Bit-Riders

Dev diaries
#1

Hello again,
This is the official dev-diary for Bit-Riders.
(Seriously, I am very bad at giving a good start)

What’s the game all about

A tribute to the retro 1 - bit art style, this game is a classic traffic racer, but way more better. Drive days and night through the Bit City, and compete for the top scores.

  • Take controls of over 35 cars - from classic coupes to limos and sports racers.
  • Drive in over 35 zones, each with increasing level of difficulty.
  • 5 unique powerups to powerup your day.
  • Race towards infinity
  • Rule the roads of Bit City.

The Aim:

This game was developed primarily as an Android release, along with a submission to the ongoing Unofficial Defold Game Jam #2. I wanted to pick up and idea that belonged to the hyper-casual segment, so that it would be small, and fun to make, as compared to the big failure of RetroStars, on which I spent lots of time. So, the philosophy was “Small but fun” this time.

The Journey :

I began working on this 2 or 3 days before the jam, and spent exactly ten days working on this. In those ten days, I worked on creating every thing from menu to shop to complete gameplay with pickups and stuff, and daily rewards. Surprisingly, even after such a slow pace, I was able to complete most of the work in the expected time limit. :smile:

The Road Ahead :

After the completion of UDGJ#2, I want to shift my focus to completing and releasing the game. There are several things that need to be implemented yet, such as ads, iap, sharing, tutorial, some gfx work, but the majority of the work is now completed. :muscle:

The biggest challenge

The biggest challenge that i’m currently facing is Marketing and Advertisements. I have absolutely no experience in this field, so any guidance on how to get it popular will be heartily appreciated.

A small request

Please tell me how the game is, is the game play well balanced, is there any bugs, suggestions, anything? Please don’t hesistate to write vene a negative review. It will be always positive for me :slight_smile:

A word of thanks

Finally, I would like to thank

  • @Pkeod for the defsave and chrono libraries
  • @britzl for the input, screenshot, ludobits and all your helpful extensions.
  • The Defold community for being Super-Awesome.

Some Links:

HTML5 game :

12 Likes
Bit-Riders Source Code
#2

A Small Update :slight_smile:

After leaving this for a while, here’s a small update :

  • Added : visual effects for all pickups:
  • Fixed : speed of car. it is must faster now.
  • Fixed : A glitch while writing name.
5 Likes
#3

Feedbacks? Someone? ANYONE???

#4

Bug found: Somehow I collected something and now I can run forever and smash all the cars :smiley:

Actually I liked the idea(this bug) of smashing cars. Maybe you can add a rocket to your car.

Also you can add more interesting features like traffic, maybe lights, cars and obstacles with different speed. Also camera can shake and zoom. You can add particles to your car like exhaust smoke, tire trails…

5 Likes
#5

Seemingly you picked up the invincible pickup, which I edited yesterday. It will be fixed in tomorrow’s release.

Thanks :grin:

Working on it. Coming soon.

Seems interesting. Can you elaborate? What kind of lights do you mean? Car’s lights, or light poles?

When the car is hit. I’ll add it soon.

In nitro mode. Added to backlog.

:slight_smile: Good idea

Thank you for your feedback. It is heartily appreciated.

PS you scored higher than me ? :imp:

1 Like
#6

Traffic lights :slight_smile: but it requires handbrake. If the player pass on red light take the money back :crazy_face:

Yes, because of this bug it runs for ever :space_invader:

1 Like
#7

v0.55 is out.

  1. Introducing the pickups : Pickup some really cool gizmos while driving through the bit city :

    • Double Score : Doubles your score for a short duration. Double score, double fun.
    • Double Coins : Doubles your coins for a short duration. Buying new stuff could never be much easier.
    • Explode : Destroys all cars on screen. Boom Boom !!
    • Invincible : Makes your ride invincible for a short duration. Time to rampage the city
    • Nitro : Highly Increases your speed for short duration. ZZZOOOOOMMMMM!!
  1. Some Bug Fixes
  2. Added Shake when the car is hit.
  3. Added Windows and linux builds
1 Like
#9

Cool idea, but might be tricky to add. I’ll give it a thought.

Fixed this. No one scores higher than the developer :smiling_imp::smiling_imp:

Added. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#10

v 0.60 is out

Seasons

  • This update introduces seasons to Bit-Riders. Ride along the paths with falling autumn leaves, the snowy lands of Winter, the forests or the by the seaside and make your way throught seemingly endless traffic that crowds your way.
  • Added : Saving games - now you don’t lose out your progress
  • Fixed : major bugs.
  • Absolutely Needed : Feedbacks :neutral_face:
5 Likes
#11

Now it would be cool that everything gains a color :smiley: it will be less “bit”, but paradoxically - more :wink: I would like coloured version more :wink: try to balance it by creating smaller collision shapes maybe? It would be a small cheat, but players would feel that they avoided an obstacle in the very last moment and they wouldn’t mind it and feel like a boss. If no, then at least remove a bit of collision shape on the front of an obstacle - I was confused many times when I managed to avoid a car, but then quickly tried to get on the same lane before the car, but got crashed :frowning: you know what I mean or would you like me to prepare a “painting”? :smiley: something like creators are cheating with edge detection to jump when actually a hero should be falling down - a “coyote” jump - but in your case - it would be about shortening the collision :wink:
Add collision fx! And coin collection fx! :wink:

2 Likes
#12

Thank you for your feedback Pawel.
I have an idea about how to manage the collision shapes, by calculation of normal’s direction on collision, that Will not make the game go game over if you hit an obstacle from below, and will only allow Head on collision. Coming soon :grinning:
As for fx, I have been working on them, but have never made anything satisfactory. I will surely add them when it is ready. :slight_smile:
I have taken the smaller collision shapes into account and will fix them in the next release.

1 Like
#13

The last update of Bit-Riders is now up, with lots of fixes and a credits scene(which i am absolutely proud of).
Moreover, BitRiders is also free for you all to learn now. Read more about it here:

2 Likes
#14

Nice credit screen! :smiley:
And thanks for the mentions of Defold!

2 Likes
#15

Thanks :blush:

1 Like