[WIP] PolyRace - Futuristic racing game

Hello everyone,

It's time for me to introduce my first game: PolyRace It is a fast-paced futuristic 3d racing game with infinite number of possible race tracks.

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The basic idea I had when starting the game was to blend two kinds of racing games: Race The Sun and WipEout. My objectives are:

• Replay value, discovering and learning new race tracks every day, hence the use of procedural level generation.
• Balance the freedom of player movement. A race track that is too narrow gives a great impression of speed but reduces piloting to trying stay between the border of the track. On the other hand, if the level is too big, the player may be confused and get lost. The goal is to suggest the best path to reach the end of the race. The player can evolve freely in the level closed by big walls.
• High speed! Find our reflexes limit.
• Piloting skill and trajectory that gives a real advantage.
• Competition and challenge with a turn-based multiplayer where you race each others’ ghosts.
• Playability, so that even a beginner enjoy racing.
• Simple graphics to keep visual distractions to a minimum.
• Hovercraft with an innovative and simple design.

I made some good progress in the game. It is now playable and I have a few friends playing it every day. But I still have some issue like:

• Tuning my procedural level generator to have interesting race tracks. It is already nice to play, but I know I can be improved.
• Shadow are ugly. It's hard to have nice shadows for huge objects like terrain and small ones at the same time. I still did not get how to polish that.

You can download (PC, Mac, Linux) the dev version from here.

Have a look at the greenlight video and tell me your thoughts on the game! Thank you

 

That is really cool! Love the art style!

You might wanna consider setting shadows on everything that would give it more depth!

Keep up the awesome work!

 

Thank you, yeah I will definitively work again the shadows. I was wondering how unity5 may help on this ?

 

sent you PM

 

Very nice.

 

This looks quite promising. I like the visual style so far and procedural based content. How many people are working on this project or is it just yourself?

Personally I'd like to see more clarity in terms of where the race track line is going. I was thinking a stronger visual indicator besides the arrows on the ground would be good, perhaps something like an energy or wind tunnel which provides better visual feedback would be nice, especially if it funneled in were the tight turns were and then disappears in the more open straight sections.

Also for a game like this, strong height variation of the terrain/track would be very interesting. Wipeout certainly had a lot of smooth arcing tracks which provides a great sensation. I am sure this adds a lot of complexity to the procedural generation, but have you considered going for something more dramatic with lots of ups and downs in the course? Personally I think it'd add a lot. Perhaps a more simple way would be to add tunnel sections which can provide the elevation instead of terrain.

I am curious if the ghost seen is another player or a reply of your previous best time. I'm looking to make a reply system (non-deterministic I hope) for a simple game I am working on. If you have any advice on the best approach I'd like to hear it.

Keep up the good work, it's looking to be a fun game!

 

I'm the only one working on it.

Yes, that's one of the issues I have right now. I was thinking making the next Nth arrows in front of the player always visible even if they are behind the terrain. I don't know how to do that yet, maybe a specific shader will do the trick.

Yes! I'm working on it. The first tests are very convincing. This should be available in the next version.

It can be both. During the race, I sample the player racer transform (position x, z and rotation y) at fixed time. At the end of the race, the samples are serialized and sent to a server. Before a race start, I check if there is a ghost available (based on the previous time of the player), download it and play it back. Playing the ghost is just finding the two samples according the current time of the race and doing interpolation between the two samples. It's easy to create a replay with fast forward and fast backward with this solution.

I first tried to record players' inputs instead of the transform. But there were synchronizing issue ...

 

Hello all, a quick update on the dev:

• Upgraded to Unity5
• Tuned shadows
• Updated the race track generator to get rounder terrain and stronger elevation
• Endless generation in background while playing
• New hovercraft T4: Tracer
• New environment: Snow
• New start and finish gates design

Check out the latest video:

I'm still having issues to give a good information about where the track line goes and the new terrain elevation does not help. I was thinking to make the next Nth hidden arrow always visible in wireframe. This would give a good idea of what is coming next ... What are you thoughts?

 

Looking real good so far.
Pre-timed indicators are one way how most racing games show what's coming up. So many ways to deliver that info is really up to you. Maybe subtle arrows blinking on the edges or corners of the screen for 1 second. An indicator near the vehicle would probably not work because I don't think the player is looking at the vehicle when playing.
Another option is a map overlay.

Really like this - keep it coming!