Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I’m sure I’ll tweak this here and there, but this is generally what the final product should look like. Here’s a fly through of it in-game:

Please ignore the sky and, well, everything beside the bumper. More on it’s way.

-W

I’ve been working on a character for our latest iPhone game, and working on the texture for the bumpers and floor in Javelin. I hope to have something to show on both fronts soon. Brian has been tweaking our new iOS art pipeline and working on game mechanics for our iOS game.

I’m off to play some MD.

-W

So, on to the wicked madness that will soon be the new Metal Drift cauldron of carnage ™. After performing the necessary incantations over many moons, (only 1 moon actually); my unholy creation has finally reached an adequate stage for public viewing. Mind you this is in its larval form. It has not grown skin, or talons, or the ability to be awesome….yet.

For those of you just tuning in; I started working on this new level ‘Javelin’ last summer, but shelved it to tackle more bite sized projects. But after our spring sale in April, I felt renewed zeal and decided to rededicate myself. Like the crazy uncle winding his own fishing lures or building tiny civil war re-enactments in the shed for hours each night, I’ve returned to this strange hobby with gusto.

So, exciting new stuff to expect in Javelin:

- Now Extra Smooth! As you can see in the fly through, the track and walls are smooth curves, rather than hard edged ramps and corners. In previous levels the movement of the tanks was not well supported by the level. The tanks move in big arcs, the levels had few of these. So Javelin is full of them.

- Even More Smoothness! The big curves weren’t enough. I removed all the bumps from the ground. This wasn’t a strategic game play issue, just a constant frustration! Javelin is smooth, no lips on the ramps, no raised pads or bumps on the shield wall thresholds. It feels faster to me, and more fluid now. No more lining up a shot, just to lose aim when you drive down a ramp or through a shield wall.

- Extra Speedier! The boost areas are more spread out now. You can see them as blue blocks on the ground in the flythrough. Having one long boost tunnel, as in past levels, seemed too separate and concentrated. I wanted to try short bursts of boost scattered around the level so you could more easily fight while boosting. It speeds up the game quite a bit in general (a common suggestion we’ve heard).

- Lastly, I’m trying out a more unique approach to the supporting geometry. I’m not worrying so much about reusing everything, and will be customizing more. I put a lot of thought into aesthetic improvements as well, but I’ll talk more about those as I get texturing done.

I can’t make big changes at this point (if I ever want to finish this beast) but I’m always open to feedback. Please feel free to drop me a line. weston (at) blackjacketstudios.com

-W

A while back the art lead on a 15 year-old game called ‘Colliderz’ got in contact with us. He’d seen Metal Drift and recognized some similarities. He sent a link to a promo video for Colliderz, and we thought we’d share it with you fine folks.

Colliderz was slated for a simultaneous launch on Playstation (1), Saturn and PC. But it didn’t make it. I’m imagining they had a bunch of the same hurtles we had on Metal Drift. For us, it took quite a while to find an arena size and a weapon set that worked. We tried a bunch of sizes, concentrations of obstacles, multiple levels etc. It was a long process. Colliderz went with a small arena with fast vehicles, which likely led to a bumper car experience. We wanted plenty of room to navigate, encouraging more racing moments. A comparison might be a football field vs. a basketball court.

Funnily enough we both were inspired by ‘Speedball’. I guess there aren’t too many futuristic sports game, so you take what you can get. Colliderz ended up with a more faithful reproduction of the Speedball mechanic, mainly because the arenas are free of obstruction (something we never considered).

When we started building Metal Drift we wanted to make something closer to the tank battles in ‘Tron’. The sport elements and speed appeared slowly over time. It’s interesting to find a game that landed in a similar spot we did after a lot of wandering.

-W

Now with each copy of Metal Drift you buy, $1 dollar goes to Japan. I’m not sure if they’re mailing them cash, or presenting a giant check, or what. I’m not even really sure which organization the money goes to. But rest assured, it will definitely be heading west, and probably end up in the right hands.

http://www.direct2drive.com/10367/product/Buy-Metal-Drift-Download

This is probably the best reason we could ever offer to pick up a copy of our game. I should mention that it’s not just us, but any game made by this list of participating publishers will result in funds going to people that really need them.

http://www.direct2drive.com/staticpage.aspx?topic=relief

There is also a place to just make a cash donation.

I’m posting some shots of it’s current state, so you can inhale some of the aromatic ingredients before they are whipped into an iron chef style, decadent masterpiece.

Because I know you’re curious; our upcoming iPad/PC/Mac game ‘Slime City’ will be occupying the white hot front burner. Look for terrifying glimpses into that mysterious new offering very soon!

Currently Metal Drift boasts a glorious set of 5 (FIVE!) action-packed levels (or ‘Drift Decks’ for the cool kids). These ‘Metro Drift Decks’ are all set at night in an open air stadium that exists within a massive metropolis. So yes, the ‘Metro’ tag refers to the deck’s city setting, not to how stylish and well groomed they are.

This incredible city surrounding the ‘Metro Decks’ is controlled by the powerful, and benevolent ‘Athalon’ corporation/team. Now don’t feel stupid if you’ve played the game all year and didn’t know this, because there is absolutely no in-game indication of a city and zero mention of the deep, politically significant back story that I just revealed.

The new Deck(s) will exist in a desolate area of this future Earth lovingly referred to as ‘The Waste’. As you might guess, this area is controlled by the sinister ‘Triax’ corporation/team. (These are the guys in red you will learn, or have learned, to hate with every fiber of your being.)

The ‘Waste Decks’ will be set in daytime, surrounded by southwestern, red-rock, vistas. See below some of the initial geometry tests. These are relatively finished, I just need to slap some paint on them, and throw down the wall-to-wall carpeting.

Game-play wise, I’m excited to play around with shorter, more frequent boost areas, more overhangs, and especially jumps! Below you can see some of the tech detailing. Brian and I have both wanted to add a lot more vertical detail. I plan on also adding flags and wind turbines.

These shots are the first pass at a deck called ‘Javelin’. Which has a long boost tunnel up the middle, and a series of obstacles up the sides. So once the ball is picked up, it’s slow going to reach a goal, but if there’s a turn over on one side or the other, the ball carrier can shoot down the middle towards the enemy camp. It should create a frenzy of accelerated boost fights right before each goal.

As I said, this project is on the back burner so progress will be slow. As I do find time to work on it, I’ll make an effort to post changes.

As always, check out the current release of Metal Drift at Desura (below).

-W

This last week I’ve been working on a comic (our first) to cover one of the defining features of Metal Drift; its “‘Sploadiness”. Brian and I have had a ton of conversations over the last few years, discussing the improvements we could make to Metal Drift. We never actually had the one in the comic, but it approximates the mood. One of us will be super excited about an idea, and we have to try to convince the other that it’s awesome, and worth doing. Usually we use English to describe our ideas.

I’ve wanted to try drawing a comic for years. I used to redraw Calvin and Hobbes constantly when I was a youngster. I would love to do a couple of comics from the perspective of the pilots in the tanks in Metal Drift as well. Hopefully I’ll have time for that soon.

While I was working on the comic, I recorded it, sped it up, and put it in a video. Check that out below:

If you liked this video, I hope you’ll subscribe to our channel (below). We’ll be posting new stuff there constantly, I promise!

-W

With the new build he added some back end goodies…uh…here they are:

1. New account system -allows players to play each other on any PC platform.

2. New Master Server - faster, more reliable with more accurate player counts.

3. New East Coast and European dedicated servers. (These will be going up any day now!)

4. New Tank Skins! Now you’ll get a brand new skin when you hit level 20 and another at level 40! There is also a new skin for our devoted community members (the VIP skin). So if you see a black tank driving around, it’s either one of us, or our awesome community leaders…they are to be feared! Lastly we made a one-off skin for our all time champion player, and extremely dedicated community member ‘Drakon’. We re-enabled the Steam achievement involving killing him a number of times in one match…this is how we treat the people we love. Now you’ll have no doubt who you’re supposed to kill relentlessly.

New skins:

And a quick video showing off the skins:

Brian took care of some pesky bugs as well:

1. The player counts on the servers are accurate now. There was an issue with the Steam servers, but now that we’re running independently, the number of people you see on the server list is actually correct.

2. Weapon bonus damage was corrected.

3. The Drakon achievement on Steam is fixed and re-activated.

4. The ball doesn’t collide with the boost tunnels, goals and repair pads any more. So passing and throwing the ball ahead of you on a boost run should be much smoother.

5. The boost colors on the team fake pack are correct. So it should be easier to fool the other team into believing you’re one of them.

Some miscellaneous additions:

1. Added some subtle cockpit glass. Feels like you’ve got a windshield now.

2. We reduced the number of human players you need in a game for stats to be recorded from 6 to 4.

The update will go live on Direct 2 Drive and Gamer’s Gate on the 17th.

I hope you’ll all join us for some super ’splody action packed carnage!! Brian and I are jumping in at 6pm PST nightly.

-Weston

While I’m waiting for the game play elements to get locked down, I’ve been playing around with pixel animation. I wanted to post my first attempt. We want to have people run when the slime attacks, I figured dogs would catch on and get moving too.

Slime

More coming soon!

-W

On the art side, the 2D work flow is much faster and easier than poly soup 3D was, and the pixel art style is a nice change of pace. Working in discreet color values and opacities is satisfying in a way that blended colors aren’t. At least for me. I grew up with Mac Plus and NES graphics so there is a ton of retro appeal. Along the way I’ve discovered some amazing talent out there, like Eboy and some great artists over at Pixel Joint. I’m trying to create a unique look by starting with Eboy and taking it in a little more realistic and less colorful direction. Hopefully it works as well as their stuff.

I’ve been building mostly static stuff so far as we’re still prototyping the game play. A couple of exceptions are an Akira inspired explosion and the slime itself. I’ll post some animation examples soon. In the mean time here are a couple of Portland buildings I’ve rebuilt in iso-pixel form.

We’re also hoping to get you guys involved in the funding of the game. We’ve been talking about offering a variety of in-game rewards in exchange for a donation. Like if you want to be a character in the game, help us out with a donation of X dollars etc.

Anyway, more to come.

Weston