Amid COVID-19 concerns, Carnegie Mellon University has had to shift to online-only education, and suspended all in-person classes. In accordance with CDC recommendations, all large gatherings have been cancelled or postponed and with them, Carnival and Sweepstakes.

But, even so, Buggy AllStars will go on!

In this post:

• Carnival (and Buggy100) has been postponed
• Buggy AllStars will continue as usual, with some slight modifications
  • Extending deadlines by 1-2 weeks
• Certain features will be impacted
  • Temporarily pivoting away from VR

As of now, I am not sure what we will have to post next week, as CMU works to get everything up and running on Zoom. At worst, there will be a check-in post much like this one. Thank you for your patience, and please stay safe!

Carnival has been postponed

As you might have noticed, the counter on this site has changed: instead of counting down until Carnival, it is now counting down to the week before the end of the semester. This reflects the changes in our development timeline due to Carnival’s postponement.

Although there is no official notice on when Carnival will be moved to, it appears that it will not be during this Spring semester — meaning that the Advanced Game Studio will no longer be developing for the original April 17th deadline.

But, even so, Buggy AllStars will continue development, and the Advanced Game Studio is still hard at work!

Of course, some things will change

In order to ensure that we can release a functioning game, we’ve had to come to terms with a few major pivots. For one, Buggy AllStars will not be a VR game at the end of this semester. Due to the shift to online-only education and nation-wide social distancing efforts, it would be very difficult to sufficiently playtest and develop a satisfying VR experience (not to mention, potentially unsanitary).

Instead, we are looking at creating an “arcade-style” release, which will use or re-purpose all of the art and mechanics created so far. In other words, Buggy AllStars will release for PC and not require a VR headset to play.

Additionally, we are looking into building the game using WebGL, a JavaScript API which would allow it to run in a browser, online and without any applications or downloads. That way, the public will still be able to play our game at the end of the semester — without having to come to CMU or Carnival to do so — and we would still be able to playtest as usual (more or less).

This arcade-style game will differ from the original VR game in the following ways:

• There is potential to have multiple camera views, ranging from first-person, to third-person, to a “cinematic view” (as in Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption 2)
• Controls will use mouse and keyboard controls, not any special hardware or periphery
• UI will likely be more traditional/non-diegetic, in terms of how it appears on the screen like a HUD
• The player may be given more freedom to drive around the track, making it into less of a ride and more of a racing game
  • To what extent this would be is yet to be determined, but it is possible that we will allow small collisions and the possibility to turn around on a track
• We would like to encourage a social media component, which would have players share their completion times on a platform of their choice to encourage competition
• There will be no physical setup, since there won’t be an event to set up at
• There will be no spectator view, although it might get re-purposed in the “cinematic” camera view

Of course, this list is not all-encompassing, and we will definitely be running into more nuanced differences in time.

With all that said, I think it’s important to restate the following:

Buggy AllStars will continue

Even though things are changing, this shift to an arcade-style game has another benefit: since first-person controls map well to VR systems, we can continue development with a smaller team next year, to create the same, virtual reality experience that we were hoping to accomplish this year.

In any event, we will be working hard to release a product that everyone on the team can be proud of at the end of the semester, and to make that happen:

We have a new work schedule

For now, it is important to focus on the constraints we are given, and complete what we can in the time allotted. Even though a lot of assets and mechanics can be re-purposed, we are working in an unprecedented time, and that requires a bit of foresight and caution going forward.

So, instead of the original deadlines, everything has been shifted 1-2 weeks out, giving the development team more time to work in the above changes, and allowing for the inevitable complications that come with remote work and global events.

Specifically, these are the new deadlines:

Deliverable	Date	Description
Alpha	March 27th	Functioning Mouse&Keyboard controls WebGL build Resume playtesting
Beta	April 10th	Playable game with main mechanics Complete race, from start to finish Game states (start menu, pause/end screen) Early UI Early tutorial
Final	April 24th	Finalized UI and Game States Controls have been tuned
Post-Polish	May 1st	Additional playtesting tweaks Addition of any missing assets Bug fixes

Looking ahead

As mentioned earlier, I’m not entirely certain what we’ll have to report next week. CMU is going through a tumultuous time right now, and the Advanced Game Studio is no different. Students across the campus are getting used to attending classes and meetings via Zoom, and some students don’t even have access to their usual computers.

Still, if at all possible, we will have a post up at the usual time explaining the design changes that we will be pursing over the coming semester, how we’re meeting the challenges imposed on us by the new situation we’ve found ourselves in, and any other progress that is made in the interim.

Until next time, stay safe out there and see you soon!