Matt Small
New Increzible Rez outfit

Beach Buggy Racing 2 version 2025.03.03 is now available, bringing with it a stylish new addition to Rez’s racing wardrobe.

New Increzible Rez outfit
Matt Small
Halloween is back, and better than ever!

The 2024 Halloween event is packed full of treats, no trick! We've got the return of Screamin' Jack, new Halloween Challenge and a special Halloween crate full of goodies.

Halloween is back, and better than ever!
Matt Small
Beach Buggy Adventures: World Premiere

On July 10, join us for the world premiere of Beach Buggy Adventures, an epic 2D animated short that brings your favorite Beach Buggy Racing characters to life in ways you've never seen before.

Beach Buggy Adventures: World Premiere

Ask Vector Unit Anything on Reddit, Thursday 7/18

The Vector Unit team will host an IAMA session on Reddit Thursday, July 18, at 12noon Pacific Time.  

For the first time anywhere we'll be announcing the official launch date for our upcoming game Riptide GP2!  We'll also answer your questions about the game, about our other games, about mobile and console game development, about the trials and tribulations of indie game development, about Android and iOS, about our favorite burritos, about ... well, really about anything.  All you have to do is show up and start asking!  

The offical Reddit names of the Vector Unit team hosting the AMA are:

  • VectorRalf (Ralf Knoesel)
  • VUMatt (Matt Small)
  • TimmUnit (Timm Sewell)
  • Zypherman (Matthew Bryant)

 The post will be from one of these accounts.  Accept no substitutes!

We'll update this with a link to the actual AMA post once it goes up.

See you there!

Bow Before the Hydro Jets of Riptide GP2!

Riptide GP2 offers a ton of awesome new content, not least of which is a whole slew of brand new super-fast hydro jets!  You'll recognize some old favorites in this new trailer, as well as some new additions:

Not only are the new hydro jets more detailed than in RGP1, not only are they faster, but you can also upgrade their performance and customize their look!

Contest Time!

On top of all of this, we're announcing a contest to help us rename one of the hydro jets .. the Spinner. This is one of the fastest jets in Riptide GP2, with kind of a retro vibe to it.  And yet we're not crazy about the original name we came up with...Spinner. 

That's why we're announcing this contest!

We're asking your help to come up with a new and totally awesome name for this hydro jet.  We'll pick our favorite name out of all the entrants, and the person who suggests it will get their name in the game credits, and win a wireless Bluetooth Nyko PlayPad Pro!  And even if your suggestion doesn't get picked, we have nine more PlayPads and PlayPad pros to give out to people who enter!

Contest is open from June 28 to July 5.  See the contest page for all the rules and details.

Good luck!  And may the best name win!

 

Riptide GP2 Development Update: Are We There Yet?

Hi everyone!  We get a lot of questions from people asking us when Riptide GP2 is coming out.  I know, we've just been all mysterious, saying "this summer", or "Summer '13" and people are like, what?  June?  August?  September???

Well.... I can't say exactly, but we're shooting for something in the July timeframe.  Ultimately, what it comes down to is we're going to release the game when we feel like it's done.  

What I can say is, the game is shaping up nicely.  We've got all the new jet skis -- sorry, "hydro jets" -- done. And I'm really happy with them -- they're way higher poly than the vehicles from the first RGP, they have cooler details, there's more of them, and there are some funky new ones that look totally different from the first game.

Also a lot of the tracks / environments are done.  Our goal is to have more variety than the first game, and we totally have that.  Now we're just adding a last couple of tracks and polishing the bejeezus out of the ones we have.

The big piece of the puzzle still being worked on is the progression tuning.  Riptide GP2 has a whole career mode, where you earn money to buy new hydro jets or upgrade the ones you already own, experience points to upgrade your character, and stars (or maybe we'll change that to something else?) to unlock new races and events.  It all works, but we need to play with it more and tune it so the progression and challenge feels good.

And of course there's a lot of general gameplay tuning and polishing.  We are playing multiplayer matches every day at the office to make sure the whole game feels tight and delicious.  

So don't fear -- the final game is not far off.  Just a little more content, a little more polish, and about a month or so of hard work and we'll be good to go!  Stay tuned...

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Vector Unit dives into Google Play game services

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San Francisco, CA – May 15, 2013 — Vector Unit, the indie game developer known for top-selling mobile racing titles Beach Buggy Blitz™, Riptide GP™ and Shine Runner™, announced at Google I/O, Google’s developer conference, that all its games will offer full support for Android’s new Google Play game services starting immediately.

“We love to connect players in our games, but until recently on Android there have been a lot of competing social platforms without a single standout,” says Vector Unit CEO Matt Small. “Google Play game services offer a unifying platform that every Android gamer can join easily, has all the features we could want, and that we as developers can support without worrying about whether it’s going to still be around in 2 years.”

The company’s premium water racing titles, Riptide GP and Shine Runner, and its popular free-to-play “endless driver” Beach Buggy Blitz, all receive updates today that allow users to log in with their Google accounts to earn Achievements, post scores to Leaderboards, and sync their game progress using Cloud Save.

Vector Unit’s upcoming sequel Riptide GP2 is also showcased at Google I/O this week to demonstrate Google Play game services’ real-time multi-player capabilities. Google I/O attendees can play Riptide GP2 this week in the Sandbox on the third floor, and also with NVIDIA, where it’s being shown running with extra graphic features on NVIDIA’s new Tegra 4-based Shield devices.

“Multi-player is a major focus of Riptide GP2,” explains Ralf Knoesel, Vector Unit’s CTO. “Google Play game services provide a robust and easy to use real-time multi-player experience. The elegant invitations and notifications allow players to easily connect with their friends to show off their hydro jet racing skills.”

Riptide GP2 is due to be released on Android and iOS this summer. In addition to multi-player gameplay, the game features a new deeper career mode, player and hydro jet customization, and a stunt combo system with dozens of spectacular stunts.

Beach Buggy Blitz Nominated for 2 Best App Ever Awards

We're thrilled to announce that Beach Buggy Blitz has been nominated for not one but TWO Best App Ever for Android Awards!

Beach Buggy Blitz is nominated for both Best Racing and Most Innovative game categories.  Please vote for us by clicking on one (or both!) of the links below.  Voting is super easy, you don't have to sign up or give your email or anything!

Vote for Beach Buggy Blitz for Best Racing Game Vote for Beach Buggy Blitz for Most Innovative Game

 

Voting is open til May 15, 2013.  Winners will be announced at Google I/O in San Francisco that very same day.

Incidentally, Riptide GP is also nominated for Best Racing Game, so if you really love Riptide GP more you can vote for it, too!

You can find out more about the Best App Ever Awards here.  

Riptide GP2 Interview on Gamerlivetv

At GDC last month Gamerlivetv conducted an interview with Vector Unit's Creative Director Matt Small about Riptide GP2.  Here's the video!

We cover tons of information about the game, including the new career mode, multiplayer, and more.  Check it out, and let us know if you have any more questions of your own we can answer!

 

Fan Club Friday!

It's Fan Club Friday!  Time to give away something awesome to the members of the most elite fan club since the dawn of humankind.

This week we're going to give away codes for free coins in Beach Buggy Blitz!

If you're already a member of the Vector Unit Fan Club, you don't have to do anything -- you're automatically entered!  We'll notify the winners via email at the end of the day (US Pacific time), and will shout out in an update to this post.

If you aren't a member of the VUFC -- what are you waiting for?  Join today, and you can download awesome ringtones, wallpapers, and -- of course -- win fabulous free prizes! 

SIGN UP TODAY!

Free Club Friday Official Rules

  1. Competition is open to everyone 13 years old or older, except for employees or family members of employees of Vector Unit.
  2. Winners will be randomly selected from all registered and confirmed Vector Unit Fan Club members.  
  3. Winners will be contacted by a Vector Unit staff member via the email they use to create their Vector Unit Fan Club account, and will be expected to respond to that staff member within 24 hours, else their prize may be forfeit and another winner selected. Vector Unit’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. 
  4. Winners agree that their name and details of their entry may be used for promotional purposes by Vector Unit. 

Giveaway provided by Vector Unit. Any questions regarding this giveaway should be directed to info@vectorunit.com.