Trails Of Ténéré

I've been lost for a while

Where do the trails lead?

Inspired by Thierry Sabine's story of getting lost in the desert during the 1977  Abidjan-Nice rally. I just couldn't stop thinking how it must've felt to be all alone in a vast empty landscape with no awareness of where to go.

Music by Paws Menu

Follow me on twitter: @nothke for the latest updates on the project

Features (so far):

• Riding simulation is fully physics based. There are no 'fake' forces involved. It's all body shifts, steering, precession and tire-surface forces. ...(ok, ok, the only fake forces are when you put feet on the ground, that's a bit wonky for now)
• 9999999+km² to explore
• Every speck procedural
• [SPOILERS]

Please don't block the game if your firewall asks you.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE CURRENT VERSION: the current version can be considered an early alpha. Don't jump onto reviewing it or spreading [much], it will probably be in a good state in about a week after most issues (that I know of) are fixed and some things improved.

Changelog:

a02:

• Fixed [hopefully] a game breaking bug where you would sometimes spawn under the terrain on start
• Added a shorcut icon
• Added the obligatory walking-simulator-zoom-when-holding-right-click™
• Reduced mipmap bias of trails to make them more visible from distance
• Improved and added better tutorial text that explains all keys now ingame

a03:

• Whole new surface model:
  • Surfaces now have varying sink rate, bumps and resistance
• Rider now leans forward for a more natural pose
• Better elbow positioning
• Tweaked surface type distribution
• Halved number of particles when rolling over sand to reduce sudden fps drops

a04:

• Surface calculation now runs at 400hz, just like wheel physics, independant of framerate
• 3rd person camera will not pass through ground anymore
• Game now checks if your GPU supports shaders and shows a message that you can't play the game :'(
• Last active trails will now be uploaded when quitting
• Fixed an issue where it was theoretically possible to fall of the edge of the map when in walking mode (albeit after walking for several km), because the 'walker' was not set as world tracking target.
• You can now nicely dismount the bike (till now the only way was to fall off). Press space when the bike is still to dismount.
• Tweaked handlebar holding distance to prevent arms from snapping
• Hands do not have completely fixed rotation any more. They now rotate around the handlebar correctly in relation to the body.
  • Also right hand applies the throttle now
  • Needs more work tho to solve rotations around vertical axis
• Introduced glithces:
  • Elbows sometimes make impossible movements
  • Bike can fly off sometimes when being raised due to surface sink

a05:

• Fixed a critical error where the wheels would sometimes get stuck in the air as if they were on ground
• Updated bike 3d model and textures, higher poly and with many new details, like.. the tires have actual treads
• Working speedometer and tachometer
• Optional tessellated ground rendering. It is a performance hog, but it looks much much better.
  • It is experimental for now because of some visible seams in the distance.
  • It is also a bit different then the classic
  • To run the game with tessellation, set the quality level to "Tessellated Ground (Experimental)"
• Improved dust particle generation, dust will not be as discontinuous on low fps
• A few minor optimizations

a06:

• Occasional thin stripes of gravel on the seams no longer appear
• Fixed a bug in surface resistance calculation that would cause the bike to sometimes violently jerk

a07:

• The wheels now have 'volumetric' motion blur
• Ingame menu, can be used to set FoV, and toggle wheel motion blur and dust for improved performance
• Fixed an issue with collision between player and wheels that would cause the bike to fly into space when trying to mount or dismount
• Bike breaks are now held while rising the bike so it doesn't roll downhill while attempting to mount
• Fixed a bug where pressing space multiple times during ragdoll-walking transition would teleport you to the bike
• Improved dust particle rendering - now translucent on the back side
• Reduced dust particle spawning on collision fivefold, it was unnecesarily generating too much particles that choked performance
• Intro help text no longer gets interrupted by mounting bike
• Temporary: The color grading is always yellowish, it never switches due to implementation of the menu. Will be improved later.