STOP PRESS: Formula Fusion - Next gen Wipeout - from ex Wipeout Devs.

[Cipher]

Thanks Cipher, this is all great - thank you very much! Let me see if I can answer some of your points.

We are going to cater for those that just want to pick up and race but we also want people to be able to personalise their race experience by tailoring their craft, more for single player race leagues - if you want to be a combative weapons racer you can concentrate on weapons tech, if you want to be a speed demon then you can look at boost technology, if you want perfection then you can look at balance systems. There will be different race classes and it will be less about finding that perfect set up and rather more about developing a craft that suits your style of play and the track you have chosen.

The game is more about science and technology colliding with the world of AG racing. There is a research element and teams will have a distinctive vibe - with some teams finding it easier than others to research particular areas and some teams starting off with slight advantages.

I don't know about you but I could ace some of the tracks I played but they each had a slight different personality to them, on some of the bends I would have liked a bit more control to shave that extra second off for example. It almost became intuitive.. lost in the experience. As you progress through the leagues you will be able to advance through different craft - working your way up to the GHOST leagues, which includes alien craft and associated technology specific to each team. We want to take this game to the next level and really push the speed aspect so there will be a lot of experimentation with the HUD to get the balance of hud based and track based navigation just right, considering the speeds we want to get out of the game. The idea is to make it truly visceral..

We are not going to take the game into the far future where style and functionality can become lost in translation, we want to take it into a gritty world with deep contrasts and cool environment fx, whilst giving it it's own distinctive look and feel. But it will still have the high tech flavours we have all become accustomed to. We have some 'really' cool talent on board with this including some big names from the movie industry to really push the art direction. Although you are right, it is all about the game play - but as with the original wipeout - that's something that took months of testing to purify.

A lot of what you see is still WIP and we are keen to engage with the community to tighten up all aspects so we get that killer game. That goes for the track and layout too. We have plans for lots of cool things including the track being dynamic so it can relay light and hazard information based on where you are and also project holographic pickups etc.. All weighted to add to the race experience rather than just art for arts sake.

This is just a start to the creative process, which needs to be evolutionary so we tightly hone the end result..

Thanks Cipher, means a lot.

P.s. We will see what the reaction to the name is and make a decision later..

Take a look at this (again WIP):

*snip*

Sounds interesting, especially the tech tree thingy, saw the visualisation of it as well and it looks nice (just add a faint black opacity backdrop in between hud and background for readability, it blends a little too much with some of the background visuals, i'm imagining the backdrop flicker in and then the hud swirls onto it from left to right as in the vid (love the dynamic feel of it like in the vid ^^) (and i know it's wip, just mentioning )) making me wonder how you will unlock/progress into a tree though? Experience? Skill points? in game credits? Loyalty points? Campaign progress? or something else

For the racing and having a bit more control, i wont judge it, would have to be able to race it to see how it feels, so we'll patiently wait , i do enjoy your thought of speed and fluidity, a lot of racing games that involve weapons ( eg mario kart, blur, …) really disrupt the whole racing aspect, making weapons heavily affect outcome, wipeout HD was on the edge with that i think, it wasn't devastating, but it was still there (although personally i still find that bombs mins and rockets in HD/Fury slow you down too much, but that's just me, a lot of people like it that way as well i think)

As for the name, see it like this, when a 3 section is added, it loses it's initial expressive power take examples from other games, most are always 2 sections;
Fi-Fa, Battle-Field, Wipe-Out, Border-Lands, Cry-Sis, Mine-Craft, Magi-Cite, Bio-Shock, yada yada yada
There's a lot of exceptions to the case, no doubt, but usually it wont be a generic term added to it, then again, it might just be me though, but it think it's more fluid/ powerful with just SlamJet, so yeah ask around

Thanks a ton!

We are planning to go out on PC Steam initially (because we think it's about time there is something like this for PC Gamers) with PS4 and Xbox One 'soon' afterwards - oh and we are looking at VR too

VR has some cool possibilities - I reckon we can get it to the point that you get nose bleeds from the speed, just like the original Wipeout ads that were banned lol!! - we have an Oculus Dev kit (raises finger to lips - sssh!).

Best,
R8 Team

PS controller support! Please please please! Annoying since windows doesn't come with the drivers, but playing racing games with a keyboard is usually meeh and not everybody has an XBOX

We are looking more next gen with this - to have fun with shaders n stuff :-) visually we want to pack it full of screen fx too - like lights blurring into ribbons and, almost to become abstract.

If i hear shaders i instantly think UE3/4? Looking great either way, can't wait to see more! Good Luck

Cipher