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Original post by Pxtl First, make the gameplay focus on player interaction, not on the course itself. The course is of minimal importance - what matters is sucking yourself into other player's jetstreams, ramming them into walls, tricks like that. Thus, the featureless ubiquity of the course is irrelevant.

I think these are great ideas, and I'm all about seeing a third game in, for example, the Interstate series, but it's not what I'm interested in discussing in this thread.

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This is why one of my fave racing games is an obscure half-life mod called Turbo. The tracks are dead simple-the focus is on obliterating the other racers. Same goes for Tread Marks (too bad the game is simply too clunky to enjoy).

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll be checking them out asap.

ld

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Original post by Jotaf Also, don't just make it random. You need to make it sensible somehow, because if for example the width of the track is constantly changing between 2 extremes it will get really frustrating. (...) Right after the visible area of the track, you're basically laying down bricks, constantly creating the path for the player to race on (likewise, the track behind the player gets destroyed). No matter what method you're using to represent the track, you'll need to create one "horizontal" line at a time.

In the case of SunRacers specifically, sometimes the player wouldn't have any track to race on (they are, after all, playing daredevil games here) - but they would, at least on early levels, have a way to get through the race. For the general case, however, this is spot-on - the only problem I can see is defining checkpoints. Maybe you could use a particular set of "signature blocks" to show progress towards checkpoints in this kind of setup, so the player always has some kind of feedback on how far they have to go before they get to relative safety. I always found this to be the most interesting part of the Rush games - when the tracking to the next checkpoint came around, it would always push me to be that little extra bit exact about how I shifted & applied the pedals.

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There's another problem... how do you make sure there's a track that can be travelled on?

This is the reason I suggested powerups in the first place, actually. Sometimes there wouldn't be any track to race on, and you'd have to use the extended set of tools at your command to extend your life long enough to get back to relative safety.

The more I think about this, the more I start to see the point Estok was making about tricks games - to some extent, there's an argument for making the game more about making mad moves than racing. I still think there's a richer idea available, but at the moment I can see where it would be fitting to give points for some trick behaviour as well as straight-up racing prowess. Maybe Jotaf's idea of "unlocking" your machine could come into play here, so you could get powerups directly from performing tricks. Hmmm.

Keep it comin, folks! I'm starting to see visions of how this could actually be made into a reasonably fun game...

ld

There was a hoverboard game for the Playstation 1 where you gained "confidence" from doing stunts, and lost it from wiping out or hitting walls. Confidence let you go faster. Was a good premise, but some of the tracks were frustrating and there was no player interaction beyond ramming.

I think it was Streak: Hoverboard Racing.

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Original post by Pxtl I think it was Streak: Hoverboard Racing.

This leads me into what will probably be my last question before I give up the ghost for this topic:

Can you think of games that fill this niche, either in setting terms or play style?

Games that seem similar to me include Wipeout, F-Zero, Hi-Octane, and the aforementioned games - Hydro Thunder's sequel (still can't find this game - anyone know what the name is?) and Streak - Hoverboard Racing, Driver, Tread Marks.

What else has been done in this idiom?

ld

Edit: Forgot some games

[Edited by - liquiddark on July 22, 2004 3:34:23 PM]