Devlog 3: Prototyping and documents

Another week back at working on Rolling Rascals! Good to have you back. Let us tell you what we have been up to this week. 

Documentation and paperwork were the focus of this week. Yeah, sounds boring, but it is an essential step to keep everyone on task and informed.  We also made some further prototypes and made decisions about the task and workable elements. 

Artbible: 

An essential part is to keep the look of the game consistent regardless of who is working on the parts.  This document includes references,  color and shape restrictions for different elements, as well as plans for RFX, and the UI of the game.   Here is some highlight, to hopefully give you an idea of our game:

You may ask, what is a baby doing in a racing game?
Well. as a toddler, have you ever imagined yourself racing down the street in your tricycle? Or play pretend with an action figure while playing race on the streets?

These toddlers were presented with their first pocket money and decided to race to the candy store. As we all know this is a thrilling challenge in a child's eye. Streets turn into tracks, pedestrians become obstacles, and the world suddenly seems much-much bigger.

The composition of this game is made up of three parts: The back, a hand-painted HDRI. The mid-ground, procedurallly generated buildings. The foreground, the racing tracks themselves. 

Techdoc and GDD

Both the Techdoc and the Game Design Document are far from the most most fun things to make, however, they are some of the most crucial parts in the design of any game. This week we finished both up so we have a clear understanding of how to proceed. We determined many aspects of our game and how we want it to present itself.  Everything from measurements to naming conventions to the target audience has been neatly written down now. 

Now we aren't going to bore you with the naming conventions too much but we'll gladly tell you a bit more about our target audience and the feeling the player should be getting by playing our game.

We prioritize a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience by focusing on top-notch movement controls and animations. Our goal is to create an immersive experience with realistic visuals and impactful sound effects. The game's soundtrack is dynamic and changes to reflect the player's position. We keep dead players engaged with mechanics that let them shoot at other players. To keep the game fresh, we randomize certain aspects, like track layouts and obstacle placement. Our target audience is ages 8-25, but everyone is encouraged to play. The mechanics are easy to learn, with room for skill development, making each race a unique challenge.

Finally, we want to make sure that the game remains engaging and fresh even after multiple plays. To achieve this, we're working on randomizing certain aspects of the game. For example, each time a player starts a new race, the track layout will be different, and the placement of obstacles and assets will be changed up. This will help to keep the game feeling new and exciting even after many playthroughs.

Final prototype build

We have implemented all of our hazard mechanics and included a basic UI that displays the player's energy level and whether they are sprinting or not in our final prototype. The game supports up to four players and can become quite chaotic with that number. When players bump into each other while sprinting, the player who was hit will take damage. Currently, each player has only one HP, which causes them to lose their ball instantly when hit (this is not the intended gameplay for the final version). Falling off the map results in instant death, and the objective of the game is to prevent other players from reaching the finish line. While players currently respawn at the starting location upon death, this will be changed to the location where they fell off the map in the final game.