Game Concept

Scale Racer (Working Title)

Concept Statement

Scale Racer is a retro-inspired racing game with arcade physics. It features big jumps, spiralling drifts, questionable 1980’s car design, and pixel-textured 3D art.

Genre: Racing

Scale Racer is 3D racing game featuring car designs inspired by the 1980’s. The focus is on gameplay from 2D racing games and not actual 3D movement. The cars will race around windy tracks and can collide with other vehicles and obstacles but not turn around or reverse. There is one direction: forward – fast.

Target Audience

Target audience are racing fans teen to adult – both hard core players that have their own racing wheels, and casual players that are only looking for a quick match on their phone.

Scale Racer will appeal to racing players due to its relaxed realism, familiar classic car designs, extravagant track features, and multiplayer competition. Its design aesthetic will allow it to stand out in a sea of simulation and arcade focused games. Marrying the 1980s game influences with car designs from the era will form a cohesive look and feel.

The racing genre is widely loved with franchises like Forza occupying the 4^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th  bestselling exclusive games on the Xbox One (https://www.thegamer.com/xbox-one-fastest-selling-exclusives-sales/) with a combined total of over 10 million sales. The relaxed realism of Forza Horizon outsold the straight simulation of Forza.

On mobile, EA’s Real Racing 3 has been downloaded over 100 million times. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ea.games.r3_row)

If designed with mobile in mind from the start, there isn’t any design consideration preventing the title from being released for consoles, mobile, PC, and the web.

Concept Creation and Influences

The aesthetics of Scale Racer are rooted firmly in SEGA’s racing and scaling games of the 1980s. There are a few advantages of this approach: The sense of speed is unmatched. When trackside terrain features are 2D, they zip past the camera. Also, due to the simple geometry of 2D objects, you can place many more of them.

SEGA’s Afterburner demonstrates this to great effect. No jet simulation even comes close to how fast the F-14 appears to blaze across the sky.

Well-drawn pixel art ages better and has more character than straight realistic 3D models. To stand out from pixel art themed games, Scale Racer is still a 3D game. However, all textures are low resolution pixel art giving it a PlayStation One era look and feel.

To catch the attention of racing players, Scale Racer must look distinct as well as have fun and exciting game play.

The stunt features are firmly influenced by a racing game called Whiplash from the late 1990s. This was a game that provided endless multiplayer LAN fun. The physics were not realistic in the slightest, but the spin jump mechanic very nearly made the whole game. Bringing the soul of that track to Scale Racer is a design goal.

Another influence is the DOS game Street Rod. The premise of Street Rod is you have a little cash to buy a car from the newspaper. You can then upgrade parts like tyres and the engine. The entire game was themed on cars from the 1950s and 60s. Racing greasers at the diner for their car was a real thrill. The themed era for vehicles was my inspiration for the 80s cars. (That and 80s cars are just cooler. Honestly.)

Modes

Scale racer will have a single player race mode as well as local split screen. Races must complete in a few minutes and have at least one outrageous feature – a jump, drop, short cut, or loop.

Technical Considerations

Scale Racer’s track is 3D. This has benefits and drawbacks. Generally, 2D racers like Outrun had a simple “pull left, pull right” element to the racing. The player generally never had to brake and dodging traffic was the main challenge. That said, all the SEGA games were designed to sell an experience and not just a game. Outrun, Afterburner, Hang On and others all had cockpit arcade cabinets that provided feedback to the player with rumbling and tilts. You have to consider this when designing a game inspired by those. This game does not: Tilt, Rumble, have a racing wheel, or a life-size model of motorcycle that you actually sit on. Therefore, it must make up the difference in better gameplay.

Scale Racer has to display a lot of 2D images. This can quickly cause a fillrate issue on mobile devices. This can be mitigated somewhat by making a 3D plane conform as close as possible to the 2D asset. The fewer transparent pixels, the better.

Scale Racer has to emulate a 2D track with a 3D track. We can use tricks like locking axis and camera following to get as close to a 2D race gameplay. This kind of treatment eliminates some of the issues with 2D art in a 3D game. For example, the player can’t turn around and drive the wrong way on the track. Or notice the terrain features have no depth.

Advantages of a 3D track are the ease of creation, the ability to use 3D physics to add realism (suspension and jumps, for example), and particle systems. 3D worlds have more options to represent the world.

Treatment and Concept Art

You are a down on your luck farm hand. Your dear grandmother has recently passed away and left you her farm. Unfortunately, the bank has repossessed the property and all you were left with is your grandmother’s daily driver: a rusty weathered boxy hatchback from the 1980s. You decide to win back the farm by racing in increasingly daring local races to secure the funds to buy back your beloved childhood farm.

Featuring:

• Ridiculous sense of speed.
• Stunt track features like loops, spirals, and jumps.
• Drifting around sharp corners, u-turns and s-bends.
• 2D/3D scaling track design inspired by racing games of yore.
• 3D pixel art design aesthetic
• Split screen multiplayer competition

Scale Racer needs to evoke the 1980s. Screenshots of the game should stand out from other racing games due to the theme and aesthetics.  

There needs to be a ton of track side obstacles. These are the key to the sense of speed. 

Jumps, loops, and spins should spice up an otherwise conventional track design.

 Due to its low poly count and simple design, multiple split screens may be possible.