As you may have seen by now, GeneRally 2 launched on Steam Early Access
yesterday. We’re really happy that people are enjoying playing, and we’re actively
going through all the feedback (both positive and negative) to see what we need to
improve and see areas of friction people are having.
The purpose of this post is to update on a few of the recurring things that came up
over the past day or so, and to outline what we’ll be working on in the coming days
and weeks in response to that!
GeneRally 2 launched into Steam Early Access today!
We’re very excited that you can now try out GeneRally 2! If you want to purchase
the game and support its development, please visit the Steam store page.
As mentioned in our previous blog post, the price of the game will increase throughout
Early Access, as we add more features and polish. If you want to get the game a little
bit cheaper - and also give feedback on the game’s development and direction - then now’s
your chance!
Introduction
In our last blog post we talked a little bit about
what Early Access will contain. Today we’ll talk a little bit more about some of the areas of
development, so you can understand a bit better what you’ll be getting when you buy today,
and what we’re aiming to deliver to you during Early Access!
GeneRally 2 will be launching on Steam Early Access on the 30th of May 2023!
With the launch date being a little under three weeks away, we’re getting excited!
We hope that what we launch into Early Access is something you want to play and support.
What does “Early Access” Mean?
Early Access is a way for us to get GeneRally 2 into your hands earlier, and receive
valuable feedback from you, whilst continuing to develop the game further! We’ll be
offering GeneRally 2 at a reduced price during Early Access, with the price rising as
we add major features (like online multiplayer), and we’ll be keeping a close eye on
the feedback from players to guide the direction of development.
Rest assured, what we’re launching into Early Access is a game that has all the
fundamental features and systems in place - and can be enjoyed as-is (as many of
you found out from the demo earlier in the year).
Today we’ll take a look at the cars that are coming as part of GeneRally 2’s Early Access (still on-schedule for a spring release). Initially, we’ll have 5 cars for you to drive, though more will be added during the Early Access period. We want to ensure that the base cars in GeneRally 2 feel satisfying to drive and offer unique driving styles and challenges for players of different skill levels and preferences.
Ultimately, we want all of the cars in GeneRally 2 to be able to be driven on all surfaces. Some cars will provide an additional challenge on certain surfaces, whilst some will be specialists on those surfaces - but whatever you pick, we hope you’ll be able to have fun on all sorts of different tracks!
Those of you who played the GeneRally 2 Next Fest Demo last month will already be familiar with the Rally car, so we’ll start our blog post there…
In this blog post I will give an overview of our approach to modelling car physics in GeneRally 2. Here, as in other areas, our task is to build on GeneRally in a way that doesn’t undermine any of the features that made that game as enduringly popular as it has been.
Suspension and Steering
The largest difference to GeneRally 1 when it comes to car modelling is that GeneRally 2 models suspension in a more realistic fashion. This provides us with two potential benefits. Firstly, visually, it allows the cars to display realistic behaviour such as body roll under acceleration; wheels tracking uneven terrain; and suspension compressing when landing from jumps - this plays into our general push for a more lively and interesting world for the player to race in. Secondly, it provides a platform on which to build a more realistic handling model for the cars.
This second point, however, we have found to be a double-edged sword.
Markku is one of the founders of Curious Chicken Games and has been working on GeneRally and GeneRally 2 since 2010. He is primarily responsible for GeneRally 2’s physics and AI.
Buy GeneRally 2 on Steam!
