Game Overview

Frost Rod is a time-based arcade racing game (inspired by classics like Virtua Racer) where you play a training simulator for a new experimental snowmobile-style vehicle appropriately called, Frost Rod. This simulation exists because the vehicle’s engine is very unstable and prone to overheating if not handled correctly. Beat the main track in the game to see if you are qualified to handle the vehicular beast that is the Frost Rod!

Itch.io link: https://maxnmiller.itch.io/frost-rod

Development

My work on this game consisted of the following:

• Investigating and analyzing track designs from games like Virtua Racer, Mariokart, and Need for Speed.

• Draw out track designs and consult them with the team.

• Build the final selection in Unity.

• Decorate the level with a snowy mountain valley city aesthetic

• Keep tabs on GitHub to both upload my progress and update my stuff with other’s progress.

• Constant playtesting of my level to make sure it all felt right and good to play.

The Idea

For Frost Rod’s main level, the original idea was a mountain racetrack the likes of NFS: Carbon’s cliffside races. However, the physics surrounding the car made it difficult to work with, so we settled with a valley city while keeping the snowy mountain aesthetic. I did this through terrain manipulation for mountains and some basic texturing of it. The snowy tree asset also helped a lot here. Gameplaywise, I wanted the level to have some decent variety in it. Both drifting and some aspects of verticality were a must, in my eyes. Arcade racers thrive with these types of race track designs, because they implement the excitement of racing in both the car itself and the playground it’s in. For drifting, there are various curves within the track that allow for it, and verticality was implemented through a small highway section and some ramps. There was also the overheating mechanic to take into account. This was mainly thought through the race track’s straight stretches. Here, the player has to make sure to keep an eye on their speedometer. Not doing so and simply holding the speed pedal would guarantee overheating and blowing the engine. Finally, while the area around the track seems open, I made sure to put some death barriers around to avoid any easy skips (some difficult ones were left in though). Moreover, I put some physical barriers with cars and some arrow signs to guide the player.

The Lesson

This project had a bit of a bittersweet ending, in my opinion. We actually won “Best Visuals” at the Game Jam this was submitted to, but not “Best Overall”. I say bittersweet because while we didn’t win #1, I do very much understand why that is. I took a lot of lessons from this project. First off, the loop in the later part of the track was a huge mistake to implement. In this scenario I let my vision of the level take priority over the practicality of it, and everything from and after the loop suffered because of it. This is because the loop scaled very differently compared to the other parts of the road and thus I couldn't make them as big. This made it so those later parts of the race track didn't have as much wiggle room as the start and didn’t allow for the fun of the car’s movement to shine as brightly. The loop itself is also not very nice to run through. To fix it, I would simply replace it with some more simple turns. The other big mistake I made was making the arrow signs in the game too small. This is another scaling problem and the judges who played the game said they could barely see them. This meant they didn’t know where to go sometimes. Making them bigger and brighter through some VFX is how I would fix this problem. Overall, the main issues I had crafting this level were related to scaling. However, there was definitely a bigger issue at play and that was my inability to adapt my ideas on the fly. I am still incredibly proud of this level because I love how it looks and I feel most of it plays great. But, it’s far from perfect and I don’t aim for anything less.