In Acodeon’s upcoming car combat gameChaos on Wheels, players select a vehicle of their choice and modify it to their heart’s content, customizing not just its appearance but also a multitude of weapons and armor that can transform the likes of a simple sedan into a vehicle of sheer mayhem.
Despite similarities with popularvehicular combat games likeTwisted Metal, gameplay inChaos on Wheelsspices things up with more weapons, environmental hazards, and even turrets as opponents. Dominik Čondić, Art Managerof Acodeon, recently spoke to Game Rantabout the development ofChaos on Wheels, from its humble beginnings as a side project to overcoming various hurdles across its development cycle.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Q: Can you tell us more about yourselves and the Acodeon Team?
A:I’m Dominik Čondić. I’m currently 25 years old, and my role inChaos on Wheelsis basically art. I can’t say just one role because our core team is only three people, andChaos on Wheelsis a pretty big game - so every one of our members has perhaps up to five roles. My role is art and everything related to it from the environment levels to social media, such as making images and videos. The second member of our team is Aron Gašpić (Lead Programmer), who is our programming guy who does everything about the mechanics. We have a third member, Mislav Čondić (Environment Artist/Level Designer), who mostly does level design as they take a lot of time to make.
Everything started back when we were kids. Aron and I went to the same high school, and we were all gamers. We three loved to play games as kids. We went to IT school, so pretty much all our classmates knew games or had been gamers. Back then we talked a lot about games, and when we got older we started talking about how awesome it would be to build a game of our own - to take parts you like from one game, find things you didn’t like about other games that you can change, and eventually make your perfect game.
When Aron and I went to college, we were also working and didn’t have much free time. We still wanted to do something on our own, and that’s when Aron discovered Upwork where he can work for other people besides doing college. He saw there was a big opportunity to work for other people in the IT sector. This was around the time when we started talking more about building something of our own. That is when we started to get into game development since Aron is really good at programming and I can do art.
This is the point where we started to studythe Unreal Engineand get to know how to really make a video game. As we started learning more and more stuff, that’s when we also worked for clients and made money. Because we can’t do college, work, and side projects all at the same time, we decided to drop out of college and make our own company by working for our clients. We can make money and then put all that money into our project, which is nowChaos on Wheels.
Q: Can you give us a brief background onChaos On Wheelsand what it’s about?
A:I prefer to say thatChaos on Wheelsis a car combat game rather than avehicle combat game, because we don’t have helicopters or tanks, and all we have are cars. However, we really want to include the community in our development and check feedback to see what people really want. If the community eventually wants helicopters or tanks, we might be able to do it!
InChaos on Wheels, you start in the Chaos Garage where you’re able to build your car. It has five slots for five cars that you can modify however you like. In the beginning, you’re provided with only one car and low-level basic armor and guns. As you make progress and gather more money and experience, you level up and unlock more equipment like new armor, guns, bullets, and especially cars. By then, you can use the garage to build your car into whatever you like.
After you make your dream car, you can prepare for combat and the “chaos” part of the game. Apart from the Chaos Career where you make progress in the world on your account, we have the campaign which is the story ofChaos on Wheels.
Q: How did the team come up with the idea ofChaos On Wheels? When did you start development on the game?
A:We startedChaos on Wheelsalmost three years ago, back when we were in college. It wasn’t like we wanted to buildChaos on Wheelsimmediately as we were still learning at the time. Back then, we had a side project that was afirst-person shooterand that’s when we learned much more about the Unreal Engine.
And when we talked about what actual game we wanted to build, I remember back when I was a child IplayedTwisted MetalandCarmageddonand loved them. Today, you haveCrossout, which is a vehicular combat game but doesn’t have much car combat. As you know,Crossouthas crazy vehicles. That’s when the idea came up: let’s put guns on cars and let’s destroy stuff!
At first, we did the cars and the guns. Afterward, we did static turrets that shoot with guns, and you have to drive and shoot them back. That was the prototype for our game, and we liked it. However, we wanted the game to let us fight with other cars since it’s kind of repetitive when you just hit the static turret.
So we put more time into it. After Aron did the AI for the cars, you can now drive around the map and bots are going to fight you as well as turrets. And from that point on, we moved to the Chaos Garage, the Chaos Career, and the rest of the story.
Q: How didTwisted MetalandCarmageddoninfluence the development ofChaos On Wheels?
A:Twisted Metal, just by itself, was an awesome game. Just driving and shooting feels awesome, even if I didn’t get to play all the sequels. However, back when I was a kid, I rememberplayingTwisted Metaland seeing that you couldn’t upgrade or change the car however you liked. You just pick the car and drive on missions.
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I thought it would be awesome not just to pick a car but also to build one that you use to fight. So we took the drive-and-shoot mechanics fromTwisted Metal, butwe expanded that so you can choose a car and build it however you like. In the Chaos Garage, you can change the color of the car and the wheels and go to combat.
I also love a feature inCarmageddonwhere you can drive and “punch” other cars to destroy them. It’s not yet implemented in our game, but we would love to have that in the future. We were thinking, what if you have in front of your car some big weapon, and when you “punch” other cars, you tear them apart? We’ll wait for player feedback and check what people will want, and then we’ll see if we’re going to implement this feature or not.
Q: I’ve read the synopsis of the game’s plot on your team’s website. What inspired the team to pursue the “Evil AI” route regarding the story?
A:One of the inspirations forthe story wasAvengers: Age of Ultron. We were thinking about the background of our story and imagined a future where some AI got out of control and controlled humanity, and this became the main boss of the game. You’ve got to build old cars to fight the main villain of the story, which is Helios, as he himself has a big truck with a lot of guns.
He also has bots such as futuristic cars that serve as his army. Since he’s a super-intelligent AI that works with electronics, you can’t use electronic devices to fight him. This is why you have to use your old cars like what we have in our game and put guns in them before going to fight the artificial intelligence.
Q: What are your thoughts about players becoming aligned with Helios?
A:We were thinking about this and, at the moment, no. You’re just the good guy, the AI is the bad guy, and you have to fight him. However, as I said, if players are really into the story and want more of it, or if they want to choose to be good guys and bad guys, then we will build it.
Q: Self-driving cars are becoming a much-awaited tech in the auto scene - did the team ever consider including similar concepts in the plot?
A:We were thinking about implementingself-driving cars like the Teslain our game, but we didn’t have much time to do it. Perhaps in the future, we can also add the Batmobile and other popular vehicles.
Q: Is there a canonical protagonist among the riders/cars that players could use?
A:No, we actually have ten characters and ten chapters in the story, where every chapter is played by one character.
Q: What were your considerations when choosing the kind of vehicles to feature in the game? What are “must-haves” for a car to fitChaos On Wheels?
A:You have to protect the world and the main enemy is artificial intelligence. This means you can’t use technology and some crazy cars. We have to use modern cars we’re using at this time, like ones from Audi,BMW, and other similar vehicles.
Q: Can you expand on the design of car customization options? How did the team decide which weapons/armor/gadgets to include?
A:We have a lot of mechanics in our game:
You have the car, which is the base, and the vehicle you’re driving. At the top of your car is the main gun that contains bullets and rockets. You’re shooting bullets with the left mouse button and your rockets with the right mouse button. At the front of your car are two guns. You can’t aim with them, but they will shoot where the car is driving. You use the control button to fire those bullets.
With Q, you are firing homing missiles that track the closest enemy. Meanwhile, with X, you can choose whether you want your missiles to track turrets or other cars around the map. With C, you can change the camera. One angle is further from the car so you have a better view around the map, and the second camera is closer to the car.
There are also a lot of pickups around the map that spawn again after a cooldown. you’re able to regenerate your armor or your health with these pickups. You also have a Driver Ability which you can use with the Shift button, where each of the 10 drivers has different abilities. For example, we have one racer guy who has Nitro, so pushing the Shift button will let you gain Nitro. Meanwhile, we have a guy with a shield, so when you press the Shift button, you get a shield around the car. There are pickups that also refresh Driver Abilities.
Once you arrive at the map, Helios sends his army at you, and one of his main guys is this big blue truck. Let’s say you have 15 minutes to finish all the turrets on the map. If you don’t finish in 15 minutes, you’re not going to fail. However, Helios’s main guy will come to the map, and you also have to fight him to finish that chapter.
Q: Can you walk us through the development of the combat system inChaos On Wheels? How did the game’s mechanics evolve across the development cycle?
A:We have many more ideas, but right now you have your Health which is the car, and the Armor which is the protection around the car. As you play and as you lose Armor, your armor also falls apart from your car. We were thinking of improving this mechanic so that if you shoot at a specific part of the car, you’re shooting just that armor, and you may take it off. That way, if you shoot the side of the car that doesn’t have the armor, you’re now shooting at their base Health and can basically kill them without destroying their whole armor around the car. This is also on our to-do list, but we also want to hear what players want.
We also have Special Rockets. When you use the right-click, you just shoot Normal Rockets. But around the map are Special Rockets that have special functions. For instance, you have the Focus Rocket that travels really fast and, when you aim at something and shoot, you’re 100% sure that you’re hitting the target. Then you have the Nuke which is harder to aim, but if you get the target you also deal huge damage. You have Arcane Rockets which has awesome effects, and another one is Toxic. We’d like to expand those Special Rockets, but for now, we only have four.
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We would also love to expandcar customization. Sometimes, when you go to playChaos on Wheels, you end up one hour in your garage just making your car and go play 15 minutes in combat. This makes car customization and big thing, and we want to expand this more. We want to be able to add decals like flags from your country, and we want to add more armor. If possible, we want to add armor customization and not just car customization.
We’re satisfied with how the game looks right now, but there’s a lot of room to improve and a lot of room to add new features, and we’re hoping we’ll be able to do all of them. We’ll have to wait and see how it all ends up.
Q: Vehicular combat games usually focus on car versus car fights. What led to the inclusion of destructible environments and even third-party hazards such as turrets?
A:When we prototypedChaos on Wheels, we firstdid the car and added guns. And then we wanted to fight with someone. However, at the time, Aron was still learning, so it was easier to build a static enemy that only stood in one place and shot at you. It was easier back then. Later on, we added more cars that drive around the map, as it’s fun to fight with the other cars and not just the static turret. However, since we already did the turrets, we had them implemented in our game. It’s much more fun if you can fight not just cars but other stuff on the map as well.
We’re also thinking of expanding combat. Right now, they’re just static and have a defense system where there’s a chance that shooting a rocket at them will reflect that missile back. In the future, we’re thinking what if you can destroy just one part of the turret so it can’t shoot anymore.
We tried a bit of this in the campaign. There’s a snow map which is pretty cold, so turrets can get frozen. Helios built these mini-generators that heat the turrets. When youplay that map, you don’t need to destroy the turrets, just the generator. Once you destroy that generator, that turret is frozen, so it can’t shoot anymore. There are other stuff in the campaign where you have to do certain things. If players like our turrets in Early Access, then later on we can expand the battle with them much more.
Q: How did the team ensure balance in terms of vehicle performance and weapon performance, especially with environmental hazards involved?
A:There’s a lot of stuff and a lot of variables that needed to be adjusted, and we spent a lot of hours just playing the game and doing playtesting. We got to a point where we were satisfied with the current balance of the game so far. However, someone who has never played a vehicle combat game might find the game challenging. We’ll have to see from Early Access if we have to tone down the game to make it a bit easier or leave it as is.
Q: What were some challenges that the team encountered when it came to designing/developing the game? And how did you overcome them?
A:When we started our company, there were a lot of challenges as we’re pretty young and pretty new with all this stuff. We had to learn a lot of things.
Back then, we had some freelancers working for us. There are some parts of the game we could do, but it’s much better if we hire freelancers, so we can put our time into other stuff. After all, if the freelancer is an expert in what they do, they can likely do it better than us. This is one challenge, as we have to manage other people working for us. You have to verify you can explain exactly what you need and make sure the job is done correctly, so you can implement it.
Thankfully, this happened without many issues. As time passed, we really got into the development and managing people as well as deciding what we were going to do and what we were going to have freelancers accomplish. However, there comes the marketing - which I would say is the biggest challenge we encountered during development. One year ago, we already had a game that we could play - so we decided, let’s do a bit of marketing. After all, without marketing, you’re not going to sell anything.
So we went and did our own marketing. We did our social media and ran ads on our own. And if I’m being honest, it went terribly. Back then, we had no knowledge of marketing and how marketing works and that was the biggest mistake we made. When we decided we were going to do marketing, we had to do a lot of research on how we could do it. We had to put the development of the game aside to only do marketing, and that wasn’t a good choice.
When we saw that we were not good at marketing, we realized we shouldn’t continue doing it. We decided that we were going to work with clients to make money, do all the development we could, and find some other agency that would help us do the marketing. There weren’t many problems during development, but most of our challenges came on the marketing side.
Q: In your opinion, what’s the best advice you could give players when it comes to building their car inChaos On Wheels?
A:Just think of what you like! Do you want a big car? Do you like a small car? Choose whatever you like and make it look pretty - pick your colors, pick your guns, and just click everything you see in the Chaos Garage and see what happens.
Once you know how to build your car, justbuild your dream car!
Q: Does the team have a favorite vehicle or loadout?
A:I would say my favorite car is Arrow, but you have to wait for the release to see which car is it. Mislav likes Gladiator, which is one of the most expensive ones in the game.
Q: What is your advice for aspiring developers who want to work on their own game?
A:Before anyone wants to do a game or any project, do brainstorming. You should get everything that needs to be done on paper and make sure you stick to that plan.
I can say that one of our mistakes in development back then was that, while we had our plan, we didn’t have the start and the end of the plan. As time went on, we were saying “Let’s do this, let’s add this, let’s change that.” At some point, we got lost and didn’t know where we were going. We implemented one thing, but we didn’t test it. It ended up with some bugs, but we’ve already moved on to another thing.
It all got pretty messy, so we stopped and just took our time. We had a talk about what we’re going to do and how it needs to be done. We decided on dates when things needed to be done, and then started again. Things have been much better since then.
So, for anyone who wants to start something, do brainstorming and set your dates when things have to be done. It doesn’t need to be set in stone, but make sure you got the plan. From that point on, don’t “think” and only “do.”
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Chaos on Wheelsreleases October 20 for PC. It’s currently in Early Access onSteam.
