Do you have the Need for Madness!?!

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Hey guys. While I was in the shower this morning (This is often where my most brilliant ideas are created), I had a thought. Almost 10 years ago, when I was 6 or 7, I discovered the game that would change my life forever:

Need for Madness.

It’s the game that singlehandedly started my obsession for cars and video games. It started out as a free online flash game, but since then, it has evolved. In 2010, it received a sequel, a couple years later, it became a multiplayer online game. It even got greenlit for Steam, and was actually on the Steam store for an extremely brief period of time, but was taken down, and never was put back up. The game flourished from 2012-2014, but in 2015, updates stopped, people lost interest, and the game, well, sort of… died.

That’s where I want you to come in.

While not completely dead, the game has far, far less activity than it used to. We can fix that. I believe that this is a very interesting, and fun game, and could do with a lot more attention than it currently has. But first off, let me tell you a little bit about it.

Now, for those of you who have played Carmageddon before, the premise of the game should seem very familiar. You can either choose to race around a track through a series of checkpoints, or “waste” all the other players by totaling their cars.

However, this is where the similarities end. If you look up towards the top right of your screen, you’ll see two meters. One, labeled “Damage,” is obvious, whereas the one below it, “Power,” is the real focus here. If your car has low power, it will be very slow and not that effective should you choose to try and waste someone. To fill the power meter, you have to perform stunts off of the various ramps and jumps located around each track. This is where it gets interesting. If you don’t have enough power, you could end up losing, but if you do stunts to increase your power, you could end up landing on your roof and getting wasted by someone. Strategy is key in this game.

NFM is free to download and play single player, however, you have to pay $11 per year if you want to play online. My subscription ran out a long time ago, however I’m willing to give it a shot if more people are interested.

Feel free to post any questions or comments you have below.

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Haha! I remember that one. Maybe I should get back to making cars in that one… I shall go for recreating Automation cars in NfM. First up, C-------- S--------.

Edit: The first one would be… Cisalpina Scattante, the winner of Car Shopping Round 18.

I mean, I kinda share Kai’s opinion on this one. It IS great looking. So…I’ve remade it.

Cisalpina Scattante.zip (4.3 KB)

Unpack directly into [installation directory]/mycars. The car will be available in free play mode.

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Holy shit, I think I know what Kai will be playing, and doesn’t really do videogames…

Edit: this looks rad. I must check it out. @Kubboz how do you make cars for it?

Edit 2: okay downloaded, and now I am reading the car maker tutorial. Make simple cars first? Screw that, I’m gonna start with Mercury!!! Just hope this thing runs well on Win 10

Edit 3: awesome it does run. Time to break out the orthographic diagrams again!

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You know, making cars for it is an interesting challenge. You’ve got 210 polygon limit on the entire car, excluding wheels which are generated by the game.

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Yeah for these complicated ones I’m going to have to be careful. Is that 210 for the whole car or just for one half prior to mirroring?

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That’s for the whole car. At least it’s not 210 tris. The simple car tutorial went very “640 kB is enough” on this one, saying…

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fuck yeah I just found that you don’t need each poly to be a flat plane. yes it makes the lighting awkward, but who cares, my model’s way too complicated to fit into 210 polys without at least a little cheating :joy:

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You can see the Cisalpina has multiple of nonplanar polies (some with a shitton of vertices)

Also, next up is a pimped out Scattante, and a van.

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I forgot to mention that the game has a car maker :joy:

But I knew that you guys would figure it out eventually lol

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1988 Storm Courier XL joins the battle. I thought something beefier needs to be in the game as well, and so, here it is.

Storm Courier XL.zip (3.2 KB)

Unpack directly into [installation directory]/mycars. The car will be available in free play mode.

Now, let’s car-combatise the Scattente…

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Damn you’re pro, it took me like two hours to get half the side of Mercury done… 21polys so far.

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Well, to be honest, I do have an advantage in form of 3ds max, so I can just model it with a normal 3d editing interface and then just write the coordinates down, instead of working with a horrid combination of pen, paper, and text 3d editor.

Do you have any WIPs for us?

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I’ll edit this post with what I get done tonight!

EDIT: didn’t get time tonight. I should at least get the rest of the side done so you can see what I’m doing with it.

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I love the interest being taken in this. Have either of you paid the 11 dollars to go online and play multiplayer? If so, I’d love to join in, possibly make an Automation group ingame and have community races and such.

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Not yet, I definitely want to see how I go with the car building first. It’s something I probably am just chipping away for now.

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Sign me up for this. I’m gonna be away for most of next week but when I’m back, I’m getting this game.

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Okay, that’s awesome looking. Gotta try that out sometime soon. Sadly, I won’t be able to go multiplayer (the $11 isn’t the problem, it’s paying for the $11 that would be), but I’ve been having a little fun screwing around in free-play.

Edit: Okay, after screwing around with it a bit in free-play as well, I’ve got to admit, you captured the spirit of it well. It’s not fast and it doesn’t corner particularly well, but it can take and give a heck of a beating and keep going, despite its slower speed. It’s quickly become my favorite for those runs where I need a battle-car versus something fast, and not just because it’s modeled after one of my own lineup. It’s good enough at stunts to loop or roll once on most small ramps, so it keeps the power up well enough, and it’s great for busting up the other racers when the opportunities present themselves.

As such, I’m actually honored you pulled from my lineup for this, and kept it kinda true to form. It’s decent with acceleration, not very fast, handles well enough to get around a track, but it’s very tough and almost like being hit by a freight train.