~/MACHINES/UPDRAFT · HOVER CAR

UPDRAFT

A hover car's engines, flown through Chongqing in 2077, a city grown like a megastructure. Every place you fly, you see.

Five places to fly: the stacks, down the shaft, the hollow, the undercity, the wastes. Seven cars to fly them in. Demie takes you round in the tutorial.

It began on the OP-XY, as the drone of a hover car over a wet city at night. On the desktop its sound is still being made.

THE PLACES

Five places, each its own world, with a wipe to black between them, as if the car had dived through a gap into somewhere else. The car holds the centre of the frame and the city moves past it.

THE STACKS · NIGHT COURIERThe megastructure's lit walls, no two alike, with Chongqing far below and lanes of traffic, white coming and red going.

DOWN THE SHAFT · CENTIPEDEAn enclosed shaft: lifts running, giant fans turning, vents breathing steam, a column of light falling from far above, and ribs to fly through.

THE HOLLOW · GUNBOATThe biggest space inside: districts hanging from the ceiling on kilometre-long cables, cable cars between them, a sea of cloud below.

THE UNDERCITY · PATROL VANLow, close and red: noodle stalls, shutters, vending machines, laundry and cable overhead, steam, and a wet street mirroring it all.

THE WASTES · INKWELLOut past the edge of the structure: an orange haze with the sun in it, ruined towers, dunes, and wreckage.

THE CITY

Chongqing in 2077, grown into a megastructure. The scene is dark, so the light is what you see: a ceiling of structure where the sky should be, colossal walls each lit its own way, lifts running up strips of light, floodlights washing up the faces, red warning lights up the edges, bridges across the void.

Like a real city, no two buildings are alike: walls in six forms, towers with six rooflines, rooms hung out over the void, and now and then a column of writing running up a face like a ticker. Underneath, the mountain city: stacked towers, tiers hung with lanterns, red neon in Chinese, the monorail, fog.

In the concept, what passes is drawn from the sound's own events: columns tearing past nearer than the car, girders overhead, bridges below, other cars crossing the frame with their lights.

THE CARS

Seven to fly. INKWELL is drawn from an ink sketch of Lucius's: a long low nose, a two-window canopy set well back, one huge wheel at the back under an arched fender, a small one at the front. The other six, NIGHT COURIER, CENTIPEDE, PATROL VAN, BASTION, WARDEN and GUNBOAT, are drawn by hand the same way, in the picture's own ink. Each gets its own lights: a slit headlight, a red tail bar, thrust and red glow underneath, a beacon on top.

THE WINDOW

Updraft's window in the concept: the picture, the report strip under it, and the control panels — THE CONCEPT'S WINDOW · NO PLUGIN YET

The picture on top, in 2-bit or 4-bit. Under it a report strip: thrust, airspeed, altitude, the route, the notes held, the last car that passed. Then the controls, in panels that scroll: flight (thrust, speed and the car), the engine, whine and roar, music, traffic, the route and its space, and the layers. Hold notes and the engines play them.

These are the concept's controls. The sound is still being made, so there's nothing to hear yet, and they may change with it.

DEMIE

She's never in the picture. She's in the tutorial, at the controls, seen from the passenger seat: a black suit, flying headgear with a small red eyepiece, the car's insides around her. She flies you round all five places.

captures: the city's engines, overhead
screen: Chongqing in 2077, in 2-bit or 4-bit pixel art: five places, seven cars
sound: in progress
began as: an OP-XY prototype
formats: VST3 · AU · CLAP · standalone · Mac; Windows and Linux in beta
status: coming soon
price: pay what you want, when it's out

COMING SOON