We thought that it might be a good idea to explain what we have planned for the driving functionality in the full game and why we believe that this suits the experience available to you.
Steering: Being as SpinTires is “arcade-simulation” we wanted to add a setup which was a lot more believable to the player. When rotating the steering wheel on its Z axis whilst the vehicle is stationary (dry steering) you will notice that the action is difficult and slow - the wheel will also stay in the position that you left it in without any self-centering.
As the vehicle attains speed, the steering will become “less-heavy” to operate and it will also begin to self-center due to the positive caster angle of the wheels. Although we have spent a lot of time on this feature we believe that it still requires some additional tweaks before it is “perfect”.
Now that you have read this blog, go back to the SpinTires demo and take another look at how the steering works, you will surely be amazed.
Transmission:Without a doubt automatic transmission is required in SpinTires. The trucks do not drive fast enough to utilize all of the truck gears and when driving in mud or water you will mostly be using a single low gear in order to attain a controlled speed.
Manual transmission would put too much workload on the player and by the time he/she has changed gear the truck would be drifting to stop.
Of course automatic transmission may sound a little bit boring to you, but we have a trick up our sleeves. We are going to add, what we like to call “driving modes” and they consist of the following modes:
TURBO – Used for driving on flat concrete, tarmac or any other hard surface road. It will allow the truck to automatically go up by 3 gears – increasing the overall top speed.
DRIVE – Used for mixed conditions, allowing the truck to automatically go up by 2 gears – somewhat capping the top speed.
CRAWL – Used for mud, water or soft surfaced roads. It will only allow the truck to use 1st gear in order to provide the player with an ideal speed to get out of difficult situations or to cross dangerous bridges.
NEUTRAL – Used for idling.
REVERSE – Used for reversing the vehicle.
These modes provide added control to the player using the keyboard as it affectively allows the player to cap the speed as he/she would with a variable speed gas pedal. Again, this would help with the steering because everything is controlled and the player can select a lower driving mode in order to remain in control of the vehicle.
These driving modes also allow us to build an extremely realistic audio system which we are very excited to show you in the future.
We have many other plans including “engine stalling” and a “tire inflation system” which will be covered in future blogs. Everything in this blog is subject to change but I hope that you like what we currently have planned.
Regards,
SpinTires Team.
