[Unity] Touhou Kart - Early Alpha

[Hoeloe]

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play Mario Kart, or Crash Team Racing, with characters from Touhou? Well, hopefully sometime in the future, you won't have to! Because that's what this game is. Touhou Kart. You probably guessed that much. Anyway, this is a project I'm working on in my spare time (though I don't have much of that at the moment because exams).

I'm not entirely sure where the idea for this game came from, but it's been sitting up there for a while, and only recently have I got to grips enough with Unity to be able to make it a reality. So, first I'll show you what I already have, and then we'll talk about what the plan is.

There is a Facebook page associated with this project, so head over there if you feel like it.

Here are a couple of videos of some alpha tests:

The controls are very similar to those of Crash Team Racing. You can accelerate forwards and turn, obviously. The jump button also acts as the drift button. If you jump off a ramp, you'll boost when you hit the ground. You'll also boost when you stop drifting, as long as the smoke has turned black. If you drift for too long, however, you'll spin out of control, and have to accelerate from stationary again!

Essentially, that's what I have now, so let's talk a bit about what's planned.

The ideas are largely based on Crash Team Racing, again. There will be a story mode and a versus mode. Hopefully, the versus mode will be online! The story mode will feature 4 worlds, each with 3 stages and a boss race at the end. The stages will be against 7 other racers, while the boss will be one-on-one. Also, in each world is the "Sakuya Challenge". These are optional, and will be used to unlock bonus extras. These require you to race one-on-one with Sakuya on all 3 stages in that world, back to back. To win the Sakuya Challenge, you have to win all 3.

Currently, the planned character roster is as follows:

Reimu Hakurei

Marisa Kirisame

Tewi Inaba

Youmu Konpaku

Nitori Kawashiro

Suwako Moriya

Remilia Scarlet

Patchouli Knowledge

With the following as unlockable characters:

Cirno
Reisen Inaba
Aya Shameimari
Flandre Scarlet
Sakuya Izayoi
Renko Usami
Maribel Han

I know there will be some characters not on that list that people will be really wanting to play as, but I cannot make every Touhou character playable - that would be FAR too much work

Each character also has exactly one stage planned to fit with them, and each character will also have one item associated with them.

Now that we've discussed this, I do confess I need a little help. I'm currently working on this alone, but clearly this is far too much work. I'm happy to put the time into the programming and structure of the game, but I can't do that and the modelling as well, so if anyone here is willing to help by character or environment modelling for this project, you will be very welcome.

I think that's more or less everything I want to say at the moment, so I'll just leave you with this: Happy racing!

Spoiler

[Gors]

graphic suggestion: instead of using blurry textures, how about pixelart textures a la Megaman Legends? I think they look a lot more appealing to the eye..

though this is not important for now; good luck in this!

[Hoeloe]

Pixelart textures would be less feasible for the scale of the game, and also translate less well into mip-maps. Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the Unity renderer I don't have control over, and mip-maps is one of them. The textures I have at the moment are aiming for a sort of oil-paint feel (simply because that's the art style I'm best at doing textures with). They are in no way finalised, though. Thanks for the input!

[Gors]

(if you are interested i can rip Super Mario Kart and maybe make a tune or two for this )

[Hoeloe]

Aha! I'm keen to keep all resources original (since I think that allows for a certain consistency in a game), but music is definitely something that will be needed! Thanks for the offer!

[RokuGurin]

I always wondered how a game like this could work. Good luck with this, man!

Though I have to ask, why "Sakuya" challenges? Seems kind of odd to me to have her of all characters with her own set of challenges. I'd reserve something like that for Yukari instead.

But oh well.

[Hoeloe]

The Sakuya Challenges are because Sakuya is this game's "time trial" character. There will be other unlockables for beating her times on various courses in a different game mode!

[Gors]

this is also a random suggestion and might be a no-no for fans but how about giving the characters driving attire? i think it'll give your game more detail, and i personally think it's fun to see a reimagining of the same characters in such clothing. I didn't like how Mario and co. still wore their everyday clothes in races. maybe you could make an alternate outfit kind of thing.

still those are just cosmetic ideas but i thought it was worth sharing.

[Iceman404]

I like the fact that you're actually thinking about what used to make the older karting games (Super Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing) actually fun, the physics. If you can get fun as hell physics down, I'm sold for this. (If, when you start the items, you get the generic homing one to move just like SMK redshells, I'd be double-sold for this).

The only thing I'd criticize is that the kart itself at the moment looks very "long". I wish it were a little more wide as well in design. This doesn't even need to be just stretching it horizontally, it could be adding bumpers that stick out so it looks less empty as seen here.

Maybe actually broaden the wheels too. (Shifter Karts are my personal favorite look: Low to the ground, as wide as a square, the small and squarish wheels, the block-bumpers on the side, the square rim on the back, and open design)

I don't even know if this would be of any use, but a friend of mine made some acceleration math for our old kart fangame a year or so ago.

Spoiler

"for every game tic that happens, the player will game speed recursively on their current speed on the game tic
accel = the char's accel setting
curspeed = the char's speed on this game tic
newspeed = the char's speed on the following game tic
maxspeed = the char's top speed
friction = the friction value the character is on. this could be ice or grass, or even heath. whatever the mapper set the friction value to, this will be used. in general, its best to keep ice at 120 maximum, and grass around a 30 minimum. basically speaking, if you want karts to go extra fast, use friction beyond 100.
boostpower = the amount of speed boost the character has applied to them. this number is added up based on the flags, then is multiplied into the equation.
flags:
default speed = +1.0 (start with this value)
mushroom = +0.5
star = +0.3
slideboost = +0.3
mega = +0.4
mini = -0.3
squished = -0.1

(this means a player can have up to a total of 2.2 times their topspeed legitly, because a star does not stack with a mega.)

newspeed = (((accel/40)*(maxspeed-curspeed)/40*friction*boostpower) + curspeed)

This means that if the maxspeed is greater than curspeed, speed will be added, and if maxspeed is less tha curspeed, speed will be subtracted. this allows karts above their max speed to slowly decelerate. And if the kart is dead on their max speed, the entire equation negates and their speed remains the same.

when turning, speed acceleration is kept the same. the game will see the angle of both the eyes of the player and the player's movement. it will determine the angle change, and divide it by 5, to get the new angle of movement, and the speed will be determined by the equation, to build a new verctor for each following tic. this will grant an smk-style turning. if a player hops before heading into a turn, they will be rewarded with a slide boost if they constantly turn into a direction above a threshold turning amount for a given amount of time. a player can be rewarded with a blue or orange boost, which will give extra speed to the player. 20 tics for blue, 50 tics for orange."

We could never really use it though because of engine limitations, sadly.

[RokuGurin]

this is also a random suggestion and might be a no-no for fans but how about giving the characters driving attire? i think it'll give your game more detail, and i personally think it's fun to see a reimagining of the same characters in such clothing.

This I agree with. Not many Touhou fangames do this. When Koumajou Densetsu went for it, it worked perfectly!

[Hoeloe]

still those are just cosmetic ideas but i thought it was worth sharing.

I had actually thought about this, and I'm undecided. I'm all for it if it can be made well.

I like the fact that you're actually thinking about what used to make the older karting games (Super Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing) actually fun, the physics. If you can get fun as hell physics down, I'm sold for this. (If, when you start the items, you get the generic homing one to move just like SMK redshells, I'd be double-sold for this).

Yeah, this is actually the 3rd or 4th attempt at this engine, just because I couldn't get the physics quite right. They are a lot better now, and do feel very familiar and fun, which is great! I'm hoping I can get the homing item to work well, though I don't know until I give it a try!

The only thing I'd criticize is that the kart itself at the moment looks very "long".

Yeah, I did notice this. It already is shorter than the original model in the game (I squashed it slightly). The karts were based highly on those in CTR, but with a longer nose to put the symbols on. I wanted to keep the karts quite minimal, but they also needed to be long enough to fit more realistically-proportioned characters... The kart models aren't necessarily final anyway, although they don't look quite as bad in-game.

I don't even know if this would be of any use, but a friend of mine made some acceleration math for our old kart fangame a year or so ago.

Well, thanks for sharing! I've already written most of the physics code, so this is somewhat incompatible in places, but at the very least you've reminded me that I forgot about ice! I can implement it pretty easily, but thanks for reminding me, and thanks for the extra insight. It's really great to know that people are keen to help with this project!

[Iceman404]

Ah, well I hope you make acceleration a big factor in it. It's what I really loved about SMK among many other games. The acceleration was so gradual and hard to maintain, and when you played well it went above speeds you could hardly handle.

I love Super Mario Kart's redshells for a specific reason. Rather than constantly facing their target and moving in a forward direction, they actually turned toward their target. Broad and slow turns, as well as moving forward at a constant pace. This is why it wasn't instantaneous like Mario Kart 64, who's shells snapped to position annoyingly and moved in zig zags, or ran right into walls blatantly. I think CTR's missiles moved like SMK's as well actually.



I wish I knew Touhou really, but I don't :V

[Gors]

I dont care about touhou but i do care about kart games and hoeloe

[Hoeloe]

Ah, well I hope you make acceleration a big factor in it. It's what I really loved about SMK among many other games. The acceleration was so gradual and hard to maintain, and when you played well it went above speeds you could hardly handle.

Yeah, the balance of physics is really important, and I do want to get this right if I can.

I love Super Mario Kart's redshells for a specific reason. Rather than constantly facing their target and moving in a forward direction, they actually turned toward their target. Broad and slow turns, as well as moving forward at a constant pace. This is why it wasn't instantaneous like Mario Kart 64, who's shells snapped to position annoyingly and moved in zig zags, or ran right into walls blatantly. I think CTR's missiles moved like SMK's as well actually.

That was what I'd want from the homing items, too. I like the way the red shells moved in later SMK games, and I do want to try and emulate that somewhat.

[Gors]

i liked 64's red shells, because of the cool purple fire effects and its unpredictability. it would fly straight for a second then curve towards the enemy. it was pretty fun to mqster it.

though ill say, make this a racing game with weapons than a war on wheels. weapons are meant to help you, not straight out defeat everyone and give you the first place.