It packages our favorite game ever…Metal Drift! with some other fantastic offerings:

AaAaAA!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity.

A crazy decent at break neck speeds. Total thrill ride all the way!

Gridrunner

2D Shooter goodness.

Starscape

More 2D shooter goodness with deep space exploration strategy and plot.

Zombie Driver

Zombie destruction behind the wheel of a tricked out death-mobile!

And you can get all this Indie Action for only $19.99! But only for the duration of the Steam Summer Sale.

The pack will be a permenant addition to the Steam store, but will only be on sale for a short time.

Starting next week, we’ll be hosting the first Metal Drift community Tournament! The Metal Drift community has been refining it’s skills and tightening strategies. It’s time to formally determine who’s the best of the best! For this first tournament there are four teams competing. Our new community manager, William Scott “wiweeyum” Sheppard put together these great team logos for them…

Each team consists of four players, making 16 total. These are a mix of veteran community member and some new comers, so I’m stoked to see who wins!

ARSON:
-LittleBoyBlue
-ChampBob
-EthylPerchlorate/Weatherman
-SlamScape

Our first team “Arson” is led by “LittleBoyBlue”, one of our most dedicated, and long time veteran community managers. He’s supported by two other veterans, “ChampBob” and “SlamScape.” Rounding out the group is the skilled and deadly “EthylPerclorate!” This team will be hard to beat.

The Booth Babes:
-Drakon
-JCade/Sim47
-DRY2010ICE
-Royt1988

The second team “The Booth Babes” is led by our top community manager, “Drakon”. He is hands down the best defender in the game, consistently decimating all with his plasma cannon skills. In short, he is the drift king (DK for short). He’s backed up by “Royt1988″, the number two record holder, the prince of drift domination!! Also on board are “JCade” and “DRY2010ICE”, both of whom have layed me to waste on multiple occasions. I quake in their presence.

Beef Sandwich:
-Electronaut
-Wiweeyum
-BeefThief
-dogface57

Third is my team, led by the infamous “BeefThief”, one of our elite community managers, and frequent ass kicker. Also on our team is the creator of all the great Tournament art in this post, “Wiweeyum”. He’s new to the game, but he’s taken it on with some amazing drive and energy. He’s also the “Host” of Metal Drift TV! “Dogface57″ is our frequent match host, and skilled drifter. I’m “Electronaut”, and I’m just happy to be part of the sandwich! Can you handle the Beef Sandwich!!?

Latent Half:
-Rhylos
-Tigerhawk71
-eshin_seer
-LOC

Team “Laten Half” is our team from Down Under. They’re so bad ass, they’re taking the rest of us on with a huge ping (hence the name). I’m glad they’re joining in, it should be awesome! I’ve been wiped out by high ping players enough times to fear these guys.

The Lineup For Drift Supremacy!

“Drakon”, “Beefthief”, and “LittleBoyBlue” have put together the details for the tournament including the match lineup. See it here:

Game 1:

ARSON vs. The Booth Babes

Game 2:

Beef Sandwich vs. The Latent Half

How do I watch?!

We’ll be playing the tournament as a double elimination. The first two games will be scheduled between this Friday, June 25th. and Friday, July 2nd. Sadly, there is not a spectator mode built into the game, so watching it live isn’t possible. But each match will be recorded and hosted on on our YouTube channel Metal Drift TV! We’ll keep you posted on dates of the matches and the results of each.

Finally, every match will be announced live on Twitter, so come follow the progress! For all the official rules, come read the Tournament Thread.

Thanks to “Wiweeyum” “Drakon” “LittleBoyBlue” and “Beefthief” for organizing the event. I look forward to many more to come!

Weston (Electronaut)

So we have shipped our first game, Metal Drift, and it’s been available on Steam for a couple of months now. It feels good to finally finish that sucker. I’ve picked up a mountain of knowledge on the complete development cycle over the last two years. I’ve been making games for well over a decade, but it’s really quite different to be this involved in the process from top to bottom.

Now that the game has been exposed to the unapologetic, honest eyes of the public, I think it’s held up pretty well. Some of the issues we knew about have been clarified, but other areas we thought would be a problem turned out not to be. Given how much we have learned, I think we could really crystallize the vision into something really great on our next pass.

The challenge we currently face is building and maintaining a community. Being game developers, and not community organizers, this has been a challenge. We’re coming to realize how much work it is to get excitement going, and keep it going. We have some amazing community members who love the game as much as we do, and have really stepped up to help us get people interested. But it seems to take an army to raise an army.

I’m really looking forward to getting back to work on additions and changes. I have some exciting ideas about our next level look, and some new level design elements that should push the thrill factor. We’ve wanted to add more jumps, and speed zones to really amp up the energy levels. We’ve also got another weapon in the works, one that has already been implemented in the past, and we’re excited to bring it back. We’ve also talked about adding a new game type and possibly a 3rd person camera view. I’m hoping this stuff will manifest a resurgence in the community and extend the longevity of the project.

Stay tuned for more updates on additions and events. Hope to see you in game soon!

Weston (Electronaut)

]]> http://www.blackjacketstudios.com/development/momentum/feed/ http://www.blackjacketstudios.com/general/metal-drift-now-available-for-pre-order-on-steam/ http://www.blackjacketstudios.com/general/metal-drift-now-available-for-pre-order-on-steam/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:24:38 +0000 Brian http://www.blackjacketstudios.com/?p=109

It’s finally available for purchase.  Head on over here and get your copy now, 20% off for the next week or so!

Here’s the (late) press release:

——————————————————

Portland, OR - Independent developer Black Jacket Studios announced their first title, “Metal Drift” is available starting today for pre-order on PC through the Steam online distribution service.   The vehicular combat shooter is available for a 20% discount at $9.99.  Players who pre-order will have access to the final 2 weeks of beta before the full release.

Metal Drift is a vehicular sport combat game set in a distant future. You command an agile, high powered hover tank in a futuristic sports arena.  Core game play centers on intense tank-on-tank multiplayer team combat seen through an immersive, first person cockpit.  Layered on this is a goal-oriented game type that allows for high level strategy and team dynamics.  Players can level up to unlock new ranks, weapons, and upgrades.

Each weapon and upgrade is specifically designed and balanced to allow different styles of play. Pair up the Stealth upgrade and the Shock Cannon to uncloak behind an enemy player and unload a devastating blow before disappearing again. Or choose the Sensor upgrade to see where all the nearby players are, and the Temporal Cannon to shoot them through walls! There are 56 possible combinations – choose whichever suits your strategy.

• - Multiplayer team-based vehicular combat
• - 5 Different arenas featuring multiple levels and boost tunnels
• - Persistent leveling system – level-up to unlock new weapons and upgrades
• - Stats and Leaderboards
• - 56 Different tank configurations
• - 18 Steam Achievements, with more coming soon!
• - Unique energy management system – accumulate energy and then distribute it to weapons or use it to gain a speed boost!

 
Promo video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkHAvhKgKEI

Steam page               -  http://store.steampowered.com/app/32200/
Official Metal Drift      -  http://www.metaldrift.com
Black Jacket Studios  - http://www.blackjacketstudios.com

Around this same time, Brian and I were trying to figure out how to flesh out the Metal Drift world with a little more life. We wanted to push the sports angle by adding arena ads, but didn’t want to invest a ton of time making up and designing logos for fictitious companies. So it seemed like a natural fit to advertise for our fellow indies instead.

So at the Kongregate meet up I made the offer; free advertising to anyone who wanted it. All we needed in return was the use of a logo. The idea got plenty of interest from the room…so we were off and rolling and ended up with some great companies. The final line up includes:

HotHead - Makers of the ever popular Penny Arcade Adventures.

Klei Entertainment - Makers of the hot titles Shank, Sugar Rush and Eets.

Games Faction - Makers of the beautiful Project Aftermath.

Garage Games - Our illustrious benefactors.

Nimblebit - iPhone domination machine and creators of the super polished Zero Gear.

Fully Illustrated - Our web designers, and just incredible people all around. There are none better.

Torpex Games - Creators of the award winning Schizoid.

Firehose Games - Working on top secret games involving Super Heroes and Love (?)

Ronimo - Maker of the fantastic Swords and Soldiers for the Wii.

It was our job to animate the logos once we got them. So I did some research to hunt down the best looking animated ads I could find. Not surprisingly Japan had the best stuff. I broke down the dominant styles and came up with some basic animations.

After a bunch of trial and error, I managed to throw together animated ads for each contributor. It was a little more work than I had anticipated, but I think it was worth it. Each ad ended up being between 30 to 60 frames, some with overlapping animations. Take a look at the final product:

I think they turned out pretty well. Thanks in large part to the great initial logos and all the folks who participated. We look forward to collaborating with the indie community again soon.

Find more regular updates from me on Twitter.

Weston

Eventually I got around to calling some talent agencies in Portland. We listened to samples of local voice actors, and generally hammered out what sort of voices we wanted. We heard a bunch of clips, but it was hard to tell what we were going to get in the end.

Around this same time, Brian had become an overnight fan of the Portland Trail Blazers. I’d lived in Portland already for a year and a half, and hadn’t been to a Blazer game yet. He suggested that we go to one, to get a sense of what a real arena announcer sounds like. When we finally went, it was thrilling. The Blazer’s stadium was electrified with the constant chatter and cheers of the audience and the commanding voice of their stadium announcer, Mark Mason.

After a couple of games, we knew exactly what sort of mood and emotion we wanted from our voice actor, but were still not sure where to find him. So eventually we figured, why not get the genuine article.

It was only hours after we had the idea to contact Mark that he wrote us back and we worked out all the details. We were scheduled for 4 hours of recording just like that. Now all we needed was a script long enough to fill 4 hours of recording time, no problem!

The second half of our voice talent team came to us from a different avenue completely. It was last fall and I was having beers with friends Dirk, and Sarah. Their friends Erin and Keith joined us and we got to talking about Metal Drift, and what was left to do. I’ve been fielding questions about the progress of the game for a long time now. Usually all I can say is, “we have a lot left to do”. But this time I launched into our impending search for an announcer, and a cockpit computer voice. At this, Erin volunteered for the computer voice on the spot. Only five short months later we were in the studio with her, making a final recording.

I had assumed that the script writing for this whole endeavor would only take a few days. Consequently, I’d put it off until days before the recording session. When I finally sat down to crank it out, I quickly realized that writing enough copy to satisfy our needs was going to be a mountain of work.

The first step was to identify all the triggers that we could hook voice to. Once we had that frame work, I began fleshing it out. Not being a sports fan, I didn’t have a whole lot of on-hand reference to work from in constructing the monologue for our announcer. You guys will have to be the judge, but I think it turned out pretty well. The lines are super cheesy, but I think it fits the mold. For Mark’s part, he knocked it out of the park. There are a couple of lines I’m especially proud of: (BTW, we have team names now; Athalon and Triax).

Napalm in a match factory.

See if they can cook.

Cocktail of adrenaline.

Erin’s lines for the computer voice were a little easier to put together. There were also a lot fewer of them. We just needed her to comment on the player’s actions minimally and give some alert feedback on the condition of the tank. I started with the basic “Shields Down” stuff and added some goofy variations to keep things interesting. I kept coming back to the multi-click sounds from War Craft that added so much to that game.

The recording session went great. Erin had never done a recording session like this before, but she nailed it completely. After some significant digital processing to make her sound like a computer, it came out pretty great I think:

Success!

The recording for Mark was done entirely at the recording studio of our sound engineer David Hughes. David was an incredible find as well. He’s worked on block buster movies for years, including Fight Club, X-Men, Minority Report etc. He’s incredibly skilled and works a few miles from us in Portland. He’s responsible for nearly all the sound FX in Metal Drift, and was a fantastic help on the voice work. He cut up and processed all the voice clips, giving them echoing reverb and digital computer warble. I snapped a shot of his space while he was hard at work:

The recording for Erin occurred primary at the studio of Brian Applegate (of The Punk Group). He graciously offered his space and equipment for free. The whole process was silky smooth, and a whole lot of fun.

There were a whole lot of people who helped pull this whole thing together. It was great to have so much help. I’d like to say thanks to Dirk and Sarah for being our impromptu talent agents. Thanks of course to Erin and Mark for adding their voices to our game and bringing some much needed life and excitement to the Metal Drift world. A big thank you to David and Brian A. for recording and processing all the clips. And thanks of course to Brian R. for all the days of work ahead, hooking all this stuff up to the engine! I hope you all enjoy the final product when you hear it in game!

-W

One of those cool “bits” was a short film from the larger anime movie Neo Tokyo called “The Running Man”. No relation to the cheesy 80’s Schwarzenegger action flick.  I saw there are a couple of versions of it up on YouTube.  The one below is edited down quite a bit, so if you like it, check out the link below it, which you can see is the one aired on Liquid Television.  The voice actor is different too, not sure what the story is there.  Anyway, check it out, you’ll see the connection to Metal Drift:

Here’s the link to the other version.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/05/20/drift-to-experience-metal-drift/

Oh, and I got some helpful suggestions on what to name my first-born; sweet day!

The Stealth Upgrade is great for sneaking up on defenders, or snatching the ball up for a surprise score if it gets dropped near the other team’s goal.  You can carry the ball while cloaked, but everyone will see the ball’s position beacon on their HUD, so they will know exactly where you are.

Once activated, the player’s tank becomes invisible to the other team, even on radar. The stealthed player cannot fire until they completely de-cloak. They can remain cloaked indefinitely. The other team can counter the Stealth upgrade by using the Sensor upgrade - it will detect cloaked players on radar, and they will become visible on the HUD if within 200 meters or so.

Here’s a link to the first and second sets.

Office pic March 2009

Clockwise from top left - Weston Tracy, Brian Ramage, Bill Vinton, Sam Yatchmenoff