Last weekend I was able to show Formula C in the Indie Games Room, for the Adelaide Anime and Video Games Festival (AVCon). Joey helped through the whole weekend and Yachi and our friend David stepped in for a bit as well.

Last year we were extremely unorganised and only made it for the second day after finding out we could go the night before. However, it gave us a good idea of what to expect and this time we were well prepared with two computers set up, one of them with an Oculus Rift and a third screen displaying the trailer.

We had quite a lot of attention, with many people particularly interested in the Rift. The feedback was generally very positive, although a bit mixed when it came to the physics. Some people really liked the slippery track and the gliding, while a few really disliked it. However, as a significant part of what makes this game unique, I'm simply going to try to target the people who do like it.

There was a common concern that the walls would turn the vehicle fairly violently when it touched them so I've already addressed that. But, overall it was very encouraging and seeing how people went with this early version has confirmed for me that it's nearly ready to release in early access. I'll just finish off the first stage of multiplayer support and probably add in a tutorial.

One of the biggest highlights was seeing some people coming back to try again, there was a little Batman who came back quite a few times. Then there was Henry the Storm Trooper who came back so many times that we decided to name him as our unofficial mascot, and not just because he held me at gunpoint (he was a Storm Trooper, it's not like he would have been able to hit me). Thanks for playing Henry, it was really nice to see you enjoying it.



I managed to take a few opportunities to step away and see other things. It was great to play some other indie games and talk to other local developers, although I would have liked to play more than I did. Ice Box was a lot of fun and I managed to out score the D1DLC guys. I also had a go at a board game called Mission Control, which was pretty fun (a friend of mine is working on it and planning to start a crowd funding campaign for it soon).

Then there was the other VR setups, which included one with a Vive and one with the Oculus Touch. I won't bother giving reviews because there is plenty of that around already, it was just great to have the opportunity to give them a go for myself.

Overall it was great to be able to show off my game, meet with local developers and get a little bit of time to experience the rest of AVCon. Now I'm back to working on the game, and I'm well motivated. Stay posted for more updates.

Since getting Greenlit, I've been busy implementing the Steam Workshop functionality to make it easy to share tracks and find new ones to try, and it's almost finished. It's now possible to take a photo of a track in-game as a preview image, then upload it with the track data to the workshop. It's also possible to subscribe to tracks and have them automatically added to the game. I'm planning to add similar functionality for a collection of tracks.

I've added the ability to load mp3 files from a designated folder, so you can listen to your own music and have the scenery reacting to it. This was frustratingly difficult because Unity doesn't have any inbuilt capability to load mp3 files, but I've managed to implement an appropriate decoder and I will extend this functionality to some more file types.

I've starte working on the notification system for sending and receiving challenges. Then there will only be some minor features to add and some bug testing before I make it available on Steam.

Finally, two more scenery objects have been added:

After just under a year of sitting on Steam Greenlight, Formula C has suddenly been Greenlit.

The campaign was started far too early in the development process, a mistake I won't be making again. I wasn't particularly worried though because you can just start campaigns again and I was just about to do that. In fact if I had stuck with my latest plan I would have made it live yesterday, deleted the old one and would have missed out on being Greenlit now.

I had actually postponed the new campaign a few times, while I put more work into it and prepared a press release to try to make sure it would get through quickly this time. I feel like this timing is both a blessing and a curse because I should have received a good amount of publicity with the new campaign and it was just about ready to launch, but now at least I know I can sell Formula C on Steam. I've updated the old listing with the new media which you can see here.

These are the stats on the listing:




As you can see the voting had plateaued a long time ago, so getting Greenlit now was completely unexpected. Unfortunately it's not something I can be particularly proud of either, but it does free me up to focus on getting it ready for early access on Steam.

A lot has been happening even though I haven't been posting updates (you would see a bit more if you follow us on Facebook and/or twitter). An update to the physics has been a big improvement. I was already happy with them but I've ironed out a few kinks and it's feeling very smooth and intuitive. It's also got height adjustment functionality which can even be used for jumping. I have also done a lot of work on menus and optimisation and it's finally feeling like the end is close. An update to the early access version will be ready soon with all these improvements.

The trip to Japan was great (mentioned in the previous post), we even managed to catch up with Kenjo Ono, who we first met at GCAP. He's a Japanese video game journalist who knows his stuff and was good to talk to. He showed us a great night in Tokyo as well as coming with us to the amazing Tokyo storm water drainage system (it can pump out the equivalent of an Olympic swimming pool every second).

The Greenlight campaign hasn't gone well, in hindsight it was just far too early for it. That's because it gets the most attention at the beginning and it was in a pretty basic state at the time. I will be starting a new one soon and that will be announced when it's ready.

I'm planning to add the challenge system and have it available on Steam in a matter of weeks after being Greenlit. Until then you can play the single player mode if you buy the early access version on itch, and a Steam key will be made available to you as soon as it's on Steam.

Formula C is now available as early access!

We pushed to get it ready ASAP so that people with Oculus Rifts have another game they can try out. I know I would love to see a game like this become available on VR, which is exactly why I'm making it.

The price is set at $10 USD, and we are currently planning to sell the final version for $15, so buy now for a discount. Just make sure you understand that is is an early access version and there is still a lot of work to come so don't get it expecting a finished product. Having said that, the single player mode should be ready to play. The track editor is also functional, although there are still a few bugs to iron out and a number of usability features to be added.

There are no multiplayer options at the moment, and a lot of setting options that need to be added. These will be the highest priorities.

Our current plan for multiplayer, is to work on a challenge system where you can set your own rules in terms of amount of time/number of runs on a track and then send your best result as a challenge to a friend. They then get to send one in return. This can then become a back and forwards competition between the two players.

We are also looking at other multiplayer options such as a server to host a number of players at the same time. However, those things will depend a bit on what people are asking for and how many people are playing the game. So get in on early access to help us shape it.

More up to date images and video will be on their way. However, Yachi, Joey and I are all heading to Japan for three weeks so there won't be any updates during that time. Feel free to contact us still, if you have any questions.