Things have been quiet for a little while here at Sturdy Games- and I thought it was about time we updated everyone!

Development of Red Forest is going very well. Things have not been perfect, however, as we realise that with just the two of us and the time we have available to develop, the game as planned was going to be delayed until 2015 or even 2016.

Simply put, we have attempted to put too much into it given the constraints life has thrown at us.

So what does this mean? You’re probably getting a bit of a negative feeling from all this- well, not really. The game is going to be released shortly, but it doesn’t have everything we envisioned for it- it lacks some of the extra features: the tracks don’t quite have the variation they could have, there aren’t as many pods as we anticipated.

HOWEVER:

The core engine did get that long required rewrite. The features we planned for are entirely possible, and some are actually implemented in a simple form but are not exposed to the user yet.

Ludicrous mode still exists,
Survival mode still exists,
Tournament still exists,
Multiplayer: This needs to be in, but so far it is unusable. It’ll go in- but after release, after extensive testing and after settling on a final solution.

There will be only a handful of ships on release- but we will add to these after release in an update.

Track-wise, the game can produce unlimited tracks, but the level select currently allows around 3,000. On release, it will be around 15,000, and we may think up a new method of level selection if that isn’t enough! 😉

There will be five pickups on release- again, these will be added to after release:
Laser, Missile, Shield and the Mad Array

The Mad Array is a satellite driven attack, producing up to 4 laser beams to shoot down and destroy opponents in front of you. It will be dropped very, very rarely due to the damage it causes. As an example in a standard race, if you are 5th, and you get this, it could knock out all four pods in front of you. In Survival mode, the damage is reduced, but it’ll still take out a pod or two if their shields are reduced.

So yes, the game is nearing a state where we will release it, and although it doesn’t have everything we had hoped for it, it’ll have everything it needs to begin with- and just because it’s released doesn’t mean we’re going to be done with it.

…But We still want to give you more!