Hi, I just picked up the game, and I must say, I'm very impressed. One thing I would absolutely love is a free play mode; no objectives, no AI's, just you and the map.
I'm beginning to believe you Glenn, if that's the case GE beats all my other racers in terms of accessibility and driving experience. Been playing Rally Master Pro, and picking up Real Racing again, but I just keep coming back to Ground Effect. The fact that you have no contact with the ground and kind of slightly "drift" all the time, managing your altitude so as not to accelerate into the ground and making the most out of the jumps together with the controls of the idevice makes it the ideal racer for the platform IMO. There are a lot of aspects to racing games, but that you nailed that visceral core element. I really thought for a couple of times that I had track 1 and 2 nailed. And I just proved myself wrong. I'm going to email you some times again because your sons are so good at putting me in my place! (Online hi-scores??)
Glad to hear you are still enjoying it. Don't let my kids put you off, I'm sure you would have one a bunch of levels back from them if there had been another round of racing among the testers. They had the luxury of being able to play the game right up to the end of development. Mikey's last submission, which claimed two levels that had been yours and made him the tester with the most records, came in an hour before I submitted the app to Apple!
New Touch Arcade podcast is out - and we spoke in depth about Ground Effect. It was my favorite of the games we reviewed. Ground Effect is an awesome arcade racer, very unique - with a nice feeling of SPEED!
Hey glenn, first off, great game. But while racing, I suddenly found myself getting an urge to just free ride around the map, going off jumps, gliding like crazy, and just messing around. Also, as it may be relaxing for some, for me, i find that if I crash or make one mistake, I have to start over. So anyway, what I think would be cool is a free run mode, just gliding, jumping, and speeding. No racing. Great game though.
+1 for the 'free mode'. Sometimes I just want the map with no other racers/checkpoints, so I can explore it. This would need an option for manual acceleration though, as exploring an island with auto accelerate is hard (I tried it during a race). edit - Also, would it be possible to have a map with a higher jump? I love the map 'twin peaks' because of the jumps, I also noticed that in 'free camera mode' you an go right up high into the sky. Like a screaming kid, I just want to go HIGHER!
To the freemode, I had a (probably) great Idea! If the starting point was at the highes place in the map it would be really cool, becaus you could see all of the map from above and then glyde dow and explore!
Iit's a custom engine loosley based on This tech that I developed for an XBox/PS2/Windows game called Battle Engine Aquilla. The Landscapes are generated by an algorithm similar to the one I used in Powermonger and Magic Carpet but at a much higher resolution. These were combined with some custom spline modeling tech with this editor which is built into the Windows version of Ground Effect.
Not sure I understand the shortcuts concept. The game presents gates si I am going from gate to gate as the game dictates. How can I take shortcuts? I'm only on second level.
Well, it depends on the level. I found 2 types of shorcuts: - Skimming over low rock/terrain. - Going off the edge and gliding to the checkpoint (as opposed to continuing along the track, turning a hairpin bend amd going through the checkpoint).
Just got back from REAL racing with my six year old. Raingutter Regatta races at cub scouts! Will try to play more tonite.
Got third on level 4 on second try Will have fun free roamongthe level and using the camera Easter egg to find a better route!
