Racing The Janeiro
KEY FACTS
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Main Role: Level Designer
Genre: Racing
Engine: Unity
Tools: Terrain Tool & ProBuilder
Team Size: Solo project
Duration: 5 weeks
Target Group: 15-35 (grown up with street racing games)
Reference Games: Need For Speed & Burnout franchise
HIGHLIGHTS OF WHAT I WORKED ON
OVERVIEW
Level Design for racing games
The goal was to greybox a car racing level with inspiration from Rio The Janeiro. I wanted to push my creativity boundaries to create cool environments and become better at greyboxing using Unity’s ProBuilder and Terrain Tool.
The player would have the possibility to take different paths or shortcuts. The different paths should be clearly visible for the player as part of player guidance. Focus was the level design and worldbuilding so I used a car controller from Unity Asset Store and tweaked the parameters of the car to get the right feeling I was looking for.
EARLY PROTOTYPING
Creative Thinking
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Spawning ideas for roads that can be used in different ways
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Researching other street racing games maps for inspiration and finding common patterns between the maps.
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Looked at Google Maps from above and different streets of Rio De Janeiro for inspiration.
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A lot of paper prototyping.
Issues I ran into
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Saw that the first prototyped map was way too big for 5 weeks. Approach it by trying to cut away the boring/empty parts of the map and squeeze together fun ideas closer to each other.
Initial ideas for the mountain area
Initial ideas for the downtown area with the pier
Ideas for paths and curves
Early Prototyping with car controller
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Testing different curves
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Building maps fast to test a lot of different road types to try find the right feeling I want to convey through my design
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No height is added in this early stage to save time
Simple track for testing and adjusting car controller
Trying out narrow curves
Early drafts of map
Result at the end of 5 weeks
LEVEL DESIGN
Things of Importance
After research I found a set of things of importance that are essential for a street racing game to be fun and enjoyable.
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Sharp turns
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U-turns
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Road to get the momentum going
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Tunnels
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Shortcuts
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Nice view points
SHARP CORNERS
Sharp corners was an essential part of the game and what I like about similar games in the genre. The goal was to give the possibility to have tight corners where players have to break hard, turn and move out fast. Something I also had in mind when designing was to find a balance between left and right turns so the player not just only turn left left left many times in a row because no one wants to turn one way all the time.
U-TURNS
The mountain area had a lot of U-turns that the player could try drift their way through to save momentum. Also, when driving down the mountains the player can get a nice overview over the game map from the slingering road.
I worked a lot with the curves to get the right feeling.
One big challenge with the project was adding the height difference. It was easy with ProBuilder to accidentally create bumps in the road when adding heights and made the road almost undrivable. I had to try different techniques before finding a proper solution.
ROAD TO GET THE MOMENTUM GOING
People like to drive fast. That’s why it was a necessity to have a highway to get the momentum going where you can max out the speed of your car. It also helps the player to get around the map fast.
Before starting to design the highway, I tried out different lengths to see how far you need to drive to maximize the car speed. My goal was to be on the edge to have the player reach the speed limit of the car before having to turn. Because it’s get boring with distances of just having the car driving at top speed. Also, the sounds from the engine becomes really monotone at top speed. That’s why the highway is formed like an S to counteract monotonous.
TUNNELS
Tunnels gave liberty to create roads that have the player move cross the map in ways that wouldn’t otherwise make sense. But you can get away with a lot under ground. It can make the map, create nice paths for the player and make a straight road a bit more interesting.
NICE VIEWS
Important to have a nice vantage point when driving around. Especially to keep it interesting while driving.
