Australian studio Black Delta have announced that their “hyperrealistic, high-speed kart racing” game will arrive in Q4 2015 with Oculus Rift support. What’s more, for it’s Gamescom 2015 debut, the team have a hexapod motion simulator rigged cart plus Dk2 to try it out in.
Racing games are flowing thick and fast to virtual reality. As a logical, seated experience and as tearing round a track at breakneck speeds will always be popular, you can perhaps understand why.
Now, a team of developers based in Melbourne, Australia are bringing the sport of Kart Racing to the Oculus Rift and they’re paying some pretty close attention to the details too. With millimetre accurate, laser scanned tracks Black Delta clearly want you to experience every surface imperfection as you skim the road at up to 100km/h in your virtual cart.
The team appeared on the scene last year, before disappearing into stealth mode – silence broken by this week’s announcement. They first made their mark as winners of the 2014 People’s Choice award at The Big Pitch, a venture capital competition held in Aus. They’ve now closed their first round of funding and have this year made the journey to Cologne, Germany to demonstrate the latest version of KartKraft in virtual reality.
The company’s CEO, Zach Griffin, said of the last year’s events “What an incredible journey it’s been! In 2005, I wrote the first prototype for KartKraft. After 10 years and what started as a university project in Melbourne, Australia, and now to debut the game at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany; it doesn’t get much better than this. Being so fortunate to combine my passions for gaming and racing karts, the vision for KartKraft far exceeded what one man could ever accomplish. Seven months since we launched the studio to rebuild KartKraft from the ground up, we can’t wait to show what the Black Delta team has been working on.”
The team’s Gamescom setup comprises a full size sit-in Kart, mounted atop a Hexapod motion platform and a DK2 – meaning show attendees stopping by the booth should be rewarded with a real treat.
Scheduled for a Q4 2015 release on Steam’s Early Access, KartKraft lets players race karts capable of accelerating from 0-100km/h in 2.5 seconds, with triple the cornering forces of a road car. Featuring laser-scanned circuits from around the world, players can customize their avatar, kart and team with products from FREEM, Alpinestars, CRG, IAME, MIR, Sparco, Arai, Arrow, Monaco and many more.
If you’re at Gamescom this week, head over to Black Delta’s stand, located at Stand A30 in Hall10.1. For more on the game itself, head over to their website, follow them on Twitter or like them on Facebook.
The title is heading for launch around Q4 2015.
