[Unity] Touhou Kart - Early Alpha

[Iceman404]

The new models are amazing!
I dunno if I would've preferred a short, stubby, chibi look though. But this works just as well, just my personal preference.

[Hoeloe]

I did consider chibi-like characters, but eventually decided this style would be preferred. I only have Marisa and Reimu at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to getting the rest of them - Guy has done a fantastic job with these two.

[Hoeloe]

I think I'll just leave this here...

[Iceman404]

I think the faster you're moving, regular turning should begin to lose more and more friction, so drifting becomes useful at higher speeds like it should be. The drifting arc doesn't look like it's strong enough at the moment, which would force the level design to be really straight forward. You should let the player be more nimble so you don't end up with Nintendo's new problem of every map being an extremely open road. Deceleration seems too strong at the moment.

I'd also suggest making the camera object faster so it zooms out less when boosting, it just looks a bit too extreme of a change that'd probably become a bit distracting during actual gameplay. Actually, I'd suggest zooming in the default camera much more; a kart should be in the lower section of the screen and not near the center, it'd let you see what's on the road easier.

It's looking great so far, progress seems to be coming along nice. It looks like it's handling fun so far, I'd personally play this over the boring modern Mario Kart controls already. The water splashing looks like a neat effect and I see more of the models got done. I don't quite understand what the HUD in the top left there is for?

[Hoeloe]

I've already done a lot of tweaking to the drifting. Your turning arc is constant, so when you are at higher speeds, you can't turn in such a tight circle, and it makes drifting much more useful. I'll look into the drifting arc to see what I can do, though.

The camera zoom effect is actually one I've built into the engine. Once you get past a certain speed, the field of view of the camera expands, giving the illusion you are moving a lot faster than you are, and it does look pretty neat in-game, and from my experience isn't too distracting at all. I may tweak it such that it follows in a way that keeps the player more towards the bottom of the screen, though.

It is pretty fun to play around with so far. I'm basing the feel of it on Crash Team Racing, since I generally prefer the game feel of that over Mario Kart (MK tends to feel a little stiff to me). The only model actually in game at the moment is Reimu, who is also the default if the specific character doesn't have a model. I've made it so that it's really easy to add more models as they get made. The HUD in the top left has two uses. The number is your power metre. Higher power slightly boosts your top speed, and if you get the power to MAX, you also get better versions of all the items (similar to CTR's "Juiced-Up" mode). The circle in the top left will eventually hold whatever item you have, but since I have yet to implement items, it does nothing as of yet.

EDIT: I had a look at my drifting code, and it turns out that the bit that did the drifting arc was actually broken (dope), so I fixed that, then spent about an hour or so tweaking it to make it feel right, and also be controllable. The new drifting system allows the best of both worlds - you can use it pretty much as it is now (a mostly straight-line drift with a direction change at the end), or lean into the drift by steering with it to drastically increase your turning arc and accurately aim your drift. It works pretty nicely, and has the added bonus that character stats now balance out much better, as the handling stat also affects how easy it is to drift, and how effective your drifts can be.

I also had a look at the camera, and did some tweaking, but making the camera follow the player much faster causes some issues, as it appears jerky, so I made it aim slightly above the player as you move faster. This works as long as the effect isn't too drastic, or it becomes obvious and jarring, and much more distracting. It does shift you into the lower half of the screen, though, and the ground in front of you is now a bit more visible.

[Iceman404]

Ah, the HUD being a mix of coins and 10-Wumpa fruit is a cool idea. I love when the gameplay is more fleshed out like that, since going out of your way to collect these things takes more skill. It seems like you're thinking of everything that made older kart racers fun, I really look forward to this.

[Hoeloe]

Ah, the HUD being a mix of coins and 10-Wumpa fruit is a cool idea. I love when the gameplay is more fleshed out like that, since going out of your way to collect these things takes more skill. It seems like you're thinking of everything that made older kart racers fun, I really look forward to this.

I'm a big fan of some of the older kart racers, and one of the main drivers behind this was to create something of that style, with all the fun little nuances. My absolute favourite racing game was always Crash Tram Racing, and there is a fair amount of influence of that in there. I hope I manage to live up to expectations, it's nice to know that people are looking forward to it though!

[Hoeloe]

Here are some new screenshots! The area is still temporary testing, I just made it a little less painful to look at. These are some of the Spell Cards I've been working on! Shown here are about half of them that will be available in the final game. I have most of them done, but I'll make a demo video at some point to demonstrate them better. Enjoy!

Spoiler

[Hoeloe]

A new video is on the way! Hopefully will have it ready today!

[Hoeloe]

NEW VIDEO GET!

I apologise for the fact that I'm still using the same Reimu model for all characters, and the same temporary animation system. It seems Guy disappeared, and I haven't heard from him in over a month now.

[Ploaj]

I just wanted to comment that I love this project!
I don't know anything about Touhou, but I really like kart racers, and this looks really well made.
The models are also quite nice, and I like how the trees animated, it looks great!

The only thing I can say about the video is that black dust cloud thing stays around a bit long imo.
Could you maybe make it slowly fade away or something so it's not too obstructing?
Overall it looks very fun to play! I can't wait to see more

[Hoeloe]

Thank you! I can reduce the duration of the mist, and the amount of the screen it obscures. I have made it rarer, though, as it was far too common, and it appears to cover more in that video than it actually does, thanks to compression. I'm going to leave it as-is for now, and let people give feedback on a public demo when one is eventually released.

[Hoeloe]

I feel I should ask this - does anyone here know where Guy has gone? The last I heard from him was at the end of June. I don't want to have to look for a new character modeller, as he has already done some great work, but I may have to if no-one knows what has happened to him.

[Hoeloe]

Okay. It's now been over a month and a half since I've heard from Guy, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to assume he's not going to work on this any more. I'm going to have to look for another character modeller. If anyone knows of anyone who might be able to help, or can do themselves, then please let me know.

[Kosheh]

...will there be an Adventure Mode where you race on a track but have to dodge bullet-hell patterns by carefully drifting into giant patterns of projectiles? >D

If so, I'm sold. A kart-racing game with the critical thinking that goes into dodging those bullet hell patterns.



...actually, wouldn't that just mean the racers would have ridiculous, varying projectiles to choose from when tripping an item box?

Spoiler

actually, the thing getting to me thinking about this concept (it's not you or this idea specifically d/w) - and i'm not really a huge touhou fan - the whole touhou cast is capable of flying, aren't they?
why hasn't the touhou community taken the opportunity to like, make a touhou fangame that plays like diddy kong racing's airplane segments with refined mechanics lol? then, the bullet hell mechanics would be even more neat as you'd be barrel rolling through barrages of projectiles

it'd be a fairly innovative idea that could easily spawn a surprisingly decent retail game (or at least own a single comiket )