Soap Creative: LilRacerz iPhone 2D game

renderhjs

I should clarify first that I did not work on this game (even though I would have liked to, like push the graphics more) but this game was already started before I joined the company Soap that I work for and finished just recently.
The reason why I post this is because the other devs here are sometimes lazy slackers when it comes to showing some more stuff behind the scenes and sharing some insight. So I am pushing this kind of stuff in the future a little bit more for Soap, showcasing developer and artist work behind the scenes that I think are worth showing. And there is some more cool stuff coming soon including some new 3D tech and art from me.

LilRacerz
is a Unity3D based iPhone game with a pixel art retro look
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nlE1foX2VQ&feature=player_embedded[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJxfXGz7ARI[/ame]

Mark Fennell another game dev. here at soap creative in Sydney worked on this game for the last couple of months. It was his 2nd game with Unity and for the iPhone.
There is some cool stuff going on with the physics and the cars have a nice feel to them when playing the game. All the cars, characters, trees and icons are quad planes with billboarding textures that change it's UV offset to swap different frames. Because the game had to run on older iPhone models as well some extra work went into optimizing the framerate so that the game play is always between 45.0 - 50.0 fps.



I hope to get some shots and videos of the physics and debugging (skit marks, collision, AI,...) soon to submit here as well. Mark has his account here on Polycount as well so I will make sure he reads this and responds.

Meanwhile some related links:
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=55329
http://itunes.apple.com/app/lilracerz/id372283058?mt=8
http://www.soapcreative.com/iphone/

kwakkie

Wow thanks for sharing, I love seeing efficiently made games like this

The car leaning trick works surprisingly well in the videos, looks like a very fun game! One thing that could need a little polish is the dust trails, It would look a lot better if they faded out instead of just disappear all of the sudden.

Good luck on sales!

tanka

It's looking good. I'm constantly impressed by the stuff Soap are putting out, it seems like an awesome place to work. I'll have to apply when I get a bit more experience, especially with unity and iphone.

I just had a look at the soap website, I couldn't help but laugh at the map with your office location on it. "Exploded Nandos" That's the funniest thing I'll hear tonight.

blastone

This game looks rad
Not bad for a washed up 2 bit designer with average skillz

Steve Schulze

By any chance did you use our (Tantalus') game "Top Gear: Downforce" AKA "Super Speed Machines" AKA "Race Through Crazy Weather: The Stormy Drift Rally" (<3 Japan) as a reference point? It kinda looks like you've taken that game, cut out all the... shall we say problematic aspects, and replaced them with a fun racing game.

renderhjs

@:Jackablade:
Not sure if those were his inspirations some games certainly were but Marks first game of this kind with the same name was developed for flash some years ago:
http://www.blastone.com/games/lilracerz/flash.php
But that game is no comparison to the unity one as the framerate is really choppy almost capped at 24-28 fps and the physics are not really present. So this is the flash version on youtube:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2_eR0CUig[/ame]

And obviously as a early iPhone or unity game he wanted to create something he knows how to code or develop on a different platform. Obviously now not just things went 3d but physics improved a lot. But yeah the fun racing category is somewhat flooded these days.
It's certainly great for me having someone who already went through all the pain of the Unity3D pain, C# sitting right behind me. Because I am too already cooking some stuff with C# in Unity3D.

blastone

It was a significant improvement on the original flash racing game, Unity is a really fun engine to play with once you get your head around its workflow. It has a lot of speed and this game has a nice 3d / 2d mixture that feels a lot of fun.

renderhjs was also very good with his feedback and his keen eye helped iron out a few bugs and issues.

A big thanks to him for putting up this nice collection of images and videos, its really quiet amazing to see the game from this perspective, makes it feel all grown up

cholden

Lovely as always renderhjs. Keep making money so you don't have to charge for textools.

Target_Renegade

Looks really fun, it completely reminds me of Supercars in the way its viewed, and the sound FX. Get a weapon mod onto it and you'd be nearly be there. Cool work.

MoP

Nice stuff, thanks for posting this!

slipsius

reminds me of death rally, without the death. loved that game

Ged

sweet game man! I got it on my ipod touch and its quite fun, I especially like how the turning controls work, so neat and simple when so many games are going for a confusing tilt function.