10 years, blimey.
Ten years ago today, I founded MinskWorks to create Jalopy. What started as a portfolio project to help me move beyond a junior design role has since turned into a decade-long journey in the industry. Funding Thatcher-era life sim, Landlord's Super, and giving way to a whole new dr...
2024-10-14 15:49:39 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm excited for this post because I get to show how we're spending the money you've sent us!
I've been doing a lot of work on fleshing out the customisation of the trucks. In the previous build, players could only modify the truck panels with color. This felt way too basic, so I've now remapped the truck to allow car wraps.
The panels on the truck are broken down into two 4k textures. I'll expose these textures so players can modify them easily and add their own designs. Car wra...
2024-10-07 16:55:33 +0000 UTC View Post
At its core, Honcho is a detailed simulation that captures the intricacies of operating, maintaining and upgrading a kei truck. From the meticulous upkeep required to keep your engine running smoothly, to the ambition of finding the next upgrade. Every component suffers damage, rust and grime. Every part of the truck has stats that affect it in some way.
This much has been made clear already - or I'd hope it has. As we've show cased a lot of the deep interaction and momen...
2024-09-20 14:31:11 +0000 UTC View PostA couple of weeks ago, we shared the damage system in Honcho. Since then, we've been reviewing and tweaking it to get it looking as good as possible. Overall we were quite happy with it but one aspect we felt needed improvement was the damage to glass.
The previous glass damage implementation utilised a transparent texture that would gradually appear over the glass as damage increases. Eventually the glass would "shatter". For this we'd used a particle system to represent the glass sha...
2024-09-12 15:13:29 +0000 UTC View PostThis week I've been working on implementing road conditions to routes, and having some fun with character emotes.
When players select which route they'd like to drive, they'll now need to take note of the road condition. Road condition affects grip and tyre wear, so if you've got a particularly long journey and the roads aren't well kept, you'll want to drive carefully, fit harder tyre compounds, or bring a few spares.
Keiko now has an emotio...
2024-09-06 15:36:48 +0000 UTC View PostSpent the week implementing a new damage system which includes the following.
Panels now deform on impact.
Glass shatters due to deformation.
Parts can fall off when broken.
Greatly improved liquid visuals.
Damage textures specific to the component material (e.g. metal = scratch, wood = chipping, fabric = tears, etc)
I'm not entirely happy with the impact visuals. Having Keiko push ...
2024-08-30 16:00:56 +0000 UTC View PostI have begun implementing spatial audio to Honcho. Here's a video demonstrating some of the new audio behaviour.
Spatial audio reworks how Unity handles audio. Rather than it being only distance-based, with sounds getting quieter the further away they are, this new system calculates size, shape, layout and materials of the world the simulate physics-based audio behaviour. This means when you sit in the cabin of the car, the audio adjusts to your ear...
2024-08-17 19:10:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Development for Honcho lost about two weeks progress as we spent a lot of time driving round Europe visiting family. With that consideration, I still think we managed to get some good output from the month and I just want to thank everyone for their patience during this period.
This discord was able to entertain itself during our absence.
In the world of Honc...
2024-07-17 09:36:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Last week was a slow one. I decided that vehicle rust in screenshots looked poor, so I set out some time to remap the rust distribution on the truck and vehicle components. This took way longer than I anticipated and I'm still not entirely happy with the result. Regardless, I can't keep losing time on such minor issues, so I'm calling it and moving back onto more productive tasks that get us closer to a demo of the game and eventually a trailer.
Another hi...
2024-06-17 16:16:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Decided to compile the work we've been doing into a video demonstration to better illustrate it.
Fluids have had a big rework. They can now be mixed to create different combinations. Meaning you can water down your fuel to try to save money, at the cost of your truck's health.
Main reason for taking the time to add this functionality is because players like to do dumb stuff, so why not let them have their fun. This was a little tricky to get all the interactions working just rig...
2024-06-07 14:06:48 +0000 UTC View Post
I wanted to spend some time going over the engine mechanics after a discord member expressed worry that the game isn't as simulated as they'd hoped.
Honcho's Steam description expresses:
"Take on the Keiretsu and reclaim your grandfather's rightful spot amongst Japan's financial elite. Use your bespoke kei truck to deliver packages, purchase real estate and expand your company to show them you're more than just another Sukeban."
After reading this,...
2024-05-24 10:29:38 +0000 UTC View Post
As explained last week, I've been working on the repair system for vehicle components. I've implemented the first iteration of this system and wanted to share it with you.
During playthroughs, players will either acquire new components with issues that need to be fixed, or simply sustain issues on their vehicles. In this example, the player's radiator needs a new pipe fitted and some nuts and bolts replaced.
The challenge for players then, is acquiring the parts needed for the rep...
2024-05-14 12:12:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi all, just a quick thank you and update on our announcement. I'll probably make this a regular segment.
4 days from announcement and we're sitting on 2504 Steam Wishlist's. We're pretty happy with this number so far considering the caveats.
Launch announcement was delayed.
I forgot the Steam page needs to be approved before it goes public, meaning we ended up announcing on a bank holiday Saturday rather than the plan...
2024-05-07 12:30:54 +0000 UTC View Post
After 1 year of development, we're excited to announce our new game, Honcho!
Take on the Keiretsu and reclaim your grandfather's rightful spot amongst Japan's financial elite.
Use your bespoke kei truck to deliver packages, purchase real estate and expand your company to show them you're more than just another Sukeban.