I am currently working on my first game “Illegal Velocity”. It is a arcade racing game where you compete on high performance cars on public roads, avoid traffic and try to escape the police (police is subject to a soonish update though). So first things first: You can download and test Illegal Velocity for free on Itch.io:
It is still in early development (basically white box prototype), but you can choose between two cars and two tracks and race against AI opponents. Gamepad and keyboard are supported as input. I would love to get some feedback!
You can also watch my (first) video on the vehicle physics on YouTube to get some impressions:
The game itself is inspired by classic titles that I loved to play like NFS Hot Pursuit, Burnout and Flatout, though I am not targeting at reproducing the game experience of any of these.
I plan to add police pursuits, interactive environments, a tournament based “career mode” (kind of like in the old NFS games) and more race modes. Though everything is subject to change depending on what feedback I get.
The controls and physics feel quite good already, which is half the battle, so good job
I’d personally prefer the drifting to be a little less self-correcting, to leave a little more room for play, but also disaster.
The current controls are more forgiving though, encouraging the player to drift more. I’m looking forward to trying a car with more horsepower, and see how that feels.
I think the music is needlessly loud, both in the menu and in-game. It also overpowers the engine noises, which apart from giving important feedback, also set the tone for a racing game.
I haven’t bothered commenting on things that aren’t really relevant now, but car select should have a visual indicator that more cars are available with ← / → . People testing might not realize it - I only discovered it by accident. It would also be nice to show the control scheme, for the same reason.
Hi @phoenixdk, thanks for giving Illegal Velocity a shot It feels amazing that someone I don’t know plays the game I worked on.
Thanks for the feedback, those are some good points. Actually I made the muscle car in v0.4.3 less drifty due to feedback from friends (any version before was not public yet) and I think it currently feels a bit too tamed, so I am happy to hear that there is someone who also feels like that. I guess I have to try different variations until it works well.
Anyway, if you are interested you can actually hit F4 (hidden controls ftw) during a race which opens a suspension and wheel tuning window. You can play with the lateral (reduce) or longitudinal (increase) force scale of the rear wheels to make the car more drifty. Let me know if you gave it a shot and which values worked well for you.
Also thanks for the feedback about the music and sound! I haven’t spend much effort yet in fine tuning the volumes, though IMO the sound and music mix is an integral part of a proper racing experience. So I will definitely try to use lower volumes for the music to the give the engines more room.
I originally made the music louder than the engines, because I thought my engine sounds are not that good and punchy. So, do you actually like the engine sounds? I am originally a software engineer by profession so mixing sound effects is all new for me. Maybe interesting technical detail: The engine sounds are actually fully synthesized during runtime using a combination of different base signals and wave guides (since I am better at programming than mixing).
Also good points about UX, it didn’t get too much love yet . For 0.5.0 I have planned to include at least a README, maybe even a ingame control map. And indicators for the car selection are really a good point, will put that on my todo. I didn’t even realize that they are missing
It feels amazing that someone I don’t know plays the game I worked on.