14 replies to this topic

[Dare]

Altitude0 – Plane racing at height 0 (PC game work in progress)

Our team (my partner and I) want to show our first work in progress gameplay video.



Altitude0 (A0) is an arcadish plane racing game in development for Windows PC, flying close to the ground between gates as fast as you can.



It can be quite challenging to avoid trees while flying just above forests. So it’s important that you think and feel like an air race pilot, maneuvering your plane swiftly in the air, rolling and spinning to avoid obstacles.

Currently, it has a single player mode, but we plan to add a multiplayer mode too. Still a lot of features to add, but it’s quite shaping up. As it progresses, we will show more gameplay videos. Also a playable demo will be out soon.



We are working on website: http://www.altitude0.com

[Laury]

Hi!

Your game looks cool!
Any demo available or dev blog?

I think you should post it as a picture of the day to get more attention and feedback.

Keep on going!

[Dare]

@Laury: Thank you for your encouraging words.
We are a small team of 2 people and it is handful to work on this game and try to spread the word about it at the same time.
But pieces are falling together and we are going to release a demo soon, hopefully in a month time.
About dev blog: It's finally running although not much yet. As it goes I will post the progress status at http://www.altitude0.com

Picture of the day is a good idea and I will post something as more final features are in. I guess I didn't feel it was ready yet.
Thanks again.

[Dare]

Hi guys,

We have been working our butts off to get our upcoming game demo ready. We finally released an official teaser trailer of Altitude0 as a demo is getting closer to be out. Hopefully this helps get interest in the game. Enjoy!

[Dare]

Hello,

We'd like to finally announce a closed beta testing of Altitude0: Lower & Faster.



There are just a few requirements to participate in the testing:

• Altitude0 is an online plane racing game therefore we will ask you to create an online account and share results with other players online.
• You should be able to speak some English to let us know about problems regarding the game you may discover. If you can read this then you qualify
• Your computer should have decent graphics card (NVidia or AMD). Currently graphics cannot be cut down much for lower end machines, will be fixed in the future.
• You don't mind reporting bugs & once in a while random game crash (super frustrating to us).
• You like racing games (planes, cars, carts, we like them all).

The main goal of Altitude0 first beta version is to achieve best possible times on different tracks and share results online with other players. Each race result is recorded and replay is shared with other players online.

Closed beta version should be ready by 22nd of November (Thanksgiving Day for our US friends). The reason we are announcing it in advance is that honestly we don't know how many people are willing to participate in the testing and how our servers will handle all the data. So in the beginning, we will start with a limited number of players and gradually open the game to more players if everything goes OK.

If you want to be the first to play Altitude0: Lower & Faster, please join the beta program: the sooner, the better. Join beta program at our website http://www.altitude0.com

We also welcome and accept your top-notch ideas & suggestions to make the game better.

Thanks for your help and reading this far.
DareM

[Dare]

Hi all,

We have first update ready since Altitude0 beta testing started.

Here is a list of what the update includes:
1. Controls:
We implemented simple (standard) controls other than the professional ones. It should be easier for most players to play Altitude0.
2. Controllers:
Different controllers are supported: keys, 360 controller, RumblePad 2 and other generic game pads
3. A quick track was added. You can start racing easier before you can advance to the longer tracks. Now each track has different difficulty level.
4. Graphic quality control:
Graphic quality control will help better support different computer configurations.
5. Benchmark feature:
Try out simple but useful benchmark tool in the Altitude0 Launcher under Settings menu. It will help you quickly find out how well your computer can handle Altitude0.
6. Miscellaneous fixes:
Some game rules have been changed and plane adjustments were made.



If you haven't created an online account, please do so. That way your replays are going to be automatically shared with others.

There are some small fixes which still need to be done, but this version should be quite playable. More features will be added before the game goes to open beta. As more updates are available, we will let you know.

Otherwise, whoever is interested in testing A0, please join us (http://www.altitude0.com).

Thank you for trying A0 and helping us improve it.
DareM

[Dare]

Altitude0 developers wish you all the best in 2013!

Check out our burning greeting card.

 

Cheers,
DareM

[DpakoH]

very nice game indeed, congratulations! one question though - did you write your game from the scratch or used some 3rd party engine? (i couldn't figure that out from your devblog)

[Dare]

@DpakoH: Thanks. This is our custom game engine. The grunt of the work is handled by terrain and planting library we call GroundWiz RTS - in development for a long time.

[Dare]

We have second Altitude0 beta version ready.
We made some adjustments and fixes to plane physics: throttle was implemented properly. Manual rudder was also added with professional controls.

It's still a closed beta version. But whoever is interested in testing, please join us on our website. Thanks.
 

[Dare]

The latest version of Altitude0 looks quite stable. We would like to invite new players to join us here: https://www.facebook.com/altitude0

This may be a chance to invite your friends to play the game. Maybe one of them can beat your replay or you can beat their records.

[jbadams]

Looks pretty cool!     I'm sure plenty of people would love to hear more about the technology behind your development if you're willing to share.  What language(s) did you use?  Do you use any common middleware libraries?

 

If you're after a bit more exposure perhaps you could consider submitting some images to our Image of The Day gallery.

[Dare]

@jbadams: Thank you for your comment.

 

Some info about Altitude0 tech part. Language used is C++ but I also embedded Mono C#.

Mono C# is used for gameplay,menus and high end stuff, code in trenches is C++ only.

 

Game uses Bullet physics, including some soft bodies for flags.

To get airplane physics running I was learning from JSBSim (open source flight model), a lot of headache but worth it. Certainly I was cutting some corners because we didn't want to end up with a dead serious simulator.

 

Graphics, currently DirectX9 and DirectX11 are used for rendering but OpenGL should be easy to add, maybe in the future.

On top of that comes nature rendering: terrain & vegetation - we call this module GroundWiz RTS. This is really the sugar to it all and another headache - all those plants.

 

About Image of The Day - we posted our game in the gallery before... here:

http://www.gamedev.net/page/community/iotd/index.html/_/altitude0-plane-racing-at-height-0-r238

 

[Dare]

Hello,

 

 

It's been a while since the last major update to Altitude0 and this time the focus was gameplay.

New race modes:
- Other than time race where goal is to be ahead, we added item collecting mode (collect thumbs up items), where goal is to collect as many items as you can in a limited amount of time. Another addition is checkpoint mode where time pressure makes flying even harder; check out track 'Mountain High'.

New game rules:
- Race rules: every race your must fulfill a certain task for result to count, otherwise pilot is considered disqualified.
- Achievements: extra tasks that change depending on your current status. Achievements also bring rewards, like extra tracks and other goodies.
- Acrobatic points: game will reward players that can fly daringly: low flying, knife edge, rolls, loops, dives, etc.
- License mode: goal is to improve your pilot status. Advance your pilot license by collecting license achievements, racing points and completing different challenges to get ahead.
- Racing level: as you complete races, you collect racing points and improve your racing level.

We welcome everybody to join the closed beta at http://www.altitude0.com/

Cheers,
DareM

[Dare]

Some screenshots from canyon scene:
We are creating new tracks on the canyon scene. We are testing to finalize them.