Modification for Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas, that completely transforms gameplay into old-school Need For Speed racing games.
Available as free-to-play multiplayer server on Multi Theft Auto platform.
A Brief Story
My first real and so far the most advanced project, that started in 2015 and set my career path to become a professional game developer.
NFS:SA is kind of reimplementation of good, old Need For Speed racing games (especially Underground 1/2 and Most Wanted) inside famous GTA:SA game on multiplayer platform called Multi Theft Auto as a free-to-play server.
Such idea was unique within entire MTA:SA platform and quickly became popular. In just few days after release in 2016, server reached over 200 CCU and community had started establishing. Also, many volunteers were ready to help with development and officially NFS:SA Team formed.
Although in 2023 server is still alive, its’ best time is over. Within all these years server got tens of major updates, over 300,000 registered in-game player accounts and achieved 800 CCU in peak, which was one of the highest value in the history of Multi Theft Auto servers.
In 2020 due to university and lack of time, I’ve offically retired from being head of the project, passing my role to other developer – Orbacle.
Fully hobbyist project created as a child in my free time after school. Created and still developed only by true players for true players.
100% passion for games, 0% business.
In reality, NFS:SA started much earlier – in 2012, as a failure.
I was there in mid-school and as a child I was already big fan of old Grand Theft Auto and Need For Speed games. When first version of Multi Theft Auto came out, I was spending most of my time playing on different race servers. However, all of them were very simple and generic server, always missing something.
That’s how idea of bringing more NFS-like experience to the MTA platform came out. Yet same year I’ve released very first version of NFS:SA. Unfortunately, due to lack of technical knowledge, advertisement and content, server died few months later and never reached more than 20-30 CCU.
As a high-school student with much better programming skill, I gave NFS:SA a second chance in 2015 and it was one of best decisions in my life. In 2019 first NFS:SA has been
launched from archive files as time-limited event server, called NFS:SA Classic.
Under The Hood
Core gameplay is based mostly on small races with up to 4 players. Exception are time-limited tournaments with even 12 players per race.
Players can compete each other not only in classic race modes like sprints or circuits, but also test their skill on drift, drag, speedtrap, time-trials, challenge series and more.
In free ride mode you can meet other players, play duels, collect diamonds, search for hidden easter eggs or take part in police pursuits.
There wouldn’t be good racing game without car customization. NFS:SA achieved tuning possibilities on a whole different level, that original GTA game has never seen.
Tens of carefully selected original GTA cars, prepared with hundreds changeable body parts that are kept in same and consistent visual style.
Because it’s not a game but rather a modification, whole this thing would never be possible without features that MTA platform can offer – uploading custom 3D assets, rendering API and solid networking base. In practise, you can treat NFS:SA as a whole new game but built on top of existing one.
Years of work, tens of thousands of lines of code and large scale of project gave me very valuable skills in game development, that I still haven’t fully used in my professional career after NFS:SA:
- code architecture and general programming
- databases
- networking
- memory management
- rendering, textures and custom shaders
- optimizations
- security
- predicting future problems at early stage
- project leading
I’m only a tiny programmer.
NFS:SA would never be possible without great community and help of volunteers, especially 2D and 3D artists who donated their work to improve server.
We all together have created awesome place to play.
Special thanks to all – there is too many of you to mention everyone 😉
Gallery
