Space Racers Final Presentation

By on December 9th, 2014

Team Members: lion, pineapple, boxiom

Game Idea | Space Racer is a time trial racing game. The avatar is a spaceship that has to avoid or destroy asteroids with bombs in space and collect powerups, such as extra boosts, extra health, extra bombs, and fly through speed boost balls to facilitate the navigation of the course.

Game Rules/Environment | You control the ship up, down, left, right with quick response. You can use a boost with the space bar and a bomb using the C key. Each are limited; however, you can collect more of each by blowing up or running into colored asteroids. Green asteroids add bombs, blue asteroids add boost, and red asteroids add to your health. Health is lost on asteroid collision; you must complete the course before running out of health. After the course is completed, your score is recorded and the game keeps track of the best score obtained so far.

The avatar is confined within an octagonal tunnel inside an asteroid cloud. Within the tunnel, are scattered asteroids and speed boost balls. The end of the tunnel is a checkered area that the avatar must reach to complete.

Game Feel | The gameplay is fast-paced, but with very tight controls. A balance between planning ahead and quick reactions enables the player to navigate the dangerous arena. The avatar control is smooth but responds quickly to movement.

Moreover, the physics do not necessarily simulate a real-space environment. They resemble flight in a gravityless environment where you have a lot of acceleration available. However, there is also strong air-resistance which will quickly stop your sideways movements.

Changes & Reasoning

  • Replacing speed rings with speed boost balls
  • Scrapped the idea of teleport rings (would make the game too chaotic)
  • Significantly changed avatar movement, camera angles, and avatar size in response to G4 playtesting feedback
  • Increased bomb and boost counts and made minor improvements to HUD in response to G5 playtesting feedback.

What Worked

  • Having compartmentalized scripts that all communicated with each other
  • Having each person own a component of the scene
  • Collision code on objects that would call out to the avatar

What Didn’t Work

  • Auto-generating too many asteroids (caused lag)

Presentation Slides

Categorized under: Final Presentation (G6), The Space Racers.
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