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trailer

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design Goals

• Balancing the Haunted Coaster
• Placing Competitive AI Splines
• Limiting the Frustration of the Kraken
• Keeping Players on the Dragon Coaster
• Maximize Use of Setdressing Assets

balancing the haunted Coaster

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• The goal for the roller coast obstacle was to challenge the players with dodging roller coaster trains without frustration them with a lack of information.
• Item boxes were attached to the coaster to encourage more risk and reward.
• After many iterations of the obstacle an interval spawning system was implemented.
  • When a player in 1^st-3^rd comes to the roller coaster it launched before going on a cool down , likely to spawn again for players in 4th-6th.
  • Because the coaster is intentionally slower than the players all players are likely to experience the coaster in a consistent way each lap

placing competitive ai splines

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• Using a programmer made spline tool, nodes were placed around the Haunted Track for the AI to follow
• Ensuring AI were competitive demanded they could access shortcuts and avoid obstacles, both elements having to be considered when placing the AI spline within the track
  • Shortcuts could be implemented by attaching a new spline to the existing critical path at the start and end of the shortcut
  • Spline nodes could be placed in such a way to assist the AI in avoiding certain obstacles such as trees or fountains
• Splines had to be assembled with the skills of the AI in mind ensuring the critical path was wide enough to allow them choices but guided enough to avoid them getting stuck

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limiting the frustration of the kraken

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• The goal for the Kraken obstacle was to challenge players with dodging large tentacles that swipe drivers off the track right before the finish line.
• Initially organized in sets of two, the animation and position of the swiping kraken arms meant that players could never dodge both sets of arms.
• The first attempt at fixing this caused the players to get hit by the kraken before the race even began. The track team moved these arms away from the track (orange) instead of deleting them to match the kraken head mesh.
• The next piece of the solution involved pulling the arms back to only hit half of the track and place a series of item boxes on that side of the road. Doing this gave players a safe way to make it through this section but also enticed them to take a risk for the items.

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Design goal: keeping players on the Dragon coaster

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• The dragon coaster section of the medieval track was intended to be a difficult area to navigate due to its high speed and lack of walls.
• Players were simply going too fast to keep their karts on the tracks during corkscrews. Many of the potential solutions to this problem were off limits because the tracks were unable to be edited and the kart metrics were locked.
• Using playtest data, boost pads were strategically moved along the track to slow the players down at the right spots.
• It was quickly discovered that moving one boost pad has a domino effect on the other boost pads nearby required repeated testing to ensure the track still captured the intended sense of danger without being impossible to stay on.

maximize use of environmental assets

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• The goal for Go Go-Karts was to have 3 distinctly themed tracks at release but with our schedule this proved to be a problem
• Much of the work of the lead level designer in later milestones involved determining how to fill out each level without asking for more assets from the art team.
• The solution for this problem was to design unique thematic set pieces assembled from non unique assets.
  • The sand retexture of the castle mod kit seemed a natural addition to the pirate level standing out as a strong landmark around the last section of the track fitting in well with the recycled dragon fire obstacle as cannon balls.
  • Various statues throughout the game were built using the posed rigs from the character select screen
  • The medieval track was the last to reach alpha ready meaning much of its visual identity and storytelling had to be cleverly constructed from elements from the previous two tracks such as the decimated dragon coaster as well as the castle interiors.

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Post Mortem

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