Intro/background to the game

DeVore

Intro
The city is controlled by an evil corporation. Draconian rules are enforced by a merciless mob. Fun has been outlawed, with all public gatherings deemed illegal. Your massive parties haven’t gone unnoticed…
Take control of a high-powered hovercar, headed for city limits on a hunch. The mob in pursuit but some people say there's a way out...
Can you make The Jump and escape the city?
Race through 10km of unique track at breakneck speed. Collect power cells as you avoid a host of obstacles. You're going to need as much power as you can get if you can reach the end of the road...
• Cutting edge 3d graphics and mind blowing speed
• Soundtrack by DJ Poet from the Black Eyed Peas - bring the party on the road with 3 killer tracks
• Supercharge your escape with game-changing powerups
• Take your shot anytime, anywhere with bitesize gameplay - The Jump can be completed in less than 5 minutes if you have the skills
• No two games are the same - tracks randomly generated from hand-crafted sections.
• Intelligent scoring keeps you coming back again and again. Get high scores based on speed, power cells collected, near missing obstacles and more...
• Unlock achievements - can you collect them all?
• Reveal the secrets of The Jump with our Go Pro pack featuring tips, tricks, comic story, artwork, hidden content and more…

Controls
Tap left/right of car to change lanes
Swipe up to jump
(Swipe left/right for multiple lane changes)
Manual Powerups (if selected) activated via buttons on bottom right/left of game screen
Powerups
Invincibility (manual) – engage this powerup to temporarily make you unstoppable. Coast through obstacles and over gaps but watch out! It won’t last forever…
Magnet (manual) – keep your eyes on the road and suck in those power cells from all around with this powerful powerup.
Resurrection (automatic) – load up this powerup and if you die, you’ll respawn once
Power Boost (automatic) – you need to collect a 65 power cells to make The Jump. Start with 20 already in the tank with this powerup
Shield (automatic) – if your speed drops you’re going to get caught. Block their radar with this life saver.

DeVore

We'll also show you guys and gals behind the scenes stuff we wont be showing everyone... concept arts, how we saw the game initially (and what it morphed into in the end and why!!) and things we got wrong or learned along the way.

Ask anything you like here and I'll try to answer!

r3nu4l

I've one quick question.

How long has it taken you to get from the initial idea of 'creating an app' that popped into your head, to getting to where it is today?

Awaits wall of text

DeVore

We conceived the company in June. We designed a complete game and even sent it to a developer for costings then we went back to the drawing board and redesigned the game entirely from ground up. The developer turned out to be "incapable of delivery" too, so we dumped them.

We spent July speccing this new game and went into prototyping/development at the start of August.

The learning curve has been steep, very steep especially around things like payment management and performance hits on various Android devices. (iOS is a lot more uniform).


So, basically we've spent 3 months with 4 people developing on this. One hard core 3D coder in Unity, one gui/interface guy, one 3D modeller and one all round project management/marketing/game design person.

In addition to that we have an Art guy who did the concept art and who also did the comic book work you will see in the game.

Plus me, doing things like finances, management, grant-seeking, investment, game design and worrying. Lots and lots of worrying.

satchmo

Sounds like you have a good schedule, not too long. I have a bunch more questions, feel free to ignore any/all of them...

- Is this a full-time thing, or are you doing it at nights and weekends? If not, is that the eventual plan (all things going well)?
- You mention grant-seeking... have you applied for the EI CSF or something similar? What other funding have you looked into and what's your experience been?
- How do the four of you know each other? Does anyone have previous gamedev experience?
- What's your plan for marketing? Have you approached any publishers?

Sorry for the badgering, just curious! Looking forward to trying it out.

DeVore

satchmo wrote: »

Sounds like you have a good schedule, not too long. I have a bunch more questions, feel free to ignore any/all of them...

- Is this a full-time thing, or are you doing it at nights and weekends? If not, is that the eventual plan (all things going well)?

Its a full time thing, though at the moment I'm not being paid by the company as we're too poor

- You mention grant-seeking... have you applied for the EI CSF or something similar? What other funding have you looked into and what's your experience been?

We went for a feasibility study grant which was pretty easy to get but needs to be matched euro for euro.

We are in the running for a CSF this quarter... that was more work but then its more investment. Tbh, it was actually pretty straightforward and a good process.

- How do the four of you know each other?

I worked with Steve the finance director on a few company jobs before as a consultant. Karl and I met through playing poker and he worked for PaddyPower before. Martin was a replacement we found when our first artist had a serious illness in his family and couldnt continue with the project. The developers are swedish and we found them through the internet and went over to see them in August. They think we are batsh*t insane and that we drink too much.

Does anyone have previous gamedev experience?

Karl has a 2 year qualification in game design. I've been designing/playing board games forever but only Martin has any professional experience in it. He did some of the animation on Dragon's Lair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3XNQja0H7I

We didnt know this till about half way through the project and when he told us he was like "do you guys remember that dragon game in the arcade... I might have some original drawings somewhere...". Karl nearly feinted and I ran around in a circle for several minutes.

- What's your plan for marketing? Have you approached any publishers?

We have limited marketing budget but yes we have a plan for a decent marketing push. We're drawing them up today in fact

We approached some publishers but they wanted 30% of ALL revenue and frankly, there wasnt much guarantee that we would get anything back in return. I dont mind giving them a cut of what they bring, but thats asking too much. Besides, with a good game and App/Play Store, I'd rather go it alone and take my chances...

Sorry for the badgering, just curious! Looking forward to trying it out.

Np, happy to answer any questions...