Steam The Race Factory | Top-Down Racing | On Steam/Xbox/Android

O.Stogden

Member
Thanks.

Music is one of the sticking points for me, not sure what to do with it haha.

Just designing the base tracks for the game right now, then polishing it up a bit. Got a couple of new features to add in, and then I might wrap up development of this. I haven't got the spare time to work on it as much as I'd like nowadays.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Just a note to say I'm still working on this.

I started a job on the 10th of May this year, and I really haven't spent a great deal of time on TRF since then.

I finished adding in the Championship mode, where you play through a few races at once, and have to have the highest points at the end of it, there's no unlockables yet, although I would like to add some for this mode.

As my spare time is diminished, online multiplayer has been written off the roadmap. My network programming experience is limited, I've only made 1 game with networking in before, and that was sketchy at best. Doing multiplayer on this reasonably-sized game is just a bit too much for me to handle on my own with the time I have.

The Android version is also being scrapped, I don't think there's much interest for a multiplayer focused game on mobile, and the cost both financially and in terms of time is just more than I'm prepared to pay.

As I've taken the pressure off with getting rid of online-multiplayer and the Android port, I've switched the focus to making the local multiplayer as fun as possible.

Currently the focus is adding as many game modes / mini games as possible. In addition to the standard modes such as racing, elimination and drift, there'll be at least 5 other minigames/modes for you to try out.

These will take place in "Battle Arenas", instead of your usual race tracks, and the track editor has been updated to allow the creation of new Battle Arenas. They're smaller, 3840x2160 instead of 12800x12800 like race tracks, but this means you can fit the whole map on screen at once, and allows for 8 players to play together on one PC.

There's also been some small changes I've managed too add in over the last few months, such as weather affecting car performance, and some updates to the UI.

Hope to post updates more regularly for the rest of the year.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

I took a step back from TRF lately, to focus on a couple of game jams I was doing for fun, and to just relax and not feel pressured to work on a big project like this.

Rather than detail all that's been worked on (since 0.5.0 in April), I decided to just post the whole changelog for what's happened since then.

Code:
ADD: Added animation for weapon pickups.
ADD: Added event setting to disable car collisions.
ADD: Added Delta-timing, allowing players on lower-end devices to still play the game without slowdown.
ADD: Added ability to make Battle Arenas in the track editor.
ADD: Weather now affects car physics. Cars have less traction in rain/snow etc.

CHANGE: Improved the way resolution is scaled, increases quality on displays higher than 720p resolution.
CHANGE: All Car classes have again increased in speed slightly.
CHANGE: The Bolt and Reverse weapons now travel faster.
CHANGE: Weapon cooldown changed from 3 seconds to 2 seconds, to compensate for faster cars.
CHANGE: Lighting system has been greatly optimized.
CHANGE: Reduced delay between starting an event and the countdown timer starting.
CHANGE: Bolt and Reverse weapons can no longer hit the car that fired them, a change to implement Delta Timing.
CHANGE: Sakura blossom trees have been optimized.
CHANGE: Adjusted the pitch/gain settings of car sounds to fit the faster cars and take into account Delta Timing.
CHANGE: Desert track pieces changed to fit in with the environment background better.
CHANGE: Braking power has been slightly reduced.
CHANGE: Engine changes mean performance should be markedly improved. (Updated from GMS 1.4 to 2.x)
CHANGE: Changed the main menu UI to simplify and allow creation of Battle Arenas.

FIX: Weapon Pad lighting should no longer flicker.
FIX: Pulse weapon should now affect people around you, instead of just behind you.
FIX: Cars can no longer rotate on the spot again.
FIX: The 'Drafting' mutator should actually turn off when it's disabled now.
FIX: Fixed an issue caused by Drafting.
FIX: You can no longer change mode in the track builder unless the drop down box is open.
FIX: Options menu now scales better with resolution.
FIX: Changing laps in the lobby no longer affects the laps of championship races.
FIX: Fixed a bunch of scaling issues in the menus.
There's a couple of things being worked on that I haven't included in the changelog, as I've only put things in that are finished. These include a new game mode, and a couple of ideas I'm about to implement.

This version isn't available yet, as I still need to fix some issues related to the Battle Arena's, but I hope it have it available soon, along with a couple of Battle Arena game modes, both of which will be playable in 8 player.

Any suggestions for minigames / game modes for the Battle Arena's would be most welcome, or general suggestions for the game.

Thanks everyone!
 

O.Stogden

Member
Working on a new system for the drift mode.

Instead of programming an AI that drifts accurately/well on a variety of tracks, which is a bit beyond me, I'm instead making a system that analyzes track layouts, and then calculates realistic drift scores for the AI, which should hopefully provide a challenging experience, even on user-made tracks.

Currently I have it taking into account consecutive corners to allow AI to build up the drift multiplier. On harder difficulties the AI can also "snake" on straights to keep their multiplier up. The scores it gets per corner and on the straights is based on what a player would roughly be able to score on them.

The harder difficulty still needs a little work, as right now the scores it can post can be quite varied and random, so I'm trying to narrow it down to be fairly consistent, and still hard to beat.

Another thing that slipped through the net that I never mentioned on here, is the addition of a new game mode: Zen.

Zen is very much inspired by the "Zone" mode in WipEout. You're forced to always be accelerating, your top speed will increase over time, the faster you're going, the more points you rack up, going off the track will result in your score being penalised. The AI likewise struggle with this mode, as brakes are disabled in Zen, and the speeds will eventually exceed the speed of a Hyper class car. I'll most likely implement a calculation of the AI's score, much-like I'm working on with the Drift mode right now, rather than have the AI attempting to drive in Zen.

Both the Drift calculations and Zen mode will be available in the next release.

A feature that was often requested is also now in the game, in that Elimination rounds will now auto-resolve when no human players are left in the round. The AI that is furthest ahead will automatically win the round.
 

O.Stogden

Member
The games Steam store page is now up! Please add it to your wishlist if you're interested!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

There's been a bunch of work done over the past couple of weeks, finishing up adding the Infection and Zen game modes, as well as adding an additional game mode of "Pass the Bomb", where every 30 seconds the car with the bomb is eliminated, you have to touch other cars to pass it along.

There's more game modes to come soon.

AI calculations for Drift and Zen mode are done, so the game analyzes the track, and should produce an achievable and reasonable target for you to reach, even on user created tracks.

I'll also be adding AI difficulty levels for all game modes, as some have been finding the game a little difficult.

All game modes will support a minimum of 4 local players, with battle game modes supporting up to 8 local players. Every game mode will support AI drivers.

Thanks for checking it out!

Feel free to ask any questions or offer suggestions.
 
T

Tacchan

Guest
Took it for a quick spin, love how the car handles! W10 dpi settings pushes the edges of the game offscreen in fullscreen without altering the properties, though I think this is a GameMaker problem and not something you can fix yourself! Apart from that, everything seems to work as intended.

Drifting is super fun, my only suggestion is maybe working on the artstyle a little more, although in a way it gives me a nice traditional GM feel. Great use of particles on the rough terrain too!

AI calculations for Drift and Zen mode are done, so the game analyzes the track, and should produce an achievable and reasonable target for you to reach, even on user created tracks.
Clever stuff, good luck on the game!
 

O.Stogden

Member
Took it for a quick spin, love how the car handles! W10 dpi settings pushes the edges of the game offscreen in fullscreen without altering the properties, though I think this is a GameMaker problem and not something you can fix yourself! Apart from that, everything seems to work as intended.

Drifting is super fun, my only suggestion is maybe working on the artstyle a little more, although in a way it gives me a nice traditional GM feel. Great use of particles on the rough terrain too!
Thanks for testing it out.

The in-game scaling is probably fine now, I myself run at 150% scaling as I use a TV for my monitor, and my friends use 100 or 125% and they've not reported having problems, so it's likely fixed in the latest version.

Graphics are my weakest point, I'm not so good at making things all fit together, but I have a friend who's taking a look at them, they'll probably change a little before release.

The driving however, is unchanged for the most part, so I'm glad you like it. :D

Another game mode is almost added, Hold The Gold, where you have to hold on to the gold for as long as possible, being hit by another player transfers the gold to them, the player that has held it for the longest period of time by the end of the timer wins!
 

O.Stogden

Member
Today's post is just a summary of all that the game is planned to have for its launch in June. Most of what's mentioned here has been covered in previous posts, but this is a collection of all of that, so the information is all in one place, and this will be posted elsewhere too.

Here's what the game is planned to have:

At least 8, currently we have 7:

Race: Simple racing gamemode, finish the set number of laps, features weapons which can be turned on and off. 1-4 Players, played on race tracks.

Elimination: Shared-screen eliminator mode, think Micro-Machines, falling off the screen is death. Last car standing wins a point, first to set number of points wins. 1-8 Players, played on race tracks.

Drift: A target score is generated for the track, drift around corners and keep your combos on the straights to earn big points, car collisions are disabled. 1-4 Players, played on race tracks.

Zen: A target score is generated for the track, your cars power is constantly increasing, your car is always accelerating and there are no brakes, you earn points when driving around the track, but if you fall off the track, your points stop increasing. The driver who stays on the track the most when time runs out is the winner here! 1-4 Players, played on race tracks.

Infection: 1 Player starts as infected, their aim is to infect all the other cars by touching them. If a player becomes infected, they then have to infect other cars to earn points. Try to stay alive until the timer runs out to win in this game mode! 1-8 Players, played on battle arenas.

Pass The Bomb: A bomb is randomly placed on a car, they have to touch someone to pass it to them, if you have the bomb when the fuse runs out, BOOM, you're out of the event. Surviving as long as possible is how you earn points here. 1-8 Players, played on battle arenas.

Hold The Gold: A gold bar is placed somewhere on the map, race to pick it up, and then hold onto it for as long as you can! Being hit by another car will transfer the gold to them, whoever holds the gold earns points. Holding the gold for the most amount of time when the timer runs out will win you the event! 1-8 Players, played on battle arenas.

There will be a fully-functioning track editor in the final game. It's what I've used to make all the tracks currently in the game. It's capable of making both Race Tracks and Battle Arenas. It contains a racing-line editor so you can tune the AI to your standards, as well as determining what classes as "cheating" on your race tracks, stopping people from cutting corners.

There are 4 car classes in the game, Street, Sports, Super & Hyper.

Car performance in each class is identical, however there are 8 styles of car in each class you can choose from. Sports is the default class, and is recommended for most drivers to start with, Hyper is for more advanced drivers who want a challenge.

The following controllers have been tested and work with TRF: Xbox 360 Controller, Xbox One Controller, Dualshock 4. Mouse & Keyboard also work.

All game modes support at least 4 players, and some game modes support up to 8 players. Every game mode also has support for AI Drivers that will fill up the grid. When playing 1-4 player, the screen will be split. 5-8 player games, the screen will be zoomed out so everyone can fit on the screen.

The game has various weather conditions for you to choose from:

Clear, Rain, Stormy, Snow, Blizzard, Meteor.

Adverse weather conditions will affect car performance, so don't expect to stay on the road in a blizzard! And Meteor showers can really switch up a race.

There are also time of day settings to choose from, Dawn, Day, Dusk & Night.

Along with the standard event settings, such as amount of laps, weather and time of day, there are also extra "Mutators" you can set for an event.

These range from adding the Zen mode "Always Accelerating" feature to any game mode. Or making the road permanently icy, as though you were in a blizzard. You could even turn off the "drafting" feature, if it's annoying you that people keep catching you up in Infection!

This covers most of what the game has.

If you want to make a track for the game, then feel free to download 0.5.0 and make a track in that, I should be able to load it up in the latest version and put it in, as well as mentioning you in the games credits. You can PM me the .lvl file.

Also if you have a suggestion for any game modes you'd like to see in the game, just let me know on here and I'll look into it.

You can wishlist TRF on Steam at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Have a good day everyone!
 
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Fern

Member
I could have sworn you've sent this to me via Steam chat before. It looks familiar. Good to see you've nearly finished your work on it!
 

O.Stogden

Member
I could have sworn you've sent this to me via Steam chat before. It looks familiar. Good to see you've nearly finished your work on it!
Thanks, it was via your Twitch stream one time, I sent a before and after of my options menu while you were making a city-builder type game, just before you started work on SpritePile haha.

Looks fun. This reminds me of an old arcade game I can't remember the name of at the moment...it was fun too, though!
Well I hope I live up to how fun these games were in the 90's! I got inspiration from Micro-Machines and Super Skidmarks for this, among other games.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Just a quick update on how things are progressing for the June release.

Most of the focus over the past month or so has been on adding nice extras to the game.

Features added in the past month:

  • Team Races, this allows any combination of drivers, 2v2v2v2, 4v4, 6v2, 2v2, whatever you want.
  • Symbols above cars, experimental feature to help those with colourblindness tell the difference between cars.
  • AI Difficulty added, instead of just car class defining difficulty, you can select Easy, Medium or Hard AI in any class, in any game mode.
  • Extra scenery objects added to the track editor, you can now place streetlights, traffic cones, pit garages and police cars in the track editor.
  • A bunch of menu improvements, mostly to do with sorting tracks in the track select and re-designing the pre-game lobby.
I'm currently working on more scenery objects for the track editor, as I want to have a decent variety of assets for people to build tracks, and for me myself to build the base tracks and battle maps of the game.

If anyone has any ideas of what scenery objects they'd like to see in the game, I'd love some suggestions.

That's all for now! You can wishlist TRF on Steam at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/
 

O.Stogden

Member
The past 2 weeks I've been focusing on adding missions to the game.

Inspired by the Gran Turismo series License Tests, as well as some game modes in games like Project Gotham Racing, I thought it just varied the game a little, and offered an objective-based mode rather than one where you're competing against AI or other players. It also might help some to go through the basics of the game.

The first mission for example, is a very short and simple slalom through cones to reach the objective at the end. Hitting a cone fails you, and you have to do a tight-line around the cones to get the gold medal. I thought it was an easy, and quickly repeatable way to let people try and control the car well when steering, stopping the back-end swinging out and hitting the cones etc.
I'll be adding further variety to these missions, such as short time-trials, racing in different scenarios, unfair races where other cars have the advantage etc.

I'm also looking into co-operative missions/scenarios to add later, but they may not be present when the game launches in June.

Other things added are some more scenery objects, such as cacti, rocks and shrubs. These can be manually placed, or there's a new "generate scenery" button in the editor, which will automatically place shrubs (cacti on desert tracks) and rocks (no collisions for these) across any empty spaces on your map, which will hopefully save a headache of placing tonnes of small objects manually.

That's all for now. I'm pretty much stuck in the house right now with the current world situation, so at least I'll have more time to work on my game, right?
 

O.Stogden

Member
Another weekly update!

This week was a little quieter, the main things that have been added are some collision sounds and effects. If you look really hard, you can see sparks as the cars grind against each other.
I've also started to add leaderboards to the missions/scenarios, so you can compete against other players for the best times in the mission mode. I'll also be adding leaderboards for the base game tracks, so you can do time trial events for the best times. You need to be signed into Steam to use the leaderboards, as they check against your Steam login.

Steam integration has also been added. Which adds support for the leaderboards as mentioned above, as well as Steam Remote Play Together.

Hope to add Steam Achievements and Steam Workshop support (for custom tracks) in the future.

Have a good week!
 

O.Stogden

Member
Time for the next weekly devlog!

The week began with finishing off work on the Steam leaderboard integration, before time was only tracked to the nearest hundredth of a second (tenth of a second I believe in the current public release). Times are now recorded to the nearest thousandth, so they're a lot more accurate for online leaderboards.

Leaderboards have also now been added for the 10 base tracks that are currently in the game, and a time trial gamemode has been added, which forces you to drive a certain car class in certain conditions, so the online leaderboards are fair and competitive.

Friday saw the game enter private-testing via Steam with a few trusted friends. I've received a lot of feedback from them so far, over 30 bug reports/suggestions in the past couple of days alone.

This has prompted the following changes since Friday:

- A shield power-up has been added, which protects you from 1-hit from any weapon.
- UI has been updated to be more clear, and more in-line with other racing games in how they display information.
- Time Trial & Missions now have a quick restart button, so if you're behind on your time, you can quickly restart without having to go back to the menus.
- Current power-ups have received some balancing.
- The power-ups you receive are now slightly based on position, you no longer receive items that drop behind you when you're in last, and instead get more "nitro" power-ups, for example.
- 14 bugs fixed.
Hopefully this level of momentum can continue.

Next up on my list is to add some basic tutorials which tell the user the basics of the game, as well as guiding you through the various features of the track editor, such as creating an AI driving line.

TRF launches in less than 3 months on Steam, please wishlist it if you're interested: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Feel free to ask any questions, or offer suggestions!

Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
It's that time of the week again! Where I talk a lot about nothing!

Here's what's changed in the game in the past week:

- Basic tutorial has been added to the main menu, to briefly explain methods of play (Championship mode, Event Mode and Mission Mode). As well as how to drop in/out of the multiplayer system.
- Destructible Wooden Fences have been added to the track editor as objects you can place, I'll need to optimize these a bit, but they're quite fun to play around with.
- Flowers have been added as a scenery object.
- Certain placeable objects can now be coloured in the track editor, such as the aforementioned flowers. More objects are planned to be able to be coloured.
- Armco Barriers have been added to the game, both straight and corner pieces.
- Wrote a script that finds tracks you have downloaded which are in older track formats, and updates them to the current format, ensuring newer versions of TRF are backwards compatible with tracks made in older versions of the game.
- All track pieces now have track variants for Neon and Desert environments, and all track pieces now have a "snowy" variant when the weather is set to Snow or Blizzard.
- A crossroad track piece has been added. This isn't the "tarmac" piece that was in the game previously, that is still in, but crossroads have a variant for each environment and blend in with tracks better.
- And a bunch of bug fixes due to reports from private testing.

Here's a couple of gifs showing some of the new additions:


Armco barriers now also spark as you grind along them, but that was added in after the GIF was recorded.

Still plenty of work to do and new additions to come for TRF in the coming weeks!

TRF launches June 26th on Steam, you can wishlist it here if you're interested: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Have a nice day!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
-Walks into the forum, to be greeted by a sharp burst of applause from all his adoring fans. And then he notices RichHopefulComposer walked in next to him- Sad times people, sad times.

Anywho, it's another weekly devlog!

The biggest news this week is that Steam Workshop support has been added to TRF. It took me a few days, looking around at various documentation from several sources, but I finally managed to add it. This will allow you to upload your own race tracks and battle arenas to the workshop, as well as download other users tracks and arenas to play for yourself.

2 New "novel" vehicle classes have been added. Both of these differ quite strongly in physics compared to the standard car classes (Street, Sports, Super, Hyper).

First up is the Trucks car class, these are slightly slower than Street cars, and they're much harder to turn, meaning you'll have to brake for some sharp corners. They have a trailer attached to the back, which can drag you out of shape whilst cornering.
Next up we have the Formula car class. I got a request from a beta tester to make a car class that had more grip than the others, so it wasn't all about drifting. So I decided to add a class based off of Formula 1. These cars are a similar speed to Hyper cars, but they grip far more, meaning they can get around tracks much quicker. On average these cars seem to go around a track about 50% faster than a Hyper car.
I'm also trying to polish up some areas of the game, whereas before I just had numbers counting "3, 2, 1, GO!" in the middle of the screen, I now have starting lights that come down from the top of the screen and light up to count you down to the race start. And don't worry, they're much smaller in 4 player split-screen so as not to cut off Player 1 and Player 2's view at the start.
Aside from all the visual stuff, there's been a few changes to the physics, and an absolute ton of bug fixes thanks to the beta testers I have helping me.

TRF launches on Steam on June 26th, please wishlist if you're interested, as it helps me gauge interest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

If you do have any suggestions or ideas you'd like to see in a game like this, please let me know. I'm very open to ideas for things to put in before AND after launch, and as you can see from the new car classes, I'm quite up for adding different things into the game.

Thanks for reading, until next week!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hello again!

Really short devlog this week, as I've been working on the more difficult parts of the game, and progress is a little slower than I had hoped, so I can't share much.

One of the most notable changes is that I rewrote part of the positioning system, so it calculates positions more accurately, and also has better cheat-detection for people skipping the track now.

A couple of tracks got re-designed, and truck trailers were made far heavier, so they can be used as wrecking balls to whack the other trucks off the road.

Also some nice QoL features for the Time Attack mode, you can instantly reset your attempt by pressing the reset button, and the current world record for the track, as well as your current personal best time for the track are visible on the HUD.

I'm currently working on a replay/ghost data system, so you can download ghosts of the top times in the world and drive against them to see how they drive the tracks. As well as driving against your own personal best ghost. This is taking a fair bit of time though, several days so far, but we're getting pretty close. :)

Wishlist TRF for when it launches on June 26th 2020: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Thanks for reading,
Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Missed a week, d'oh!

Have a trailer!


A lot got done in the past 2 weeks, here's a summary:

Tyre marks now stay behind on the track for some time after you make them, so the track does get a different look as the event goes on.
A slipstream effect has been added to vehicles when they're near their top speed.
Added several new sound effects, such as picking up a weapon, when you pass the starting line, sounds for skidding on dirt and snow surfaces etc.
2 new place-able objects in the track editor.
All 10 tracks included in the base game have been redesigned with the newer scenery objects and track pieces.
Added in some verification to try and stop cheating on leaderboards.
Various QoL improvements for the leaderboards, such as being able to view Steam friends times, and your own time is always visible at the bottom of the leaderboard.
A bunch of optimizations and bug fixes.

A demo of the game should be available on Steam in mid-June. This is currently what most of the work is on, polishing up the game, making sure there's no bugs/crashes so I can release a demo build a couple of weeks before the game launches at the end of June.

TRF launches June 26th 2020 on Steam, wishlist it now if you're interested: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Thanks for reading!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Sorry for the quiet 2 weeks, been lots going on aside from game development, and sadly I had to take a break here and there to deal with it.

Main changes between May 6th and May 24th:

  • Lots of changes to the menus to make them more user-friendly.
  • Mission mode now also shows the current WR and your PB time, just like Time Attack does.
  • When finishing a leaderboard event (Time Attack or Mission), it now shows you how many players in the world have competed, and where you rank among them.
  • Added a Catch-Up mutator, which can be turned on and off. Basically the further behind 1st place you are, the more power your vehicle has, up to between 5-12% more depending on car class.
  • King of the Hill game mode added, a circle moves around a battle arena, stay in the circle to rack up the points, have the most points when time runs out to win.
  • Return the Flag game mode mostly added, a flag spawns on the map, 2 teams fight to grab the flag, and return it to their teams base.
  • Added local ghosts for your personal best time in Time Attack. I hope to add uploading and downloading of ghosts, so you can compete against the top players ghosts, however that may not be available at launch.

There were also a bunch of bug fixes, largely relating to gamepad controls.

I hope to finish adding Return the Flag mode, and then add 1 or 2 more game modes before the game launches on June 26th.

A demo will be available for free on Steam in mid-June.

If you're interested, wishlist the game on Steam, it really helps with Steam algorithms when it's deciding what games to promote etc.: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Thanks, and have a great day!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

Sorry been a little quiet lately.

Most of the time has been spent polishing up the games demo for the Steam Games Festival that's taking place on June 9th-14th.

The demo will be available for download during that time, after which it'll be taken down, and another, more updated demo will be released on the 19th of June, leading up to the full games release on Steam on the 26th of June.

I'll also be doing a Steam broadcast on Wednesday 10th of June, at 2PM BST, for 2 hours, which shows off the game.

You'll be able to check out more details here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Please wishlist if you're interested, and be sure to pop by the store page during the Games Festival to download and try out the demo, it contains about half the features of the full-game, and feedback/suggestions based off of your experience with it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Just a change of plans, due to Valve delaying the Steam Games Festival.

Demo will now launch on the 16th of June, not the 9th of June. It will stay up until the 22nd of June, disappear for the day, and then become permanently available on the 23rd.

The full game is still releasing on the 26th of June.

The Steam broadcast scheduled for the 10th is cancelled, due to the festival being delayed, I'll post up here when I've been able to reschedule a new time.

Most of the work on the game at this point is adding little details, fixing any bugs that may have been around for a while that I put to the back of my mind, that sort of thing.

Return the Flag mode mechanics are in now, and the game mode does work, however there are a couple of things I'd like to change with it, such as balancing out spawn positions, and adding AI behaviour to defend a team-mate if they're running with the flag.

Another game mode I hope to have in at release, is Cat & Mouse, which is similar to the "Offense Defense" mode in GTA V, a team based game, where 1 car on each team is a "runner" and they must get to the finish line, but on each team there are "blockers" which must stop the other teams runners from making it to the finish before their own runner. This might not make it in at launch though, as Return the Flag mode still needs to be finished. Either way, it'll be available near the launch date.

Thanks everyone,
- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Livestream went really well, and the Steam Games Festival has been a big boost for the game, I really recommend anyone who has their game upcoming on Steam over the next year or so to enroll in the next festival they run and schedule an event for it.

Been busy fixing bugs and finishing off the last of the content for the launch build, should hopefully upload that on Saturday/Sunday, ready for the launch next Friday.

The demo is still available on the Steam store page until Sunday, after that it will be taken down for 24 hours, I'll quickly do an update to the demo, and re-release it on the Monday, after which it will be permanently available for people to try.

I've also setup a Discord server for the game, to let people report bugs, offer suggestions, or just chat. https://discord.com/invite/xZhFRwE

Steam Store Page for demo download and wishlisting the full-game for release next Friday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Thanks to everyone on here who has offered feedback, suggestions and reported bugs over the last 18 months.

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Final demo build has been released, and is available via Steam.

The HOPED for release date of the full version is still June 26th, however there's been some difficulty getting it through the Valve submission process, at the very latest, it'll be sometime in early July.

You can get the updated demo, and wishlist the full game for when it releases here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

There's been a couple of big changes, such as allowing players to colour their cars, name themselves, 2 new tracks and a new battle arena. Online leaderboards for time attacks don't just cover the Super car class, they cover all vehicle classes in the game, including trucks. There's also been some graphical improvements.

Other than that it's mostly bug fixes and making sure things work as intended.

That's it for now, back to working my way through this to-do list!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

Still having difficulties getting through the Valve approval process.

Apparently they can't get more than 4 players to join the game at once, I would guess this is related to Xinput only supporting 4 controllers, and they are attempting to use 8 Xinput controllers at once, but either way, they are refusing to allow the game to be released on Steam for the time being, despite approving the Demo build, which functions identically.

I successfully got 5 controllers connected last night, 4 Xinput and 1 DirectInput all at once, so I've been able to verify for myself that the game allows more than 4 gamepads at once, and I have 2 additional gamepads coming tomorrow, so I will be able to test up to 7 gamepads then. Hopefully I will be able to produce evidence to Valve that the game does function for 8 players, provided you're using the right controllers and settings, then maybe they'll overturn their decision.

For now, the game is delayed until September.

If anyone is able, and has a collection of gamepads they can use on their PC, it would be appreciated if they could download the demo and try and see what controllers are working, and how many can be connected at once to the game.

Bear in mind that Steams controller setup seems to convert controllers to Xinput, so if you're forcing controller settings, you should turn that off and let the game handle it with its default settings, which bypasses the Steam Input API.
 
Last edited:

O.Stogden

Member
Just a quick update on the game.

The game is still set to release in September, by giving myself 2 months, I hope to make some changes to the game to make it more appealing to people, and acceptable to Valve's standards.

What this actually means to us humans:

1. The game modes that previously supported 8 local players (Elimination, Infection, Pass the Bomb, Hold the Gold, King of the Hill, etc.) will now only support 4 local players.

2. I'm working on adding network multiplayer to the game, with support for up to 8 players over a network, in all game modes.

3. If I find time after all the network stuff, I hope to add some extra features to the track editor, to allow more varied and complex tracks.

The networking is progressing quite well. The lobby is almost done, I just need to add some UI elements to allow server hosts to name their server and password it, and a few other things like version checking. But event settings, car colours/customization, the current track selected, is all synced across the network. Currently the game only allows you to play the 12 base tracks in network games, it doesn't allow user-made tracks right now.

In-game networking is still very much a work-in-progress, the cars are mostly synced how I like, but I might need to add some predictive movement to make the car position more accurate between clients. Weapons are synced in their creation and position, but not currently when they are destroyed, meaning that multiple people can hit the same mine for example. Other things like position on track are still a little buggy, and different clients and the server put cars in different race positions until the finish right now.

Hopefully I can keep updating you all on the progress of network games up until the (hopeful) release in September.

Thanks for reading!

Oliver
 
Sounds good, you may want to have more tracks available in the final version as well though, 12 tracks isn't a lot to race on, but I know it's a PITA to complete a game at all, let alone to anyone else's standards :)
 

O.Stogden

Member
The game has a track editor and Steam Workshop support to download user-made tracks, so making tracks for the base game hasn't really been a main priority for me for launch. I could add 10 tracks in a week if I really wanted too, and might do after launch as free DLC. But I get what you're saying. :)
 

O.Stogden

Member
Just an update on the network mode, as that's all that's been worked on the past week:

We did the first network test race on the 24th of July, it went really well considering it was the first time the game had been played over the internet.

We did 4 races, approximately 15 minutes or so of driving. 3 races were with 4 humans and 4 AI, and 1 race was with 4 humans and no AI.

We encountered a few issues, but the game was completely playable in the Race game mode. Most of the issues discovered have now been fixed, so I hope to do another test in a few days, maybe even trying out some other game modes to see how they work.

The game is still set for an early September release, but if I feel like I can't get network games working well in all the game modes in the game, I'll delay release so that I'm not releasing something half-finished.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Wishlist TRF on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Just a quick update for everyone, as it's been a month since I posted here.

The game got a bit of a graphical upgrade, so I've updated the demo on Steam with a new update, featuring the updated graphics, along with some new features.

New Features that have been added lately:

Improved Graphics for both Grass and Desert environments, including snowy variants:

New HUD:

In-Game shop using in-game currency (not micro-transactions) to unlock cosmetics and gameplay:

Gears, to vary the engine sound a bit, can also choose manual transmission, which has the opportunity to let you go slightly faster, just requires more skill:

More graphical effects and sounds for Stormy weather:

As for networking, things have been progressing steadily, all but 1 of the game modes is now working over a network, and I managed to get some predictive movement added so the car positions sync more accurately.

Follow me on Twitter to be kept up to date with the game: https://twitter.com/O_Stogden

Wishlist the game on Steam to be notified when it launches: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/
 

O.Stogden

Member
Back again!

Here we are covering the past 3 weeks of development:

31st August 2020 - Car Horns added, coloured headlights added, purchasable in the in-game shop:

7th September 2020 - Minimap added, works with custom maps too:

8th September 2020 - The World Record ghost replay for each track and vehicle class will now be available to download to compete against:

16th September 2020 - Main Menu updated, now features a random track in the background, and smoother/simpler menus:

20th September 2020 - Water races have been added, along with a new vehicle class, Speedboats:

Other changes during the past 3 weeks have included the addition of Point-To-Point races, instead of just circuit races. A toggle-able motion-blur option, and a lot of optimizations in how visual details are handled, so lower-powered devices should play the game quite well, even on 4 player split-screen.

Follow me on Twitter to keep up to date with everything: https://twitter.com/O_Stogden

Wishlist the game on Steam, and check out the demo at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/
 

O.Stogden

Member
Finally TRF has been approved by Valve for release onto Steam.

So I can confirm that the game will be launching on 26th October 2020.

I've spent the past few days working on feedback provided by reviewers and testers. So it's been pretty busy leading up to launch.

Most of it has been fixing bugs, simplifying the UI to make it easier to understand, adding more to the "How To Play" section and adding some QoL features such as resolution changing.

Please wishlist on Steam if you're interested and check out the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

Thanks for all the feedback everyone on the GMC gave me. :)
 

O.Stogden

Member
TRF is available to purchase on Steam now!


Features of the full game:
  • 8 Vehicle Classes (Street, Sports, Super, Hyper, Karts, Formula, Trucks, Boats)
  • 20 Prebuilt Tracks
  • 3 Prebuilt Battle Arenas
  • Track & Battle Arena Editor, with Steam Workshop support for sharing tracks
  • 10 Game Modes (Race, Elimination, Drift, Zen, Infection, Pass The Bomb, Hold The Gold, King of the Hill, Return the Flag, Time Trial)
  • 1-4 Player local multiplayer, 2-8 player online multiplayer.
  • Online Leaderboards for Time Trials

You can also try out the demo before you buy, which features:
  • 4 Car Classes (Street, Sports, Super, Karts)
  • 8 Prebuilt Tracks
  • 1 Prebuilt Battle Arena
  • Track & Battle Arena Editor, saved tracks cannot be played however.
  • 4 Game Modes (Race, Elimination, Drift, Infection)
  • 1-4 Player local multiplayer only.

Excited to release my first game on Steam, after 2 years of development! I hope anyone that plays it will enjoy it. And feel free to offer feedback or post bug reports on here. :)
 

O.Stogden

Member
TRF is now available on Itch.io, for anyone who isn't a fan of Steam!

You can buy it or check out the demo here: https://o-stogden.itch.io/the-race-factory

It is available at 20% off for the first week.

The purchase comes with a Steam key, as a couple of features, namely Time Trial Leaderboards and Track Sharing, are only available on the Steam version. But the Itch version has the advantage of being DRM-free.

It also coincides with the latest patch, which improved the track editor and added Steam Workshop support inside the game, meaning you can download tracks without ever having to enter the Steam Workshop itself.

Thanks for the support!

- Oliver
 

O.Stogden

Member
A new patch for the game is out today, adds the option to have a "Boost Bar" that gradually fills, instead of using Nitro power-ups. This makes Nitro power-ups fill your boost bar instead of giving you a boost.

Also contains a bunch of fixes and optimizations.

Full patch notes here:


The game has been updated on both Steam and Itch.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hello everyone,

WinterSale2020 Prices.jpg

TRF is in the Steam Winter Sale, and as such, is available at 40% off, the biggest discount yet!

You can find the Steam page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230660/TRF__The_Race_Factory/

There's been a few patches since I last posted, so here's the latest changelogs:

2020-039 (22/12/2020):

CHANGE: Internal Game Engine updated.
CHANGE: Game Engine Garbage Collector has been re-enabled, which should improve overall performance and memory usage.
CHANGE: Text in lobby changed so that it fits within borders of the windows it belongs too.
CHANGE: Car Collisions can no longer be disabled in battle game modes.

FIX: Map now gets updated to a valid map when changing game mode with a gamepad.
FIX: Fixed a crash that could occur when rotating the start/finish line slightly in the editor, and then fully rotating it by 90 degrees.
FIX: Cars should now be placed with a little more accuracy when the start/finish line isn't rotated in 90 degree increments.
FIX: Fixed a crash that could occur when putting the cursor over the map preview when entering the lobby.
FIX: You can no longer play Elimination, Drift, or Zen games on a point-to-point track, only circuits.
FIX: Fixed a crash when uploading a level to the Steam Workshop is the first thing you do after booting the game.
FIX: Fixed not being able to change time limit for King of the Hill mode in some situations.
FIX: RTF mode now ends when the points limit is reached, not a time limit, to conform with the menus.
FIX: Told Player 8 to stop resetting their car all the time in battle modes.

2020-038 (11/12/2020):

CHANGE: Optimized the frameskipping method, so the CPU overhead is reduced when 30FPS mode is enabled.
CHANGE: Optimized the way the position list is drawn, should now use less GPU resources.
CHANGE: Changed the background of the map preview to reflect newer graphics.
CHANGE: Players can now be any team they wish in Return the Flag mode.
CHANGE: AI will no longer fire indiscriminately at cars on the same team.

FIX: Bus icon is now scaled correctly in the HUD.
FIX: Disabled the game engines built-in garbage collector, which was causing game crashes.
FIX: The flag is now visible in Return the Flag mode before being picked up.

2020-037 (04/12/2020):

CHANGE: Changed location of the wheels on Busses.
CHANGE: Changed the particle effects for Busses.

2020-036 (03/12/2020):

ADD: Added a new vehicle class: Busses

CHANGE: Done a large optimization on how the terrain is placed, drastically reducing RAM usage.

FIX: Fixed a potential memory leak linked to the shop.

Hope you're all having a nice time, enjoy the Steam sales!
 

O.Stogden

Member
TRF is 40% off in the Steam Remote Play Together sale.


The new track editor has also entered open beta, and you can download it by going to the games properties page on Steam and selecting the 'neweditor' branch. It should hopefully be added to the stable branch within a few days.

The new editor allows you to alter the terrain of tracks, allowing for both land and water in one map, instead of it being separate environments like before. It also allows you to create tracks by placing node points, instead of using pre-made track pieces.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

TRF had another big update last night, adding a new game mode, 5 new tracks and some other nice things such as more gamepad support and a lot of bug fixes.

It also removed the online multiplayer mode, as it was slowing down any patches/content updates, and was rarely in use. So I figured the benefits outweighed the downsides.

Here's the full changelog:

2021-013 (11-05-2021):

From this point onwards TRF requires a 64-bit OS.

ADD: Added a new Game Mode: Cops & Racers
ADD: Added a new Race Track: Grass Raceway 4
ADD: Added a new Race Track: Mt. Raceway 2
ADD: Added a new Race Track: Desert Oasis
ADD: Added a new Race Track: Ocean Raceway 3
ADD: Added a new Race Track: Calden Park
ADD: Added a new placeable object: Small Boost Pad.
ADD: Added 2 new tree variants: Palm Trees.
ADD: Added a new track piece: Half-length Straight.
ADD: Added the ability to choose weapon pre-sets for events: Normal, Bolts & Shields, Nitro Only, No Weapons.
ADD: Gamepad support added for the track editor.
ADD: You can now use LB/RB on an Xbox controller to navigate the level select pages.
ADD: Experimental support for spawning cars near where the previous round ended on Advanced tracks in Elimination mode. Previously you always started from the start/finish line in Elimination mode on Advanced tracks.

CHANGE: The base game engine has been updated.
CHANGE: Executable is now a 64-bit exe, not 32-bit, this brings a big improvement to performance.
CHANGE: When using Up/Down or LB/RB to change selected object in the track editor, the page will keep up with the selected objects page.
CHANGE: Boost/Slow Pads now light-up so they are more visible at night.
CHANGE: Off-road detection on 90 degree corners is slightly less forgiving again.
CHANGE: Off-road detection on 45 & 180 degree corners should be more accurate.
CHANGE: Weapon Balancing largely changed. Last is more likely to get nitros and strikes, first is more likely to get shields.
CHANGE: Improved the way that log fences detect collisions.
CHANGE: Changed how vehicles get eliminated in Elimination mode.
CHANGE: Made the camera focus on the cars quicker at the start of each round in Elimination.
CHANGE: Changed possible spawn locations for restarting an Elimination round, should produce better results.
CHANGE: Temporarily removed Team Standings table at the end of a Team event.
CHANGE: The lobby should handle correcting the number of laps better, and stop defaulting to "3" at the end of each event.
CHANGE: You can no longer use the "Sim Racing" mutator in Zen mode.
CHANGE: Improved the quality of the explosion created by meteors.
CHANGE: Improved the quality of the explosion made by vehicles exploding in Pass The Bomb.
CHANGE: AI will now attempt to reverse if they're stuck driving into a wall in Battle Arena's.
CHANGE: AI will now take slight avoiding action to avoid crashing into other cars in races.

FIX: You can now select all objects/track pieces in the track editor using Up/Down again.
FIX: Selecting car horns in car select should now work again.
FIX: Fixed a crash when saving a Neon track in the new editor.
FIX: Fixed a long-standing issue that prevented cars from finishing in sprint races at times.
FIX: You can no longer start a team-based event when all players are set to the same team.
FIX: The "Scale" options in the track editor should now be visible/invisible at the correct times.
FIX: Fixed an issue where edited terrain wouldn't be loaded for WIP maps.
FIX: Fixed an issue where terrain would be made "deeper" each time you saved and loaded a track.
FIX: Fixed an issue with Elimination mode where racers would be incorrectly eliminated.
FIX: Fixed an issue with Elimination mode which means the camera should correctly focus on the lead car more often.
FIX: Fixed an issue with Elimination mode where the AI couldn't earn points properly.
FIX: Fixed an issue where terrain would not correctly display in the lobby.
FIX: Fixed an issue where AI head/brakelights would be visible in Drift and Zen modes.
FIX: Fixed an issue where particles sometimes wouldn't appear when vehicles were eliminated in Pass The Bomb.
FIX: Fixed an issue where Boats could not move properly on Basic Tracks made in the Water environment.
FIX: Fixed an issue where vehicles would not correctly detect they were in water.
FIX: Fixed a crash when exiting a track that had a spinning hammer/bar in it.
FIX: Spinning bars/hammers will now reset to their original rotation after ending a test in the track editor.
FIX: Fixed an anti-cheat issue with one of the tracks.
FIX: Tyre screeching sounds, as well as gravel sounds, will now correctly play on Advanced Tracks.

REMOVE: Network mode has been removed.
 

O.Stogden

Member
A few updates since I last posted here:

TRF is now available for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles, it's available here: https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/the-race-factory/9msnzs40zchf
Or by searching in the Xbox Store.

To summarize the updates since I last posted here:

A new battle game mode was added, resembling TRON, your cars leave a trail behind them, make the other cars drive into your trail to eliminate them.

You can now select Dynamic Rain and Dynamic Snow as weather types, the weather intensity will change throughout the race on these settings, meaning driving conditions will change during the race.

A lot of optimizations have happened, so performance should be greatly improved (Most devices seeing at least a 30% improvement in FPS).

2 New Race tracks have been added, resembling Albert Park, Melbourne and Silverstone in the UK.

Fuel/Tyre wear is now a mutator, a bit experimental, but if the track allows it, you now have to pit every few laps to keep your tyre grip and replenish fuel.

That's about it!
 
A free to play version of the game is now available on Android!

This version is missing a few features, such as multiplayer, track creation/sharing, and the Elimination game mode, but has the core gameplay still intact.

You can grab it over here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oliverstogden.trf

Thanks for your support!
This is good stuff! I would like to see an extra control options that has buttons for left, right, up and down. Like Reckless Racing does.
 
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