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Winner of Best Technical Innovation - Freeplay 2012


About the Game

Automation allows the player to become an armchair CEO - to build their own car company from the ground up. Create and run anything from a boutique supercar manufacturer to a mass-market multinational mogul. With powerful tools like the Engine Designer, the player can create cars and their engines in mind-boggling detail.

The grand campaign starts in the year 1946 and runs until 2020, with the main goal being to build a successful, renowned car company from scratch. All types of car manufacturers can be led to success if managed properly; building the right image over the years is key. The player’s tasks are to design engines and cars, to manage factories, production, R&D, as well as advertising campaigns. In game, time advances at the pace the player chooses and pauses automatically for events and occurrences.

Automation is comprised of three major game components - the Engine Designer, the Car Designer and the Company Manager. These components are naturally strung together by the game’s goals, made to be user-friendly and intuitive to use. A multitude of tutorial missions, videos, and descriptive texts help car novices become experts. Almost infinite options give the player all the creative freedom to create unique cars with vastly different engines.



Development

Work on Automation started in 2010 and reached beta stage for the Engine Designer in 2011. A playable, limited-content demo version of the Engine Designer made a debut release in April 2012, with extra-content releases as development progresses. At this point, the Car Designer component is in alpha stage with all major systems already implemented. The Company Manager component was successfully prototyped; this part of the project is still in design phase. Automation has a target completion date of late 2013.

Our goal is to create an in-depth creative experience for enthusiasts, for those who have some technical affinity and enjoy mastering complex and rewarding systems. Priorities are playability, fun, and a high degree of realism. Our philosophy is it‘s better to educate the gamer than to dumb down the game for the sake of mass-market appeal.

Camshaft Software strives to be as open and transparent as possible with development, livestreaming our work regularly and interacting with our community.



Background

Camshaft Software is a Melbourne-based, independent developer with a core team of 4 people:

Caswal Parker - Lead Programmer
Andrew Lamb - Lead Artist
Robert Hoischen - Lead Beta Tester / QA Manager
Jayelinda Suridge - Engine & Toolchain Programmer / Localisation Manager

By means of preorder sales and crowdfunding, part of the team was able to go full-time in Q2 2012.


Key Features:

• Extremely Deep, Technical, Creative – Experience unheard-of creative freedom in a highly technical, realistic gameplay experience revolving around building a car company from scratch. Go ahead and build your dream-car company!
  
• Dynamic World Markets – Master realistically modeled dynamic markets, distribution, and demand. Try to cater to the needs of over 40 different target groups and their needs, or find your safe-haven niche in a cutthroat economic environment.
  
• Flexible Car Designer – Design the cars you would have in your garage. Choose from diverse chassis types and materials, engine placements and drivetrain setups, gearboxes, suspensions, brakes, tyres, and finish off you design with fully customisable body types, looks and styles.
  
• Highly Detailed Engine Designer – Delve into endless possibilities combining different 4-stroke petrol engine configurations, internals, head types, forced induction systems, fuel systems, headers and mufflers. All based on different 4-stroke petrol engine configurations: Inline 3, 4, 5, 6, V6, 8, 10, 12, 16, Flat 4, 6.
  
• Dynamic Engine Sounds - Turn up the volume and blast out the awesome fully adaptive, unique engine sounds that directly reflect your design choices.
  
• Grand Campaign, Scenarios, Sandbox – Aim to dominate the world markets with your superior design skills in the grand campaign, play a quick scenario challenge, or just tinker away in sandbox mode to create the most insane engines ever.
  
• Complex, yet Easy to Learn – While the game is highly technical, it is made easy to learn by means of well-illustrated in-game tutorial videos, detailed descriptive texts, as well as a multitude of tutorial scenarios.
  
• Network Play – Play cooperatively with your friends or take your intuition for the perfect car design and challenge up to 7 human competitors in epic, multi-session network games.
  
• Community – Join one of the most awesome and helpful communities out there, share stories about your exploits, talk to like-minded people, discuss your IRL car projects and engage in community challenges.
  

System Requirements

• OS: Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, or newer
  
• Processor: Dual Core Processor
  
• Memory: 2 GB
  
• Video Card: GeForce 8xxx Series or ATI Radeon HD 4xxx Series
  
• DirectX®: 9.0c
  
• Sound: Direct Sound Compatible

Join the Community and Download the Engine Designer Demo at - http://automationgame.com

Follow us on Facebook - http://facebook.com/automationgame

Check out more videos at - http://www.youtube.com/user/AutomationGame

Read a review of an early public build at - http://racesimcentral.com/2012/04/automations-engine-designer-demo-hands-on-preview/