Wincars Racer - Online Arcade Racer

Hello everyone!

First let me introduce me since this is my first post at Unity Forums:

My name is Javier, I'm a guy from Spain who's always loved and played games since the 80's. I worked as a QA tester at EA for two years, and finally joined an indie videogame studio. We're 11 people team currently working on our first game.

And yes, of course we're developing out game with Unity 3D

The thing is that we really care about our first game and want to make it as good as we can. Since we're an indie studio and also got tired of how big studios care more about hyping their titles, rather than hearing to gamers, we've decided to do right the opposite thing.

We are very interested in hearing people opinion on our game, suggestions, ideas....everything! and take them into account while we develop the game. We're showing our game at an early stage, no tricks! even though we're aware that some people would say that it sucks, cause unfinished games usually looks like crap. We don't care, we think that's the price we gotta pay if we really want to hear gamers opinion from the start.

Don't hesitate to ask anything you feel like, I promise to answer everybody. We are also open to hear any idea, doesn't mind how crazy it might sound. In exchange, we can offer closed-beta access to people interested, just let me know if that's your case.

So, regarding our game:

Our game is called Formula Wincars, it mixes two close genres: Arcade racers and Karting games. We also implemented lots of online gaming features, specifically inspired by those from MOBA games. That means that strategy and tactics will be important too.

It will be available for PC.

We are really excited about our co-op mode TEAMS MODE It's gotta be a cornerstone of the game. 4 vs 4 players teamed up into two different teams, where players will be able to share driver's special skills and where the choice of a common strategy between thousands of possibilities will be a must! These are MOBA games features implemented in the racing genre. The strategy and tactics will be the key.

Our latest trailer so far:

But I must say that in fact it's pretty old and the game looks much better now, it's just that we don't have enough time to make another trailer without stopping the developing of the game. And the game is the priority now. Our closed beta relases within two months approximately so we're working hardly to fulfil that deadline. (not sure if we will be able to do it or finally delay it a little bit)

Our game is intended to be totally oriented to online competition with some features like up to 4000 players tournaments. These tournaments will have real life prizes to winnners, and virtual goodies like car skins to every participant.

We're also running a development blog at our site where we make updates on a weekly basis and try to share everything we learnd and how we solve the problems we encounter www.formulawincars.com

Some images of the game and its development:

 

Obviously I can't determine how well it actually plays from photos and a video but kudos to you for creative level design and excellent presentation.

 

Thanks a lot for your comment GarBenjamin!

 

That is looking great, really has progressed since I first saw it, very classy and slick, well done guys.

 

Thanks you SpookyCat! Great to hear someone who keeps track of our progress!

 

News!

It’s been a tough month full of intense work, but it also brought highly gratifying results. In this update we will show you some screenshots which illustrates our progress, don’t hesitate to leave a comment expressing any thought you may have on this. Feedback is much appreciated!

Drivers:







Menu Screens







Circuits






At the moment we are implementing each car's final handling, this means that soon we'll be able to make a new gameplay trailer (our current trailer is waaaay too old).

Besides, we've decided that finally, we will change the game's name. We took into account the feedback received (some of you didn't like the name at all) and there also was a risk of some legal conflict because of using the word "Formula"....so we decided to change the name. We'll announce the new one soon!


Thanks for the support!

 

Cool Trailer, Looks Sweet!!

 

Thanks for the comment XCO!!

 

Hello everyone!

Wow!, it’s been a loong time since last time I posted here on our progress. Almost two months of hard and intense work that had its results as you are able to see. First and foremost, our most important news….we change our game’s name!

From now on, our game will be named Wincars Racer!!



Reasons why? In fact, many factors have made us take this decision. First, your opinion. Many of you have said that you didn’t like the name, and truth is that we weren’t completely happy with it either. We put it provisionally, then time went on….and well, you know how these things work. Besides, we had noticed that the game was been perceived as a Formula 1 game, when we’re more into the arcade & karting gameplay adding strategy. Lastly, there were many people who warned us about the risk of facing a legal conflict with Formula 1 trademark, having been previous cases where other titles had been sued for that.

So…new name! We still use the word Wincars cause we are already known for that name and will help people find us in google and stuff like that. 

We’ve algo taking advantage of this opportunity to launch a new image in our website and make a new promo image taking into account all the feedback given by you.



At last, new gameplay screenshots:











We also got made the cards for all circuits which will be displayed when choosing the one to play in.







And finally….the cars! We’ve got now more than 100 different models. In next updates, I’ll explain how different they feel when it comes to drive them and all differences between them, today I’m just going to post some pics to let you see our progress in this and hear what you think about how they look so far:






This is a good example of how changing skins will affect to the same car. These following two images belong to the same car ( a Mignon) but they’re set up with two different skins (we’re developing an internet-based game….there must be cats!!!)





This is a detail that nostalgic racers will sure appreciate!



As always, we’d love to hear your opinión on our work, what you like better and that sort of things. You can ask us whatever that you feel like or thow any crazy idea that you’d like to see in the game. Believe it or not, we take them into account for real!

And don’t forget that you can still sign up for future closed-beta acess in our site at www.wincarsracer.com
Greetings from the dev team at DragonJam!

P.S. I’m going to check if there’s any chance of changing the thread’s title to reflect the change in the game name

 

Hi again…

…we’re thrilled to show new Wincars Racer game footage!

We really wanted to show some “in-movement” stuff where you can appreciate how the game is getting better as the development goes on.

This video is part of a blog post to be shared tomorrow where you will be able to know more details about the handling and feel of each of the 4 car series present in the game.

New game images:

This is one of the fake ads than will be placed in certain spots of the circuits whose intention is to give a real-life feel to the game’s universe. We’ve even made some of them featuring the game’s characters as media stars announcing commercial products like soda and stuff like that….



A close-up shot at the Dawn Of the Racers brand new car skin (all these skin names are still provisional, so we’d appreciate some feedback on them… and you can even suggest your own ideas to name them!)



The Wild One car skin for Carelle model. Personally, my favorite among all skins we’ve made so far….





A gameplay screenshot that will help you to get a quick overview of how racing trying to avoid giant rolling stones will be in Isla Aventura



Finally, Bradley using Rocket Rush Special Skill in its higher level, which is basically three huge turbines on full throttle giving your racer an extra boost. Using it wisely in the right moment will allow you to change race positions completely.




We’d really appreciate if you could leave your opinion about this update, both the video and the images. Ideas & suggestions are much welcome!!

If you like the game so far, you can go sign up at our site and you’ll have future closed-beta access guaranteed so that you will be able to be the first ones to play it and help use with the testing and balancing the game.

Greetings from the entire dev team!

 

Hello everyone!

It’s been a month and a half since last update so today there is a lot of new stuff to show you.






More than 100 new skins appear in the game!



Up to this point, for the development tests, we just used one skin of each of the eleven car models. So it was time to finally introduce the special models.

We are tripping!

Here you can see a few real screenshots so you can have an idea of how they look and the current state of the game:












New cover!






At last an image that truly presents the game.

The challenge was to create a cover that conveyed the emotion of the races while presenting the pilots and the cars in an attractive way. Truth is we think we have succeeded in doing this and we are very happy with the result.

We want to say a big thank you all for the feedback that you have given us on the temporary images that we have been using previously, it has helped us a lot when it came to visualizing the final version.



Final web design



We are working on the website’s facelift which has been a development blog up to now, and which will be, from this point on, an integral part of the game.

This way it will become the fundamental tool in order to download the game and also the meeting point to Racers worldwide.



Checking that everything works fine


If we talk about functionalities, as you can see in the picture, these sections have already been added: News, The Game, Gallery and Community, and inside this last one, you’ll find the awaited Forum. Social media have more weight too, adding the Facebook widget in the side bar.






Rear view



As soon as the game started working as we wanted it to work, and the races started being fun, balanced and frantic, we realized that it was time to work on the rear view mode.

Although we still have to assign it to a definite button and work out a few details (remove certain particles and camera effects which don’t make sense for the rear view), the first tests have been a complete success, and have added a lot of value to the gameplay.






Turbo particles



We have improved its particles and truth is it’s amazing. We are very proud of the visual feel that you get when using the Turbo. You can see it in this image:






Introducing the drivers



Same as with the game cover, it has been decided to present the pilots in individual illustrations using their exclusive special ability.

At this time we have started working with Montana Dom!





That’s all, we’re really happy with the idea of sharing our progress here in the boards and listen to opinions, ideas and suggestions directly from you.

Greetings to everyone here at UnityForums!

 

You should rework thislevel textures and lightening.
The asphalt is too much black and dark , it's like it would absorb all lightening and would not reflect any lightening. And the trees around are too bright ,side roads are too dark also.
don't you use any lightening in your game ?

You need to harmonise colors intensity and have some hohmogenous result like uniform lightening :


Or a road blakc but with details and refeclting the lightening

Good luck.

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback zenGarden!

 

Hello everyone....

Time has come!



We're thrilled to announce that tomorrow, Thursday 3rd starting from 13:00 Pacific Time to 15:00 Pacific time (20:00 UTC to 22:00 UTC) Racers from all around the world will measure their skills playing Wincars Racer for the very first time!

If you are interested in taking part of this, here are the instructions to download the game: http://bit.ly/1LFmXjb

Once the test is finished you'll receive a survey via email to share your thoughts on the game so far and give feedback. Of course, you can also post a message here in the Forum!

See you at the races!

 

wow! That looks really cool.
I like the car models a lot, because they are very realistic!
The maps look cool too.

 

Thanks a lot cd2

 

Hi ,

I'm not sure if anybody from the forum participated...just in case: Thanks a lot to everyone who took part of the Alpha event!

Want to tell us how was your first Wincars Racer experience through this quick survey?: http://bit.ly/1ikPtwL

Greetings from the studio devs!

 

Hi again,

Last weekend, we showcased the game at Madrid Games Week and truth is that it was an absolute success:Wincars Racer was awarded as Best Debut Game!





Undoubtedly, this award belongs to you too. You who helped us with the Alpha tests, who usually give us feedback on the game's progress and all of you who just read this thread on a regular basis.

Congratulations!

There's a new post in the devblog featuring lots of pictures of all the action that happened these days at the fair: http://bit.ly/1huig0U

Besides, the new trailer released for Madrid Games Week is now avalaible to watch online!

As always, feedback is much appreciated!!

[youtube]

 

Hello everyone,

Today, we're thrilled to announce that...

You can play Wincars Racer Beta now!




How to Download the game

It's fairly straightforward if you already signed up at our site. Just log in at Wincars Racer site and download the game.

http://www.wincarsracer.com


Otherwise, you need to sign up and redeem a Beta Key, though, there will be a Beta Key for everyone here at Unity forum who asks for one!

That's our way to express our gratitude to everyone who gave feedback or just followed the game progress in this thread.



Check out the new game trailer released to announce the Beta. It's the best we've done so far!

Thanks for everything and see you at the races!

 

Muy Braino!!! (como dicen los yanki)
Felicidades, tremendo trabajo, tremendo juego!
Cuanta gente trabajaron durante el desarrollo? Cuanto tiempo les tomo?

 

Good work
Is the game going to Steam ?

 

Muchas gracias!

Even though we're spanish, I think that we'll stick to using english language so that everyone here is able to follow the conversation!

Now, we're 6 people, and we've been up to 10 people during some times of the development which took 2 years so far to get here!

Thanks a lot for your comment!

 

Surely, we'll go to Steam sooner or later. Now we're managing the Beta on our own via PC Client, but we really feel like being available on Steam as well.

Thanks a lot for your comment!

 

Hello everyone!

We are aware that it has been a little bit difficult to find players online to race against these first days of Beta. Thanks a lot to everyone who wrote to us explaining this situation and suggesting us to set up official scheduled playing times.

So here they are. If you want to race against real players, these are the recommended times to launch the game!






Launcher issue FIXED!


Some of you experienced this annoying bug that even got to prevent players from playing the game at all. The good news is that we fixed it! Most of players who have tried the new one didn't suffer the bug (so far...fingers crossed!).

If you encountered this bug, please download the new client from here:

http://download.wincarsracer.com/WincarsRacerInstallerV2_2.exe

That's all, see you all behind the wheel at the next official playing time on Sunday 6th!

 

Hi!

Long time no news, here we go!




Steam

Yes, Steam. Probably one of the most repeated suggestions we've heard since we started asking for feedback on our game. It's been a year and a half of reading "Will the game be released on Steam? So, we listened to you and are currently setting a Greenlight campaing so that you are able to play Wincars Racer on Steam.

I will announce the campaign once its released and see if we can make it to the store!



Drift button

Another point where we used all feedback given to us. In fact, at first we didn't want to include this, We thought that it would be better to develop a system where you could make the car drift by just turning the wheel at maximum.

We were wrong.

We implemented the new drifting system and the game just got BETTER. As simple as that. It still needs some adjustments, but clearly, this is the way yo go. We're eager to see you get your hands on it!




Wincars Racer testing showroom event

We are hosting an event next 11th February in Telefonica Flagship Store (Madrid, Spain), sponsored by Pure Gaming and being part of ElZeroUno (a series of game meetings and conferences) where you will be able to play the game running in top-notch gaming set-ups.

I know that it's quite difficult that someone reading this in here could be in Spain those days, but... hey if that's the case, we'd love to see you and drink some beers together!


We've made tons of other corrections, improvements in the circuits, graphics performance, etc... but we'll leave that behind today and try to surprise you next time you play the game!

Greetings from everyone here at the studio!

 

Hello everyone,

It's here...

Wincars Racer Greenlight campaign is now live!


Now, it's in your hands if the game will be available on Steam or not. You can vote for it in this link:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=619988052

We'd really appreciate you sharing the link with your friends on the internet, help us spread the word!







Wincars Racer open beta available now


You can now play the new Wincars Racer new version 0.0.3

Just log in at http://www.wincarsracer.com and then download the game by clicking on Play Free Now.

If you already had access to the Beta just open the game launcher and it will update to the the latest version automatically. Play whenever you want, but remember that there are way more players in the official scheduled playtimes.

Playtimes Schedule: http://www.wincarsracer.com/content/official-scheduled-times-play-wincars-racer-beta


What's new on this version?


A complete list of major changes, improvements and bug fixes can be found at the Build release notes, though, we advance you that a new drifting/handbrake button has been implemented and that the overall game performance has been drastically improved.

Build Notes: http://www.wincarsracer.com/updates/build-003-here

Full drifting action and full adrenalin fun!


Thanks for the support and don't forget to leave feedback if you give the beta a try, we couldn't do it without your help!

 

Hey!

Finally, the Open beta will be closed next Monday 29th.

As a farewell, one last final hours test will be held next Sunday 28th at 12:00 PST (20:00 UTC) We the devs will also be playing the game in this event, so it would be a pleasure if we happen to run into the same race with any of you




If you give the beta a try or if you have any technical issue that doesn't let you play the game, we strongly encourage to drop us a line, we love getting mails from testers!



These all are completed surveys by buddies who played Wincars Racer at Japan Weekend Fair. The green fellow is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, a guy you can trust.

See you on Sunday!

 

The open beta has now officially ended.

Our intention now is to run time-limited tests periodically, so if you happen to read this and didn't play the beta before, you can still sign up at our site and we'll notify you when the game is available in these time-limited test events.

Thanks a lot to everyone who took part in this and shared their thoughts on the game with us, your feedback is extremely valuable! We are already working on tons of changes and improvements suggested!


Besides....

Wincars Racer has been greenlit and will be published in Steam!


It raised more than 4000 "yes" votes and was featured in the top 20 among more than 2000 games ever since the very first 48 hours.

We want to give a heartfelt thanks for such an overwhelming support!




That's all for now. As always, Do not hesitate to leave a comment!

 

Hi there!

It's been almost two months without an update, I really missed you but we had tons of work to do around here!

First off, we got a new website! check it out at http://www.wincarsracer.com.

Also, you can sign up for the newsletter at http://www.wincarsracer.com/beta-sign-up-wincars-racer/ and get a chance to win a Steam Key to participate in the next Beta test!

Many of you who played the game told us that you didn't like the style of the menus. We listened to that and it became a priority since that same moment. Well, here it is, we've revamped all the interface, menu, icons and the in-game HUD, and the truth is that we're veeeery happy with the new look!











What do you think of it?, can you guess what game inspired us in this change?

If you didn't take part in the past Beta test, you can compare this with the old interface in this blog post http://www.wincarsracer.com/revamped-menu-screens/

Regards!!

 

Hi there!


We'll have some exciting news regarding release date pretty soon but before that I'd like to show you the latest Wincars Racer build and all the new stuff. As always, feedback is much appreciated!


We're not sure now if we'll have enough time to do more beta tests, but just in case we could do more or if you just wanna be updated with all game news (release date, sales offer, big updates...) you can sign for the newsletter or just follow us on twitter






First, we already chose the capsule image for Steam, well… the platform displays many different artwork in several sizes as you all know. This in particular is the one used in the main store page (hopefully we’ll appear there, finger crossed) and also while in big Picture mode.







We’ve implemented a new mechanic which digs deeper into the strategic side of the gameplay. It’s all about this new Nitropower walls. Placed in spots such as shortcuts or alternative routes, you’ll lose the charge in all your special skills if you pass through them but in the other hand you’ll gain some precious time because of taking advantage of shorter routes. It’s up to you to decide what to do in each moment!








We’ve remade Hanging Cliffs circuit from scratch, please see this screenshots to appreciate its new look.








We’ve replaced old generic splash screens for a new specific new ones for each circuit. Here is a small sample of some of them:








Apart from all menus and HUD we’ve also improved Stomp and Turbo instant charge points. They looked kinda dated and bland but we think that they gained a fresher look now.









We also had time to polish and improve almost all car models. Some of them look almost like completely new ones, compare by yourselves.






Finally, we also made some cool icons for the division shields. You’ll be lowered or promoted depending on your race results and this is what will matter in the matchmaking for further races.








We’re very close to reléase the game, greetings from the devs at DragonJam!

 

Good polishing

 

Thanks zenGarden!!