For the first time players can drive around our entire planet! Travel across real roads at a 1:1 scale with a suite of complementary tools. Offering unparalleled freedom to explore with options to participate in both official and community leaderboards.
Be a street racer, record holder, curious explorer or the course mapper amongst friends; it’s your world to be discovered…
By streaming OSM data through the Overpass API we remove limitations on size to provide a true-to-scale, open world driving experience. Key components are written in C++ and implemented via GDExtension for maximum performance. Quick, secure data streaming is achieved with libcurl whilst coordinates are converted from elliptical (lat long) into cartesian via Vincenty’s Formulae to deliver an accuracy within ±0.5cm.
The world is split into 2.5km2 chunks. Roads are generated along embedded waypoints (true to mapping data) which are bridged via Bezier interpolation (informed by academic resources on computer graphics). Origin shifting around a chunk facilitates planetary scale simulation, eliminating floating point errors and decreasing performance costs.
A curiosity in speed records (from historic cross country races to hypothetical routes discussed amongst friends) inspired the initial concept.
Driven by frustrations with existing games of the genre, I set out to create a genuinely open world experience. Freedom, Community and Competition make up its core design principles.
Currently the game (and most of the code) is available as a working demo by request to sam.zakers@hotmail.co.uk or sam094@zelbgames.com
Want to see the next demo version?
I’m currently working on importing heightmap data so keep an eye out for that post!