Hey Toucharcade, The guys who created Super Ramen Brothers for the Toucharcade community (in only 24 hours) are back, with our new company Owlchemy Labs. You know our style of absurd, silly gameplay, and we hope not to disappoint with our newest title. We've been building and scheming and working on something big, and it's finally time to show you guys a sneak peek: Smuggle Truck The premiere smuggling game for iOS and Web Info: Smuggle Truck is an over-the-top physics-based driving game where you smuggle your cargo across the border in the least amount of time. Tilt your truck, catch newborn babies, drive over armadillos, and rocket your way over hills, through caverns, and over quicksand to save the people! Video: More info: Looking at the screenshots, you may recognize the art style. That's because legendary artist Bill Tiller is behind the art direction and creation! The name may not ring a bell, but he was the lead background artist from Curse of Monkey Island and many other big titles with LucasArts. How he came to join the team was actually a funny story. He contacted us directly after seeing a pre-alpha build of the game and said "your game is so ****ing hilarious, I want to do all of the art for the game, because I want to see it succeed". Once we changed our pants, we started full-on production of the game. So with a seasoned artist and a two-man development team cranking for almost two months of balls-to-the-wall development, we present to you our teaser video and screenshots. Hope you like them! Ways you can follow our progress Twitter: @OwlchemyLabs Tweets Facebook: Facebook Page Blog: Super Secret Blog Screenshots:
Here's some more candy for your eyes. This is an image where we've put together most of the assets we use in the game. Many more interesting and possibly deadly elements will be added to the game as we keep working on it. Keep a look out for them.
I just noticed the "level editor" button in the first screenshot. Does that mean we can make are own levels? If so, Sweet!
We're actually going to be doing a screencast about that very subject on our Youtube channel this Monday, so stay tuned
We just recorded our first screencast which gives a look into the development of Smuggle Truck. This week we're highlighting the level editor and announcing a level design competition that begins in February. You can also see a partial playthrough of the level named 'The Murderhorn', which is infamous among our private beta testers as being devilishly difficult.
Why do I find this game hilariously racist, I mean smuggling mexicans across the border in a desert, hmm maybe near the Arizona desert perhaps?! lol I mean I'm not totally off here right, everyone in the back of the truck is brown.
@cilo We tried to represent (in a silly way) as many different and strange characters as we could, with only a limited number of spots in the back of the truck. If you felt like it was skewed toward some specific culture, then we haven't done a good enough job at representing everyone. We'll try to make it a bit more even, and as South Park and Family Guy see it, 'everyone gets insulted equally' , so we try to learn from their angle of satire in that regard.
New sneak peek: Medal system and replayability: This week in the Smuggle Truck Screencast, Yilmaz shows off our medal system. This system was designed both as a reward system for regular gameplay and also to provide solid paths for replayability. Check out the video below. We found that often, racing games do a particularly bad job at offering a reason to replay levels. Additionally, if the player does choose to replay, they arent replaying with a different goal in mind. Its usually just do it faster. Games like Burnout provide a secondary goal in addition to time, which in their case is the number of Takedowns you can achieve during a race. Similarly, Smuggle Truck is tracking two major gameplay variables, both your time and successful passenger count. With these two metrics, we are able to provide players with multiple different goals. We provide three medals that push for overall quality driving (bronze, silver, and gold medals require increasing speed and successful passenger delivery to varying degrees), but we also provide two other medals which urge the player to think explicitly about their driving style. The Green Card award is awarded to players that drive slowly and carefully due to the fact that they are not being timed and their only concern is the safety of their passengers. The Smugglers Run award, however, rewards pedal-to-the-medal reckless speed-run driving, with a minimum of one safe passenger. With this medal structure, weve observed 2-4 playthroughs on a single level, with minimum fatigue, which extends the play lifetime of each level we create. What ties this all together is the fact that medals are used as currency to unlock later batches of levels, much like the non-linear progression through the Rock Band campaign mode. Players arent forced to beat all levels in a rigid order, but must go back and do better on prior levels in order to unlock new ones. Keep up to date on this TA thread for more info soon.
We have a live playable demo of the game on the web! We're also running a big contest with Smuggle Truck, see the Toucharcade thread here for the link to the playable.
I love the demo!!!! LOVE IT!!! Can't wait to play this game. Is it going to be tilt controlled only or have on screen buttons as well for gas/brake and stabilisation? I love how it spits in the face of political correctness. You'll have my $ as soon as it hits the store. PS did I see an actual Alien in there, or was it me?
Thanks eugekava. Controls will be accelerometer for tilting and tap anywhere on the right half of the screen to accelerate, tap anywhere on the left half of the screen to slow down. Were you in favor of an alternate control scheme? And yes, there is an extraterrestrial alien in there as well as a bunch of hidden crazy passengers that we'll be revealing closer to launch. Glad you love it!
