With very pretty graphics and a slick looking vehicle, DRAG is one of the titles you can currently try a demo of during the Steam Game Festival.
From the indie team of two brothers at Orontes Games, DRAG is not your usual simple arcade racer. Using 'deep and challenging driving dynamics', like their 4CPT-technology (4-way contact point traction technology) and every component of the vehicles being simulated (including damage!) it all sounds very promising.
Coming with one single and very short challenge level, it's a small slice of what to expect but it's already quite telling. Graphically pretty, works well on Linux and as with most racing games I'm absolutely awful at it but I can crash around in style.
It's pretty brutal too. Getting to grips with the handling model is a surprising challenge by itself and when the full game is out with online play they're going with a 'out-is-out principle', so there will be no re-spawning and you can drive as dirty as you like and really screw with your opponents.
Here's a quick look at the demo challenge:
Direct Link
Keeping in mind it's obviously not finished, they probably have plenty of tweaks to the physics and driving model to come but it's a lot of fun to try and blast through the little challenge there.
During the Steam Game Festival, they are also running a competition. If you manage to score one of the top 10 times, you will win a full copy of DRAG. It's not going to take you much to beat me that's for sure. A lot of fun to try though.
Try the DRAG demo free on Steam until June 22.
Quoting: DuncOh, yes. First impressions are everything I hoped they'd be. I love the quick, “just one more go” old-school arcade feel to it. And I'm amazed how well it runs on my no-longer-cutting-edge rig. Handling is slightly strange, I'll agree. But it may just be the car.
So come on then... times. Anyone manage a sub-30s run yet? I did a 30.4 and it nearly killed me.
29.515, but i'm not good with controllers :( need my wheel support lol
Quoting: CatKillerI was getting some framerate drops every ~5 seconds that are completely gone running it in Proton.I couldn't make it stutter even by bumping up the render resolution to the maximum 400%. I wonder why it ran so much worse for you?
Quoting: XpanderI just started it up again to see if the controls were actually bad or if I was just tired last night. And got 29.284 on my second run. :PQuoting: DuncSo come on then... times. Anyone manage a sub-30s run yet? I did a 30.4 and it nearly killed me.
29.515, but i'm not good with controllers :( need my wheel support lol
Yeah I guess the handling is not quite as horrible as it felt the first time I tried, but the car still feels more floaty than I'd expect from a 4WD open wheel buggy on loose sand.
Quoting: DuncOh, yes. First impressions are everything I hoped they'd be. I love the quick, “just one more go” old-school arcade feel to it. And I'm amazed how well it runs on my no-longer-cutting-edge rig. Handling is slightly strange, I'll agree. But it may just be the car.
So come on then... times. Anyone manage a sub-30s run yet? I did a 30.4 and it nearly killed me.
29.6XX mine. I'm till trying to get under 29.400 but I don't find the way to improve my performance in the second turn.
Quoting: s0laIt looks really nice, but feels just a bit "lonley" or empty..I bet it feels a little less lonely when they get around to implementing multiplayer. :)
Quoting: tuubiQuoting: CatKillerI was getting some framerate drops every ~5 seconds that are completely gone running it in Proton.I couldn't make it stutter even by bumping up the render resolution to the maximum 400%. I wonder why it ran so much worse for you?
No idea. I might look into it later; testing got subsumed by a four year old seeing how many wheels it's possible to remove.
I'm guessing some kind of CPU stall since the audio skips at that point, too. At all other points, it's perfectly fine, just that stutter.
Edit: So I installed Mango HUD, and it just showed the framerate dropping to 40-ish fps for one measurement every now and then, then back up to 60 for the next measurement. No real change in GPU or CPU load at those points: still low for both. So, I don't know what's causing it.
Last edited by CatKiller on 17 June 2020 at 11:46 pm UTC
I think I can still get it down by 100ms (at least)
Quoting: tuubiHave no doubt it will :)Quoting: s0laIt looks really nice, but feels just a bit "lonley" or empty..I bet it feels a little less lonely when they get around to implementing multiplayer. :)
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