Speedrunners are known for pushing games to their absolute limits, and that's what TurBot's developer Jacob Moore hopes will happen when his game releases later this month. As a first-person racing game with uncapped speed, the potential for speedrunning in TurBot is nearly limitless. By air strafing, wall running, and using other parkour moves, the player will build up speed that propels them further toward the goal. This is bound to make some speedrunners' ears perk up, and it will provide a unique opportunity to break and finish the game in record time.
Something that Moore wants to make clear is that he believes there is no better time for indie solo developers than right now. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that took up most of 2020 and extends into 2021, Moore was able to learn how to use Blender to 3D model for animations and high-quality memes. From there, he realized he could learn how to use Unreal Engine and make the game that always lived in the back of his mind. In less than five months, he was able to create a speedrunning game that will challenge players. Game Rant spoke to TurBot's developer, who says others can do the same thanks to all the accessible resources out there. Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: How did you first get into gaming?
A: I think I was four years old. My first video game ever was Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation. I was a Sony kid growing up. But you jump from Sony kid to where I’m at now, to just PC only.
I started with Crash Bandicoot and then I played a lot of 3D platformers, which I think was just the style of the time. It was a lot of Sony mascots that were 3D platformers like Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, and Jak and Daxter.
Q: What made you want to develop a game?
A: The idea of building a game is something that has been in the back of my mind for many years. But I’ve always been really busy working and handling things, so it never kind of stuck. It’s never something that I’ve actively sought out. Then 2020 happens and suddenly everyone has a lot of free time, right? So I’m over here thinking, what can I do with all this free time I suddenly have?
The first thing I did was pick up Blender. I started learning 3D modeling, just self-taught using resources online and stuff like that. The only goal in mind was to make high-quality memes and sh*tposts. Eventually 2021 starts, and I’m fairly confident with Blender, so I’m like okay, what can I do with this? I still had a lot of free time so I thought maybe I should try making a game, seeing how that goes. I downloaded the Unreal Engine and just kind of played around with it for a while and eventually everything started to click into place and I was like, “Oh, I can do this.” The resources to do it were all available, so I could just go do it.
Q: Do you like to speedrun games or watch speedruns of any games? If so, what?
A: I really like to watch speedruns, though I don’t speedrun games myself too much. There are two games that I think I can speedrun. One is the first Ratchet and Clank, mainly because I know that front and back. There’s another game that came out called Katana Zero. It’s a 2D pixel sidescroller but it’s very similar to games like Hotline Miami where it’s just one-hit kills. Very similar to that except it’s a sidescroller and you’re wielding a sword.
Q: What are you most interested to see in TurBot speedrunning?
A: Just how many ways my game can be broken. I have another Discord where I have friends of mine testing the game and giving me feedback on it. There are two people in particular that have gotten very good at it and have actually started speedrunning it before release. They always send me clips of them just breaking everything, and my philosophy is if it doesn’t completely shut down the game - if the skip is fun or the break is fun, I’m gonna keep it in. It’s just fun to watch. So long as it still works functionally and what you’re doing doesn’t cause the game to hard crash, I’m okay.
Q: What do you think has been the most challenging part of development as a solo dev?
A: As a solo dev, I have to worry about literally everything. The only thing that got kinda passed off to someone else was the game’s soundtrack. It’s being handled by a friend of mine. I had to deal with modeling things where that year of Blender experience really came in handy. Learning how Unreal functions. I had no experience with game engines until five months ago.
It’s been a very quick development process. Unreal has this thing called a blueprint system, which is like visual scripting. I don’t know a single line of code. The whole game was built on this scripting element that Unreal offers where it’s more like a node-based system. It’s supposed to work as an add-on to traditional code, but if you’re smart with it you can totally just get away with using this and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Q: Can you tell me more about the game’s soundtrack?
A: The soundtrack is being handled by Jon Mohr. He’s been a friend of mine for 13 years now. He’s an indie composer and does a lot of orchestral soundtracks and a lot of metal soundtracks. So when I approached him and said, “Hey, I’m making a game. The theme is going as fast as possible, would you mind helping me out with some mild techno-EDM or something like that?” He’s like, “That’s out of my wheelhouse, but sure.” I’m very happy with the results, he did an amazing job. The music playing in the trailer was his work.
Q: What other games serve as inspiration for TurBot?
A: So many. There are two big ones that I always point to and that’s Titanfall 2 because it’s so good and the movement is so fluid. I still play Titanfall 2 to this day. Its multiplayer is fun as all hell when its multiplayer is not being DDOS’ed.
The other one is Verlet Swing, it’s a small indie game and it looks like a fever dream if you were to look up the gameplay of it. It’s a first-person game and all you have to move around the map is a grappling hook. You’re swinging off things like floating pizzas and hotdogs. It’s visually trippy but it’s very fun to speedrun through. It kinda shares the same mindset where the goal is to get to the end of the level as fast as possible. That was one of the bigger inspirations as well.
Q: What’s the fastest you’ve been able to beat the game?
A: I think I hold the record. If it’s not me, then it’s one of the two people I mentioned earlier. I can run through the base game, which is 75 levels, in about 25 minutes. While I can run through it in 25 minutes or so, that’s not to say there isn't depth or anything that would hold your interest.
I watched somebody play it yesterday and it took them three hours while trying to get all the challenge times, to get through half the game. But they were specifically focused on completing challenge times and stuff like that as they went. I think the average runtime from start to finish would be three hours if you weren’t focused on things.
Q: How does the player build up speed in TurBot’s movement system?
A: The movement system I built is a little weird, it’s kind of a hybrid. You can bunny hop and air strafe at a certain point. You’re on foot, you don’t have any vehicles or anything like that, but you do have power-ups that can help you, like a grappling hook, gliders. Your main source of movement is your legs, you’re just running.
The idea is you can gain speed by bunny hopping, slide hopping like in Titanfall, wall-running, dashing, etc. You can gain speed by doing these quick burst movements and then maintain and slowly build upon that through things that help maintain your speed. There’s no cap on the speed you can gain, so theoretically you could just zip out of the skybox.
Q: What are the dangers of giving the player uncapped speed?
A: Thankfully, in most of the levels, you can’t accidentally get enough speed to just leave the map. It’s something that’s not gonna happen accidentally, you’ll have to purposely go out of your way to do that. The biggest challenge is making sure the game resets when you do that so you don’t just soft lock yourself out of the map. I know a lot of games usually have a speed cap to prevent that kind of thing from happening, but if you can design around it I think uncapped speed is just better. Suddenly the potential for speedrunning is infinite.
Q: Would you like to do more with TurBot in the future?
A: Oh yeah, for sure. I would actually love to do content updates once the game releases. I have an idea for a Halloween-themed world. Assuming the game comes out and anyone cares about it, I’d love to just do free content updates. I don’t think I’ll make a sequel, I’ll probably just keep updating this. The idea right now is that every content update will be free.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
A: If anybody else is in a similar position to me where they’re like, “Oh, I’d like to learn game dev,” I believe there is no better time to get into it than now. All the resources you need are free and available. All the tools, all the knowledge, you can get to it with a quick Google search. It’s amazing the point we’re at right now where someone like me can go from no knowledge at all to releasing a game on Steam in five months.
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TurBot releases on July 30, 2021 for PC, and can be wishlisted now on Steam.