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FIRST! Great work on so many levels. One for not only being on time with the Dev Diary but a few hours early at least here it is. It's 10pm Sept 30th and I just finished reading it. The menus look like they'll be good and I like the idea of challenges. I also like that you decided against the nitros. One thing I dislike about motocross games is when they try to fancy it up too much and it looks like the person had never been to a motocross race in their life. Granted some people might like it. My prime example is ATV Offroad Fury 3 I believe it was. The first two were awesome and I loved playing them however for the 3rd one I heard a different company bought the rights for the game and put it out. However the graphics looked less realistic, it felt too fast and less realistic handling but the worst of all was when they added the feature to punch and kick your opponent. I stopped playing that very instant and lost all respect for the game. Well enough of that One thing I was thinking about....Say you just start a new profile, no challenges are completed and there are two challenges one for a 2 second wheelie and one for a 5 second wheelie. So you start off by doing a 5 second wheelie. Are they going to stack up and show you completed both of them? Or would it just say you completed a 5 second wheelie then you'll have to do another to get the 2 second wheelie? I can't really think of any additional challenges that you could do but I thought of an additional game mode....How about a high jump mode where obviously the ­object­ive is to jump as high as possible over a bar. You could train a specific brain for high jumping as well. Ever think about doing any kind of multip­layer­ for it? or perhaps an add on later? If you ever do implement multip­layer­ then what to do with the extras like slow mo? make them single p­layer­ only I guess. Anyway....Great work, another great dev diary. Loved all the analogies. Really helped get your point across.

Thanks, mate. Glad you liked it.

If you do the 5 second challenge, the 2 second equivalent will also be "accomplished". On another note, I'm thinking of changing the wheelie unit to be metres instead of seconds, to reward high-speed wheelies. Any opinions?

High-jump mode: I don't know, it sounds kind of limited. Something that would be fun for a few times only. I will be adding stuff after the game is released, according to p­layer­'s wishes. If more people would like such a game mode, it's possible.

Multi-p­layer­ is on the todo-list, either before or after release. And, as you point out, slow-mo is a bit tricky to pull off in multip­layer­ ... I guess it's a single p­layer­ ability only.

More questions? Keep 'em coming, folks.

I think the changing from seconds to meters is a good change however I think there should still be at least one wheelie challenge that is measured in seconds like a super long, super slow wheelie perhaps in the ballpark of 30 seconds long. Other then that I like the meters change.

I agree about High-jump mode being somewhat limited. It's definitely not a necessity just something to keep in the back of your mind just in case.

Glad to hear that multi-p­layer­ is on the todo list. That's something I really can't wait for and will add alot to help keep the community together.

I like how in the video there is a crash at 1:20 and he slides and then seems to catch something and flips over. Looks good.

I have a question about the braking system though. When you hit the brake button will it put on both the front and rear brakes? perhaps two buttons for front and rear braking or if you decide to go with a single button to lock up both I have an idea. I think you should have a bike settings page where you can change the settings for the suspension like rebound, damping, compression....but back to the brakes.....Have two sliders that determine how much the brakes stop when you press the button. Like if you put the front slider on max and the back one all the way down you will essentially have just front brakes. That way you could set it up to use just a little more front brakes then back because they are far more effective at stopping then your back ones. I guess since there aren't corners it might not be a huge deal however brakes will still be used for instance if you're coming up to a jump you know you can't make you'll want to go as fast as you can til the last second and slam on the brakes at the top. Anyway.....just another idea.

another great installment. I like the modern version of classic game graphics you got there. visuals like this can easily become too childish but you manage to avoid that.

meters version is definitely better like you said.

just throwing ideas here but checkpoint races (i.e outrun, get more time when you reach a checkpoint) and get-there-in-time races (time counting down, save how much you had left when you finish for a highscore) are a couple of things you could do.

the easiest multip­layer­ to add is of course splitscreen which would work awesome here. the slow-mo actually works well then since you cannot only use it for your own advantage but also use it to create a disadvantage for the opponent.

just high-jump may be a limited option. however if you add several crazy minigames you can create a short series of them to make a decathlon of sorts which you can add highscores or hotseat games to. it worked great in flat out..

brake balances are cool. you could put it all front and going at max speed you can do crazy things. but, its probably too complicated and doesn't fit the game mechanics that well. I suppose it should be just get in and play and settings like that can make the game worse as a whole.

I think the checkpoint races sound cool.

About the multip­layer­ splitscreen.....how would one p­layer­ using slow mo be an advantage to him but disadvantage to his opponent? Only thing I'm thinking is if they constantly tap the slow mo button so he wouldn't know what was going to happen but I think that would be a little lame.

I like your idea about the minigames. That would be cool to see.

I disagree about the brake balance being too difficult to implement. I don't pretend to know physics but I do know a little bit about how to organize code and what not and I'd think that with all the underlying physics each wheel could easily have a brake attached to it. It just depends on how he actually did it.

It could be a disadvantage if you use it in the right moment which disrupts his timing. maybe its so slow he has time to recover though.

I didn't mean it would be difficult to implement, more like it clutters up menus and decreases usability. he may be able to make it nice if he likes the idea. I'm just saying maybe it doesn't fit in the picture of what the game is meant to be. simple and fun. adjusting vehicle settings is for simulators and hardcore gamers usually.

Nice ideas going on here. ...

Regarding the brakes: There is one brake each on the wheels. If you press brake and throttle at the same time, the brake affects only the front wheel, which is nice for "burning rubber". If only the brake button is pressed, it is applied to both wheels. This way you have a lot of control but still only one brake button.

I like the idea of tweakable brakes and it's real easy to implement, but as solidce says it will inevitably make the user interface more complex. This is supposed to be a game to just pick up and play, for almost anyone no matter how hardcore a gamer he/she is. There is an alternative that might work, though, and that is to have an "Advanced mode" flip in the options. When enabled, you get to tweak those kinds of parameters on the bike between the races. I'll have to think about it.

The checkpoint races are a very good idea, but with the same drawback. Maybe the "outrun-mode" only gets available after you have won a couple of divisions in the main game, and already are familiar with the game. Or it and time-trial and such can be under an "other game modes" button in the main menu. I'd like to keep the main menu from getting more than 5 buttons, and preferably 4.

You are right about the slow-motion solidce, it could work in multip­layer­ as well. You can only use it two times or something like that per race anyway. And the transition in to and out of slow-motion is really smooth at the moment with gradually increasing and decreasing time steps.

I don't like split-screen though, and I am going to experiment with a multip­layer­ mode like they did it in Micro Machines V4. There is only one screen, and if someone gets too far behind then that p­layer­ looses a point and the other p­layer­ gains a point. The cars/bikes are reset to the position of the leader and the race starts again. Something like that... What do you think?

oh cool. I'm not sure tweakable brakes adds enough when you already have that feature.

Keeping it simple is a very good idea today. The best compromise is probably the "other game modes"-button which also gives you the possibility to extend the game without changing the main menu. unlocking stuff is always a plus too so give the p­layer­ access to it after some achievment in the career.

I'm not a fan of splitscreen either but in this game I'm pretty sure it would work well. there is a lot of space to use and you don't need to see more vertically. so a hotizontal split would be great.

the micro machines way works but I think I'd prefer the split in this game. with a flexible ­base­ for same-screen multip­layer­ you could implement both and give the testers a chance in deciding what stays. Maybe both? they both have advantages and maybe the game benefits from having both. it's a pretty cheap extra game mode after all.

Holy crap ypu people post long posts

The horizontal split would be awsome if you happen to have 2 USB mouses. And the tweaking of the bike is a great idea. If you just play, everything is on default. But the more advanced users may feel that the breaks are a little too hard, or the suspension too loose and you can easily go in and fix it. It would make it a simple game, just to pick up and play, but if you want to you can make it more advanced and tweak it to your own ­style­.

The micromachine ­style­ of outrunning a opponent and gain point is great, you'll just have to make sure that it's not too easy to outrun so you loose as soon as you fall once. That would be the only thing I'm worried for in that game mode.

As for the game itself, all I'm worried about is the "flying sausage" syndrom, which I'm sure you can fix really easily. For example you can make a small boost on one of the legs if you crash, not much, only a tiny bit so the feet wont hit the ground at the same time, the physics would do the rest

About ragdolls stopping too fast in the ground : I think it looks a little strange, but apparently Mctuble likes it, so that could be something else you can tweak if you would like to, alhough I do not know if it's possible, just an idea.

And for the last... check at the top of my post lulz on me...