Overkill - Action Racing

Overkill is a game my brother and i have been working on for a while. We started on it in 2009 with the Blender Game Engine, but upgraded to Unity after that for various reasons. I am the programmer/developer, and my brother is the artist. Together we have made a very good looking game, and we have finally gotten Unity Pro, so we can make it look even better.

The premise of the game is that there is an island where people come to do illegal races. Each vehicle has a weapon(Similar to Death Race) and the rich come to bet on the races. Heres some example artwork:


2011 Chevrolet Camaro with a hood mounted Minigun

2011 Ferrari Enzo with dual rocket launchers

The third car is a 2011 Porsche 911 GT with an artillery cannon.

Please visit our website, http://fpsyndicate.webs.com/overkill.htm

There is an example of our two cars in game, but a render is below of the Camaro:



One of the cool features of the game, is that the cars get dented and damaged based on their health. Same thing with different aspects of the environment, such as barrels:



Also, we use Blender to create our own animated particle sheets such as the one below:




Please give me any suggestion or comments you have, they would be greatly appreciated! Also, please like our Facebook page, Facebook.com/fpsyndicate

 

You are using an educational version of Unity. You also cannot use that for commercial use and you cannot use the cars because they are exact replicas of the real cars and have emblems and you need a license for each one, which can cost millions. But other than that, nice start.

 

What is educational version of Unity? I thought there is only free and pro Unity version.

 

Educational license for non commercial use only and only for learning purposes.

 

Of course i know i am using an educational version of Unity. It was only $70 for all the Pro features(mobile included) and i don't plan on finishing it for a while. and by that time i will buy the full version as this is only a year license. As for the usage of the cars in the game, i doubt it would cost a lot to use the image, as they are really just advertising for the company.

 

Promo video is sweet! Nice job!

 

Thanks! My brother made that using Blender. Its only about 1/4th the way done, but it's getting there!

 

don't be mean because he told you something that is completely right.
i know that no one wants to hear stuff like that if he worked on it for some years, but it is a fact that you can't use these models if they use the emblems and the real names, especially if you will implement a damage system. Some companies don't wanna see their cars being destroyed in a game. That is the reason why Grand turismo doesn't have a damage system + they payed lots of money to get all the licences for the cars they use in their game.

 

You are very wrong on your first point. In fact real companies do mind very much if you use a logo, or even the likeness of their vehicles in your game. I would steer very clear of doing so and make sure your vehicles have no registered names/logos on them and look quite different from real vehicles out there.

And good luck getting permission. I had to go through about 7 different parties with Dodge and Chrysler just so I could use an image of the Rammunition Monster Truck on a splash screen for my game, eventually I decided against it and was lucky to get the permission of another monster truck team who I dealt with directly.

So be very careful when it comes to using other people's IP (or it's likeness) in your games.

 

as above. you could easily solve this problem though by removing the company logos and tweaking the cars so that they look different.
(well, not that easily but better than having a beef with car manufacturers)

 

Sorry, but you're right that nobody wants to hear that. But i'm currently talking to GM and they have a specific company that deals with things exactly like this. And i was thinking, and in games like Need for Speed, the cars get destroyed and they have hundreds of cars so they can't have paid a significant amount of money for each one. And if that falls through, i guess i'll have to tell my artist that we have to change the cars. That'll be a fun conversation....

[Update]

I just contacted GM's Equity Management team, and the process is not too complicated and they are actually excited to be able to use their cars in an independent game. There's just a Trademark Application form to fill out and they're really friendly, so people really shouldnt be dissuaded by legal things.

 

Oh. That sounds cool! Tell us how it turns out!

 

let us know how it turns out with the cars i'm really curious on how this goes

 

Chevy shut us down because we had "modified the Camaro with weapons" If our game didn't have the weapons, they would be perfectly fine with use of it, but thats kinda the main point of our game. We're still waiting on a response from the other companies.

In the Meantime, I've been working on some special effects for our game and we now have realistic procedurally generated lightning!
The lightning is for the Tesla Roadster, which will have a tesla coil on it, of course.

The lightning Script utilizes perlin noise and the mesh extraction script from the Procedural examples. Its different than the lightning example from the Procedural projects because it uses a mesh instead of particles, and looks/acts more like real lightning.

Its completely random, but still tracks to the target (in this case, the bigger ball), and arcs like real lightning. Some miss the target, but lightnings not perfect! I also have a slider that makes the lightning more or less accurate. Ill gladly take any suggestions anyone may have I haven't made it fork out yet, but that's next on the list.


I put an example up on my site : http://fpsyndicate.webs.com/lightningdemo.htm

It looks better, and the slider allows you to determine the accuracy of the bolts.

 

I worked on the test drive games , we paid over 1/2 million dollars per game for the car licenses, plus you to agree not to damage or degrade performance or do any illegal with cars..


Chris

 

I have to say, that's kinda silly considering their latest Camero model is now famous because of its portrayal as an extra terrestrial war hero in the Transformers movies.

 

Hi there.
Video looks really great, reminds me of some of my favorite games

Can you please share a link with that GM company?

 

will be so good to share that "GM" Called Company details !
i cant find such thing when google it !

would you please how can we contact with them ? the website ??

 

I clicked on here thinking this was gonna be a fan remake (or sequel) to the old Overkill PC game, lol. Sounds interesting though. The Car Combat genre is one of my favorites.

 

That's really good news for a lot of people. Hopefully we'll see more licenced cars appearing .

 

The art at your page looks good.. Keep up the good work
Btw, found a bug in the web player car demo. If you Zoom in on a car (left click) and then scroll out it messes up the mesh majorly.
Could be because I got the 4.0 beta webplayer, but you can check it out

 

The Company is Equity Management Inc, but be warned, GM will come looking for money! hahaha. http://www.equitymanagementinc.com/

I haven't noticed this before, but i have been working on my other game for Android, (should be in my signature) and haven't looked into anything regarding that game for a while. But thanks for the feedback.

[EDIT] Ok, it does do that. But i think it is because the scroll wheel changes the focal length of the camera so it messes with it, if you zoom out with the right MB then it works fine. That was just an old script from a school project i did XD

ALL of our vehicle art has to be changed because the car companies do not want weapons on their cars. So, We will do what Grand Turismo did and change the 2012 Camaro o the "2012 Chimera" (Basicially the same car just different for leagal reasons).


We're really trying to make a name for ourselves so if you wouldnt mind liking the FB page, thatd be sweet. No spam or anything, just updates on game progress. http://www.facebook.com/FPSyndicate

 

you mean GM gonna help to games that made by indies and releases as a Commercial ??? to own some money from the market ??? or what ?
if you dealt with such thing , we all gonna be so thankful if you share your experiences here with us there are so many groups working on Racing genre
and this info gonna be help us so much i mean how to's and so on ... what should we do , in which conditions we can count on GM ??

 

The representative i talked to seemed pretty excted about it but it doesn't matter who they help. You have to follow all of their terms and rules, and pay them a big check.

I simply emailed EMI and they called me an hour later. They wanted a description of the game and any content you already have (we showed them our website). Then a month later i was emailed back with GM's conditions on the use of the image of one of their cars. its below:

So if you really want to, go for it an email EMI, but from what ive been told there are easier ways. Our plan as of now is to alter the cars to make them recognizable but not exact copies like someone on this thread suggested. That way we still get the look of the cars without having to go through any legal considerations and without paying any cash.

Also, the car licenses can be expensive for games :