Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Making of Death Rally - Part 1



(Click on the images for larger versions)

The development started almost a year ago with this physics prototype by Death Rally lead programmers Antti and Jukka Viljamaa. It's coded in Java using Eclipse:




Placeholder 2d graphics by the talented Heikki Repo (he made almost all art assets for Death Rally):




Combining the 2d prototype with Minigore's 3d engine was a long process. We had to make lots of optimizations and some drastic changes to the pipeline. Heikki uses Blender for 3d, while I made Minigore art with 3ds Max. That resulted in the need to use different exporters.

Seeing the silly car with hands made us think maybe Pixar's Cars would have been a more fitting license than DR ;)




In the final polishing stage we focused on making the gameplay as smooth as possible. The last week of balancing made the game very addicting - there's always that one more race you have to try :)

There was also time to do some extra candy for iPad 2. If you're playing Death Rally on a brand new iPad 2 it has anti-aliasing and 60 fps mode enabled!




In the next part we'll show you the evolution of the garage screen. It's a screen where player can interact with the car, customize paint jobs and change weapons.

8 comments:

  1. Impressive work. Can't wait to try it :)

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  2. Septemper? =)

    Very interesting, would love more detail though..

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  3. crcr: Glad you like it! It's not a long wait anymore :)

    Sol_HSA: I added a bit more info about the prototype in the beginning. If you have questions about something specific go ahead and ask :)

    btw. Septemper is a typo :P

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  4. Please please please include a simple right/left control scheme for the car, like in Micro Machines or Mashed. The virtual pad is such a hassle imho. AndDeath Rally looks so great, can't wait to try it on an iPad 2.

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  5. Can't wait for this game it looks amazing

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  6. This game looks really badass. I really like how you guys provide us with information on what software was used for development. Did the team have to learn the programs you used or did they already know them before starting the project? I am wanting to start making my own games and I'm looking for good places to start. Tutorials and such... I would be interested in any advice because I know you guys know what your doing.

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  7. I remember the original game!! I was really addicted to it. When is the release date of your iphone/ipad game?

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  8. Oh, Your app is one of the best ever. I have a jailbroken ipad but i bought it any way, the problem is, it just don´t install properly, it is a shame because i have it on my iphone and it rocks but on ipad i just had to re download the 1.2 cracked version, having bought it, didn´t install anyway. Crap.

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