We have been hard at work on the game for the last few months. Now we need your help. We need you to shake it down, find out which parts of the game you love and what you want to see more of. Then head over to the feedback section of the beta page and let us know what you think!

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When we first started this journey, all we had was an idea to make a map. We wanted to ride our engines around a hangar. Well we got our wish as we are proud to present: The Hangar Over.

Our artists created nice textures and materials for each object. We added them to the map and it came alive. We added the ambiance of the night sky and the quiet town asleep in the distance. The animators brought the zeppelin to life and it now flies around the hangar.

We now have models in the map and some base lighting. We found that when flying around on this map, it is a lot easier to know where you are when the map is not symmetrical. To mix it up, we replaced the two small hangars on one side of the map with a single large hangar. This also allows more freedom to play inside the large, open hangar space.

Another big change from the block-out was shutting down the runway with a crashed zeppelin. This created a loop for players to race around. Doors at the entrances of each of the two smaller hangars open and close to vary the loop. When one door opens, the other simultaneously closes to ensure at least one valid path exists at all times.

Race mode being only one of the game modes, we created the Hangar map to also be used in battle mode. This map went through several play-tests before we decided to close off one third of the map. We fenced off the two smaller hangars of the map and shut their doors to keep everyone in the same area, as the map in it’s entirety is very large.

Now that we have made a functional and fun level, the next and final phase for the hangar map will be making it look nice.

This image of the meshes shows how they look in the artist’s modeling program. As you can see, there was some issue determining what we would use to keep the player on the track itself. So we created some wreckage that raises a solid concrete wall that keeps the player from roaming around the wrong section of the track.

We will see the next update when we put these models in the map.

Yesterday we looked at our level in game to see how the scale and flow of the map felt when driving around. There were some adjustments needed.

What we found was the straight-away runway was too long and not as much fun as previously thought. We were also not pleased with the positions of the hangars. The entire map was turning into just one oval, which is not what we wanted.

So we relocated one set of hangars to the opposite side of the runway. This created more turns and a better flow for the map. We added some walkways inside the hangars to give some more elevation. Below is a screenshot of the prototype version in the editor.

This angle shows the inside of the prototype hangars. As well as the runway going down the middle.

Now we have a choice for the player with two different routes available. We are thinking of adding opening and closing doors to the front of the hangars to make the player think about which way he is going. But for now, we hand the map to our artists to start making some official pieces for us.

We really wanted to do a map on the outskirts of the city where there are lots of airfields. To start we collected up plenty of hangar and runway visuals for reference images. This helped us understand what a play-space might consist of.We found plenty of hangars and runway visuals needed to understand what a play-space might consist of.

Next we generated a wish-list of all the awesome or cool ideas we would like to see in this map.These ideas were generally followed with crazier and more outlandish ideas.

Some of the ideas were as follows:

• I want to race on the runway.
• I want airplanes to take off while driving on the runway.
• I want a bombing run to happen while in this map.
• I want to drive through a hangar.
• I want the hangar doors to open and close.
• I want to have a slingshot on the runway like they have on a battleship.
• I want to dodge a crashing zeppelin while racing.

After these ideas were jotted down, we sat down and decided what was needed for this to be both a racing and a battle mode map.

• We need choices for the player during a race map.
• We need some open space for the player in which to do battle.
• We need some elevation changes for the player.

From all of these questions we came up with our initial design. This basic idea was placed in the level using some of the static meshes from earlier levels to get a sense of scale and how it flows in the game. We liked it, but it needs more work.