Luckee: What are you working on currently?

Donny: The project I am working on right now is Transam, but we are showing NHRA 2 here at Comdex, a game that we just released and put in the stores this week.

Luckee: Is it doing well?

Donny: Yes, it is doing good our numbers are looking really good.

Luckee Is this title pretty much for the racing fans and the Nascar fans?

Donny: Yes, exactly.

Luckee: It’s also for people who didn’t know they were racing fans until they get a hold of this game with a force-feedback steering wheel. This game would make any kid’s Christmas morning. It is awesome. How did you come up with the idea to have the realism with the shaking like you are really in the car. 

Donny: To give you the inside scoop, it was actually an accident. We were testing a force-feedback on some earlier code. We fed it straight in and started working and found out we could do some optimization and get it stabilized enough to pull it into the product. We feel it was a free bonus for sure. We acquired Tantrum last year with NHRA 1 but it doesn’t support feedback. It is like the game just comes alive with that. You feel the shake. We pulled in guys like Ron Caps who is a real world champion drag racer. He thought it was really cool and had a blast with it. 

Luckee: The realism is incredible just looking at it. How did you incorporate force-feedback into the game code? You made that blend together where the force-feedback mixed with the game code gives you the shaking and really makes you feel as though you are sitting in that seat. Are you saying that is due to the both the artists and the code?

Donny: That’s right. We had a lot of physics that we rewrote for. We have two full-time physics engineers in our company that rewrote a lot of the code to make it stable. Then they tied in the force-feedback so that you are really jerky when you are on the line or being staged. When your engine tightens up and you’re running down the strip, the force-feedback vibrates and gets tighter, you can feel the car more forward. We tried to add a lot of sensitivity to make it as real world as we could. In addition to the two full-time physicists we have on staff, there are consultants that come in and help us. 

Luckee: This game is out now, just in time for Christmas?

Donny: Yes it is hitting the stores right now.

Luckee: If I was a store, I would demo this for sure because I know that would make it so a lot of kids would want to buy this game. There’s a pretty good relationship with Microsoft on this one because it kind of goes hand in hand with one of their products and you’ll both benefit from its success. 

Donny: Absolutely. We got a lot of cooperation in the developers’ programs with Intel and they helped us out tremendously and Microsoft did as well. A lot of the distributors for force-feedback wheels and joysticks came along to help us out. So this will really benefit everyone. 

Luckee: Is it just sit down and race one straight-away or is there a career mode option?

Donny: That is something I think is fun about the game. You can just jump in the car and race or you could launch an entire career. You can race every single track that is in the current NHRA season. You can go to funny car, top fueler, and there are real world teams in there as well.

Luckee: There are also real world drivers and options for the cars? Are there real world cars you can choose from?

Donny: Absolutely, you can even do burnouts and it is different depending on who you race against. If you race against somebody like John Force, that guy is tough to beat. He has won, I don’t know how many championships in a row, but you’ll race someone else and the AI picks up who it is and makes them harder or easier to compete against. 

Luckee: Was it hard to incorporate AI into this game?

Donny: It really was. We had to work with existing code, learn what they were doing in the past, and add our new stuff on top of it. So our guys really worked around the clock to get this ready.

Luckee: Are you thinking in the future about having a multiplayer aspect to the game?

Donny: Yes. We are actually in beta right now for our network version. So you can go online, use the java applet to access the game over the Internet anywhere in the world, anytime you want, and you can play anyone you want.

Luckee: Do you expect something like that to be out by Christmas or not until 2001?

Donny: We are in testing with it right now, trying to get it ready in time for Christmas. But I don’t want to give any hard set dates right now. 

Luckee: All the racing fans won’t be able to wait to demo this game. It really looks like a winner. Does this have support for an EAX live soundcard? If I had a digital system could I really hear the burnout in the background, the mufflers and the crowd beside me? 

Donny: Yes, I believe it does. I was not the producer on this project, but I’m pretty sure it does. I’ve heard it with sound woofers and stuff like that and it sounds really fat. 

Luckee There is a lot of realism, I can see the guy’s head shaking around in the car…. Wow. Thanks a lot for your time.