While wrapping up work on final changes for long overdue Slam Mania release, I've reached critical mass on one of my other background projects, and wanted to share an early video. It's my personal take on Prop Cycle, an old 90s arcade game where you rode an actual bike in timed runs to collect orbs and pop balloon. Lots of stuff left to do on cosmetic and gameplay front, but wanted to float this in case anyone is up for early testflight access to help steer development.
Happy post-Thanksgiving! Here's a new video showcasing changes since the initial POC footage, with fog, sky gradient, low poly clouds, lens flare, sun, some shadow improvements, and placeholder balloons/blimps. Footage is captured from OSX build - there are some shader issues specific to iPhone that I'm working through. Visually, I'm happy with how it's coming together, but much left to do on the gameplay, cosmetic, and theme front. Torn between keeping gameplay whimsical/relaxing, vs. framing it with a story involving protecting your homeland against war zeppelins.
Replaced the placeholder balloons/blimp assets with above new assets, improved collision handling and added balloon popping animation. Currently split between refining the flight physics and incorporating lightmaps to take rendering quality to the next level.
I loved the arcade game inspiration! I would like to beta test if you have any more openings. Looking forward to hearing more about this! [email protected]
I've spent hours on that original Prop Cycle! Please let me be the beta tester, too! Thank you! [email protected]
Aiming for first beta distribution before January 23rd 2019. In the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. Attached is an updated work-in-progress snapshot, including: - ambient occlusion; I had invested a lot of time generating and hooking up light maps before it dawned on my that vertex based lighting will work just as well with much less overhead (bake time and app size). This is particularly important given I plan to focus on randomly generated levels rather than canned ones. - some minor improvements for dynamic shadows/directed lighting - new blimps/balloons - moai statues Next focus: cascading shadow maps, night/seasons, and urban zones
Took a detour to wrap up Slam Mania (planned for submission to Apple this weekend), but wanted to share some progress. Game now supports modular towers that can include bridges, housing, cannons, among other things. These will provide obstacles and landmarks for larger levels. Also began incorporating birds that scatter when approached. Working through activity to prepare for first beta distribution. Wish me luck!
Loved propcycle! I'd absolutely love to be a tester. [email protected] is my email. Would love to hear from you. Thanks!
Hello Stroffolino, I'm a little late in the game , here, but just happened to decide to google for whatever happened to my favorite video game, that I used to love to play, back in the mid to late 90's. I came across this site, and saw that you were looking for beta testers back in late 2018. I can't imagine that you're still looking, but wondering where you are at now with the game? It's a great way to exercise without knowing you're exercising.
Apologies for the long delay - I've begun working on this again. Planning to share a public testflight link here before Christmas 2023. The game is completely playable, but needs work on the tutorial and level design front. Also, right now, any collision with terrain or trees kills you, which is rather harsh. At moment, only tilt controls are supported for steering, with onscreen touch mapped to "pedal faster." But I've had people ask for touch controls as an alternative. Dream would be getting this working with full VR and hooked up to an exercise bike. I'm willing to make it an open source project if anyone up for collaborating. Have been considering adding more hazards, planets, and maybe even boss fights. But probably better to get this out into the world and update later!
