#racing postmortem

Inspiration from Readings

Fullerton (2018) addresses some of the common game objectives as well as player interaction patterns; this really inspired the design process for GCx2 as it helped me broaden my perspective on conventional racing games. I believed that competitiveness is the driving force behind racing games—much of gameplay experiences in racing game acts to heighten this and exploit it as a very powerful driving force for humans. In that respect, the readings challenged me to think of alternative experiences I could create that would work within the racing genre. That lead to the exploration of how I can contextualise formal elements to engage my players, as you would have seen in the development post.

Additionally, Fullerton’s (2018) words on outcomes in games intrigued me here again. In almost all racing games (GCx2 included), there are only 2 outcomes: first and not first. While there is merit to all the positions between first and last, the real victory comes from claiming first place and the rest that follow can only be “losses” if the objective is to place first. In GCx2 the two outcomes are escape or fail to escape. You either escape the police or they catch you. There’s nothing to predict regarding the pair of outcomes except the likelihood of which outcome you’ll achieve. This also guided my design of GCx2—what mechanics and obstacles in particular can I design to complicate the relationships and add a little uncertainty or conflict in the player’s path?

Finally, I was also personally interested in understanding + exploring feedback loops. There isn’t much else to say except reiterating Fullerton’s (2018) highlighting of the importance of feedback loops for designing complex and engaging, balanced games.

Changes to Prototype Development

After playtesting, it was quite evident that the game was lacking without the feedback loops. The M2M was there but without the feedback loops, the game was significantly…less. Less challenging, less engaging, less of a game. That is to be expected but the issue could have been ameliorated if I tried to implement some placeholder events for the feedback loops. They might not have been as detailed or have the intended functionality but it would have been sufficient for playtesting to better assess the pace of progression in the game.

Still, I think I was right to prioritize the M2M gameplay at this stage of development as it is the foundational gameplay that which all critical systems will build upon. It’s indicative that the game is heading towards the right direction which enables us to put our best foot forward for future development, as per Fullerton’s (2018) words on the importance of testing and getting the main gameplay loop right early.

Changes to Design

Another key issue identified during playtesting relates to the PX goal of challenging players regardless of their dexterity and experience. This might have been avoided if the feedback loops were implemented but I also wanted to discuss another potential solution of designing alternative gameplay.

So, I investigated the issue and determined that it’s probably due to some players having greater dexterity from playing games that require you to switch between entities quickly. As such, one solution is to introduce alternative gameplay that is secondary to and independent from the gear changing mechanic. Changing the GC mechanic itself isn’t a great idea since it would compromise the M2M gameplay so I’ll focus on the alternative mechanic which utilises dilemmas!

In this case, the dilemma would be a trident in the road. The player has 3 options: continue on the road, take the left path, or take the right path. This event places the player in a situation where they must make a decision from multiple choices that have a range of consequences (Fullerton, 2018). It increases the unpredictability of the game outcome making things more interesting for the player (Fullerton, 2018) Additionally, it should also increase tension, hopefully making the experience more engaging overall. As for what the consequences would be…Perhaps one road will be saturated with more obstacles, maybe another road will have allow players to select a new getaway car with added benefits. There are many things that could be introduced to create conflict or reward the player as a result of their risk taking.

Thanks for reading!

References

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Forth Edition (4th ed.). CRC Press LLC.