Dev. talk about the fan game Driver 4 Russia

Moderator: cleone

By cleone
#59028
It is official, I am now posting the source code for the project currently under the name of “DrIVer: Russia” right here at the end of this thread, marking a new beginning to the project that will hopefully lead to completion in the very near future.

With the source code release, we will have very precise goals that we need to achieve to really get this project going right. As a community, anyone who wants to lend a helping hand can download the source code and obtain Game Maker 8.1 Pro via their methods of choice.

After doing this, we first need to examine whatever mess I had created forever ago. I honestly don’t really know what is in there anymore so it will probably be foreign to me. In order to accomplish this, I will be posting a thread HERE where we will discuss what is currently in the engine. From there we will determine if we want to clean it up and build off of what is there, or take the good parts of the engine and start from scratch. I’m probably going to opt for the former myself, as the engine was getting there in terms of development if I remember correctly, but my opinion could very well change if it turns out to be a disaster in there.

Moving on, the following are things I struggled with and definitely need community assistance on.

The first thing is the handling and damage. Not that it was bad, its just you couldn’t slide the car, get it sideways, or do fancy things like reverse 180s. The goal is to replicate car handling that is somewhat close to classic Driver games. The damage system may need a second looking at as well. Not 100% sure on it, we will see.

Next is traffic. I was far from successful in trying to create a traffic system, so I opted for paths, which turned out to be a major disaster. If there is anything I need the most help with, it is this.

Third is pursuer AI. As we know its pretty bad. It was atrocious before, and got better in the last releases a few years back. Its still bad. Another thing will be the AI being able to shoot at you. This will be extremely important for some missions in the game.

Fourth would be a HUD & minimap. Its difficult to navigate the city without it, and a HUD will be important for missions and the Felony system to be introduced after a better AI system.

Now after all these things and other engine related things are sorted out, a NEW script will be written. I am completely trashing the old script from a few years back and starting from scratch. Only I will see the script. From this point on I will be doing the entire single player on my own. With a proper engine ready to go, it should be relatively easy, and as long as something is easy, I will definitely get it done, so no worries about me abandoning it. Its big, difficult projects that I usually abandon.

My goal for this game is to provide a single player experience with a very dark and enjoyable storyline with gameplay intense enough to make your face, hands, and balls all sweat uncontrollably. No matter how skilled you get, there will always be something to challenge you.

One thing you are probably going to be wondering about is cutscenes, as this was a problem back in the old releases, especially without an artist. I will be doing it with in-game graphics and text, similar to Hotline Miami. Should be easy enough and it would be more interesting than white text on a black background (cough cough first alpha cough dumbass 12 year old cough).

And with that, we will be working together via the Development sub-forums. Hopefully I can get Dylan (Wheelman75) on board and we can be managing the project upstream. Download the source, make your changes to the engine, and post a topic or reply to an appropriate topic with your source code and we will check it out. We will be on the lookout for viruses, so don’t f**k around. As we find things we are pleased with, we will either take the code and bring it into our build, or if its close enough to being up to date with our build we will branch off the supplied build. All of this will only be while we are getting this engine fixed up so my life isn’t more of a goddamn nightmare.

As for why I never f***ing canceled this project, I don’t do well with completely breaking promises and not making up for it. Its just how I am. All the endless broken promises, even though this is a relatively small project in the grand scheme of things, I don’t feel comfortable with just saying f**k it. This is why I need your help, as a community. Without help from the community, the project will certainly die. As I do not do well with difficult projects, I would never be able to put together a proper engine. I am far from being a programmer, in fact I was unbelievably close to failing C++ back in my senior year of High School.

Last thing is, the project might not be called DrIVer: Russia at the time of its release. In the next few weeks, the name may be changed to something that does not have Driver in it. I don’t need threatening emails from Ubisoft before this is about to be released. However, I may leave it. Who knows.

Anyways, here’s the download to the source: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0xPN ... nZEamxDaFk
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