Vehicle upgrades in Switchcars:
As you may have noticed in the videos so far, big part of Switchcars is using vehicles in completely ridiculous combinations - skidding trains on asphalt roads, flying forklifts in space, or skiing with boats. With over a 1,000 vehicles and almost 100 different types of terrain, there are countless hilarious and tight situations to encounter. But - now vehicles can also be upgraded, making the variety of potential outcomes explode!
How do upgrades work?
To receive an upgrade, player needs to smash through a green canister, found occasionally on the way. The upgrade will show up in a deck in the upper right corner. Player can have up to three upgrades stacked there.
By pressing Shift at any point, the topmost upgrade will be installed to the vehicle player is currently driving. This will work with any rigid vehicle (only human character and animals can't be upgraded at the moment). Upgrades will alter the vehicle's appearance and performance. You may get a better engine, or make your road vehicle fly, refuel it, or even extinguish fire. Some upgrades give active abilities that you can use by pressing Ctrl, such as weapons, nitro or a grappling hook.
Countless combinations are possible, so if you ever wanted to drive a rocket-propelled car fitted with rail wheels and a laser gun, now you can! My favorite so far has come to be a bullet train on caterpillar tracks - that thing is practical! Here's some more examples:
There are 40 upgrades in the game so far. This is what some of their icons look like:
Upgrades are balanced in a way that they are likelier to appear in final stages than in the beginning of the run, making them more of a "late-game" feature that makes the last couple of stages more exciting.
Nice ! Did you create a new image for each update and each vehicle ? It looks so, and it must have been hard work !
Each vehicle and upgrade have unique graphics, yes - if that's what you mean. There's been a lot of work, but I love doing the graphics :) On the other hand, promotional/business work is the most stressful.
edit: If you mean if I made custom graphics for upgrades per each vehicle, I didn't - same upgrades always look the same on every vehicle, but they are positioned differently on each.
Yep, that's what he meant, an I have to say...
AMAZING, I love to explore each vehicle reaction to each upgrade.
Please, tell me that there's a Clown Car, I would love to see that horn do funny noises :P
I just added it to the to do list :) Thanks for the suggestion!