Protoxide: Death Race is a futuristic adrenaline-fuelled action/racing game for iOS and Android
(version in development) that is sure to please gamers who likes to shoot and drive fast.

We’ve already received some feedback from gamers, here’s some of them:

“Well, I played a few runs in regular and then survival mode. The game is definitely better
than LGR 1 and 2 and SFE (which I do really like). The controls are very good, the boost and
powerups are fun and exciting to use, the sense of speed is right where I want it and there are
plenty of tracks (16) and a good number of “gliders” (cars)-12.” medianotzu

“Only been playing this for the last half hour and I’m already impressed it’s basically wipeout
for the iPhone but still has it’s own style. This is easily the best of the synth racer genre on the
iPhone” Charger440RT (iTunes, UK)

“I like it better than Low Grav Racer 2. I like the combat aspect here, especially the lock-on
element. It has a lot of modes, looks very nice, and so far has been quite fun.” sizzlakalonji

“Very enjoyable game takes its clues from wipEout and F-Zero which means it is fun to play and
great for short spots of entertainment” 06agrant (iTunes, UK)

“I’ve played all the WipeOut clones in the App Store and this is the first one that satisfies as a
game precisely because it’s not actually trying to be a clone. Instead, it mixes the core WipeOut
gameplay with a Motorstorm-like setting and a kart racing feel to create something that feels
surprisingly grounded for a futuristic racer.” squarezero

“This is one he’ll of a sweet sci fi style racer. It puts Low Grav racer and Orion to shame. The
graphics control and story are great. All I need now is a universal build so I can play on my iPad.
Get it. You will love it.” PsychDoc* (iTunes, US)

Since we’re trying to be maximum friendly with all gamers and we’re always pay attention on
what players think, we’d like to announce what updates are coming soon:

- First of all, we’ll add an option for horizontal tilt to switch off.

- Open Feint feature will be added (we`re still thinking about adding GameCenter).

- Different camera view will be added in later updates.

- Character voices will be able to be switched off.

- Several difficulty levels.

- Flip the screen option will be in the first update.

The game has it’s own twitter page now: http://twitter.com/#!/ProtoxideRacing

Get full version – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/protoxide-death-race/id441210969?ls=1&mt=8

Get lite version – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/protoxide-death-race-lite/id452986325?ls=1&mt=8

Follow us there, keep updated about bonuses and news

The first chapter shall tell about the events preceeding to the events of Protoxide.

The game actions take place in the streets of american city Steelers at 2068. As a result of fast industrial expansion, the resources quickly run out and the atmosphere gets polluted. Meanwhile the technological level allows the humankind to control neighbour planets. The inhabitans of Earth leave their planets in order to colonize the new worlds and start their lives from scratch. The corporation start their production at the remote colonized planets, totally abandoning their outdated actives on Earth. In but a short time some cities became totally abandoned.

Steelers city is exactly an example of such a place. Once an industrial megapolis, nowdays abandoned by the majority of citizens. Only the small group of people who didn’t manage to leave Steelers due to some reasons remains. Although, aside from the common citizens there appeared the bands of criminals. They seized the remains of corporations and power and started the illegal production. Of course, a part of devices was left to rot, but the other one daily and nightly produces weapons, drugs and wargliders (the jet battle machines). What they are unable to produce on their own they just buy or steal from the military or from the other bands.

The goods from Steelers are smuggled to the remaining survived cities where live the majority of illegal products consumerists. There are “mules” in the band – those who carry the stuff with the heavy cars – and “hawks” which engage into battles with the police or competetors, if they do not let caravans go.

Of course the government pays little love to the current order of things, but majority of police and army ensures order in colonies so the smugglers rarely face resistance.

The gangs compete amongst each other but they made an agreement to avoid the needless skirmish. The spheres of influence are decided in the Big Race. The best hawks of all the gangs compete in speed and might, and the winners win title, power and respect.

In the next chapter we shall tell about the Steelers gangs and main characters of the game.

Make it look better.
Most of you told us that the textures were not good at all. Ok, ok, agree, had a look at NFS then and dropped my jaw. We decided to retexture the levels. Our tests show that having good textures is not slower than having simple ones, so why not have good ones.

Make it run faster on oldies (2G and 3G).
We’re trying to keep geometry and textures as detailed as possible and this makes reaching fast framerates a challenge. We’re now to implement a PVS system to make sure iPhone does not choke with that much geometry we’re pushing in.

Finally, here are the features that are easy to demonstrate.
The new textures and some geometry:

A lens flare:

Maktub
looks like some things are copied from q3, if i get it right it’s done for mobile platform, exactly for mac os, that’s on iphone. mobile soft is a progressive direction, the game is sooo stupid, STILL making complicated games for mobile devices is not worth it imho, it’s uncomfortable to play and use more than 2 buttons. i wouldn’t play this one, but people would like it i think.

The controls should be easy and clear for sure. You’ll be steering with accelerometer, and pushing one of the nitro boost or break buttons (with one finger). For those who don’t like accelerometer we’ll add the swipe steering, so that you’d steer with one hand and boost/break with the other.

Ivan
- am I right that it’s an online flash game?
- if so I like it then
- that’s the most important part, the game itself is stale, there’re thousands of the like. Thou if you bind it to a handy multiplayer like trackmania e.g. it should be a cool stuff.
- and again – if you don’t ask for to much money
- in my opinion again is that non-urbanized levels look dull, put some natural in
- there was a cool game on pc – xterm-g and starwars racer
- and this theme was 100% there )))
- hmm, how handy and clear is the multiplayer?

Hmm, it’s not flash, it’s for iPhone. And iPhone games cost pennies.
There’re will be four different level worlds, one of them is under the bright blue sky and one of them is underwater – will this count for the natural levels?
As for the multiplayer, it should be pretty straight-forward. Though we’re not sure about online multiplayer yet, I mean if we need it at all and when it could be implemented.

Alex
- like the fast speed
- game like a game, nothing special
- haven’t played for long, don’t know the graphics quality level for today

It looks like we’re ok with gfx quality for iPhone. Ain’t we?

Alex S
- ok, gfx is good, but there’re tons of such games, doesn’t make sense to create another one
- played NFS undercover for iPhone?

Well, maybe, but we hope to grab a tidbit of the market share.

N
- guano (c) lebedev

Yeah, right, he knows, he knows.

Asket
- If it looks the same on iPhone and will be easy to control than it’s cool.
Hope they’ll make something about the ship vertical position; it’s not cool that it just drives on the ground (however maybe if you add another degree of freedom it would cause worse playability (it’d be harder to control))

It’ll look the same on iPhone and we like the controls already.
I don’t think that making it another Descent is a good idea. We try to make it about entertainment, not about dizziness.

shell
- i’d like to be able to control the height of the flier so that i could overtake the other flier from abow or below; could scratch the ground with sparkles if you drive to low

It’d complicate the controls I think.

Nikolay Ch.
- You’d better develop a Civilizations or Heroes at least… Anyway it rocks and I like it… Well done!

Our Revival is being ported to iPhone now, btw.

Alexey
2) The plane does not get damaged in process – it’s bad
3) Graphics is from year 99
4) The camera twitches nicely when being damaged

Gfx is for iPhone, we’re pushing this piece of iron to the limits, but it’s surely far from desktop accelerator performance and capabilities. Hopefully when 3GS is popular the game could become much slicker with the updated gfx.

Scorp
- looks ok
- the three stripes on the top are strange – didn’t like them much
- maybe the control buttons should not tremble when booster is active (or at all)…
- no current lap number
- no warning when they prepare to shoot you with rockets (or whatever it is)…
- i wouldn’t suggest publishing this game on anything more powerful than PDA, communicator or smartphone

Current lap number, yeah, we know, should be there soon. The missile lock warning is already there (added right after the video recording).
We’re planning to publish it on iPhone.

Оlga
the interface is not informative at the moment – ain’t it designed yet, right?
don’t understand what’s there in the left top – laps?
shakes great when they damage you – if iphone vibrates also it should be amusing.
overall opinion is good – i’d make the demo level more dynamic like a roller coaster to show that you can ride up and down – it’s clear that way but you need more dynamics )
well done in short

We’ll add the current lap indicator, everyone asks for it.
The phone vibrates when you get shot, this feature is already there.
As for the roller-coaster – we’ll think of it.

Eugene
as for the game – not bad taking into account that it’s a prototype for iPhone
the idea is not new, still if the gfx is good it’d look effective
what i disliked is that the cars look too toy, maybe it’s due to the clip quality
would also be good to see another pair of indicators like speed, rpm
and the engine sound of course

Engine sound will be there, and not only the engine. We’re working on the volumetric sound system, and it’s almost ready now.

• 5 different ships to choose from, ranging from the heavy tank-like to the light and fast bike-like.
• 4 worlds of 4 racing tracks each, 16 tracks in a total.
• 5 weapon types, pick-up bonuses like nitro or nuclear weapons.
• Quick race and career modes.
• Multiplayer over WiFi.
• Hall of fame, both local and online.
• 3D stereo sound, cool music.
• Motion sensor controlled steering (or swipe controlled if you’d prefer).
• Player profiles. So that when your little brother asks you for iPhone, he won’t destroy your championship progress.
• Game encyclopedia, if you’d like to know what exactly which bonus or weapon means.

All these features are being developed at the moment. We’re not sure if we’d pack them all into the first release, though will try our best.

We’re also not sure about player profiles, whether we need them. iPhone is a personal device, right? Let us know (poll is on the right sidebar)

It’s been almost a year since we started prototyping our new game called Protoxide.  It’s a futuristic 3d racing game targeting mobile devices (iPhone primarily). We decided that it’s just about time to start sharing some spoilers about the game. The game starts to look solid so we wanted to know if you’d like it like we do.

We’ll post information about the game in this blog. Expect to see early videos, graphic sketches, our future plans and so on.

Don’t hesitate to ask any question on the game or propose any idea. We need your opinion to create a cool game together.