of people already follow the blogger blog, so I don't want to change the feed or url - also I didn't want to muck with setting up wordpress or something on my own hosting. Just one more thing to break and I am not a web developer *edit* I dunno, actually reconsidering now. It would be nice to have it all one one site. I have found a lot of word press features that I like and found out that is is possible to export all your blog posts and comments from blogger to wp. I will probably mess around with seeing how easy it would be to add all the WP elements to my new layout.

small update, things have been pretty quiet the last few weeks as we are doing some re-writing of the network system, keep an eye out on the blog for more on that soon. I took advantage of some of the down time to give the Zero Gear website a face lift: http://MyZeroGear.com I think it better reflects the game and our style, let me know if you find any issues with it.

yea, that will be one of the custom colors. I will probably make it a darker red for the default color.

started working on another kart, just finished texturing it, now I have to do all the fun stuff to get it into the game.

I was excited to look into this as a game to play co-op on a lan, but as far as I could tell it didn't support multiplayer.

**EDIT** Beta spots are full for the moment, we will open up more again in the near future

a great example to follow