After the remarkable success of the Polo and Scirocco R Add Games Volkswagen has once again put us in charge with the realisation of its latest iPhone Racing-Game "Volkswagen Touareg Challenge". Just in time for the Touareg’s arrival in the global Volkswagen dealerships the Touareg is now available for a free spin on the App Store.

Racer for ambitioned iPhone™-Gamers
Beyond the proper presentation of Volkswagen’s Touareg, we have made another effort to create an attractive and fully-fledged iPhone™-Racing-Game that will suit the needs and wishes of even ambitioned iPhone™-Gamers - an experience beyond mere product-presentation.

Discover the Volkswagen Touareg Challenge
Six individual tracks offer you the chance to put the new Touareg to the test. Both the Touareg V6 TDI BlueMotion Technology and the Touareg Hybrid are available. If you choose the Touareg Hybrid, additional points can be won through efficient driving. Each track you complete will unlock new achievements in the car-configurator like premium paintjobs and new rims.

Realistic experience and premium soundtrack
Realistic driving physics, dynamic lighting and customizable controls further enhance the experience. This great package is rounded down by a soundtrack, which was exclusively provided by three bands of the Volkswagen Sound Foundation: Tonbandgerät, jona:S and Jupiter Jones.

Compete with your friends worldwide
Of course your personal highscores can be shared via Facebook-, twitter- and email-integration in order to compete on a global scale.  Still looking for more? In case the virtual spin was not enough for you the integrated search-function will guide you directly to your next Volkswagen dealer.

In the second part of our Galaxy on Fire™ 2 Developer Diary Lead Programmer Hans-Christian-Kühl tells us more about the production process and the teamwork involved. In addition, HCK shares his personal favourite features of the upcoming version of GoF 2 with us.
For all the sci-fi junkies among you, who still haven’t played the first part of our space saga yet, FISHLABS offers GoF at a 50% discount starting today. The weekend sale ends on Monday – so make sure to quickly lay your hands on the Betty or one of the many other ships of the GoF universe and enjoy premium 3D-space-action for just $ 2.99.

Part of the porting of GoF 2 has been major changes in the design and artwork. Why was that?

That happened, because we did not have so much room for the original Java version. Back then, the entire version could not be larger than one MB. At the time, we used the trick of not building the ships completely as one object, but rather like a ‘Lego’ ship put together from individual modules. Ultimately, there were 30 different modules that were used to create roughly 40 different ships. But there were essentially the same ships for the different races, varying only in the colours and textures. Now, we have a lot more possibilities and can create a set of unique ships with their own textures for every race – because now we have the necessary memory. The same is true for stations. Previously, they were put together from modules. Now, we can create unique stations for every race, which of course is a lot of work, but looks really good.

What is the process in developing the new 3D ship models?

Marc Nagel, our Art Director, doodles the ships from three sides with a rough texture template. Then the 3D artists get a specification from me what the maximum size of the texture can be. Then they get started, and constantly look it over and say where the geometry has to be fiddled with, the size changed, or other changes have to be made so that everything fits together. After all, the models also have to fit the design specifications that are already there from the Java version, such as weight, speed, or armaments of a ship. If we were to completely rebalance all of that, we would be working on the port even longer. Therefore, we try to use the original data as much as possible and ‘only’ change the graphics.

You also have someone on the team who is only responsible for the different space stations, right?

Yes, Jeremias Hohn is our lead 3D artist. Jerry is currently only doing stations, but he has to be finished with them this week, so that we can try them out in-game. Be he can explain much better about what he is currently working on.

Who coordinates the project when it comes to the balancing?

At FISHLABS, we work in very small, flexible teams, that are always being reformed as needed. So of course, there has to be someone who always has an overview of the whole project. As Lead Engineer, I am not only responsible for the programming, but at the same time, I am also the project manager and concept developer. In the end, I look everything over and say if things should go more in one direction or another. Apart from that, we frequently sit down with Marc or Uwe Wütherich, our creative director, and of course with Michael Schade, who considers everything once again from a marketing perspective. Naturally in particular cases, it depends on the department. One good example is the interface.Fredrik Überle, who works on the interface as 2D/3D artist, loads the latest skyboxes and new 3D models for his work in Photoshop behind his current interface, so that he can see right away if it fits with the style, look-and-feel, and brightness.

What role do the production meetings play?

Of course, the production meetings are becoming much more important at the moment, since we are working with more and more people on the project. In the initial phase, it’s enough for someone to come by and look at the current status and adjust it. In the current phase, where more than 10 people are involved in the project, we have to coordinate more closely, which is only possible through regular production meetings.

How will GoF 2 be tested?

First, I test the game until it makes sense to give others access to it. In the next stage, we enter a new project in our test tool and inform all FISHLABS employees by e-mail where the game is, what needs to be done, what to look out for, and what should still be disregarded in this phase. Then we ask who wants to test the game. But of course, there are also people in the team who have to test the game. We also like to get feedback from outside and, for example, invite students in. Here, we work with questionnaires a lot, particularly to get a feel for our balancing and find out what the testers especially like and if the game is too hard or too easy.

The new version of GoF 2 offers more room not only for 3D models and textures, but also for more characters and plot threads. How do these new content options affect the development?

Previously, we didn’t have as much room for text. In GoF 2 for Java, we had a total of just 1000 strings, that is character strings from one word up to about 10 lines. Now we can add as much content as we want, for example, a description for every solar system or piece of equipment. That is why we also plan to work with professional authors. One example: we need an alien race. Aha! What are they called? OK, they’re green, and what else is there about them? The new smartphone platforms give us the opportunity of providing a lot more information and backgrounds. In the future, for example, the characteristics of the different races, systems, planets, and characters will be better developed, so that the whole universe will have more depth and vitality.

That sounds as thought the new options are both a blessing and a challenge for the developers?

Naturally, we have to adapt. If GoF 2 is going to become even better known and suddenly we’re facing a port to platforms such as the PC, XBLA, or other major consoles, you could quickly create a universe that may not have been properly thought out, but which continues to be used, and then suddenly you are confronted with unsolvable contradictions. Therefore, we have now reached a point where we have to go over the prior content, so that there is nothing in the way of a future expansion of the GoF universe.

Has the system of alliances and factions in the GoF 2 universe been further refined as part of this development?

Originally, there were only two factions: the Terrans and the Vossk. If you have done a lot of missions for the Terrans, you will eventually be out of favour with the Vossk and have to pay money if you want to land on their stations. Meanwhile, we have four factions: Terrans, Vossk, Midorians, and Nevelians. Now the reputation system oscillates between the Terrans and the Vossk, as well as the Midorians and Nivelians. If you do something for one side, that has an effect on the other side – even if all you do is fly out and attack some random ship. In extreme cases, there are diplomats where you can buy your way out, if your reputation has reached a critically low level. Unlike in GoF 1, there is no simple division into friend or foe - in GoF 2, every faction is innately neutral toward the player. Only once you cross the threshold of a certain number of points, will the entire faction be hostile to you and its members will shoot on sight.

What parts of GoF 2 have turned out particularly well so far and what are your favourite features?

You can just fly out and do whatever you want! There is a tutorial in the beginning, which explains the basics of the game, but after that, you are soon given a great deal of freedom. Another favourite feature is the abundance of items. We have approximately ten times as many items as in GoF 1. Then, of course, you can design your ship however you like. What weapons do I install? What are their characteristics? Or should I use the slot for more cargo space, or install a better scanner? Another favourite feature is definitely that you can now communicate more with your environment. Previously, there was only the mission board, always with the same text. Now, there is a personal address, which varies. That makes it more lifelike. At the same time, we now have virtually unlimited character portraits. Here, we used the head generator we had already used in our title Deep.

That almost sounds like we can expect a completely different game under the old names with GoF 2?

Naturally, the core and the story remain. But compared to the Java version of GoF 2 and the GoF 1 version for the iPhone, the new version of GoF 2 will clearly stand out and represents a major step in development. The original GoF 1 was very limited in terms of the freedom you had. The universe was already open, but you could only leave the stations as part of missions. Now, I can just leave the station and decide for myself if I want to complete missions or just fly around and mine ore, hunt pirates, use maps to discover new systems or stations in the growing GoF universe.

Next will be Marc explaining the art redesign in Galaxy on Fire 2 for iPhone…

We started the new year with a bang: Our most successful iPhone ad game, Barclaycard Waterslide Extreme, has cracked 10 million downloads, Rally Master Pro™ will be released –  for free (!) – in an extra high resolution Symbian version for Sony Ericsson Satio™ and Vivaz™ in a few days, and we recently launched a new iPhone game for Volkswagen: Volkswagen Think Blue. Challenge. This iPhone promotional game we are particularly proud of, because usually promotional games are inferior to regular commercial games for reasons of budget, and the subject of fuel saving is rather uncommon in games. Nevertheless, we were able to turn all that into a high-quality, exciting game, as even the folks at toucharcade declared (a great honour!). You see, promotional games can be quite entertaining, and so you can look forward to at least two more free  casual games, that will be launched by this summer.

Fresh games for iPhone, iPad & friends

Of course, this year, we aren’t just developing ad games for iPhone and iPad and revamping existing iPhone games for other smartphones; we are also working on several completely new titles. With a racing game that has music as an essential component, we are entering new territory. We can’t tell you too much, but the first playable version caused quite a sensation both in-house and with marketing partners.

Along with our iPhone and iPad developments, we also want to put out feelers towards Android this year. As with the iPhone before, we will first port our casual games, like Burning Tires™, to get a feel for the new platform. If the effort proves worth the trouble, we will definitely follow up with more titles. Beyond that, we are working on a AAA title closely together with Nokia featuring OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics for a large screen.

Reunion with Keith on iPhone, iPad and Nokia Smartphones

It’s been at least a year since we ported our most important brand to the iPhone: Galaxy on Fire™. Our 3D space shooter with open gameplay and RPG-like equipment options for spaceships is still unchallenged in the AppStore. But despite heavily pepped up graphics and crisp sound, GoF on the iPhone cannot deny its Java origins and its five-year old design. Sci-fi action fans will be glad to hear that we have been working on converting Galaxy on Fire™ 2 to the iPhone and other smartphones since October.

The sequel to the space epic has set standards in the Java field similar to Part 1 and, thanks to the even more open game design, offers significantly greater potential to be a megahit on the iPhone. So you can look forward to seeing Keith and other acquaintances from the first part once again later this year and play the Alien part for the first time in the Mission Pack in summer. And to keep the wait from being all too boring, we will keep you up-to-date with the status of the development with a regular developer’s diary.

Become a fan of FISHLABS on Facebook for instant updates on all current projects.

Sony Ericsson has been known for its outstanding 3D gaming performance on Java phones for years now. It all started back in 2004, when Sony Ericsson introduced the first mass market Java phone that could render decent 3D graphics on a 176×220 pixels screen. We had been early on and released our first 3D games Motoraver, featuring 3D driving physics in a fairly large sandbox-style city at night, and Robot Alliance, a proper first person shooter in full 3-D (!) with smoothly animated 3D characters, all within 350KB of data.

Continuously, Sony Ericsson improved their hardware and, even more important, the Java Virtual Machine it was running. The crown of 3D enabled java phones still belongs to the K800i, the game experience felt close to the Playstation 1, even if it was not as fast and on a smaller screen. And Fishlabs has to give Kudos to Sony Ericsson. Without this great performance we could never have created mobile games of such high quality like Blades & Magic, Rally Master Pro, Snowboard Hero and Galaxy on Fire 2.

From music to photos to games

In 2005 3D gaming was hyped very much but could not break through as the carriers always forced developers to support the lowest common denominator and the majority of handsets could only render 2D graphics. Sony Ericsson did right in focusing on music instead and introducing the Walkman brand to mobile with great success. A year later Sony Ericsson repeated the success story labeling their photo feature phones with the popular brand Cybershot. With all those millions of Walkman and Cybershot phones sold, sharing a consistent Java platform and decent 3D rendering capabilities, Sony Ericsson’s strength in mobile gaming started as the best kept secret of the industry and led into ruling the mobile gaming business: in 2007, Sony Ericsson was the fourth largest manufacturer of mobile phones worldwide, seven out of ten games downloads were happening on Sony Ericsson phones in Europe and emerging markets like Latin America and South East Asia. Until today, Sony Ericsson has released over 50 models supporting proper 3D rendering and has an installed user base of approx. 200 million devices (Fishlabs’ estimate). Not a bad thing for developers like us, focused on 3D mobile games, if only the ecosystem was right.

iPhone – the mobile games game changer

Nothing is constant but change. It was not Nokia, with its great ambitions in mobile gaming, finally introducing N-Gage as a service, or Vodafone with more than 300 (?) million subscribers who literally changed the mobile gaming business over night. New kid on the mobile block Apple swiped away all competitors with a mobile phone featuring a game experience beyond Nintendo DS and close to Sony PSP. With the latest installment of iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3rd generation featuring OpenGL ES 2.0 even beyond PSP. In combination with the App Store integrated in iTunes, a fair business case for developers (70/30 revenue share) and a low entry barrier (get started for less than $299 with an iPod touch and the iPhone SDK) for everyone mobile game developers were flocking to this new exciting platform.

Satio – ramping up for the fastest mobile gaming device?

It took Sony Ericsson a while to find an answer to the unexpected competitor coming from the computer area backed by a loyal customer base addicted to superior user experience – which is exactly why Apple is so stunningly successful with the iPhone. Although, feature phones based on Java had been a great success for Sony Ericsson and were the preferred mobile phone for gaming by tens of millions users, the future in mobile gaming lies in smartphones. However, any half-hearted attempt to stand up against the leader of smartphones will fail. But Sony Ericsson has sent a decent device stuffed with the latest hardware to the race. The Satio features the same 3D-Chip PowerVR SGX  as the iPhone 3GS running Symbian on an even more powerful CPU ARM11 clocked at 600MHz. Furthermore, it comes with plenty of memory and with a bigger display than the iPhone featuring 640 x 360 pixels resolution. 

Lots of horsepower – what is it good for?

It is one thing to stuff a lot of nice hardware into a mobile phone. It is another story to make all this power available to the developer. Sony Ericsson did an amazing job here. We have ported Rally Master Pro from iPhone to Symbian featuring almost the same functionality on Satio (only automatic acceleration when using touch controls due to single touch on Satio and no multiple simultaneous sounds due to lack of layered sound capabilities). Although the resolution of the Satio display is quite higher compared to the iPhone we experience a stable frame rate of 30 frames per second on both devices running identical game code and graphical assets. Thanks to the better screen resolution of Satio, it is stunning how much more details can be rendered in the scene (the original iPhone textures were designed with some head room for larger screens).

Xperia X10: Mobile games on the big screen

Today a prototype of the latest Sony Ericsson smartphone has arrived at our studio: A shiny Xperia X10 and we have to convey it looks stunning, indeed. It is still a very early proto but navigation on the capacitive touch screen feels great and fluid and the whole menu is much more inviting and intuitive to play around with than it used to be with previous smartphones from Sweden. As the X10 is an Android based phone it will take a while until we have our first game running on it. But one thing is for sure: The big screen is a great, great plus. You can see our website in full 800 pixels width and everything is crystal clear. Even the small fonts can be read with ease. Equipped with a whopping 1 GHz Snapdragon Chip supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 it promises high-end smartphone gaming on the big screen.
 

We have been working really hard on Rally Master Pro™ for iPhone since January now. In the last couple of months the team has grown up to ten developers working full time on our most anticipated iPhone game. Three engineers were working in parallel on the code, three 3D artists were finalizing the tracks and cars, our internal QA team and our producer have been chasing the last bugs while our creative and art director always had a sharp eye on the project, to make sure that everything was polished to perfection. All-in-all, pimping Rally Master Pro™ up for iPhone was an even bigger job than creating the original Java game and you will see that, no doubt! But the job is done now. We have just submitted Rally Master Pro™ and we are waiting anxiously for Apple’s approval.

Real tracks, more tracks, lots of tracks

Rally racing is about speeding and drifting on tracks with varying surfaces like asphalt, gravel or sand as if there was no tomorrow. You need to have wide and narrow roads with straights mixed with various types of curves. The roads also have to go up and down hill and feature challenging crests or constrictions. Every track has to have a personality and you as a driver will be introduced to this “person” by your co-pilot. So you better listen carefully to him to be able to master it and become a pro – yes, we are serious about the name of the game.

If it’s a rainy day go rally racing on iPhone

In a real rally you don’t always have nice weather. In fact, the weather condition has a great influence on the driving behavior of your car. Asphalt gets slippery when it is wet and if you are going off-road it gets worse. In winter, when racing on snow, you are drifting more than anything else and skillful driving becomes an art. To bring this experience to perfection in a rally racing game you need physics that reflect the driving behavior properly. Even on Java we had 3D physics running in Rally Master Pro™ that were calculating each wheel separately depending on whichever surface. However, on iPhone, with way more computing power, we could increase the sample rate much higher and achieve a much more accurate driving experience in the game.

Controls matter most, especially on iPhone

Handling and controls in a real racing game have to be spot-on. Even the best eye candy and the most advanced physics won’t make you believe you are behind the wheel of a rally racing car if the controls suck. Since tilt or touch controls and auto acceleration don’t work for everyone in the same way we have implemented comprehensive configuration possibilities in Rally Master Pro™. You can set pretty much everything the way you prefer it and even lefties have not been left out.

Give me some eye candy

To make you “feel” the road underneath your tires you not only need good physics and spot-on controls. Last but not least, the visual feedback on the weather condition needs to be accurate as well or the illusion of being in a real rally is ruined. We already had an advanced particle simulation in Rally Master Pro™ on Java. Each wheel was emitting various dust and dirt particles depending on track and weather condition. However, on the big screen of the iPhone it was not convincing enough.  So we had to start all over and create the particle system from scratch with a graphical user interface so we could tweak all the parameters in real-time. Now you can see mud flying into the camera when you drift on off-road tracks through the trees and huge clouds of dust vapor behind the car if you are on a dry, dusty road. Check out the spray when it is raining and you are racing on asphalt.

Final Word

Of course, you always can do better and people will always find something to complain about, like there is no proper cockpit view or you can’t tune the car (actually, you are not allowed to do this in a real rally anyway) but we think Rally Master Pro is highly addictive and offers a lot of fun and great value if you are a petrol head. You will be able to find out about that yourself soon and until then we can only recommend to check out our official game trailer below.

With 265 HP and up to 250 km/h, the new Volkswagen Scirocco R is a real racing machine and is at home both on normal roads and the racecourse. In May of this year, the Scirocco R ranked 11th overall out of 219 starting teams at the legendary Nurburgring and was a dual winner in the class of up to 2 litre cubic capacity with turbocharger. During the race, the 2.0 litre TFSI engine even hit a proud 325 HP performance and the Scirocco R with the starting number 118 recorded a reliable 138 laps and 3,500 km in 24 hours.

24 hour racing on the iPhone

You can now also drive the new Scirocco R on the iPhone, not for the full distance, but for the final stint of a 24-hour race. We have shortened the course a bit in order to adapt the lap times for playing on the iPhone and, of course, you only have to overtake the ten vehicles in front of you. So that you aren’t sent into the race unprepared, you can familiarise yourself with the course in training mode and optimise your lap times.

Head-to-head against your friends on the iPhone

The multi-player mode provides even more adrenaline. You can race head-to-head against your friends in real time over WiFi. For real pros, the controls can be configured in a variety of ways and their sensitivity can be customised to meet every preference. Try it for yourself; the brand-new  iPhone game Volkswagen Scirocco R 24H Challenge has been available for free  download in the App Store since yesterday.

Certainly, some of you have wondered whether we will only be making ad games for the iPhone, since we haven’t announced anything new about our own iPhone games in a long time. The fact is that the development of ad games for the iPhone and iPod is currently a very lucrative business for us. But the best thing about that is that we can use it to finance the costly production of our own iPhone games. That means the better the ad games we develop do, the more we can invest in our own games. So you win either way. Free adv games for quick casual game fun and our top titles that get as much as possible out of the iPhone and offer hours of excitement.

The Best Mobile Game of 2008 soon for the iPhone and iPod touch

Rally Master Pro™ has really cleaned up in the last year. All of the games magazines gave our rally simulation top marks, and Pocket Gamer even rewarded our hard work with a Platinum Award. That makes Rally Master Pro™ the only racing game to date to receive the best possible evaluation from Pocket Gamer. According to the Pocket Gamer Analysis, which summarises the most important mobile gaming magazines, Rally Master Pro™ is even the Best Mobile Game of 2008. No question, of course we had to bring Rally Master Pro™ to the iPhone.  Starting in the autumn, every iPhone and iPod touch owner will be able to put the pedal to the metal and test their rally skills in sun, rain, and snow on 27 varied and detailed extreme courses.

Revved up rally graphics for the iPhone

Naturally, we have revised all of the 3D models and textures. The number of polygons has increased four-fold, and while the Java version of Rally Master Pro™ has to make do with five 256×256-pixel textures, which still is a huge amount for a Java game though, we have given the iPhone version 18 textures with 512×512 pixels and seven with 1024×1024 pixels - way more than we used in any other of our iPhone games before. Rally Master Pro™ comes to the iPhone with tracks of corresponding wealth of detail and variation.

The particle simulation has also been heavily tuned up. Depending on the track surface and weather, a variety of dust, spray, and even dirt particles will be generated for each individual tire. The various kinds of particles act quite differently. On dry, dusty tracks the car leaves a massive cloud of dust while racing through a forest on a rainy day you can literrally see the mud flying. To a certain level, we did that in the Java version too, but thanks to the computing power of the iPhone the particle simulation is way more advanced, here.

Dynamic lighting depending on weather and environment

The dynamic lighting for the rally cars in Rally Master Pro™ is completely new. Thanks to the high-powered 3D chips (OpenGL graphics acceleration) in the iPhone, we can light the vehicle in a variety of ways, depending on the weather: with lots of light and shadows when it’s sunny, diffuse when the sky is overcast, and correspondingly dim in rain and storm. But the environment also affects the lighting of the vehicle. Drive under bridges or through the shady area under trees and the car will be appropriately darkened. It isn’t necessarily an effect that you notice during the race too much, but it nevertheless provides a realistic game experience, and you can enjoy it all at leisure in the replay.

All screenshots have been taken from the Beta version and we are still working heavily on many things. However, to give you a first impression on how Rally Master Pro looks like on iPhone these should do.

To be continued…

Brawn GP has teamed up with Upstream, to create the Brawn GP Racing Game for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch that includes a chance to win a luxurious Mercedes SL Roadster (US, CA and UK only). Of course, we are thrilled that FISHLABS has been chosen to develop the very first F1™ racing game for iPhone and iPod touch and now the game is live!

What’s in this Brawn GP iPhone game?

You get the chance to drive the Brawn GP F1™ car to qualify on four imaginary, international circuits. The game features a track located in the city of London. Players can drive by landmarks such as Big Ben and Buckingham Palace while doing a qualifying lap around Hyde Park. Three additional tracks inspired by the most famous and challenging elements on the world racing circuit, such as Road America’s Carousel, Silverstone’s Copse and Monaco’s hairpin, will be made available as free updates throughout the 2009 season. 

F1™ racing on iPhone - How does it feel?

Based on our advanced racing engine with 4-point-driving physics, Brawn GP Racing offers the most realistic high-speed racing experience available on iPhone and iPod touch. Well, we tried to give you a F1™ driving experience as close as possible but without being too realistic - if we had done a proper F1™ driving simulation game you probably wouldn’t be able to make a single lap without destroying the car ;-). So it is still about having both thrill and fun here.

How can I win a Mercedes SL?

As soon as you qualify on each track, you are ranked globally, and are awarded entries in the draw according to your rank – the faster you are, the more chances you have of winning. The contest will end at the precise time at which the winning car crosses the finish line in the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi on November 1, 2009. A draw will be held on November 12th and the grand winner, hopefully you, will receive a brand new Mercedes SL. The contest is available to US, Canada and UK residents only.

You race over the closed off country road at top speed, flying past trees and fields. You stomp on the brakes just before the next curve. You follow the narrow curves in town and hit the edges of one or two patches of mud along the way. Once you reach the town’s exit point you put the pedal to the metal. You’ve barely made it out of town when your co-pilot orders you to take a “sharp right.” You turn onto a narrow gravel path through the forest. You notice immediately that the car drives very differently on this new ground. The grooves in the road also make it difficult to handle, and there’s always the danger that you will completely lose control if you veer too far out of the grooves in either direction.

Console-style drifting in a mobile game?

But you have everything under control; turning your front wheels sideways you drift cleanly through the 180° curve to the end of the forest. You hit the gas pedal again. You launch into the air at top speed on the hill at the railroad crossing. But you’ve miscalculated, jumped too far and driven right into the stone wall at the next curve. That cost you a few seconds and your fender looks really bad. No time to think about it now. The time target is tight. Stomp on the gas. Your wheels spin and the mud flies. The rear of the car starts to go into a skid, but you easily steer against it. Once you’re back on the street you can finally see the finish line on the horizon, and you finish the second stage with a bit of a time delay. The first stage was easier somehow.

Repair mini-games will get your car back in shape

As you can see, your car has sustained some damage. Good thing you can repair it before the next stage. The question is, should you have the team repair it or lend a helping hand so that it goes fast? But maybe you’re pretty clumsy and will only delay your team? You grab the torque wrench and tighten the lug nuts back on in record time. Nice job! Your car’s in top shape again, and you’re off to the next stage.

The landscape has changed quite a bit and the course preview leads you to suspect that this next race will be a little more demanding. The terrain is more hilly, and the ground constantly alternates between paved and sandy spots. When the sun is shining the grip is OK, but heat thunderstorms can cause downpours at any time and then the race will become a real downhill slide.

Flying high

So much for theory. The countdown begins, and you stomp on the accelerator. The car shoots ahead and you jump over the first hill at breakneck speed – with complete trust in your co-pilot, who tells you that there is a straightaway ahead. You’re in the air for quite a while. You think you feel your stomach drop. In a mobile game!

But you’ve launched off the hill at a slight angle and start skidding when you land. It takes a lot of effort, but you get the car under control before the next hairpin curve and skid on all four wheels through the apex of the curve. It probably looks great in instant replay, but it cost you a lot of time.

Did we just pass spectators or cows at the edge of the course?

The car is under control again. You race at top speed through a picturesque village. Nice. Maybe you should spend your next vacation here. Enthusiastic rally fans are standing along the edge of the course, and you really don’t have time for autographs. But you haven’t lost the race yet. You’re doing reasonably well in the race overall. Apparently the other drivers also had problems with this stretch, and you’ve even got a couple seconds on the car in second place. You concentrate on the next stretch.

Can someone get rid of the cliffs?

You’re going to need it. The road is much narrower and it can get really tight, especially between the cliffs that now frequently tower on both sides of the road, Something’s bound to go wrong at some point at this speed. and the rain has made the road extremely slippery.

You could see the archway at the entrance of the rock formation from quite far away, but you’re a little too fast in the curve immediately in front of it. The car still hasn’t straightened out enough, and you ram the passenger side of the car into the wall - BAM! The whole side is dented in. It’s obvious that the car has sustained quite a bit of damage. Somehow it isn’t driving that well. It’s going to cost you valuable time that you don’t have. So you take the riskier curves to compensate for the lower speed. This has consequences. You graze the cliffs over and over again and further damage your car. The main goal now is not to have any more accidents and simply make it to the next repair! Otherwise there will be no more rally for you!

Damage to the car – do you play it safe or play for time?

You paid dearly. You dropped back to fifth place. Your car is severely damaged. If the team repairs it they can spruce it up somewhat within the stipulated time allowance. But will that be enough for the next two stages? They certainly won’t manage to repair everything without a hitch. If you help them, together you could completely repair it. But if you mess it up, you may not get the car to where it needs to be. You need a better car, otherwise you won’t advance quick enough in the mountains. So you decide to help them out, and you do your job well in the mini-game. You hit the starting line with an almost completely intact vehicle, ready to make up for the lost time.

The air is getting thinner

High up in the mountains. Great view, but the route plan doesn’t look good. There’s one curve after another. Well, at least you have asphalt under your tires and the car handles well. Based on the interval times you recognize that you’re doing well. You are perfectly attuned to the rhythm of the serpentine curves. You wind your way higher and higher with the greatest of ease until you reach the top of the mountain pass. From here on in it goes straight down. Hopefully your brakes can withstand it. But the material was worth the money. You make it safely across the finish line. And have moved up one place!

The right tactic for that crucial tenth of a second

On to the next stage. You read the next course overview. The course appears to be similar to the previous one and also has a few considerably faster passages. You can make up some time there. However, it is pouring down with rain. Raindrops on the windshield make it difficult to see. If you veer off the course at this point, you may as well pack up and go home. You push those thoughts away, because the time keeps mercilessly ticking away. You let it fly on the straightaways. Almost nothing can happen here. But you have to really throttle down before the curves. You need to rely on your co-pilot reading the pacenotes. Your brake lights now light up at every curve, and you are rewarded with second place.

Show down

It’s time for the last stage of the rally. You’re still driving in the mountains on asphalt, but you have to leave the course at the halfway point. You take a “sharp left” and the surface changes once again. There is enough space between the cliffs to adjust the car to the unpaved road in the curves, but you are severely penalized for every error. Cliffs are hard. You violently come into contact with the unforgiving natural lane markings one or two times. The car loses its top speed. It isn’t noticeable in the winding section, but the last part of the race is on the road. You could lose some crucial seconds here. It’s going to be close. Damned close. The last intermediate time is displayed. You are two tenths of a second behind the first place car. You could also say “first loser”! Can you do anything?

It all adds up in the end – in a mobile game as well

You shoot through the final finish line. Your car doesn’t look very good anymore. You’ve really squeezed every last drop out of it. Your thumb hurts and the joystick of your Sony Ericsson K800i has left behind a deep imprint. You can now lean back for the first time. You watch the last stage again in the interactive replay. The TV cameras mercilessly reveal where you wasted valuable split seconds. You rewind, play it back, change the camera angle and have to watch how you slammed into the rock wall twice. Is this the spot where you may have gambled away the win?

It’s time for the final numbers. You can’t believe it. You are five tenths of a second from third place! This can’t be happening. How long have you played? Just under an hour? And that was the amateur rally? Oh man, that’s really tough. Weren’t mobile games designed for casual gamers? OK, maybe you should have used the brake more from the beginning instead of cutting it close around the corners everywhere. At least you have now unlocked all the courses for the time qualification and adrenaline mode and can train on them. You simply have to finish in the top three, then you’ll get a new car and will have qualified for the pro rally. It would be ridiculous if you didn’t…

The cat is out of the bag: our latest racing game is called Rally Master Pro™, and the name says it all! This is no mobile game for beginners, and it may set new standards in the field of mobile Java games. Many of you already know that we created quite a sensation in 2005 with V-Rally™ 3D. Some time has passed since then, and we have been itching to raise the racing game bar again for quite a while.

While the trend in consoles and PCs seems to be away from hardcore and towards casual, we have been moving in the opposite direction with our mobile games. Mobile phones are becoming more and more high performance and we want to exploit that to bring a real console feeling to the mobile phone:

2D cardboard cut-outs on the mobile phone are yesterday’s news

For a rally game, that naturally means real 3D graphics without fake backgrounds that simply scroll from left to right like a backdrop – those days are finally over. The scope has to be right, even if we are still faced with the narrow limits of approximately 1 MB file size for 3D mobile games. However, we wanted to have a lot of especially varied tracks, without having to have some courses simply driven backwards (a really pathetic way to increase the number of tracks). So, we have developed a module concept that allows us to realise 27 (!) different tracks. That may be unique for a mobile Java game to date.

It also bothered us that, up to now, it was only possible to drive left, right, and straight ahead in mobile racing games. With V-Rally™ 3D and Burning Tires™, we have already shown that it is also possible to go uphill and down. In a real rally, extreme differences in elevation sometimes have to be overcome and drivers must send their rockets twisting up the switchbacks. For that, we had to specially develop a terrain editor which also allows modules on different levels. In addition, the modules themselves had to be provided with the appropriate transitions and ultimately they had to be taken into account in the physics, as well.

Graphics aren’t everything – the physics have to rock, too!

Especially in a rally game, the primary focus is on the driving experience, and consistent 3D physics are indispensable. They must provide credible driving behaviour depending on the nature of the track, weather conditions, and the state of the vehicle. Ease up on the gas before a curve, tap the brakes, and then put the pedal to the metal and counter-steer to drift smoothly through the curve. That is rally driving! And pseudo-2.5D physics  that only simulate the lift-off of a vehicle jumping  a hilltop – yawn – are simply not acceptable. When you take off, there should be a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, and when you land, you should think, ‘Ouch – the chassis just bottomed out!’

Weather is a physical phenomenon – not a graphics effect

And if there is going to be weather, then it should not be a few particles flickering in front of the camera from top to bottom, but should really come down in 3D space and, of course, have an effect on traction, in other words, significantly influence the driving behaviour. And while we’re talking about traction, it should also vary with the track composition. Driving should be completely different on asphalt than on gravel or even snow. Of course, a road is not always made the same way and the surface can change now and then. Most especially on the edge. Have you ever caught a soft shoulder with a wheel? That really pulls at the steering. And that is exactly what happens in Rally Master Pro™!

3D damage model: rally cars are not indestructible – not even in a mobile Java game!

It’s funny how, in almost every mobile Java game, the colourful little car cheerfully bounces off of everything and nothing happens, apart from slowing down.  Oh, right, mobile games are only for ‘casual players’. None of that! In Rally Master Pro™, if you go crashing into the embankment, you not only receive a time penalty, something also gets broken. That’s not just a single time penalty, your car is also slower after the crash. And you can see that on your precious car! Rally Master Pro™ offers the worldwide premier of a 3D damage model in the field of mobile Java games.

Rallies spectacularly displayed on the phone with TV cameras

But that is not the only worldwide first for mobile Java games that we have implemented in Rally Master Pro™. The interactive replay for forward and reverse replay and dynamic switching between TV and vehicle cameras are just as unique. Sure, we already had dynamic TV cameras in Powerboat Challenge™ (2008), Burning Tires™ (2006), V-Rally 3D (2005), and even Motoraver™ (2004)  before they could be seen in other racing games for the first time this year – but only for the camera behind the car – super!

Have we made ourselves unpopular with EA, Gameloft, Glu, and the others? No matter, it isn’t big marketing budgets that make the difference between the success and failure of a game on the market, it is you gamers. Ideally, that is how it should be.

In that spirit: Game on!

Your FISHLABS team