Skyrunner65 wrote:Sorry.
So this is straight up racing? Cool.
What about alternative bikes?
No need for sorries, I was thinking about road rash myself.
I am following some game design theories when developing this game. Games are based on loops of actions. The innermost loops of the game are the actions that the player does most. In Mario, for example, jumping and how you control jumps is vital to how enjoyable the game is.
In a racing game, the simple feeling of acceleration is the basis of everything that comes after. If you do not get a sense of motion and inertia, there is no point in developing more advanced features. I started from straight line acceleration, and spent quite a bit of time finetuning the length of the rumble strips, horizon vs sky screen area, perspective, even gear ratios to convey the feeling of acceleration.
Thats loops.
Bonus weapons / achievement classes / gameplay modifiers that you are referring to (different bikes) are what are called 'arcs'. Unlike loops, arcs are 'level up' kind of occurrences in a game. You have learned skills, and you are rewarded.
Skills, however, are based on the mastery of loops: accurate jumping in Mario, button combos in Mortal Combat etc. Therefore, in game design, loops are always the most important design factor. Arcs can only be considered after the loops work exactly like they should.
Isle of Maniax is already quite fun to play. But one very important loop is still missing: collision detection (as you can see in the video). How much the player is penalized for hitting objects and opponents is crucial to whether the game will be fun or not. At the moment I have no collision detection and its yet another thing that has to be coded from scratch.
... 2-3 weeks
I just wanted to explain the approach I use. I finetune the loops, and only then I move to higher layers of gameplay.