Hello zoomers!

I hope your February wasn't as eventful as mine was.. Or maybe if you like to keep busy then I hope it was!

So let's jump straight into what I've been working on.

New Art Style

In last month's dev diary, I alluded to the fact the art direction for Zoomies might have been changing, and changed it has! I wanted to come away from the low-poly style a little bit, in favour of a cartoony "Borderlands" style. Most objects will have an outline around them and all colours will be slightly more saturated to make everything pop.

Also, the cats are not "low-poly" any more (they still are, but I just did some funky 3D stuff to make them appear smoothed).

This has come at some costs though. I have to take more care when lighting a scene so that it appears correct on the new shaders used and sometimes things don't look totally right when viewed from far away. I'm using a lightweight sobel filter on the game camera which gives most objects their outline and cartoony appearance, but this can often make things look quite blurry when viewed from far away. I may need to play around with it some more to make everything look a little clearer. The new art style is also more taxing on the GPU, but I am confident zoomies will still be available to play on most spec PCs! Optimization is still #1 priority for me!

For shaders, I'm using Realtoon. This affects how lighting is received on each model to give it that cartoony look. It also provides things like rim lighting, self-shadowing as well as its own outline feature in-case the sobel filter doesn't work out. I really recommend picking this shader asset up for €30 if you want to achieve the same style. The package also comes with the sobel filter for the game camera.

Living Life in the Fast Lane!

That's right. Zoomies now features turbo boost pads on each track. Hitting a boost pad will grant you an instant surge of speed, giving you a competitive advantage over rivals who may have missed it. The boost will propel your cat to, or near their maximum speed limit in a flash. And the best part? Cats with higher acceleration values will experience an even more instantaneous speed burst. Get ready to leave your opponents in the dust with Zoomies' exhilarating turbo boost pads!

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Zimaaaaa!

The above images showcase the challenging and thrilling Pirate Island track, which demands precise control and sharp drifting skills to navigate the narrow alleyways of the South American town. Not shown are the opportunities where cats can leap into the air with ease after racing through the British fort on to the straightaway through the Pirate Village. I am still working on refining their movements during flight to eliminate the frustration of constant rolling upon landing. Although the cats will always manage to recover, my ultimate goal is for them to land gracefully on their feet, ready to race on to victory.

Apologies for the tiny gif. Itch.io only allows 3MB max size for gifs!

--

Is there anything else you would like to see? Do you have any suggestions for new content? Please let me know!