I don't even believe my own estimates now, but our priority is now trying to finish JCS2 once and for all. I'm putting in some pretty big hours at the moment to try to get everything polished off. Mostly everything is there now, but there are still a lot of loose ends we are tying up. I'm pretty determined to make it happen this year. We will probably release a True Skate Android connectivity update soon, to test our server, and our new replay system. We have done all the connectivity our selves this time which has been a huge job, however, it means we have a lot of control over things. The level editor has user ranking system for user levels, and automatic difficulty calculation, plus various ways to search levels, plus leaderboards for each user level. There are over 100 levels, and each is playable with 3 difficulties. Easy is like casual mode in JCS1, and normal is like normal, and Hard actually has different geometry with a lot of jumps added and a lot of jumps made bigger. There are also more play modes and 7 cars, so there is a lot more variety.
Can't wait Luke, really looking forward to the sequel. Patience is a virtue and we wish you luck and thank you for producing quality products!
It looks like everything together could be around 200MB decompressed. However, we will be breaking things up into seperate IAPs (Or you can get it all in 1 IAP for cheaper if you want) The current plan is for any device that supports iOS6. So yes.
It looks more like JCS1, except with more detail, and shinny cars. The level editor tracks look different though. They are shinny too, but the normal tracks look a bit similar to JCS1.
Why are all the apps on the app store dropping iOS 5 . I use it because I don't wanna lag my phone with newer and newer ioses. Is apple forcing apps to this or are there just more tools for newer ioses to make apps
We are really frustrated with JCS1, we want to update of for the iPhone5 screen but we can't do that easily with out dropping support for the 3G. (Although, I think apple have changed there system so that it is possible to download older versions from the app store for older devices, so we might be able to consider this now) However, in this case, the main issue of iOS5 is we would have to host DLC on our own server, and it would make our life a lot easier to not have to worry about that for JCS2, plus, not one less OS to have to bug test and optimize for will make life easier. I can definitely see why you don't want to upgrade though, each iOS upgrade always seems slower then the last, and the last update they do for any device seems to make it really slow. It killed us on the development on Space Tripper, every time we had the game fast enough, the next iOS update would kill it.
I've spent most of the weekend optimising all the shaders that JCS2 will need. One troublesome shader was the level editor/user level shader, which Luke had some input on over the weekend as well looking at ways the speed it up. I've just managed to get it to work on the iPad4 at 60fps solid framerate which took some major effort to do. This shader has 4 versions and at runtime we choose the best shaders for each device. The higher end devices sure look pretty. Ok, what does all this optimising mean? Well here is a list of devices we are supporting: 1. iPhone 3GS running at 30fps with multi-sample. No to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 2. iPhone 4 running at 30fps with no multi-sample. No to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 3. iPod 4 running at 30fps with no multi-sample. No to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 4. iPhone 4s running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 5. iPhone 5 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 5. iPhone 5s running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 6. iPod 5 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 7. iPad 2 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 8. iPad 3 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 9. iPad 4 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 10. iPad Air running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 11. iPad mini 1 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. 12. iPad mini 2 running at 60fps with multi-sample. Yes to Dynamic cube mapping on the car. So now we have all framerate issues sorted out Things are starting to look good now and the game is finally feeling like a game. Still a crap load of work to do, though!
That is great news about the frame rate being high on all those devices. I have always preferred frame rate over looks but it sounds like we will get both. Thanks for the update!
Work in progress icon and level image from True Axis FB page: --- And a question for Luke: Any chance of seeing JCS2 on PC, Steam Greenlight, etc.?
Icon In my opinion, if you are still looking for a good icon, I have an idea. So basically, the original/main car or a sporty car would be in a dark concrete room with a spotlight sort of like this : ONLY, we would only see the backside of the car. The car would sort of be on an angle so you see the back and a little bit if the right side. It would also be a little bit more close up. The contrast between light and dark would be greater, where you could barely see past the spotlight and car. Then there would be a silver 2 in the top left or bottom right corner. Then if possible put a wall of maps/pictures of the courses to the left of the car. I am not entirely sure that should be implemented though since its only an icon and very small. I hope you like my suggestion!
At the moment we are going through the levels and testing them for last minute level tweaks to get the rough bits ironed out. I've certainly been swearing a lot. One of the biggest additions is more platforming levels to the original which had 25 levels. JCS2 has 75 of them - there's a lot of content there that will keep people busy for ages. We should really put a warning on the app store that you should not throw your device across the room in anger I've just had a quick play through some Time Trial levels. The design of them are far more interesting than the original... really good fun blasting through them with the jet full on skidding around bends at strange angles. On the programming front all 3 of us are working flat out since we did the last update for True Skate Android.Things are progressing along nicely. This game feels superb on an iPad mini retina. The game feels like it was made for that device... the size of it just feels right for the game as you hurtle along at a very super smooth 60fps update, with the graphics full retina with multi sampling at the highest setting. It also feels great on all the other iDevices as well but I prefer playing on the new iPad mini. If we don't get it finished by the end of the year then it will be definitely be out in January sometime
I agree about the frame rate... you can get games that run around the 60fps update but you can see little hiccups/stutters as the game updates. I really hate that - for me games need that super silky smooth feel to them. I've made sure that JCS2 has that smooth feel about it. Polygon counts have gone up on the sequel as well so bends and such in the roads have a nice curvature to them. Because we are using shaders and such we added more effects to the graphics/lighting. The cars have dynamic cube mapping so you can see the level reflect onto the them - looks really nice. In the level editor the roads are done differently to the main game. We reflect the skybox on the road. On the more powerful hardware we also do reflection and refraction, so when you get a sky with a sunset you can see the lighting of it reflect in the road. It gives the effect of the road having mirror like qualities - all nice and shiny, bumpy, with the skybox reflected with it's lighting. I'm actually looking forward to what people will do with the level editor. Some of the levels we have made are pretty good fun to play... It will certainly add to the last-ability of the game. I think our server will be pretty busy storing them for people to make and play.
