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    Started by Caswal Parker September 2nd, 2011

    Automation - The Car Co. Tycoon Game

Automation On Rocket Hub

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Games

Automation - The Car Co. Tycoon Game

What is Automation?

In the upcoming game Automation you will be placed in control of a newly founded car company starting in the post-war era of 1946. You will be responsible for designing your cars from scratch - from the chassis and the engine to its body styling. Your goal is to meet the needs of different markets and various types of buyers. You will need to research new technology to keep ahead of your competitors and expand your company.

While there have been numerous great racing games focused on the thrill of racing, there have been very few about the cars themselves. This is where Automation is different.

Not only will you get the freedom to design cars that look how you want, but you will also be responsible for the technical aspects such as creating your own engines. Benchmark your creations and watch their components in action while you are provided with realistic specifications and performance figures.
Easy to understand descriptions will help you optimise your car, even without prior car knowledge. 

There have been several car company games made before, but we feel that they never reached the depth that car enthusiasts have wanted.

Who are we?

We are Camshaft Software, a small company with a core of two people; Caswal Parker, the Lead Programmer and Andrew Lamb, the Lead 3D Artist. We are both professionally trained in our respective fields and actively take part in the vibrant Melbourne independent games community.

We also get additional assistance from several people in areas with more specialised skills:

Jayelinda Suridge – Games Engine Programmer -http://jayelinda.com/kee
Bernardo Del Castillo – 2D/3D Artist/Programmer -http://bdelcast.daportfolio.com/
Stephan Schutze – Sound Design/Recording -http://www.stephanschutze.com/

We are both car enthusiasts, Caswal owns a Suzuki Cappuccino, while Andrew has got a Mazda MX-5, and against all probability neither of us are hairdressers! We both do our own mechanical work and modifications, and try to get to a trackday whenever we can.


Current Progress:

In the past 16 months we have developed the underlying technology for the Engine and Car Design features, and can currently design 4-cylinder powered hatchbacks in great detail, from the engine to a completed car. The tools we now have implemented allow us to add content for any real-world car or engine design you can imagine. Even with just this small slice of the game we have had a great response from the car enthusiast community, as well as coverage in various media.


What is RocketHub?

RocketHub is our means of providing initial preorders of Automation. It is not an investment or a charity. It is an exchange: funds from fans and people who want to preorder a copy of the game. These preorders are used to fuel the development of the game, allowing it to be completed much quicker and to a higher standard.

Other games such as Natural Selection 2 and Minecraft havesuccessfully used similar preorder models.


Why do we need your help, and what would we spend your money on?:

While we spend almost all our free time working on Automation, progress is still slower than we would like as we still need to work day jobs to cover our living costs. It would be a fantastic opportunity to get the funds to allow us to work full time on Automation for the next year. 

Although we are both skilled in our respective fields, when it comes to sound design and 2D graphics design we are no experts. Howeverwe do have access to some very talented people in these areas that do occasional contract work for us, and we would like to utilise their skills more. There are also a multitude of technical costs associated with games development. For example for equipment and software, as well as legal and administrative costs for the company. We want to make certain we do everything right.

If we do not reach our goal, we will still push on to get the game done but it will take significantly longer and some planned features may need to be cut.


Preorder Details:

Preordering allows you to not only save $10 off the final price of the game, but also grants access to extra content once the demo is released. All games and preorders will be distributed by digital download.

We will be releasing the car and engine design aspect as a demo ahead of the game for our community to tinker with and get a taste of what Automation is all about. Allowing people to design, build and share their car designs before the game is complete. 

The demo will be restricted in content (to only 4-cylinder hatchbacks) whereas if you have preordered you will get access to all content as we complete it. As more content is added(for example V8 engines, or convertibles) the preorder price will incrementally be raised until it reaches the final sale price of $30 once the game is completed.


Check out the latest developments: