Over the last few years, we’ve seen a number of smaller developers attempt to fill the void that was created when Nintendo decided to bench F-Zero and Sony closed down Wipeout developer Studio Liverpool. There have been a few decent attempts to replace those games—some of which we’ve covered in depth at Siliconera—but what we haven’t really seen is an attempt by someone with experience making racers.
This is what gives me hope for Radial-G, even though the idea of yet another futuristic racer is hardly new. The game, which is asking a mere £50,000 on Kickstarter, is directed by Geoff Cullen, who has helped design games like Split Second, Pure and Moto GP ‘06. In fact, the majority of Cullen’s LinkedIn resumé is a long list of racing games he’s helped develop over the years. Prior to his days as a designer, he even served as a QA Technician on one of my personal favourites—Extreme-G 2.
Radial-G is being developed by Tammeka Games, a five-man team based in Brighton, UK. When it ships, the game will feature both single and multiplayer modes, support for up to 32 AI and human opponents, nine race tracks (with more to be released in future updates) and three ship types (again, with more scheduled for future release). A future update will also add weapons to the game.
The game’s single-player mode will feature a story that you can play through, and you’ll have the ability to customize your ships for different race tracks as well. On that note, the race tracks in Radial-G are tubular, which means you can race along the bottom or the sides as well.
Radial-G is currently planned for release in Q3 2014. The game is being developed with Oculus Rift support in mind, although naturally it works on a regular PC monitor as well. A playable single-player demo of the game is available via its Kickstarter page.
