The Karters' Dev Blog #10 - Tracks & Beta Info Update!
Greetings Kart Fans!
November is just around the corner and we are right in the middle of the Halloween festivities. We hope that the eerie atmosphere will bring some joy to all of you as we really enjoy this time of the year here at 10Ants Hill.
October was a very busy month for the entire studio as we are continuing our preparations for the upcoming The Karters Beta, where our players will be able to finally test out the game they have been waiting for all this time. This month’s Dev Blog will feature some of the progress we have made so far, so as always - have a great read!
Each description is supplemented by screenshot, take a look! And they are WIPs (work-in-progress), not final yet :)
THE HOT AND DUSTY KANYON WEST
Exactly, Kanyon West (yes, it’s a proper name) is one of the hottest tracks in The Karters, alongside Kanyon East that is. The first one has been played out by countless players during Gamescom 2016 and PoGRAdajmy, so we had plenty of time to change a couple of things to make it that much smoother, that much better. During this time we have discovered some minor bugs that we quickly took care of, we always stay vigilant. We are not going to spoil more about its design, but we would like to share that it is one of the tracks that truly catches the feeling of kart racers: a lot of curves and turns, hidden shortcuts, not to mention the cinematic huge leap of faith to reach the other side of the Kanyon.
THE COLD AND ICY F.FROST
This track can bring a lot of good memories from Polar Pass and Cortex Castle enthusiasts. Icy, cold, dangerous, but with amazing views and challenging turns. F.Frost is basically a castle on top of a mountain which naturally brings back a lot of our video game memories. This time, however, we are going to race not only around the castle, but also in its interiors! We hope this design will fit our fans’ deepest desires, as F.Frost is developed in such a way, that both Crash Team Racing and Mario Kart fans might see some cool similarities. Oh, and it's snowy. Let the nostalgia commence!
THE LIVELY AND PICTURESQUE CITY
You’ve probably seen it before on our social media the past couple of weeks, but we think we can shed some light on this industrial track that’s going to test out your skills in drifting, but most importantly the player's skill in avoiding obstacles along the way (hey, it’s a big city!). Alternative routes are your friend when you fear the worst case scenario is about to unfold whilst turning the corner, you know… Throw in a couple of kart racers, powerful weapons and a narrow street - we’re sure you get the idea. You will have to choose your battles wisely Kart Fans!
10ANTS HILL’S NEW INTRO LOGO & A WALLPAPER FOR THE COMMUNITY
Here’s our new logo intro video, that you should expect when you will run 10Ants Hill’s games. It’s a long way to the top, but we’re always climbing! We hope this little animation will serve us well in the future. Any comments are as always - much appreciated.
We’ve received some questions about having a higher resolution of the Character Series final shot. You’ve been heard! (Full Size)
Let us know if you wish more wallpapers in the future. Ideas are appreciated on our social media, our Discord channel and, naturally, the Steam discussions! We hope you like these kind of goodies from time to time. We do.
THE KARTERS BETA PHASE
Winter is comi-- The Karters Beta is coming! The currently number one topic in mind of our beloved community, and for good reason! As we mentioned previously and if someone would ask any member of our community when The Karters Beta will take place the answer would be: 15 December 2017!
Currently, we are in the midst of testing out the features that will be available in the beta. We decided to not let you guys know about what could you expect in the beta in this Dev Blog issue, but the November one probably will give some preliminary info. However, to not let you down, you can expect some GAMEPLAY VIDEOS in the upcoming weeks. Finally some action, eh?
Additionally, we are working on improving our tracks - by adding various objects and animations that will enhance its the experience, or rather, the environment itself. This will give some life to our tracks, hopefully making them memorable for any player that will get his hands on The Karters.
How to apply? To be a part of the beta team, you have to be an active member in the Steam discussions, our Discord channel, or on our Social Media. That’s it, really!
So there you have it folks! Thank you for being a part of our long journey as we are tremendously excited to see what you guys will uncover during The Karters Beta.
This month’s Dev Blog is a bit shorter than the previous one, but the next Dev Blog should be the one with the most info about the Beta and what can you finally expect to see there!
Guys! The last Dev Blog had over 70 likes! That’s amazing! It would be pure joy to witness over 80 with this one, can we count on your thumbs up?
Let us know how excited you are to play The Karters in the comments! :)
Until next time Kart Fans and thank you for staying with us!
Today, we’ve got a short little announcement to make concerning the game we are all waiting for. Throughout our continuous development process and in preparation to our beta phase, we’ve decided to share something quite interesting. Some of you may have already known this decision.
10Ants Hill have decided to skip the Early Access phase of The Karters and to go with a full release!
Let that sink in. Our game is at this stage where we can safely assume that we don’t need Early Access to give you a very polished kart racing game, especially one that will be filled with lots of singleplayer content and a very competitive multiplayer. Thanks to our community we’ve made some adjustments along the way and we are absolutely thrilled to let you guys know that The Karters is on its way, with a full release!
Our Beta phase will enable us to fix what needs to be fixed - something that the Early Access phase would have done. As stated earlier, we are confident in The Karters being released without going through the Early Access.
If you missed it - The Karters’ Beta will commence on 15 December 2017. We hope we will see you all there and that you will help us in making our game that much better!
Full release is planned for Q1/Q2 2018. Not far now!
The Karters' Dev Blog #9 - Full Power & Beta Launch Date!
Hello Kart Fans,
Long time no see. Issue #9 will cover what a lot of you guys have been talking about the last few months. We hope this development blog will answer all of your questions, fears, and expectations. Also, we are tremendously grateful for your continuous support, we are really honored. So, without further ado.
WE ARE RUNNING ON ALL CYLINDERS!
Some of you may have known that we have recently released a project called Racket Fury: Table Tennis VR here on Steam. It’s true, we had sacrificed a lot, but it had a purpose - simply put, Racket Fury had to be shipped before The Karters. We have gained tons of experience during its development; experience that will translate into making The Karters that much of a better game.
Wait, wait… The Karters did move forward, right? Of course it has! The Karters is our beloved project, we are putting a lot of heart into developing it and we would never simply neglect its growth. Read on and you will see some of the cool stuff we made whilst working on Racket Fury. We are aware of our tremendous community that awaits the game and we hope our players will forgive those unfortunate delays. Sometimes, it happens that when you plan something, some totally unexpected things happen along the way and you can only adjust your plan to the circumstances. July, August have been the months that really slowed down our process, because of the importance of holidays. A well-rested artist is a very productive artist after all.
To calm everyone down and to have something to look forward to - we are 100% back in developing The Karters and we want to deliver this game to you as soon as possible. As a side note, there was always a group of us that worked on The Karters during Racket Fury’s development - we never stopped! And now we are going full throttle, no distraction! This means we promise you that no unexpected projects will hinder The Karters’ development cycle. No interruptions. Never again. Have no fear, The Karters is (being made) here!
THE KARTERS’ LITTLE SHOWCASE & UPCOMING CONTENT
We realize that we have been delaying our game for quite some time and you have to believe us - it is not something that we really enjoy announcing. So, we thought we would share something with our community, some pretty exciting stuff is coming in the next couple of months and we can’t wait to see your response.
Leading off it will be Laika, one of the new characters that will be joining the rest of The Karters’ crew:
We asked Kopik, our 2D artist on the challenges he had to face while creating a new character to the roster:
Laika’s bleak expression is due to her general approach to life - Laika was sent to space in her youth, so she has lost confidence in the world, and especially to people. Kart racing is her way of escaping reality and a way to forget about the troubling past. The biggest issue in creating Laika was just finding the right facial expression to highlight her life fatigue. Traveling across space has taken its toll on her - her face is severely neglected, and her complexion is ruined by long-term smoking of Russian cigarettes.
It was also important to study cosmic suits and choose the appropriate clothing. It was impossible to forget about the origin of our heroine - her outfit is full of stereotypical accents straight from Russia (ushanka, tracksuit with three stripes, and Russian colors). The suit is far from the sci-fi creation of other characters of The Karters as I tried to model the 1960s space suit.
I hope our community will accept this character.
Of course, Laika is the latest, but most definitely not the last addition to the roster as we have decided to add more characters, each with their very own personality. We will definitely remind you guys on our progress, rest assured.
https://youtu.be/ajk1Jos943w
Next up, here’s a little video on one of our latest tracks (work-in-progress). We’ve got everything planned in terms of the types of environment we would like to have for the full release. More information about it will come soon. Thoughts?
Here’ something entirely new. We have decided to try out Sketchfab and we put our very own models there to see what would they look like. Looks pretty promising, right? You can rotate and zoom the model as you see fit. This is another way of showing our work and we’re glad that we have added Sketchfab to our little arsenal. More incoming later on.
Yes! One of the most anticipated news! Now’s the time to finally announce when our community will finally be able to test out the game. No point of savouring the moment - The Karters Beta will launch on 15 December! Mostly the beta will be about testing the mechanics. If the beta would take longer than 2 weeks, so be it. We would love to include our release date, but as we said earlier The Karters Beta will determine the full release. That being said, we are shooting at Q1/Q2 2018 for the full release.
What? Another delay? Not necessarily! Things are looking really bright here, both with planning and production. We are really confident in our work, thanks to our planning phase we’ve had for the last couple of weeks. Rest assured, new marketing plan, new content is incoming - things are really looking promising and we only ask to stay with us. We’re this close!
This is it. If all goes well the next Dev Blog should appear a month from now. In addition to sticking to a fixed schedule, we will be bombarding our social media channels with far more content. We hope this issue has answered a lot of your questions and fears about The Karters - we are here and we are not going anywhere! We have got a very clear vision to create a very competitive kart racing game where skill matters. We are doing what we can to get you The Karters as soon as possible.
Until next time! Be sure to check us on Discord as well as the Steam Discussions! Let us know how many of you would love to participate in the Beta by liking our new Dev Blog! :-)
The Karters' Dev Blog #8 - Character Animations & Wallpapers!
Hello Kart Fans,
Time flies as we’re halfway through May, filled with lots of work on both Racket Fury and our beloved The Karters. We’re late with our usual and consistent dev blog entries, but hopefully, they’re going to appear with their usual one month schedule.
Once again, we would like to thank you for your continuous support and for your patience. Developing a game is not a piece of cake; we know it, you guys know it - we’re definitely on the right track. The entire 10Ants Hill squad is running on all cylinders, so in the next few months, we will spam you with some quality content!
The last dev blog was a shorter one, that is true. So, to make amends we will give you something extra. Have a great read!
CHARACTER ANIMATIONS
This is not a real character presentation as we will still release character bios in the near future, but since you guys are craving to know our characters a bit more, here’s a quick behind-the-scenes article of how they are coming to life. Our animator Marcin will tell you more about the process (NOTE: The characters’ names are not final!):
MEERKATS http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928491823
“Meerkats in a sense are similar to our Minion. They are also quite small, which allows them to exaggerate their movements to a certain degree. Unlike the rest of the racers, however, the characters are two and each one has a different personality, which requires a slightly different approach. On the one hand, this is a disadvantage, because you have to work twice as much and you need to plan their movements in such a way that they are well synchronized. On the other hand, this opens up new possibilities and allows me to create a set of combinations that wouldn’t be possible if there was only one character (for example, they high-five each other).”
PUMA http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928495842
“The only woman in this combination and at the same time anatomically the most human-like figure, which obviously reflects in her movement. By the way, she is also a cat, so her movements are often a combination of girl-cat behavior, which gives me an opportunity to show my talents, but it’s also quite a challenge. Puma also has a long tail that, in a sense, has its very own life and you have to keep in mind that its movements make sense only with the movement of the whole character. It has to be in synch.”
SNOWMAN http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928496641
“The most reserved character in the roster. Snowman’s behavior is serious, dignified and posh. For this reason, it must be noted that his movements are not too cheerful or unpredictable. This does not mean, however, that he is still just sitting in the kart and does absolutely nothing. Like all the other characters, he also jumps and performs acrobatics, but does it in its very own way.”
MINION http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928496807
“Of all the characters in The Karters, Minion is probably the easiest to animate. He is small, simple and he has no add-ons that require personal movement; such as hair, a tail or loose clothing. His movements are often exaggerated and joyful - in short - cartoon-like, which makes me really happy to animate him. Honestly, he is my favorite character to animate.”
If you are curious about our Gorilla, he took a day off from shooting the animations. He will try to make it up to you guys somehow in the future.
There you have it! Let us know what do you think about our animations in the comments!
THE KARTERS' BETA PHASE
Since we are very close with you guys and we want you to be up-to-date on the progress of The Karters, here's the status of our beta phase.
The news is, well, heartbreaking.
The Karters' Beta phase will have to be delayed once more, however, this time we are refraining from posting any dates when the beta would start. The reason is fairly obvious; we want to give our players the best possible experience in the beta and since we are unable to give you guys the green light, we are not going to predict a date that could be another disappointment for our fans.
We are truly sorry to bring you this news and we apologize for not delivering the beta in May. We hope you can understand our decision.
We've read your posts about the beta, that launching it in its current state and letting the player base play the game and give feedback as soon as possible would be the best solution. We agree wholeheartedly! Letting the players get their hands on the game is key in improving it, however, you have to trust us that we still need some time. I guess you could call us perfectionists.
When we will be able to give you a date, we will announce it on our social media, you will not miss it! The beta is a very important part of our development and we really want it to be a successful phase which will bring lots of important data.
WALLPAPERS
To make amends, here are five wallpapers you can download and ornament your desktop to have your favorite character with you at all times!
Full size Full size Full size Full size Full size What do you think about our Gorilla's new style? He's a big fan of mohawks. Our Wallpapers will also be available to download on our social media! Stay tuned!
This will conclude this month's Dev Blog and we hope we cleared some things up about the beta phase. Once again, we apologize and we understand the disappointment, but we are in high spirits to deliver The Karters to you in a state that will enable everyone around the world to play to their hearts content!
We're almost halfway through year 2017, thank you for staying with us and we hope we will be able to bring you some awesome news in the other half! Some amazing stuff is being worked on and we will definitely show them in the next dev blog!
Remember that you can chat with us on the Discord channel and on the Steam discussions!
Until next time! And please help us grow by liking and sharing!
The Karters' Dev Blog #7 - 10Ants Hill, Racket Fury, Release Date & Beta
Greetings Kart Fans,
We’re sorry for the delay in our dev blogs entries as a lot had happened in the past several weeks. We hope everyone is fine and we would like to thank you for your patience, you guys are truly an amazing community. This issue in comparison to the previous ones is going to be shorter, however, it will be filled with some information that will interest just about anyone.
Alrighty, a lot had happened, so let's get to it!
10ANTS HILL
The first of our two big announcements - Cmoar Studio has transitioned into 10Ants Hill! We are looking forward to bringing our fans tremendous experiences and huge amounts of entertainment! We're still here, the passionate team hasn't changed at all! As 10 ants with a different and fresh look, we're working hard on both Racket Fury and The Karters, and the future looks really bright!
Let us know what do you think of our new image in the comments :)
RACKET FURY
You heard that right, the second of our two big announcements - Racket Fury! Our second project is finally in a state where we can show the world the power of future table tennis! If anyone's interested in VR gaming then here's something to look at:
https://youtu.be/VcRJkvlxg0A
Racket Fury will enable us to speed up the development of The Karters, so we are definitely looking forward to the development of both games, with your help naturally!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/555050/
RELEASE DATE & BETA
Some of you know it already (thanks to Discord) and as promised here's the official info:
It pains us to announce this, but unfortunately we have to postpone the beta and the release date once again. Rest assured, The Karters indeed was delayed, but it is in constant development - tracks based on your feedback are being made as we speak as well as fixing the little things (bugs etc.)
The good news is that we are considering releasing The Karters as a full release, skipping the Early Access phase altogether. The game will reach such a level that we feel releasing it as an Early Access title - well we just don't see it that way :)
So, we are moving The Karters release date, but probably the game will be available to purchase as a Full release title. As for the Beta, it would have to commence in about 2 months, you should be able to test out our different tracks, weapons, maybe a little leaderboard just for the beta. And after the Beta, we will be able to pinpoint the EXACT date of the full release.
Once again, we are truly sorry and we hope you will understand us. We want to deliver this game, and we're doing what we can. The Karters is our BELOVED project and we want you all to know that! :)
To make amends, here's something from our Beach 2 track. The track is still a work-in-progress, but we think it will deliver countless moments of joy and pure competitiveness (let us know what do you think in the comments!):
https://youtu.be/0E8pIK2HdMU
Like we said, a shorter dev blog this time, but we are confident we will make it up to you all somehow in the near future with more elaborate dev blogs with tons of new content to show you. We hope you will stay with us! :)
We hope the New Year has been kind to all of you as it is to us at Cmoar Studio. The Karters’ development is going smoothly as we are perfecting the tracks, trying to implement features gathered from your feedback.
Since 2015, a part of our team annually attends the famous Global Game Jam and this year we attended KrakJam (Kraków, Poland) and it was special!
To those of you who don’t know, here’s a short description - “The Global Game Jam® (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event (game creation) taking place around the world at physical locations. Think of it as a hackathon focused on game development. The weekend stirs a global creative buzz in games, while at the same time exploring the process of development, be it programming, iterative design, narrative exploration or artistic expression. It is all condensed into a 48-hour development cycle.”
It was special because this year Cmoar Studio Team in KrakJam had earned 1st place with Wi-Fi Hero! Here’s a short GIF of what we were able to create in just 48 hours: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=849325511
We began the event with the artist’s block which took us only about 5 hours to get out off. After the initial period of brainstorming ended, we had been firing on all cylinders and we never looked back. Teamwork was the key to this victory, but since we are all working together everyday - we didn’t have any problems with communicating with each other. Also, our graphic designer got an additional reward for not sleeping during those 48 hours!
You can also check our previous GGJ games: Totem Troubles (2016 - 3rd place) and Viking’s Will (2015 - 3rd place).
We just wanted to share with you our little victory and it’s high time to get back to work after this exhausting weekend. Once again, Happy New Year! :)
The Karters' Dev Blog #6 - Tracks, Fanart and Beta!
Hello Kart Fans,
First and foremost - Happy New Year!
Secondly, we would like to apologize for the delay in our entries. We have to admit that the end of 2016 was a very busy period for our entire team. That being said, this issue of our development blog will focus on how from a high concept we can create a genuine track that will enable our users to compete against each other.
You will discover how we value your feedback and why it is one of the most important factors in creating a track in The Karters. As an example we will use our beloved Canyon East and Beach 2, which had undergone some necessary changes.
Also, we had received another fanart from one of our members of our fantastic community - CrasheR. Thank you so much!
Last, but certainly not least, we have got some news in regards to The Karters' beta. We know you guys are excited to test out the game, so hopefully this short info will shed some light on this subject.
Alright, we hope you will enjoy our first entry of 2017.
THE RENOVATION OF CANYON EAST
In the beginning there was nothing. It usually starts that way and this is where the high concept phase comes into play. It's a very important part of any development process and much thought has to be placed into making sure the track will be both playable and vivid.
We had the opportunity to let players test the track themselves and we are grateful for all the feedback we've gathered. We had our fair share of bugs and glitches and generally there was a lot of stuff to address, but we couldn't be more thankful for the honesty. It was definitely a challenge to implement new solutions to an already finished track, but us valuing your feedback, we had to do it. Here we would like to present you with an early concept of Canyon East and a small comparison of what we were able to achieve:
Players that had tested The Karters during Digital Dragons 2016, Gamescom, and PoGRAdajmy reported that the track is way too long, thus we went to work. We have to say again that your feedback is the most important part of our game and the best possible way of explaining what had happened to the track would be in points, so without further ado:
1. We had to shorten the track overall and this is the crucial part of it. You can clearly see the cut which enabled us to make Canyon East much more dynamic and with a few tweaks here and there we were able to shorten the lap from 01:30 to 01:10 (on average).
2. Another part of the renovation was to make the track narrower. Notice the track's width in the before and after image. Canyon East became much more fun to play without losing the speed, which is what makes kart racing so fun to play in the first place.
3. As with every change or alteration, it takes time to make those small adjustments. Remeshing is a vital part of any modification, as we had to make sure those implemented tweaks will not hinder the track's environment. Adding a rock here and there to fulfill the vacant space, this process was a real challenge and it took almost 2 weeks to complete, but we are happy with the result. And we hope our players will be as well.
BEACH 2 & CITY 2 - FIRST PRESENTATION
Of course, that doesn't mean we are not working on our other tracks such as Beach 2 (we will get better track names in the future, we promise). Still some work to do to make it a complete experience for our beloved community, but we are definitely on the right track. See for yourself:
We took notes and we remembered that you guys wanted to see the water more colorful, like the one we have in Canyon West; we have switched to a different tone and this is the result. Again, this is a work in progress, so there's still a lot of work ahead of us. We would like to thank our community once again for their continuous support - you guys give us the motivation to keep on grinding! Big thanks!
The process of creating a good track takes time and we are doing what we can to bring the best possible experience to our future kart racers. We've decided to show you a little sneak peek of our newest track that we are working on - City 2 (Yes! We know about the names!):
This image features a park with a planetarium, an arbor, and small lake. We hope this track will be a tremendous experience for our players as we tried to capture the feeling of a busy city and a peaceful park. City 2 will be a challenging map, currently with 3 shortcuts that will require some time to master them at top speed. Soon, our scenery will be filled with racers trying to battle it out to see who will come out on top and we simply can't wait to see those upcoming rivalries!
Speaking of rivalries, a couple of weeks ago the very first clan of The Karters has been established. They call themselves the Wild Racers and they mean business when it comes to kart racing. The Karters is yet to be released and we already have a clan - you got us excited and we will support our clans to the best of our abilities!
Thank you CrasheR for taking the time to make this awesome fanart. We hope there's more to come as we love to see our community's creations :-)
THE KARTERS' BETA PHASE
Unfortunately, we've got some disappointing news regarding this topic as we are forced to postpone the beta phase once again. The decision was carefully thought out, because The Karters' beta phase is vital to its further development. We want to be fully prepared and ready to take on your thoughts when the beta will launch. With your help we should be able to do this!
In February we should be able to make some kind of announcement, we are very sorry and we hope you can hold on until then.
Also, to get into The Karters beta phase you simply have to be an active member of the community (Facebook, Discord, Twitter, Steam discussions). That way the chances of getting in are that much greater. Help us develop the game!
Thank you for stopping by and reading our very first development blog of the new year. More to come in the following weeks! If you feel like sharing and helping us, you can always use our hashtag #TheKarters :-)
Thank you for staying with us and helping us in our development, you are the best!
The Karters' Dev Blog #5 - New Release Date & Beta Tests Sign Up Announcement!
Greetings and Salutations Kart Fans,
We've realised that we're almost halfway through October when we noticed the rain had begun its announced onslaught, creating its infamous dim and gloomy atmosphere all over the place. Cmoar Studio has been working on The Karters without Autumn's hindrance; with the help of our lovely community we are improving our game at a steady pace. As always, we hope you will enjoy our little dev blog; after all, we love sharing what we do ;)
THE KARTERS RELEASE DATE POSTPONED
As we are always honest with our community, unfortunately, we have some bad news and we hope everyone will understand. The Karters release date is postponed to 1st Quarter of 2017.
It's not a decision we made in an hour as we had to realistically estimate if we were going to make a fantastic experience on 8th November. Again, we would like to apologise for not being able to release The Karters on time, but it was a decision that had to be made and we wanted to inform everyone as soon as we reached the inevitable conclusion.
We hope our community will support us all the way as some of the changes we want to implement are based on your feedback and we would love to see our players playing the game they want. Also, as soon as we know the exact release date we will let everyone know via Steam and our Social Media. Thank you for your understanding.
CMOAR VR CINEMA RELEASE
People who follow us should also know that last week we had launched our Cmoar VR Cinema on Steam. To those of you who don't know - Cmoar VR Cinema is one of our Virtual Reality applications that enables you to watch your favorite movies (Youtube included) in a virtual cinema on HTC Vive/Oculus.
So far our Steam release has been great and we are thankful for the feedback we had received from our users. Their contribution was so helpful that we were able to track down those pesky bugs in a matter of hours! Thank you all!
If anyone is interested in having a VR experience simply have a look:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/527160
BETA PHASE
That being said, we would also want to announce that we will run beta tests! We want our game to be heavily driven by our community and what better way than simply allow our players to play The Karters before the final release. We are really excited to see what our players will be able to discover about our game.
So, to apply... add our community manager (that's me :)) to your "friends" list. After that we will select the most active participants on our Social Media and Steam Community - keep on postin'. Finally, having played our game, we will await your opinion on all aspects of our game and what should we improve to make our game that much better.
As always, your feedback will be invaluable!
Important notice: The beta keys are not keys for the final product, in other words, even if you have been chosen into the beta phase, you will still have to buy the original game. This is a necessary step due to Steam's new review policy and we understand that this could be a little upsetting, that's why we have decided to include all our beta testers into The Karters' Credits.
We hope this will compensate for the time and effort you guys will willingly put into our game. Beta tests will be in November/December, but we will make an announcement when we will be able to pinpoint the exact date.
THE KARTERS PROGRESS
Alright, so what is happening with the game we are so eagerly awaiting and what has been done? Three new tracks are almost completed! This marks seven fully playable tracks that we can't wait to show you. Have a quick look:
City track
A sneak peek of one of our race tracks. While still in development, with your feedback we decided to create a race track that will be filled with tight turns, and hidden shortcuts waiting to be discovered. We believe The City to be a map filled with excitement on each and every turn while being surrounded by a TON of concrete. We're still thinking about the proper name, though.
Canyon West
And another sneak peek. This time within the same region as our Canyon map, Canyon West will test your skill in handling sharp turns and challenge you in finding shortcuts that seem... inaccessible at first. We hope this map will answer the call for a faster and narrower Canyon and we are hoping we will deliver!
And that's about it for this issue of our Dev Blog. It is unfortunate that we had to postpone The Karters' release date, but as we said countless times - we want to be sure we will release a product in Early Access that will be stable and filled with content both in single and multiplayer. We would like to thank you for your continued support and you are our constant motivation that keeps us on the right track.
Thanks for reading and if you want to let us know what you think about our game you can join the Steam Community or post in the comment section! See you next time!
The Karters' Dev Blog #4 - The Karters Release Date!
Kart Fans,
The term "busy as a bee" is as accurate as you can get when it comes to how hard we are working on developing and improving The Karters.This week we are going to cover mostly our Multiplayer testing phase, our Battle Arena, the progress of our tracks, but we'll also throw in some pretty important news along the way. Have a nice read then!
MULTIPLAYER
If you are up to date on our progress then you know we are testing our multiplayer. The ability to race players from all around the world is always a thriller and it's always a very challenging piece of the development process of any game. HUD was a bit tricky, especially when we were implementing what each player sees during the race. We have to make sure that the player's visiblity wouldn't be hindered by a ton of information when they will be battling it out on our race tracks. Visibility is crucial to achieve victory, right?
The GUI has been improved. We believe that it is way more intuitive and everyone should be able to navigate it without any problems. Also, it has everything a player needs to prepare for a race. We simply can't wait!
We've also received questions regarding whether there will be splitscreen multiplayer. Yes, it will be possible to play with your friend via this method. Playing with your friends is something we strived for when we first had started developing our game and we're glad that our lovely community thinks so as well!
BATTLE ARENA
A quick glimpse at our completed Battle Arena. We are really proud of its design and we can't wait to see all of our players trying to eliminate each other as opposed to simply being first on the finishing line. It will be a perfect opportunity to see who would be the best pure shooter in The Karters! We believe this mode will satisfy both novice and veteran players. We guess we can count on our players' competitive nature in this regard. First gameplay tests are underway. Take a look at our updated Battle Arena:
TRACKS
Gamescom 2016 feedback proved that our Jungle, Canyon and Beach tracks looked pretty good and were fun to play on. With that being said we are working on three new ones that will expand our little Early Access roster. Unfortunately, we cannot show any sneakpeeks as of now, but we will share our creations on social media soon enough, so stay tuned! Environments are pretty important, so you should be able to see lots of detail on each one of them and of course enjoy our carefully placed shortcuts, crate placements etc. Oh! The Canyon map will also have a small update as well. All thanks to our players and the feedback we get from the Steam discussions!
THE KARTERS EARLY ACCESS RELEASE DATE
Yup, without further ado The Karters will hit Early Access on 8th November. Of course, we apologize for moving our release date; however, we have to make sure the game will be stable and immensely fun right from the start, and we fear that it wouldn't be possible if we released it this month. We hope we will be able to deliver what you wanted and we thank you for your understanding.
Day in day out we have been developing The Karters for over a year now and we are still improving, tweaking etc. We can promise you that we are listening to your feedback, the Steam discussions stand as undeniable proof. We'd like to thank everyone involved and we encourage all to participate. After all - you are the community and you make this happen.
We're back from Gamescom and now we can safely say that we have recharged our batteries and filled with post-convention determination we're continuing our work on The Karters. It was a joy to be able to witness Europe's most prestigious gaming convention in Cologne and we are really glad we were selected to showcase our game to a much wider audience. Without further ado, have a read of what happened in the previous week and see what we are working on at this very moment. Have a nice read! :-)
GAMESCOM
We've received tons and tons of feedback from players ranging from developers, press, business, and of course gamers. Each person sat down, pressed START, chose one from four characters, one out of three tracks and typed in their three letter names for the highscore (arcade nostalgia).
After a short loading time, the player took off and began his first impressions with The Karters. Impressions. After the player finished the race we received feedback which was filled with so many positive words and phrases that it simply made our hearts melt. This notion made us believe that games really connect people and The Karters is one of those games that could be a wonderful family game as well as being a competitive one for veterans to set their rivalries on the race track.
We weren't without bugs though. Some really sneaky bugs found their way into our game and tried to jeopardize our entire Gamescom operation. To no avail! Our wonderful players understood that the game is not even in Early Access yet and they were supportive from the very moment they grabbed the gamepad. Thank you everyone! We would also like to thank [ZA] Kastello who decided to visit us with his friends. It's hard to describe the feeling when a fan comes, says hello and plays your game. The only regret we have is not taking a photo, how could we have forgotten about immortalizing that precious moment? ːsteamsadː
We had a small stand, but we made the most out of it, fitting our TV just in the right spot. Overall, we were satisfied with the result we had achieved and our guests didn't mind as well - they were so hungry to play! You can see what our stand looked like right below:
Gamescom 2016 was a tremendous experience for the entire Cmoar Studio Team and we're still in awe of how the entire event was well organized. We've made tons of new friends and had a really, really good time in Germany. If someone is contemplating about going to Gamescom: don't think about it and just go. It's a wonderful opportunity to visit a lot of your favorite games and meet a lot of new people. We cannot stress it enough, you will not regret leaving your home. Have we mentioned free souvenirs?
Now, it's high time to regenerate and get back to working on The Karters.
CURRENT FOCUS
Currently, we are developing a feature that every member of our community would like to hear about - multiplayer. A very daunting task, but so far so good. We've said that we will hit Early Access with multiplayer and we are doing everything we can to ensure you will have it all neat and tidy. We think we stressed it enough already, but we want The Karters to be a game that WE would like to play in our free time (yes, developers play games too), especially competing within our small indie studio.
Next thing on our short list is to make sure all the gathered feedback will be revised and implemented into our game. People at Gamescom were so supportive and with their constructive criticism we are able to go the right way, the player's way. So, bug-fixing, implementing, coming up with new ideas, polishing, designing, writing, creating new concept arts, modeling, rendering - we're doing the usual. Keep your fingers crossed!
