Hi everyone! Pixel Boat Rush is our third big project, after Don't Run With a Plasma Sword and Platforms Unlimited. This is our biggest and coolest title so far! Its a a frantic arcade combat boat racing game, full of popular culture parodic references and set in a 2D sidescrolling pixel art environment. Launching on October 9! 1.99$, geared for a premium experience with optional IAP. The gameplay mixes a one-touch racing mechanic with 2 weapon/defensive buttons. The progression features an in-depth career mode and RPG-like humoristic conversations with parodic characters! An easy to learn, hard to master, fun arcade racing game with loads of content! One-Touch Racing Mechanic: Touch to accelerate, release to brake. If you release the gaz on a wave, you'll stick to it. If you keep the gaz pressed, you'll jump off the waves. Releasing the gaz while in the air will make you fall faster. Obstacles and Power-Ups: If air drag makes staying on water quicker, sometimes it's best to jump. I could be for grabbing a power-up, avoiding an obstacle or a tricky set of waves. Combat: Fighting with opponent brings a whole new dimension to the game. Not only it adds action, but also a tactical aspects, which quickly becomes a key for victory. Main Features: - Career and arcade mode - 15 racing tracks - 100 racing events across 7 types of race (normal, ceasefire, eliminations, demolition, carnage, last man standing, endurance) - 20 Licenses: series of mini-quests which unlock the next racing categories - 50 racing boats, each with its own specific upgradable configuration: find which boat is best suited for each event! - Over 20 types of guns - 4 racing categories: climb the ladders and become the world champion! - One-touch racing mechanic + 2 offensive/defensive buttons - Power-ups: boost, ammo, shield, coins, repair - Time trial mode against your best ghosts - RPG-like parodic conversations with characters inspired from the popular culture - Pixel damage: when a boat takes damage, bits of the boat fly-off - Trophies system for replay value: finish first in all races to collect all gold trophies - Game Center: leaderboards (based on best lap time and trophies earned) and achievements - Cloud save with manual upload/download and 3 save files - MFI and iCade controllers support - Colourful pixel art retro graphics - Rich original retro soundtrack Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Eventually, but not before a while . The first step will be to put together a small focus group in a few weeks so we can collect a bunch of first impressions from which we'll make adjustments to the game direction.
Liking the look and sound of this, loved Dont Run With A Plasma Sword, looking forward to seeing how this one develops and hearing more about it.
Basic Gameplay + Controls In this post we'll discuss some basic elements of the gameplay as well as controls. The controls configuration will have 3 buttons + the accelerometer. Gas/Brake: On the water, pressing the gas/brake button will accelerate the boat. Releasing it will make it brake. In the air, releasing the button will cause the boat to dive faster, giving some sort of control of where to 'land'. A boat going just at the right speed will 'stick' to the wave without taking off. On the other hand, if the goal is to jump above an obstacle, it will have to speed-up before a wave. Since the boat can't accelerate in the air, one key strategy will be to brake just before a wave and re-accelerate just after to optimize the lap time. Of course, this will depend on the track configuration since it might be faster to simply jump over a series of waves. The idea was to try to capture the main element of racing; take a curve at the right speed, without having a context as punishing and difficult as car racing. The objective is to have a resulting game mechanic which is easy to learn, but hard to master. Weapon/System Depending on how the boat is equipped, these buttons will activate offensive, defensive or bonus systems. As examples, one could have one rocket launcher and one machine gun. Another could have a protective shield and a laser. Another could have a speed booster and an electronic jamming system. Device Tilting Tilting the device in the air will control the orientation of the boat. This can be used to aim at opponents in the air and to perform discoverable 'style figures' like backflip and frontflip, which will give extra coin bonus during a race. Landing upside down will slow down the boat.
Love the look and feel of this, the in air controls sound just as devious as Plasma Sword..XperimentalZ have such attention to detail..will be watching the progress for sure!
Thanks for your comments guys! At this stage it is important for us to understand the general perception that people have about the concept so any comment is highly appreciated!
Breaking Down Boat Characteristics In this post we'll describe various aspects about the boats, especially their statistics and properties. There should be around 50-100 boats in game, everyone featuring a unique look and behavior. The boats will be split in 4 different racing categories; C, B, A and S, depending on their performance. In order to get access to a category of boat, it will be necessary to pass the according racing license. Each boat will be characterized by the following stats: -Top Speed -Acceleration -Braking -Downforce (how well the boat sticks to the waves) -Armor (resilience to projectile damage) as well as a number of equipment slots or "system" slots: -Engine (affecting top speed and acceleration) -Body (top speed, downforce and armor) -Brake (braking) -Weapon system -Defensive system -Boost system -Passive system Those slots, will be used to tune-up the boat. Equipment slots will provide bonuses to the boat base stats, offering tons of variations on the way to configure a boat. Beside weapon systems, there will also be other kind of active system, like shield or speed boost. It will be possible to equip up to 2 'active' systems on a boat at a time, one for each system control button. In addition, there will also be other kind of 'passive' systems, like electronics jam, stats modifiers, repair over time, etc. A typical configuration could be a shield to block incoming damage and a gun to blast opponents but all sorts of combinations will be possible. In the end, it will be up to you to build-up your ultimate racing boat! This should sum-up the most important aspects on how a boat should play! As usual any comment about what we're planning is really appreciated, questions are welcomed.
Added a few boats About to take some holidays for now, but when we're back we should be able to post the first footage of the game. We'll also have to raise the question if whether or not we should bring fantasy/'out-of-this-world' environments to the game, or stick to more 'plausible' locations like Mountain Lake, Long River, Lost Vegas, Razor Caverns, Storm Peak, etc?
That could be a great idea to consider if people don't display a clear preference between the 2 possibilities. I wish we could have non-permanent polls on these threads...
There should be both regular maps/worlds and fantasy as well-the latter could be unlockables when player's boat is maxed .Or after a fast time/high score..? Love the boat Drill Instructor
Things have been quieter than usual because we're releasing Don't Run With a Plasma Sword on Android on Wednesday! That said, we kept improving the game on aspects like the introduction, new tracks, new boats, etc. We just published a new story on our blog: Career Mode Sneak Peak Here's a few screenshots associated with it We're getting close to the official Alpha Stage point from where we'll look for a few people to give us their impressions about the game!
Looks great! Just a quick question on gameplay. Whe racing,will the other racers be on the same plain as you ( meaning that you can bump into them) or will they be in the background (which allows boats to overlap)?
