Given there's been almost no promotion for this title, I thought I'd let you all know about the latest racing game I worked on.

Scorched is a free to play, nearly top down racing game with one-sided combat set in a vaguely post-apocalyptic future. Styled visuals and arcade driving model. Four environments (desert, forest, mountain, wasteland) to drive through, four game modes (outpace the AI, outgun the AI, beat the clock, precision driving), twelve cars to unlock, twenty upgrades per vehicle, seven weapons to unlock and upgrade, seventy-five events to play across three classes, plus bonus challenge events (necessary to use the seventh weapon). Ostensibly single player but compete with your friends via leader-boards.

Official trailer
Promotional images attached (not using in-game camera angles).

Official sites: Rogue Play (publisher), Sumo Digital (developer)

Download via Google Play or iTunes

Happy to answer questions and it would be great to read feedback!

Enjoy

downloaded on iOS. Any tips

Tips?

* Most events have multiple routes you can take. The side routes, which the AI do not use, are often shorter, or contain rarer pickups
* Practise events and learn where useful weapon pickups are. Sometimes they'll appear on the other side of the track and you won't be able to steer across in time.
* Drifting for a few seconds will give you a speed boost when you exit the drift, a few of these per event can make enough difference to earn you an extra star
* Lower tier upgrades on cars are really good value for money, buy these as soon as you can
* Higher tier upgrades are much poorer value for money. If you can, save salvage for a better car
* Speed is undoubtedly the most important vehicle upgrade for any game mode (even in Gauntlet, you will travel further in the 60 seconds given, which will allow you to collect more ammo pickups, to net more kills)
* Upgrading weapons makes a huge difference to Gauntlet events. Weapon upgrades are not tied to any particular vehicle, so blow salvage here
* The slightly hidden Weekly Tournament feature allows you to net good rewards if you beat your friends at that weeks event. Sadly, iOS and Android leaderboards are separate (a restriction of third party software we used).
* If you're really liking the game, invest some actual cash! While it is possible to complete the game just by grinding, even our best tester would take a few days to do so, and that was after months of daily practise. Face it, no sane person is going to willingly invest as much time as she did. You'll also not have to watch any more adverts if you make any in game purchase.

The art style is really really cool! Reminds me of Borderlands a lot. I'll give it a DL.

I really can't get my head round how powerful hand-held devices are these days. I still have trouble believing my phone is capable of 3D graphics.

Hello,

I already spent some time while racing in your game, I overall like the polish and to me graphics is something Borderlands like, so that is also a +.

I can enjoy races and game overall however I couldn't find a setting to change a camera? Is it fixed on its position? It somehow doesn't fit me, I'd like to change the angle and position from the car a bit.

Crashgate3 - Mobile devices have been pretty powerful since the iPad 2 / iPhone 4S (just looking at the Apple line up). The latest devices are substantially better still but there is the issue of the user base not all owning the latest equipment, which limits what we can do in the game. Scorched had to run on an iPhone 4, albeit at quarter resolution and with less than ideal frame rate. Similarly with comparable Android devices. Given this restriction, in order to maximise the product market, the game is simpler than it could have been (in terms of visuals and physics).


Mysho - There is no way for you to change the camera angle I'm afraid.

Earlier builds were used a different camera angle (this never went public), there has always been some internal disagreement about whether what we shipped with is ideal. Every option we tried had benefits and drawbacks, so it seems any setting is a compromise (regarding track design, difficulty, performance, as well as just personal preference).

I would be interested to know in what way you would like to adjust the camera.

Some comments:

Graphics are nice enough

Gameplay:
Seems ok, but the controls feel really clunky and arcadey. I would prefer something with a bit more difficulty in terms of speed through the corners. Also it's pretty hard to control your line and steering in my opinion. Would love for the camera to be tilted back a bit so you could see whats ahead of you more.

Fun little game though

does not work on my RazrI. I get to the screen that says press to play, and when I press it I end up on my homescreen again

I can't download it right now, it says: you must update to IOS 7.0 or later,
is there any more software/update requirements ?
btw, i'm using ipad.

thx.

Just had a go, it’s really good fun. The handling is noticeably better than a lot of Arcade racers (presumably we have Mr. Smith to thank for that ), and I really like the Borderlands-style shaders.

HOWEVER.

I only had a few minutes to play (a sneaky go in the bogs at work) and I found it wouldn’t let me quit while I was halfway through the tutorial!
The only control which is active is the one the tutorial wants me to press next. The back button in-game, the settings menu in-game, the back and menu buttons on my phone, neither do anything. In the end I had to go to the task-manager and end-task it to quit.

Playing on a Galaxy Note 3, running Android 4.4.2

Bob, excuse my possible ignorance, but where's the pause button whilst in-play? I was playing whilst I got to my stop on the tube this morning, and had to somehow try and get off and walk across to the opposite platform, all whilst trying not to crash.

Quote from Wenom :

There would be no need for drift button if acceleration "pedal" would work like in the Ridge Racer -> press gas, release gas and press gas again and automatic drift!

scratch that, I was thinking about another game

iRacing?

Quote from Morieza :

I can't download it right now, it says: you must update to IOS 7.0 or later,
is there any more software/update requirements ?

For iOS version, ios 7 is the minimum, which itself requires an iPhone 4 or iPad 2 minimum.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Just had a go, it’s really good fun. The handling is noticeably better than a lot of Arcade racers (presumably we have Mr. Smith to thank for that ), and I really like the Borderlands-style shaders.

Great to hear. I was worked on the handling, yes, but a lot else too: player controls; physics objects & weapon physics; AI setup, avoidance and navigation; in game object editor; gameplay systems (game modes, track object system, vehicle respot system, health system, spline data export from art assets, etc); optimisation. A small team so had my fingers in more pies.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

I only had a few minutes to play (a sneaky go in the bogs at work) and I found it wouldn’t let me quit while I was halfway through the tutorial!
The only control which is active is the one the tutorial wants me to press next. The back button in-game, the settings menu in-game, the back and menu buttons on my phone, neither do anything.

The tutorial is very strict with what you are allowed to do, yes. Since there is no explicit quit option on iOS, this wasn't a problem. Tbh, I've always just app switched and then closed the game from the desktop, it wasn't until I read about a bug to do with the exit button on Android that I realised it existed at all!

Quote from J@tko :

Bob, excuse my possible ignorance, but where's the pause button whilst in-play?

The big fat button in the top middle of the screen? You should be able to pause even during the three tutorial events, though I'm not so sure about the very initial introduction.

Quote from Bob Smith :

The big fat button in the top middle of the screen? You should be able to pause even during the three tutorial events, though I'm not so sure about the very initial introduction.

Oh yeah! I'd never noticed that - it's a bit too shaded out during gameplay!! :P