Hello! My name is Ben Smith and I have the absolute honor of leading a team of talented developers in pursuit of racing glory. Our game, The Adonai Invitational,  takes the player into the mythological world of ancient Greece. Our protagonist, Grigora, has found himself in a race of the gods. As the illegitimate child of the forge god Hephaestus our players will need to reach daringly fast speeds to beat the other racers. Our team consists of ten senior level game development students at CSU Chico in the Game Development Program.  

It’s simple: earn the praise of the gods, enhance your chariot, master the tracks, and become the greatest racer in Greek history.

Rollin’

Our second sprint was highly successful and we were able to build out the very first prototype of our game! Although we were not able to include everything we worked on in the build, it was a first baseline test to see if we were heading in the right direction, which is towards that glorious finish line.

Our first build of the project was a speed and turning test on our internal track. While nowhere near as flashy or exciting as our first level is shaping up to be this was an important first step in getting a solid baseline for our tracks. While very bare bones aesthetically the internal track was all about function and I wanted to get us a baseline for how speed and turning felt before adding elements like the powerups, AI racers, and chariot stats. While we were not able to get a huge swathe of testers ready for our sprint review we did get some early feedback that was valuable. The majority of testers were satisfied with the base speed of the chariot and when asked about what made a great racing game for them they were clear that unique levels were at the top of the list. This was great early feedback to get. 

The turning was a bit more mixed and overall negative. The chariots were not nimble enough and while that may mesh with actual chariots and horses this is, at the end of the day, an arcade racing game that does not lean into simulation. Considering the sharp turns and maneuverability needed to get around even modest AI racers this was something we want to adjust quickly. This results were exactly what we were looking for and why we had the first build as a strictly speed and turning test.

Before moving on I wanted to relay a little quirk I noticed from our play test results. We asked testers what the most important parts of a racing game are for them personally and surprisingly no one responded to the ‘leaderboards and winning’ option. I just felt that was interesting and we did have a small sample size so that may explain the discrepancy. But overall it was a good first test of our speed and turning mechanics, let's take a look at what else we worked on this sprint!

Crack of the Hammer

I wanted to start with what our 2D artist Tamil has been creating for us, because his piece for this sprint was especially inspiring for me and the team! Tamil crafted concept art for our first chariot themed around Hephaestus, the forge god himself, and our player character Grigora! After taking some initial ideas and a rough concept for color and size Tamil created a great piece that nailed every aspect of what we are going for. I really love it. 

Taking inspiration from the various motifs of Hephaestus including the classic hammer and anvil, volcanoes, and even including a face relief of the god it truly brought the chariot to life and we immediately got our modeler on the case to bring this piece into the tracks!

Horsin’ Around

Our animator Daniel was able to accomplish some important steps for bringing our horse models to life! After rigging up his primitive version of the horse he got it galloping and idling to get some practice before the real model was ready to go. We were also able to see how this thing would really look when moving so we tweaked and adjusted where needed. 

Daniel also rigged up our actual horse skeleton complete with tail control points! This was a great start to getting the horses ready for in track testing and it was great for everyone to see our mascot start to move those legs.

Adding some Color

    Our 3D modelers Erika, and Tristin were busy at work getting our assets ready for our first track , Coast of Poseidon. Our dedicated horse expert Erika textured our horse model with some fun and unique colors and patterns that will end up being swapped around once inside the game. It is great to be getting color added to our otherwise lambert grey models and having the different patterns adds some fun variety. The colors as well I really liked and can pair well with the chariots Erika is also making. 

Tristin was equally busy doing work on our first track and getting the geography and various sections of the track ready for our level designers. He also created LOD for our various trees for efficiency and touched up on said trees to smooth out some of the harder edges. Next he will be texturing these assets and bringing them fully to life. 

For both Erika and Tristin the project is challenging them to make models that they do not have tons of experience in but they are handling it beautifully and always checking in to make sure it is staying on vision. And for that I cannot thank them enough and I see their progress improving every week.

Tracks on Tracks

    Our level designer duo William and Hudson were busy getting two tracks ready, the first our internal test track that I mentioned earlier and our first main track, Coast of Poseidon. Hudson took the geography and assets made by Tristin into Unity and followed his blockout to place everything to make the track feel lived in. The idea here being that his island coastal community was already here before Poseidon decided to host his race there. Therefore there is a mix of residential and temple style buildings populating the level as well as spectator stands and eventually a triumphal arch for our starting line! This is a new experience for all of us and working on a racing game brings new challenges and requires a certain mode of thinking to get right. Hudson has been doing a lot of work getting this track ready for some racers and while we are always trying to improve and tweak he had a good start to getting us ready. He also created an ocean that surrounds our lovely little island that moves great with the beach section of the track. 

Meanwhile, William was getting our internal test track ready for its only real debut with people outside of our team. The track was fairly simple and was used to test our speed and turning mechanics on a level driving course, with a few turns and paths for moving around. The first test was successful and it was due to Williams' work on the test track. There were a few bugs and quirks we noticed while testing but that is exactly why we have that track ready to go before our first official track is ready. 

Under the Hood

Our programming team of Justin and Adam were especially productive this spring knocking out a series of tasks that primarily dealt with player speed and feedback, menus, controls as well as AI path finding and re spawning. Justin is our primary chariot programmer and UI lead. He set up a class of chariots that we can easily edit to use for our different chariot models as they will have different stats and traits we can use. He also set up the controller input systems using Unity’s new package so that players can easily use a variety of controllers or keyboards easily if they so wish. 

Adam is our primary AI programmer which for this project means teaching a computer how to drive. He set up a AI training course where he could test out his scripts and set up a system of checkpoint pillars that the AI chariots will follow. He also set up a pathing system where the AI can change to a new alternate path that will be incorporated on later tracks and also made sure that the AI and player chariots can respawn after falling off of the track. Both our programmers made great progress that is going to help us immensely going forward as their work will carry over into all aspects of the game while also being high modifiable when needed.

Thank you very much for reading this far and seeing the internal workings of Adonai. 

We'll see you on the track!

-Adonai Dev Team