The Final Stretch for the Final Build! 04/24/2020

This week, we dedicated our efforts to resolving many of the issues that players from our play test build reported to us.

On the UI side of things, we are making sure that we are communicated all aspects of the game so that the players know what is happening as it is happening.

We’ve now included a current speed monitor to tell drivers how fast they are driving, as well as include a percentage of how much their top speed has been reduced if they have been hit by a food item:

On the driver side of things, one thing we noticed was that the player’s kart was configured to be in all wheel drive and that our implemented steer helper was not full. This led to us believing that players were not used to over-steering and power being distributed across all 4 wheels in a kart racing game. To combat the “drifty” feeling players experienced, we are shifting those modalities to be in front wheel drive and configure the traction and steer helper to be at 100% to make sure that the kart grips onto the track in the direction that the player wants to drive in.

Also in addition to the changes from a programmatic perspective, we will also change the sensitivity of the controls. Furthermore, for Xbox controller especially, we will change the controls where the right trigger will control throttle, the left trigger will control brake/reversing, the A button will remain the same for firing, and the left joystick will remain the same for turning left or right.

On the AI driver side of things, we want to make sure that the AI drivers do feel competitive for the difficulty level that we have offered the players. In order to do this and fix the issue we had last week where the AI drivers were continually braking, we have set up a path system where the AI can drive through the tracks on various tracks depending on their needs (cost, items, etc.)

Furthermore, the AI can now shoot items and will definitely be more aggressive coming into the final build!

For instructional purposes, we have added a splash screen before the game starts to inform users about rules specific to our game and how to go about them.

Coming into the weekend, we want to refine all the elements of our game and make sure that it is ready for our final game build!