Hello everyone and welcome to the 5th iteration of development for The Adonai Invitational, everyone’s favorite Greek themed arcade chariot horse racing game!. My name is still Ben Smith and with me on the race to the finish line is a wonderful group of student developers at CSU Chico. Through our combined skills we have made some great progress this sprint as we are nearing said finish line. Let's get into what we accomplished this sprint! 

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

Poseidon Giveth and Taketh Away

We had another round of playtesting this time as our players mainly saw improvements to our hit the reins mechanic, a shorter more intense race, as well as some time spent on the alternate path. We got 22 playtesters for this round and although not a huge number it was fun to see that actually half of these players had played the game before! Having the continuity was fun and also valuable since they had had some earlier experience with the game. The focus system was still well received and how it ties into on demand speed boosts. 

    The changes to the alt path made it clear when the alt path opens (due to an earthquake by the sea god himself) but was still unclear where it was happening. This will be our next task because as developers we got some tunnel vision on how readable it was to see where the alt path is. We will likely be making improvements to the visual of the water bridge that the player rides on as well as adding some other VFX to make it exceptionally clear a new path has opened. We will also be moving the crushed rock near the path over more so it is more clear that going on the same track is no longer possible. 

    We also tried out the first iteration of our Artemis level which was a bit raw to say the least since it was essentially just a block out of the track. The idea behind having it in this build was to at least have players see the layout of the track and voice any very early concerns since it could be easily changed. Players were not expecting such a raw level even with the brief preface we gave them beforehand so the feedback was pretty negative although we did get some positives regarding the sky box and theme that we were going for, even with just a block out. Finally, turning needs some more work as it is a bit stiff still and feels too much like a car rather than a chariot pulled by horses. It will take a fair amount of work still because we are still trying to get the horses to feel like well, horses.

    Overall, the results were fairly positive and the current systems we had in place primarily need more tuning and visual feedback for the player which lines up with where we would like to be at this stage in the project. 

Trying to find the Horse

Our programmers were busy adding new menu elements as well as adding more visual feedback for our players when they use their speed boost as well as giving a terrain penalty when moving off of the main track. These aspects are pretty standard for many racing games and was immediately more interesting when playing because the terrain was now a hindrance,

reducing the ‘short cuts’ one could take as well as having more indication for when the speed is really ramping up. Both of these changes will require some more balance changing but improve the player experience immediately. Our programming duo was also busy getting our menu spruced up and adding a chariot and horse selection screen that shows off the models we created very early in the project. 

A New Track and Old Refinements!

Our level designers now each have their own track to call their own! Hudson has been our principal designer for level 1 with William having worked on our test track and playtesting. William has now started the work on our second level which is in the block stage that I mentioned above. Hudson was also improving our track with some refinements on a turn we internally have dubbed ‘the cursed turn’. Using our new smoothed model of the track it fixed the turn for both the players and AI. At one point the colliders on the turn weren't acting how a collider should, the AI would always fly off it, and the player had difficulty navigating the turn. I am happy to report that all of these issues have been fixed while keeping the turn’s steepness. Hudson also did some refinements to the respawn areas on our first level as they were not getting players back to the action quick enough which not only reduces the fun but is extremely awkward. 

Our first level has really shaped up and continues to improve with each iteration and we now have the first stages of our second level which is significantly different from our last one in layout, theme, and paths!

They Move!

Our animator Daniel gave our horse model a nice trot animation that can blend in with our run and also got our wheels spinning! Having those primary animations adds a lot of life and character to the horses and gives more feedback for the player visually when they are racing around the track. Our 2D artist Tamil created the sky box for our second level as well as a pause menu that reused some icon concepts for the main menu and also created a frame for our focus bar, giving it a bit more love than the blue rectangle players have been accustomed to. Even though our second level is in a blockout stage the sky box gives the players a look at what the theme is going to be and looks widely different from the first level. It’s always exciting to get new art into the game as it makes it feel more like a real product than just a prototype and having the animations ready to be tied to our AI and player controllers is another step in that direction too.

Props and Powerups

Our 3D modeling duo, Erika and Tristin, were busy doing some final touches to the starting archway on level 1 as well as starting the props and objects for our second level. Erika used the concepts from Tamil and fleshed them out into 3D form that the player will be able to experience on the track. She also started work on the props for level 2 which included some colored mushrooms, pine trees, boulder slabs, and roots. Tristin, meanwhile, was doing some finishing touches to the archway giving it a nice blue tint. 

They both completed some good work for fleshing out our levels and adding in the powerups for the level 1. 

We made some steady progress this sprint and while there is a good amount of work left to do on level 2 I believe we will have it ready to race on by the end of the project.

Here are our horse heroes in motion! (wheels to come later) Thank you for sticking with us as we really truly near the end of this semester-long endeavor!

We’ll see you on the track

-Adonai Racing Team