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[Sydle]

After 30 minutes or I was able to consistently get under 1:05, but nothing below 1:03 posted above. Will keep trying.

My impressions after about 30 minutes of playtime with breaks between 3 sessions:

• Controls feels pretty good after getting used to the weight of the kart, but it's too loose. I've shut it down several times and returned to it after a 10 minute break or so and find myself having to adjust to the sense of weight and movement of the kart again. I just booted up Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed after a 5 month hiatus and it fit like a glove within seconds of the first lap. I think you're close.
• Drifting feels pretty good. I think it will benefit a lot from tightening the controls.
• Air tricks (plus small boost) are great and satisfying to execute, but the use of them is tough because the opportunities are mostly offroad (which slows you down too much) and the boost isn't long enough to make it through the offroad part while maintaining top speed. Great idea, just needs better placement.
• Mentioned above, but going off track is too punishing.
• Is the boost start really particular on time? It doesn't seem like it's just anytime the 2 is showing, but a precise time when the two is showing. I couldn't determine exactly when to press down A and ended up leaving it to chance.

I can imagine enjoying a full game of this if it had a great variety of racing levels.

 

[thomasmahler]

After 30 minutes or I was able to consistently get under 1:05, but nothing below 1:03 posted above. Will keep trying.

My impressions after about 30 minutes of playtime with breaks between 3 sessions:

• Controls feels pretty good after getting used to the weight of the kart, but it's too loose. I've shut it down several times and returned to it after a 10 minute break or so and find myself having to adjust to the sense of weight and movement of the kart again. I just booted up Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed after a 5 month hiatus and it fit like a glove within seconds of the first lap. I think you're close.
• Drifting feels pretty good. I think it will benefit a lot from tightening the controls.
• Air tricks (plus small boost) are great and satisfying to execute, but the use of them is tough because the opportunities are mostly offroad (which slows you down too much) and the boost isn't long enough to make it through the offroad part while maintaining top speed. Great idea, just needs better placement.
• Mentioned above, but going off track is too punishing.
• Is the boost start really particular on time? It doesn't seem like it's just anytime the 2 is showing, but a precise time when the two is showing. I couldn't determine exactly when to press down A and ended up leaving it to chance.

I can imagine enjoying a full game of this if it had a great variety of racing levels.

Hey there, thanks a ton for the feedback

1) I've been watching a few people playing. I think my issue is that for 90% of the race, I personally just drift, which is exactly what I want people to do. That's what makes driving INTERESTING and SATISFYING atm, but just driving around without the drift isn't. You don't have to break, you can get through every curve easily, etc.
Right now it's not fun to just drive around the track without drifting. But most people don't drift 90% of the time, so I have to make the normal controls / experience more interesting or force people to drift.

2) The Air Boost is actually kinda broken right now and I'm wondering if hitting RB in the air should automatically give you an extra boost or if your car should make a random stunt and add to your drift bar. What do you guys think? Agree regarding the AirBoost opportunities putting you off-road, I'll probably have ramps set up in later tracks that allow you to land nicely and keep going without any punishment.

3) I agree that going off-track is a bit too punishing right now, will fix it in the next build

4) You just hit Gas when the 2 shows up and you have a certain time range there - practice makes perfect!

I also just tried looking into how good my carControllerScript is - I quickly bought a car asset from the Unity store and threw it in and it just worked, including all animations, tire movements and everything, no hook-ups required. It's fun to see another car jumping around in there, haha. I used to play with small 'Hot Wheels' cars when I was a kid and now I can model whatever car I want and drive through tracks without any hassle! It's the small things that make you happy while developing a game (And don't worry, I wont use crappy Asset store models for this game, everything will be hand modeled )

 

[Sydle]

Hey there, thanks a ton for the feedback

1) I've been watching a few people playing. I think my issue is that for 90% of the race, I personally just drift, which is exactly what I want people to do. That's what makes driving INTERESTING and SATISFYING atm, but just driving around without the drift isn't. You don't have to break, you can get through every curve easily, etc.
Right now it's not fun to just drive around the track without drifting. But most people don't drift 90% of the time, so I have to make the normal controls / experience more interesting or force people to drift.

2) The Air Boost is actually kinda broken right now and I'm wondering if hitting RB in the air should automatically give you an extra boost or if your car should make a random stunt and add to your drift bar. What do you guys think? Agree regarding the AirBoost opportunities putting you off-road, I'll probably have ramps set up in later tracks that allow you to land nicely and keep going without any punishment.

3) I agree that going off-track is a bit too punishing right now, will fix it in the next build

4) You just hit Gas when the 2 shows up and you have a certain time range there - practice makes perfect!

I also just tried looking into how good my carControllerScript is - I quickly bought a car asset from the Unity store and threw it in and it just worked, including all animations, tire movements and everything, no hook-ups required. It's fun to see another car jumping around in there, haha. I used to play with small 'Hot Wheels' cars when I was a kid and now I can model whatever car I want and drive through tracks without any hassle! It's the small things that make you happy while developing a game (And don't worry, I wont use crappy Asset store models for this game, everything will be hand modeled )

1) I was drifting most of the time, too, and I agree it's pretty fun in its current state. However, I have a hard time imagining doing this with other racers on the track and not constantly bumping into them as I drift and boost around. I feel like I need a little more control over the kart as it's drifting and boosting, but perhaps I just need more time with it. I think the true test would be having other racers on the track and experiencing what it's like to manage the track, racers, and their items.

2) I like the idea of having to execute a full stunt (or multiple stunts) and adding to the turbo bar. I actually like the idea of off-road ramps and shortcuts that shave just a second or two off a lap if executed properly. It would incentivize drifting to earn boost so you can maintain top speed off-road to reach the ramp and then require you to execute some mid-air stunts to earn just enough time or boost that keeps you ahead of the pack. There needs to be some risk/reward there.

Speaking of the boost, did you consider allowing the player to manage the use of their boost meter? Instead of using the whole turbo boost at once perhaps you could allow the player to hold down the turbo boost button to use exactly what they need when they need it? This could be especially fun if you're planning to add zippers where a player could master a track in using drift/boost plus zippers to constantly maintain top speed. Boost management could also add a layer of control to drifting around other karts.

Additionally, maybe the boost could be used to escape some items, or simply allow the player to leave themselves just enough to get back up to speed quickly after they've accidentally gone off road or have been hit with an item?

That would probably require remapping the buttons, but it could work with Accelerate mapped to RT, Hop/Drift mapped to LT, and leaving your right thumb free to manage resources (Items and Turbo) on the face buttons. Just a thought. : )

You're doing great. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

 

[thomasmahler]

Thanks for the feedback again, I'll answer in more detail shortly!

But here's something for you:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersOldTimer.zip

A new build with a different car I quickly implemented yesterday night to test my script. I made it harder to control and gave it less acceleration than the Racer, but it has a better max speed and breaking is easier with it.

Would be cool if everyone who talked about the controls could try it. It's definitely more difficult to keep this one on the track, you do need to use the breaks quite a bit, etc.

 

[Sydle]

Thanks for the feedback again, I'll answer in more detail shortly!

But here's something for you:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersOldTimer.zip

A new build with a different car I quickly implemented yesterday night to test my script. I made it harder to control and gave it less acceleration than the Racer, but it has a better max speed and breaking is easier with it.

Would be cool if everyone who talked about the controls could try it. It's definitely more difficult to keep this one on the track, you do need to use the breaks quite a bit, etc.

That new car doesn't feel good at all to me, but I've never been one to use brakes in kart racers. I feel like a game called Super Turbo Drifters shouldn't even have the need for a brake button, but that's just me.

I think you're incredibly close with your first car. Having spent close to one hour with it now I would even say it's starting to feel great, at least to the point where I can run a couple of laps with a good rhythm of drifting/snaking and boosting, feeling a sense of satisfaction with it. I still prefer the glued-to-the-road type of drifting precision of Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed, but I could have fun with your drifting too provided that the tracks were forgiving enough.

My biggest gripe is how often I end up off the track after a boost. By now I've learned just how far the boost will place me, so I've almost got the timing down such that I'll end up on the road after a boost 9/10 times, but that took a lot of laps to memorize the track and the boost length. It was a steep learning curve due to the unfamiliar sense of weight and boost length on such a narrow track, plus the punishing deceleration after going off track. Maybe think about mixing in some longer and wider curves in the early tracks?

In addition to longer, wider curves another incentive you could offer to encourage drifting are zippers that act as speed multipliers based on your drift. Perhaps you even have drift levels such that hitting a zipper on drift level 1 would be a 1.1x increase in speed for a set distance, level 2 a 1.2x, and level 3 a 1.3x. IDK, I think I could get addicted to figuring out how to stay at top speed through a level, it was certainly a lot of fun in SART.

 

[thomasmahler]

Hey Paco,

Sorry, didn't have time to answer before, everything's super busy on the other end of my life

Regarding your Turbo Idea, other people have suggested that already. I think I might try it now and change the controls while I'm at it. I agree with you that we don't REALLY need the brake and that most people probably don't use the break in Mario Kart -> So it doesn't make sense to waste an entire button for it. I'm a little concerned about the casual people who would use it, but...

So I'll probably change the controls to:

A: Gas
X: Boost
LB: Powerup/Weapon
RB: Drift

The nice thing about the current boost is that you hit the button once and then don't have to think about it anymore, apart from drifting to stay on the track. But yeah, being able to dynamically choose when to Turbo and when not to is wroth a try

And yeah, I'll make the tracks a bit wider, etc. -> The current track in 4 player multiplayer would probably be a bit crazy, but I think the way the controls work favors thinner tracks. I want to keep the tracks closer to how wide they've been in Super Mario Kart and not have insanely wide tracks like in Mario Kart 8. I think a lot of the fun factor here will entirely depend on how well the tracks are designed. Similar to Ori, I think the controls and the levels just have to work together perfectly and I love figuring that shit out

Regarding zippers, I had the same idea already I'll probably add something that gives you a nice boost if you drive over them, but an even nicer boost if you drift over them, similar to how Diddy Kong Racing had multiple Boost Levels based on whether you stepped off the gas or not.

Thanks for the detailed feedback and it's cool to hear that you played the current version for over an hour already Did you already set an under-1-minute track record?

 

[thomasmahler]

Alright, so here's something you don't see every day...

I just read up on the development of Crash Team Racing (CTR) and read that they used a track from Diddy Kong Racing to see if this kinda stuff is possible on the Playstation 1.

So I thought... hells, why not, I'll just grab one of the Mario Kart 8 Tracks (Actually, it's Donut Plains 3, the remake of the SNES track) and import it into Super Turbo Drifters:

And it's actually working quite well - there's obviously a few collider issues (the bridge at the start didn't exist in the imported model, so you have to slowly drive over that bit for the collision detection to pick up) and none of the walls work, but hey, I think this is a very interesting test and it's nice to see that the mechanics work quite well in a 'real track' like that

If you wanna try it, here's a link:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersDonutPlains3.zip

@Mods: I hope posting this is OK. I could see how people might go nutty about me importing a model from a Nintendo game into my own and put it online, so if it's a problem, please delete this post

Enjoy!

 

[Komo]

Reminds me of CTR, so I'm already on-board with the idea. Subbed to this thread!

 

[thomasmahler]

Did a quick few changes during lunchbreak - Gave the track proper assignments, I changed the drift so you can't drift without steering and I disabled the filters, cause everybody hated them:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersDonutPlains3.zip

 

[thomasmahler]

My brother was just here and wanted to play along, so I added 2 Player Splitscreen:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersDonutPlains32Player.zip

Fun!

Next thing to do is to hook up the stupid menu properly, so I don't have to make a build every time

I support everything up to 4 player splitscreen now, woohoo. Not enough PC games support splitscreen!

Here's the 4 Player Splitscreen Build for good measure:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersDonutPlains34Player.zip

 

[PaulloDEC]

Did a quick few changes during lunchbreak - Gave the track proper assignments, I changed the drift so you can't drift without steering and I disabled the filters, cause everybody hated them:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersDonutPlains3.zip

I've just had a little go of this version, and things are feeling much improved to my eyes. Having a bigger, more open track makes things much, much more manageable, and I'm loving the little touches you've added, like the little bounce animation at the start of a drift.

If I could pick an area I'd like to see looked at next, it'd be drifting behaviour, specifically when the player attempts to manoeuvre mid-drift.

In CTR (yeah, CTR again, sorry!) the drifting always felt great to me. Just holding drift with no directional input would give you a gentle turning curve. Holding drift while steering into the drift would give you a stronger curve. Holding drift while steering away from the drift on the other hand would allow you to go in almost a straight line, albeit one pointed slightly in the opposite direction of your drift. Constantly switching which direction you were steering in allowed for pretty nuanced drifts, where moments of steering away from the drift would allow you to correct your course before turning back into it.

In your demo, steering in either direction results in a pretty harsh arc. Steering away from the drift seems ok for the first moment or so, but soon after it becomes a tight arc again, and attempting to switch rapidly between steering directions mid-drift doesn't really work, with returning to turning into the drift resulting in the car taking a violent slide outward, just as it does when you start the drift in the first place.

I hope any of that made sense. I'll have a bit more time later today, so I'll try to elaborate (or just explain myself better) then.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Ok, so I had a chance to go back and look into this a bit more. Ultimately I don't think this can be a complaint just yet; more of an observation.

https://d.maxfile.ro/sigdpnpxxx.webm

I made a little video to better show what I mean re: the drift handling in CTR. When I watch this back, it becomes clear that for a huge amount of time spent drifting I'm actually steering away from the turn, which holds the car more straight. The time spent turning into the drift while drifting is far less than I'd have thought.

https://d.maxfile.ro/akwztwmxgr.webm

In your demo, that isn't so much of a viable option at the moment. I've found that the best strategy right now is small hops during the drift to get myself back on course, or very short instances of turning away from the drift (if you do it for more than a moment the car starts turning too strongly and I end up off-course in the opposite direction). Primarily when drifting, I'm turning into the drift. Every long drift in that video has me doing so (though it's harder to tell what I'm doing in the shorter drifts, especially the ones I botch badly).

Please forgive the potentially crappy sync on the control-view versus screen-view, I've no idea how much input lag there is in either game, so syncing was a little tricky. Hopefully the broad strokes are still useful in some way.

 

[thomasmahler]

Holy crap, thanks for the awesome feedback

I think I'll put everyone here who gives a ton of feedback into the credits under Special Thanks, cause this is awesome

I already played around with the drift behavior a bit, I'll probably post another build later that has some drift adjustments.

After that, I think hooking up the menu system, so it's all properly working and people can just either do a single player or multiPlayer race with however many players is next on my list

Also, BATTLE MODE! I grabbed one of the Battle Mode Tracks from Mario Kart 7 (the GBA Battle Course 1 Remake, which I think is the same track as on the SNES) and will quickly implement it to test things. While doing that, I can also adjust the weapons, so that the green shell / red shell, etc. will work properly. There's still a bug in there atm where the weapons sometimes just pop away when you press LB. Stupid bugs.

After that, I'll have a go at partial boosting!

 

[thomasmahler]

I updated the last build over the weekend:

http://www.warsoup.com/files/superTurboDriftersDonutPlains3.zip

Now contains a proper startMenu, where you can set the modes, choose a car, pick a track and add up to 4 players for 4 player splitscreen action.

That was such a pain in the ass to code. Unity's UI Event System is junk, so I coded all the functionality myself...

The cars are mostly the same, but at least it's a good base now and I'll never have to make separate builds for 2Player or 4Player stuff again