I started developing a racing game back in college, before finals and my first job post-graduation took away my focus. I decided I would like to get back to this project and attempt to flesh it out more. Let’s recap what I have done so far:
The idea behind the game is to be an arcadey representation of a popular global racing organization. I want to have a career mode that plays like a combination of a sim-cade racer, tycoon management game, and a visual novel. You start as a new team and have to work your way up the rankings to gain sponsors, which can be applied to your livery and earn yourself more cash to upgrade your car and facilities. You’ll face off against a unique rival character for each track, with the story between races playing out like a visual novel, with dialogue boxes and 2D characters with static poses for different emotions/reactions (think ace attorney). Some light team management mechanics like hiring different employees could also be interesting.
The current state of the game is a pretty good base. I’m using Chaos Vehicles from Unreal Engine for vehicle physics, which is able to be tuned to your liking to get a good mix of sim and arcade physics. I have basic AI drivers that can have different experience levels, which changes how closely they follow the racing line, how good they are with the throttle and brake, and how well they avoid collisions. I have a good-enough solution for replicating the physics vehicles for at least a 2 player co-op, potentially more, based on entity interpolation. (although epic released a beta feature that may make this unnecessary, worth exploring).
Things I will cover in this blog (not a comprehensive list):
- Concepting, Designing, and Implementing the UI/UX
- Building out the various game modes (GP, Sprint, Time Trial)
- Starting work on the Career mode
- Refining the art style
I plan on posting to this blog once per week to update my progress, going into various levels of detail depending on the topic. The first week