Please read this before downloading, playing, or sharing your thoughts!

I've been working on my love letter to the F-Zero franchise somewhat silently in the dark for the last 8 months, and I feel that now is the time to share my progress and see how everyone thinks it plays. Game feel is extremely important to me, and I want to know if I'm on the right track, so I decided to release a public handling test to get as much feedback as I possibly can.

What this project is intended to be: A game that is meant to pay homage to the hardcore side of the Anti-Gravity Racing genre that basically no other game has tried to do; there have been some, but as a long-time fan of the F-Zero franchise, nothing else that has ever come out really "gets" what makes F-Zero stand apart from everything else. Visceral, precise, fast, and responsive gameplay are the main hallmarks that I have tried to capture in my game so far. Track style and design also play a huge part in this (character and world too, but that will come in the future) and are aspects I wish to capture as well when the time comes.

What this project is NOT intended to be: A total, 1-for-1 clone of F-Zero. I wanted this to be my own spin on the gameplay style of F-Zero, capturing what I feel are the most important aspects of it while still setting itself apart. I'm taking this approach because I do intend to flesh this out into a full game that is more my own than anything else. It is not meant to feel exactly like X or GX, and while I know that might disappoint some hardcore fans, I really am confident that my game is still extremely faithful to them while being different, and I hope you will feel the same way once you try it!

The way I have been describing it to friends is a simple scale; In a scale that goes from zero (arcade oriented gameplay with "gamey" physics and feel) to ten (simulation oriented gameplay with realistic physics and feel) I want my game to be at -5. I want the game to be as arcade oriented as possible! :)

IMPORTANT TECHNICAL DETAILS:

This is a Windows 64-Bit build of my game. It is only meant to run on Windows systems. Hardware requirements are fairly low, and can even run on most devices with just integrated graphics. HOWEVER; the game is ONLY compatible with Xinput gamepads so far; I have not built in support for anything else. Not even much keyboard and mouse support. This is as early as something can get, so I haven't spent much time on QOL features like that. If you have a controller that uses another control standard, you will have to use a third party program to get it to communicate with Unreal Engine 4 properly. There are plenty out there.

There is a basic controls menu to give an idea of how to control the machine, and it allows to to change the layout of some buttons. It's pretty barebones though, so it doesn't warn you if an input is used multiple times. So be careful!

If the game starts in Windowed mode, hit F11 in order to make it go to full screen. Once in game, you can hit the "P" key in order to get a framerate and frametime readout from Unreal Engine 4. I would recommend doing this if you wish to share performance details with me.

If you encounter any bugs or crashes trying to run the game, you can let me know. However, I do not intend to release any fixes any time soon. It runs fine on all the computers I have tried so far, so I don't think you should have any issues honestly. However, if you do, I'm sorry. I'm a solo developer, and these things are difficult for me to anticipate and fix.

What the demo consists of:

A single open map with many different strings of track to drive around on. No time limits, no laps, just experimentation! Have fun leaping between the different tracks and just driving around! I felt that this was the best way to let people get their hands on it and get a feel for the controls/handling of the machine! Throw on your favorite music to drive to and have fun!

Lastly:

The game is EXTREMELY early. Everything visual is placeholder. All audio is placeholder. If you encounter bugs or strange behavior, it's likely that I know about it and it's something that's on the list to fix or improve in the future. Still share bugs, thoughts, and concerns with me though! That's what this is all for. Join the Discord to follow and participate in the development of my game or Contact me in the places below:

Discord: https://discord.gg/ntuymja

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronmac64

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Aaronmac404

Also feel free to comment on this page with your thoughts and feedback!

And most of all, Thank you. I'm following a dream, and the feedback that I have already gotten from a lot of you means the world to me. The feedback that I will get from all of you in the future is what drives me. Thank you.

Anti-Gravity Unreal Engine 4 Racer Handling Test screenshots