Little Racers trailer available on GameTrailers
We’ve got our Little Racers Trailer published on GameTrailers. Check it out in HD!
We’ve got our Little Racers Trailer published on GameTrailers. Check it out in HD!
As you probably already know, today the latest update of Little Racers (v1.3) has been released.
Although we would be more than happy to continue working on the game, making more upgrades and adding new features, our time is limited and currently the game is not getting enough sales to justify the resources that would take to improve it. So, if everything continues like this, v1.3 will be the last update of Little Racers.
We’re doing our best, trying to market the game in every way possible, but our resources are very limited and can’t invest money on advertising, specially for such a limited market as Xbox Live Community Games is.
We’ve come up with an idea that could work, but we need some help from our fellow readers and Little Racers fans. To make it simple: You help us promote Little Racers, and we’ll add new content and updates to the game. Don’t be afraid, there’s no money involved in this. All you need to play this promotion game is a Twitter account.
Below you’ll find some of the features that some users have asked for, and some others that we have thought of. Every feature has a cost assigned: That’s the number of tweets needed for the update to be enqueued into our development plan.
If you’re interested in one (or more) of the items, all you have to do is to post a Tweet with the tags #xblcg , #littleracers , and the update you’re interested in. For example, if you’re interested in the “More tracks” item, you could post a Tweet with the text “I’ve played Little Racers and want more tracks! #xblcg #littleracers #moretracks”.
We’ll check Twitter every day for tweets with the #littleracers tag, and update the item count with the new data. Twitter accounts with less than 10 followers will count only as 0.25 points, and those with no followers will not count. This is to avoid creation of empty Twitter accounts.
It is possible to vote for more than one item if you’re interested, at least until we get some feedback on this contest. Of course, the best way to achieve the required number of tweets is by telling your friends about the game so they retweet your vote.
Please take in mind that, even if the item gets enough tweets, it won’t be done right away, it will take some time to develop etc. Also, the required number of tweets could change over time, depending on the impact of this promotion on sales.
Of course, if you have any kind of feedback or idea about this promotion attempt, or some additional items that we could add to the list, we’re more than eager to listen to it.
Thanks for your time,
The Milkstone Studios Team
v1.3 update for Little Racers is available for download. You’ll have to redownload the game since updates aren’t automatic yet in Xbox Community Games.
You can do it directly from this link, or in the Xbox Marketplace in Community Games -> Racing & Flying -> Little Racers.
This is mainly a bugfix release. It features the following improvements:
This is probably the last update of the game in the near future, we’re focusing on 2 new games, we’ll post updates on their development soon. Also we’ll be starting a special promotion attempt on Little Racers soon, so please stay tuned.
The second trailer for Little Racers is now available on Youtube.
We have got feedback from some people, and experienced the problem ourselves too. In some cases, when trying to join an online game, it crashes to the dashboard with a “Code 4” error.
This error happens when the connection can not be established, we’re not sure yet about the reasons for this. Also it seems that accepting an invite when the game is still not loaded also causes a crash.
We’re working on a patch that should treat both errors aproppiatedly and show a message instead of crashing.We’ll try to determine the reason of the failed connections too.
Until the patch is issued, we recommend you to join a game via “Quick connect” instead of “Find Games” or accepting an invite. The quick connect option does not cause the crash, it just creates another session if you can’t connect to an existing one.
We want to thank everyone that is out there playing online, we’ve had lots of fun racing against you.
Finally, after a troubled review, the v1.2 update is available for download. You’ll have to redownload the game since updates aren’t automatic yet in Xbox Community Games.
You can do it directly from this link, or in the Xbox Marketplace in Community Games -> Racing & Flying -> Little Racers.
Remember the changes for this revision. The most important ones are the freezing fix and the incorporation of the Multiplayer mode.
Full Change log from the v1.1 version:
And many other minor improvements.
If you follow our Twitter account, you might already know that the review process is stalled at 75%.
Why is that? The review process for Xbox Community Games (also known as Indie Games) states that, if the game is translated to many languages, each language has to be reviewed before getting accepted. That’s perfectly logical and understandable.
Our game is translated into english and spanish. That means that we need some spanish Premium users to review our game (2 people if we’re not mistaken). Sadly, it seems that not even one spanish reviewer has tried the game since the review started about two weeks ago.
That’s the main reason for the v1.2 update delay (around two months since it was finished).
It’s sad, but it seems that right now there’s no reason to translate our games into spanish, even when it’s free for us since we’re native speakers. It’s not Microsoft’s fault, we agree with the review process, it’s just that there aren’t many spanish reviewers out there. We’re doing our part of the job, and review other games in spanish as soon as possible.
Our apologies for the update delay. We’ll notify you when the game is available as usual. We just don’t know how much time it can take.
A rare error that could appear on race finish has been the reason of failing the update. This issue will be fixed right away, and next week we’ll post the update again for review.
We’re very sorry for the inconveniences.
The long awaited v1.2 update has started peer review process. We expect the process will take around two weeks, after that the updated game should be available for download. Remember, XBLC games don’t update automatically yet, so you’ll have to download the game again from the Marketplace when it’s available.
Full Change log from the v1.1 version:
And many other minor improvements. We’re specially proud of how the game looks and feels now, the gameplay has really improved from previous versions.
We’re currently working hard on the v1.2 update, trying to get it available to you in the least time possible. Some of the improvements that this update will bring have been already discussed here, and some of them have been discussed on our Twitter account.
Anyway, here’s a list of the most important improvements since v1.1 :
This is by far the most important one and also the most time consuming. There is still some work left to do, but we already have a full working version with lobby, championship mode, invites and kicks, host migration, in-game joining (although you’ll have to wait until the next race), etc. Also it has a fairly good anti-lag algorithm that, although not perfect, should be enough to ensure a smooth experience. Also we’ve done some adjustments to ensure fair play, for example cars not following the track path are transparent and can’t crash with other cars.
We have designed dynamic obstacles(one that can be pushed and moved by crashing into it), represented by tires, that add some extra fun to tracks and avoids players to go off track when they slide too much. Almost all tracks have now these obstacles in open corners.
Many gamers have reported a freeze issue that happens often when playing for a while, specially if playing long races with many AI cars. It was due to a memory usage problem that has been located and fixed.
Many complaints have been related with handling difficulty: Cars are way too slidy and most players end crashing on their first turns. We’ve tuned some handling attributes to make the cars handling a grip a bit better, and now cars are slowed more when sliding. That makes an important difference and now the cars are easier to drive ( higher classes will require still a bit of practice )
We’ve also added some extra effects, like intermitent vibration on pianos and outside the track, or the cloud system, and a good number of fixes and minor tweaks to the game menus, audio, etc.
Our estimations are that the update should be available in about 3-4 weeks. Although almost all functionalities are finished now (The only ones that are still not finished are the online mode and many improvements in the menu system), we need to do a proper testing to ensure the game works flawlessly.
Meanwhile, we encourage you to rate our game in XBLCG.info . You’ll need a Microsoft Passport account to do that.