Just a heads up of what to expect in patch 1.4 when it comes out. The date is not decided yet. We have chosen to hold off until a decent amount of fixes and upgrades are in place to release the next patch.
Below is a list of things you can expect:
User Interface re-designed to better visuals and usability.
Current levels in the game will have more polish.
Better keyboard support.
Adding hologram vehicles into the garage parking spots instead of having them blank.
New combat modes such as arena wave combat.
Many fixes to the combat, weapons, audio, and driving systems.
Known Issues for v0.1.3
Below is a list of known issues for version 0.1.3:
Impact sounds are too loud and need to be adjusted better.
Tire skidding sound needs to be adjusted and less annoying.
Player 1 keyboard / controller 1 toggle needs to be fixed. It can cause weird errors requiring game to be restarted.
Mine carrier not reloading right in match.
Gravity pickup works making you float, but needs a visual effect. Looks like the game is glitching as it is.
Plasma rifle has the wrong image on the weapons screen.
Need an in-game quick-start guide. Will be added soon.
Overall polish needs to be done. Game is a work in progress.
If you find any more issues, be sure to let us know so we can get them fixed as soon as possible!
Released: Patch v0.1.3
Patch v0.1.3
We are pushing patch 0.1.3 out a bit early due to some stability bugs that were found in version 0.1.2. Below is a list of the new changes in this patch:
Fixed random crashing in the garage scene on some hardware.
Fixed second player camera not going into split-screen on some hardware.
Fixed text overlapping on vehicle menu.
Fixed rear of portal not being solid.
Fixed issue with match not returning to garage.
Fixed skid marks not working.
Added glowing orbs for players characters.
Added toggle for player 1 to use keyboard OR controller 1. (beta and is buggy).
Changed starting credits from 40,000 to 100,000.
Never fear that this is all, more is in the pipe and will be released soon!
Quickstart Guide from in-Game
A video showing someone having a hard time figuring out how to play the game has prompted me to focus more on the first time user experience.
Since the guide isn't in the current release, here's some shots of the in-game Quick-start guide. Hopefully someone will find these useful while the update containing it is in limbo.
This simple quick-start guide will be available in Update 0.1.4, and can be accessed by pressing "G" in the garage.
While I'm at it here's a screenshot of the Controls Tab:
We will be improving the look of the Menu UI at some point, I realize it's pretty basic.
Known Issues for v0.1.2
We fixed as many problems as we could by the release deadline, but testing has uncovered some problems that slipped through. The issues we have found are listed below:
The game will sometimes freeze in the garage scene on some hardware.
Second player screen doesn't always appear when player joins on some hardware.
Some of the UI for vehicle purchases are over-lapping.
Unable to play 2 player with keyboard mouse + controller
All the above bugs are already fixed in the project, updating going live Dec 19th.
Backstory of Cars with Guns
A bit of the background of Cars with Guns:
This project was first conceived in Aug 2017, and is being released for early access on Dec 18. (~4 months of development)
CwG has a small development team of just 2 people and not a ton of funding.
One dev team member is a full time work from home developer and the other just has college. (pursuing computer science degree) Unfortunately both of us primarily excel at programming... art and marketing not so much.
We chose to make this game as a sort of entry point into indie game development.
It was decided that we should bite off something manageable in scale and follow it through till completion before jumping in over our heads with online capabilities and other intensive features and getting bogged down.
As folks who miss the old days where you could play with a friend in the same room, CwG started with one simple question: "Why does nobody make split-screen PC games?" Granted there are some. But not enough.
We purposely throw as much weird and funny stuff into the game as possible, and we try to do things AAA companies would never do. We think that's what make indie games relevant next to multi-million dollar titles. Exploding cows? Sure. Flying Pyramids? Sure. Shooting down UFOs and stealing their sci-fi weapons? Sure. Shooting a salmon out of a cannon? Why not.
CwG aims to stay suitable for younger audiences. (Teen) There will be no gore, sex, drugs or swearing. Just lots of comic mischief like running over velociraptors to repair your car, or unrealistically shattering a cow into a dozen pieces and getting points for it.
We never plan on releasing paid DLCs or expansion packs. I don't know anyone that likes DLCs. It's one of the worst directions games have gone in. We will never charge $5 for a car or level. All future content that we create will be available to anyone who has purchased the base game. Instead, if you think the game is worth more than what it costs on steam, or want to help fund the development of future CwG content that will be available to everyone, we set up a donate page on our website.
Future Updates Sneak Peak
Update 0.1.3
Update .1.3 won't be finished in time for the December 18th release date, so here's a look at what it will contain. We are going to try to get it out quickly with as many bugfixes as possible.
We will likely be updating this post as things change.
We are also interested in hearing ideas from the community.
We have a Trello board which can be found here: CwG Trello Board Here you can upvote ideas or post your own.
New Weapon: Plasma Cannon Fully done as of posting.
The Plasma Cannon rapid fires relatively fast moving balls of plasma for medium damage, a bit like the plasma rifle from a certain Sci-Fi FPS series.
One noteworthy attribute of the Plasma Cannon is it's projectiles ricochet off of the ground and environment, increasing the chance of hitting another vehicle.
It can be mounted on the hood of all vehicles, and currently blows all other front mounted weapons out of the water.
Weapon Alteration: Railguns
Dual Railguns exist in update .1.2, but in .1.3 they get an overhaul. New railguns are chargeable by holding down the trigger. They can be charged up to ~5 seconds for 2.5x normal damage. Holding the charge for long periods won't penalize you or force you to shoot, so driving around with it all warmed up is a valid tactic. Railgun projectiles now also ricochet off of the ground and environment, making it a bit easier to hit a target. Hopefully we'll have a better model for the railgun by the time this patch comes out. The current model was made by a coder not an artist and it shows.
New Arena: Roman Colosseum (85 A.D.) Needs lots of work as of posting.
The Roman Colosseum is more suited to man to man combat than car to car combat. Still, being a time travel arena car combat game this destination had to make it into the game in some form. It will likely serve the niche of being the smallest arena with nowhere to hide from the carnage. Also worth noting - the polycount is off the charts.
New Vehicle: Hover Car Mostly done as of posting
To go with the time travel theme I've decided to add a hover car.
The real challenge with it is getting it to handle remotely like a hover car, when no one really knows what a hover car handles like... So it kind of handles like a lifted truck with extremely spongy suspension and bald soapy tires. I honestly don't see this one ever being better than a car in this game in almost any conceivable scenario. Can't ram people, you just ramp off of them. Guns are high in the air, you shoot over the tops of some cars. It sure looks cool though. Maybe it will be useful if you're playing against a little kid and want to give them an advantage.
Better keyboard/mouse combined with controller support. In .1.2 in order to play 2+ players every player needs a controller. Player one is controlled by keyboard mouse + controller 1. We are going to add a toggle in the menu that lets Player one toggle between using the 1st controller or using keyboard/mouse and giving Player Two controller 1 (and player 3 controller 2, player 4 controller 3).
We will also try to fix as many reported bug as possible in update .1.3, as this will be the first time the game has had more than a handful of eyes on it.
Update .1.4 (No screenshots available)
ETA late January/Early February
New Game Mode: Survival Survival mode will pit you and your friends against waves of AI vehicles of ever increasing quantity and difficulty. It will likely take place in a circular arena map with enemies spawning on the outer edge of the circle. The waves continue as long as at least one player is still alive or you run out of waves. (unlikely) Dying will result in respawning after a few seconds.
New Arena: Egypt - (4000 B.C.) The Egypt map shouldn't be too difficult from a level design perspective, so it's probably not to far in the future.
New Weapon: Tesla Coil The Tesla Coil weapon will likely be high AoE, low range. Right now all that exists are some awesome sound effects that are begging to be used.
Released: Update v0.1.2
Update 1.12 is the first version of Cars with Guns available to a large audience via Steam.
Below is the list of changes made in this patch:
Changed game save structure to be as future proof as possible. Game files are now saved in an easily accessible place, and in a format we can easily add steam cloud saving to in the future. Saves and config can now be found in: (username)/MyDocuments/MyGames/CarsWithGuns folder as a .sav and .txt file.
Ability to store custom preferences for up to 4 players added. So, if for example you need to lower your shadow quality a bit for your PC to run 4 player smoothly, you can set it once and it will automatically set itself to those settings when a 4th player enters the game.
Added code for Steam Cloud support, more config still need for cloud saving.
Integrated mesh destruction and fracturing system. Cow level now features cows that shatter into chunks on impact. (no gore)
Fixed player preferences not saving correctly.
Fixed split-screen drop in toggling different user graphic preferences. Player can now save different settings that will change depending on player count in-game.
Fixed lighting issues on prehistoric arena.
Fixed default starting map to be set correctly.
Adjusted garage shaders for better visual quality and performance. Extra shiny.
Adjusted texture map packing and resolution for better visual quality and performance.
