INTRODUCING
WELCOME TO PHASED RACING
13 seconds in the clouds as the music finds its footing. 13 seconds dodging a meteor storm when the beat drops. 41 seconds on an open plain as the melody explodes and threats come from every direction, followed by 35 seconds plunged into darkness, with only the lonely piano strikes at the top of each bar to light your way. All of it driven by the music, and all while racing.
Yes, actually racing.
Braking, drifting, boosting past. First place or GTFO. No fixed lanes. No little rhythm markers to fix you to the music. You decide your speed – the music surrounds you and infuses you. It doesn’t control you.
A SEAR level is a music video in racing game form. Each phase of the level is a human-interpreted reflection of the part of the song playing at that time, and your goal in every phase is first place. The racetrack is limitless, but the phase is timed – when that part of the song is over, your place is recorded and you’re reset for the next phase. At the end of the song, your overall performance is tallied and you get a final placing – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or worse – for the overall level.
Think of it like a whole Grand Prix condensed into a single song’s runtime.
KART-STYLE CONTROLS.
SLEEK ANTI-GRAV VISUALS.
Traditional antigrav racers are notoriously touchy to control and have a steep learning curve. That is a shame, because few gaming experiences can match the thrill of an excellent AG-racer, and we want that experience open to more gamers than ever.
If you know how to drift with a certain plumber or hedgehog behind the wheel, you know how to drift in SEAR.
And if even the word "drift" is scaring you off, don't worry - SEAR has you covered with its Vibe mode.
VIBE, COMPETE, OR BOTH
Maybe it’s Monday morning on your day off and you’re in the mood to put your skills to the test.
Warm up with a little hard mode offline, then dive into online play to compete against the world’s best and take a shot at the leaderboards.
Or maybe it’s Thursday night after a day of getting your teeth kicked in at work and you just put the kiddo to bed. You’ve got 5 minutes to yourself.
Throw on your headphones, choose Vibe mode, and get lost in an audio-visual treat. SEAR’s Lash mechanic can negotiate the tracks’ trickiest parts with ease, or if you’ve really had enough frustration for the day, you can turn off AI opponents and ghost tracking – even the HUD – and just escape the pressure entirely for awhile.
RHYTHM'S BEEN DONE. WHAT'S NEXT?
Music should be enjoyed. It should enhance the experience, like it does while you’re driving or watching a movie – not punish you for missing a beat by .1 seconds. Like a rhythm game, a SEAR level is set to a licensed song; a piece of music that tells a story, with a distinct start, middle, and finish.
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But that is where the similarity ends.
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You can ride the waves of the song you’re in, using them for speed boosts, gunfire, or whatever mechanic your resonator is bringing online. Or you can ignore them entirely if you don’t need what they’re bringing. You’re trying to go as far as possible in the time you have and take first place, not push a certain button within a frame-perfect window.
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If the music grabs you, tap your foot because you want to. Not because you have to.
FANTASTIC, BIZARRE LEVELS FROM THE HEIGHTS OF HUMAN INSPIRATION
Human level designers listen to the songs and build levels around the visions we see. That might be a time-hopping vision of a planetary civilization's last days, a high-speed interorbital transport, a galaxy-spanning trip through a wormhole, or a race along the firing synapses of the human brain. Whatever we hear in the music - whatever the music tells us - that's what we'll design.
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There won't be any algorithms deciding how the music is presented in SEAR. There’s plenty of that out there if that's what you prefer, but we think we can do better by translating human vision into gaming reality.
LET'S
RACE
LAPS
ACROSS
A SYNAPSE
GREAT. SEAR WHEN?
We're on track to have the SEAR prototype finished by the end of June 2025, possibly earlier. That will be released to the public while we polish it up to a full demo state, also free to the public.
This entire project is currently self-funded. To make sure we can bring it all the way to reality, we'll be launching a Kickstarter in September or October of 2025, targeting a Steam Early Access release by the end of this year and a Full Release before 2027.
GOT A SONG YOU THINK WOULD BE PERFECT FOR SEAR? WANT TO TALK LICENSING?
We would love to get some new artists some paid exposure. Reach out at contact@temerity-games.com.​