Looking for feedback on the racing game that I'm developing

[DragonJam]

Hello everyone!

First let me introduce me since this is my first post at Digital Press:

My name is Javier, I'm a guy from Spain who's always loved and played games since the 80's. I worked as a QA tester at EA for two years, and finally joined an indie videogame studio. We're an 11 people team currently working on our first game.

The thing is that we really care about our first game and want to make it as good as we can. Since we're an indie studio and also got tired of how big studios care more about hyping their titles, rather than hearing to gamers, we've decided to do right the opposite thing.

We are very interested in hearing people opinion on our game, suggestions, ideas....everything! and take them into account while we develop the game. We're showing our game at an early stage, no tricks! even though we're aware that some people would say that it sucks, cause unfinished games usually looks like crap. We don't care, we think that's the price we gotta pay if we really want to hear gamers opinion from the start.

Don't hesitate to ask anything you feel like, I promise to answer everybody. We are also open to hear any idea, doesn't mind how crazy it might sound. In exchange, I can offer closed-beta access to people interested, just go to our site and sign up and you'll be included in the beta testers list.

So, regarding our game:

Formula Wincars is an arcade karting PC title full of fast-paced races where you will compete online against a whole community of worldwide players!

We implemented lots of online gaming features, specifically inspired by those from MOBA games. That means that strategy and tactics will be important too.

Our latest trailer:



But I must say that in fact it's pretty old and the game looks much better now, it's just that we don't have enough time to make another trailer without stopping the developing of the game. And the game is the priority now. Our closed beta relases within two months approximately so we're working hardly to fulfil that deadline. (not sure if we will be able to do it or finally delay it a little bit)

Our game is intended to be totally oriented to online competition with some features like up to 4000 players tournaments. These tournaments will have real life prizes to winnners, and virtual goodies like car skins to every participant.

We're also running a development blog at our site where we make updates and try to share everything we learn and how we solve the problems we encounter (I don't know if it's allowed to put the link here, but if you're interested just google it). If you're curious about how games are made or you are a game dev student, you can have a look at it.

Some images of the game and its development:

[Tanooki]

I like the look of those cars in that spreadsheet there and they remind me of micro machines. I'm not going to watch the video if it's as out of date as you say it is as it won't give a fair impression at all. I think aiming at physical prizes is a bit ambitious but if you can manage it, go for it, but I think your money will be in having lots of winnable and give away content.

[Emperor Megas]

The Penny Racer style cars are alright, I guess, and the track designs are appealing, but I really don't care for this type of character design. I just never have. It's weird, and probably not a fair assessment, but something about this style of character model always screams C-list, budget game to me. Even if/when a game is good, I can't get past this sort of look enough to enjoy it. This was my problem with Freaky Fliers. I think the original Fusion Frenzy is the only exception.

Hopefully more people appreciate the art style than don't though. Best of luck with your game.

[Tanooki]

I hate to admit it, but he's right about your characters. I was mostly looking at the car models and the track representations, but those people seem like a C-list cast/animation style of some freemium garbage on a tablet/touch phone. Perhaps lose the models and just have a cars or find a better style if they're a must. There's plenty of highly successful car games which you never see the people.

[Greg2600]

The footage of the game looks nice. Looks very good. I think this could be a bit caught in the middle of potential customers. It's not licensed so you've got an uphill battle to get noticed. It's also maybe a bit too upscale for the casual iOS/Facebook gamer, who would play on their phones.

[DragonJam]

I like the look of those cars in that spreadsheet there and they remind me of micro machines. I'm not going to watch the video if it's as out of date as you say it is as it won't give a fair impression at all. I think aiming at physical prizes is a bit ambitious but if you can manage it, go for it, but I think your money will be in having lots of winnable and give away content.

Hello Tanooki!

Yes, the physical prizes was something that we really wanted to be in the game, we'll go for that indeed.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

[DragonJam]

The Penny Racer style cars are alright, I guess, and the track designs are appealing, but I really don't care for this type of character design. I just never have. It's weird, and probably not a fair assessment, but something about this style of character model always screams C-list, budget game to me. Even if/when a game is good, I can't get past this sort of look enough to enjoy it. This was my problem with Freaky Fliers. I think the original Fusion Frenzy is the only exception.

Hopefully more people appreciate the art style than don't though. Best of luck with your game.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, we'll take your opinion regardind the drivers into account!!

[DragonJam]

I hate to admit it, but he's right about your characters. I was mostly looking at the car models and the track representations, but those people seem like a C-list cast/animation style of some freemium garbage on a tablet/touch phone. Perhaps lose the models and just have a cars or find a better style if they're a must. There's plenty of highly successful car games which you never see the people.

One thing is true, we'll always receive better feedback when showing the cars than when talked about the drivers.

Maybe, it's not a designing or art problem, maybe we could represent them linked to their Special Skill which sure will make them look more interesting. We'll highlight the car models in next promo pics.

Thanks again for your comment!

[DragonJam]

The footage of the game looks nice. Looks very good. I think this could be a bit caught in the middle of potential customers. It's not licensed so you've got an uphill battle to get noticed. It's also maybe a bit too upscale for the casual iOS/Facebook gamer, who would play on their phones.

Hello Greg2600,

If you liked the footage, you will surely love the final game, because it looks much better than that, I'll post here the new trailer as soon as it's done.

And yes, even though our game has a competitive factor, mid-to-casual gamers can also enjoy our game just racing for fun, instead of developing strategies and mastering each car. I'm talking about PC gamers, our game maybe it's a little too much for casual iOS/Facebook players.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

[Tanooki]

An option maybe would be to just go 90s style with it, and have a headshot in a box, not the full character. No one really is going to care much who they are or some big complicated bio or other drivel. Think of it from like an earlier 90s/mid 90s arcade approach or even what F-Zero X on N64 had where it was a head in a box, a name, and then you had the bars there factoring the A-E scale of greatness on damage, turn, speed, acceleration. It gave someone something to remember by name, but not anything else since it wouldn't detract from the cars or tracks since this is a racer.

I'm just thinking of it from a game developing standpoint as I was in this stuff a long time ago and media after that point for years. If you want to catch more people don't play up the drivers, play up the unique cars, their abilities, the courses and the obstacles. You're no Nintendo, you can't go nuts and have people fall in love with Montana Dom there like you would with Super Mario, it won't happen. Play to the strengths of the game and not the frills because when you get down to it, Montana isn't driving the car -- I am. Perhaps I think Montana looks like some muscle headed redneck douche and that alone would NOT make me want to use that car so I don't have to look at that guy at all. I've seen that complaint a LOT over the years and I'm even guilty of ignoring a good car because it was some idiot behind the wheel.

[DragonJam]

An option maybe would be to just go 90s style with it, and have a headshot in a box, not the full character. No one really is going to care much who they are or some big complicated bio or other drivel. Think of it from like an earlier 90s/mid 90s arcade approach or even what F-Zero X on N64 had where it was a head in a box, a name, and then you had the bars there factoring the A-E scale of greatness on damage, turn, speed, acceleration. It gave someone something to remember by name, but not anything else since it wouldn't detract from the cars or tracks since this is a racer.

I'm just thinking of it from a game developing standpoint as I was in this stuff a long time ago and media after that point for years. If you want to catch more people don't play up the drivers, play up the unique cars, their abilities, the courses and the obstacles. You're no Nintendo, you can't go nuts and have people fall in love with Montana Dom there like you would with Super Mario, it won't happen. Play to the strengths of the game and not the frills because when you get down to it, Montana isn't driving the car -- I am. Perhaps I think Montana looks like some muscle headed redneck douche and that alone would NOT make me want to use that car so I don't have to look at that guy at all. I've seen that complaint a LOT over the years and I'm even guilty of ignoring a good car because it was some idiot behind the wheel.

Yeah, something similar happened to me sometimes!

Well, in our game you can choose car and driver for separate, so you won't have that problem! You will be able to choose any car with the driver that you prefer.

Maybe you're right in your point, I really appreciate your sincerity and how you explain your idea!

[Tanooki]

Just trying to help a bit. I've seen a lot of projects private and big company fail pretty bad due to shortsighted design or bad budgeting. You seem to have a competent and interesting enough looking game on your hands there so I just put it out there as something to think about. It's hard to comment much more on it since the video is unfairly old and you just have pictures.

Also one thing, maybe it's an old image, but the one with the 4 people on it, have you ever noticed the drawing quality of them isn't even? The lady in the background looks noticeably less refined/less quality than Montana there in front. She maybe needing to be re-rendered to be as clean, sharp and professional looking. It's the face, not really the body.

[DragonJam]

Just trying to help a bit. I've seen a lot of projects private and big company fail pretty bad due to shortsighted design or bad budgeting. You seem to have a competent and interesting enough looking game on your hands there so I just put it out there as something to think about. It's hard to comment much more on it since the video is unfairly old and you just have pictures.

Also one thing, maybe it's an old image, but the one with the 4 people on it, have you ever noticed the drawing quality of them isn't even? The lady in the background looks noticeably less refined/less quality than Montana there in front. She maybe needing to be re-rendered to be as clean, sharp and professional looking. It's the face, not really the body.

Yes, I noticed that, but we haven't had time to make a new ones or correct that, besides, you're the first one who noticed that!!

We're currently working in new promo pictures, and we'll take you advise: more importance to the cars than to the drivers.

We'll post here the results!

Once again, thanks for the feedback!

[PreZZ]

I love karting games, but it seems no one can get it right like Nintendo (or Rare ddkr!), they always end up feeling ''generic''. If you can get awesome track designs and brilliant weapons, I might pick this up, as long as you dont put microtransactions in it or make it ios type of game. I hope you can get it on consoles, pc games of this type dont do really well.

[Tanooki]

Yes, I noticed that, but we haven't had time to make a new ones or correct that, besides, you're the first one who noticed that!!

We're currently working in new promo pictures, and we'll take you advise: more importance to the cars than to the drivers.

We'll post here the results!

Once again, thanks for the feedback!

I'm paid to notice, my job is auditing so I nitpick the crap out of stuff to drive people nuts who have to go back and fix stuff to make it right.

Prezz--Sega in its most latest kart racing game rated very well. Also it's a pretty popular suggestion online if you get away from the rabid fanboys that Konami beat out Nintendo with Konami Krazy Racers on GBA as the better game with nicer courses, good weapons, great handling and the presentation value of it too.

[Emperor Megas]

Also it's a pretty popular suggestion online if you get away from the rabid fanboys that Konami beat out Nintendo with Konami Krazy Racers on GBA as the better game with nicer courses, good weapons, great handling and the presentation value of it too.

I've never heard of this game before. Do they use Konami characters?

[Tanooki]

That's all it uses. Here's a list off the wiki, I couldn't remember 1/2 of them so I went hunting:



Konami Krazy Racers features a total of 12 characters, each with unique features, including weight, speed, and acceleration.

Goemon - The player character from the Legend of the Mystical Ninja series.
Takosuke - A player character from the Parodius series.
Dracula - The most significant antagonist of the Castlevania series.
Gray Fox - A supporting character from Metal Gear Solid.
Pastel - A player character from the TwinBee series.
Power Pro-kun - A character from the MLB Power Pros series.
Moai - An enemy in the Gradius series.
Nyami - A character in the Pop'N Music series.
Bear Tank - A character from Rakugakids.
King - A character in the Pop'N Music series.
Vic Viper - The player character in the Gradius series.
Ebisumaru - A character from the Legend of the Mystical Ninja series.

I've put more hours on this game than Mario Kart. MK is a nice racer, their last great one to me really, but I preferred the setup/style Konami went with so I logged more hours on it.

There is a sequel to this on Android/ios, but last I looked I think it was one of those dollar download games but it got high praise.

[DragonJam]

I love karting games, but it seems no one can get it right like Nintendo (or Rare ddkr!), they always end up feeling ''generic''. If you can get awesome track designs and brilliant weapons, I might pick this up, as long as you dont put microtransactions in it or make it ios type of game. I hope you can get it on consoles, pc games of this type dont do really well.

Hello PreZZ,

Completely agree with you on that, Nintendo is the best doing karting games, and DDKR was great. I personally also think that Crash Team Racing was a great alternative for Playstation owners.

In fact, that situation sort of inspired us, we saw that there wasn't good karting games with their own personality in PC, best option was to play Mario Kart with an emulator.

Too bad you don't like microtransactions at all, cause our game will be release as a free to play.

I can understand you because I'm also a great retro games lover, and sometimes felt that free to games were incomplete or that always wanted more and more money from me. But truth is that there are also great games under F2P model (Team Fortress or League of Legends for example), and our compromise as players and developers is to keep the races fair, and make the players feel like paying for extra content rather to force them in order to continue playing in equal conditions.

Nobody will obtain any in-game advantage for paying, and every game feature could we unlocked by just playing in an amount of time within reason (just like if it was a classic story mode).

There will be lots of visual customizations like car skins, and some Tournaments with real life prizes (keyboards, headphones, controllers, gaming hardware mainly...) with a 1$ fee inscription. This will allow players to compete against 4000 players in at least 3 races and a maximum of 6 if you make it to the final. Every player who participates in one of these tournament will receive in exchange a virtual item like a sticker to place in the car. There will also be free inscription tournaments, of course!

Lastly, players will have classic options to unlock everything from the start, if they don't want to spend time unlocking it and prefer to go directly to compete.

I think that this way of funding the game is pretty fair to both, players and developers.

Thanks a lot for your comment!

[PreZZ]

Hello PreZZ,

Completely agree with you on that, Nintendo is the best doing karting games, and DDKR was great. I personally also think that Crash Team Racing was a great alternative for Playstation owners.

In fact, that situation sort of inspired us, we saw that there wasn't goo karting games with their own personality in PC, best option was to play Mario Kart with an emulator.

Too bad you don't like microtransactions at all, cause our game will be release as a free to play.

I can understand you because I'm also a great retro games lover, and sometimes felt that free to games were incomplete o that always wanted more and more money from me. But truth is that there are also great games under F2P model(Team Fortress or League of Legends for example), and our compromise as players and developers is to keep the races fair, and make the players feel like paying for extra content rather to force them in order to continue playing in equal conditions.

Nobody will obtain any in-game advantage for paying, and every game feature could we unlocked by just playing in an amount of time within reason (just like if it was a classic history mode).

There will be lots of visual customizations like car skins, and some Tournaments with real life prizes (keyboards, headphones, controllers, gaming hardware mainly...) with a 1$ fee inscription. This will allow players to compete against 4000 players in at least 3 races and a maximum of 6 if you make it to the final. Every player who participates in one of these tournament will receive in exchange a virtual item like a sticker to place in the car. There will also be free inscription tournaments, of course!

Lastly, players will have classic options to unlock everything from the start, if they don't want to spend time unlocking it and prefer to go directly to compete.

I think that this way of funding the game is pretty fair to both, players and developers.

Thanks a lot for your comment!

I know free to play is the model for a lot of small indies, but I just cant stand it, id rather pay 10 or 15$ and get the full package. I dont mind paying, but microtransactions are an insult to me as a gamer (games like EA microtransactions are horrible and insulting) and I dont get the younger generation buying that crap. They download it cause its free and they end up buying more than the game should be! Im ok with the tournament idea for 1$ if it happens occasionally (not every hour), I guess its more fun than scratching a cheap loto ticket and doesnt take anything away from the game. Although it wasnt a karting game, speed devils online had a fantastic online mode where you could build up your car for weeks with in game money you won against other players, and you could do vendettas against another racer and the winner would win the car of the loser, i liked that. This game had the best shortcut in history of racing games on the montreal track, nobody knew the shortcut and I won million dollar cars by doing vendettas with my cheap 10K car !! Anyway I wish you the best, good luck on your release

[Emperor Megas]

That's all it uses. Here's a list off the wiki, I couldn't remember 1/2 of them so I went hunting:



Konami Krazy Racers features a total of 12 characters, each with unique features, including weight, speed, and acceleration.

Goemon, Moai and Vic Viper in a Kart Racer?! That's hilarious. I have to own this now.