Félicitations bonhomme ! Très, très cool!
This is awesome, again congratulations! 
1 Like
For a demo, I wouldn’t have 10 mins of scripted gameplay if it means the player has no real agency.
I would focus on one or two tracks, and short-circuit the action to bring players on track and in race asap.
Showcase the ancillary stuff in a demo reel.
Break many legs until February’s Next Fest!
Cheers !
2 Likes
I think I misspoke; by scripted I meant that the first race is not optional and the characters available to speak to are always the same on day 1. How things go is entirely up to the player!
Good points though, I know most people are not going to want to sit through cutscenes. Most of that will be cut down or omitted from the demo.
I made a small QOL update to tyre selections. Instead of using the item quality system (Stock, Sport, Performance, and Custom) tyres now use traditional rubber compound tags.
In stormy weather, especially in later seasons, tyre selection is crucial. You’ll still need to reference text descriptions and your kart’s stat changes as each tyre has a different profile, but this makes quick-swaps between races a lot simpler.
5 Likes
Just got an eviction notice (wtf is this year) so instead of spiraling out I fixed some bugs and added some details from the massive list of things left to do.
Painting your kart is done at colourwyn Fume’s paintshop for a fee.
Basic finishes are relatively affordable but the fancier ones cost nearly 100 credits. After testing it became clear that the higher end finishes felt like a rip-off but having the prices be high for multi-layer finishes is for immersion.
This is where coupons come in!
Certain events will reward you with the ability to get a free respray of any finish. I did my best to capture the kind of ads you’d find in Mechanix Illustrated or Popular Mechanics from the 60s and 70s.
I’m still implementing them, but I imagine having at least a couple obtainable every season or as narrative rewards as they’re meant to a high value.
That’s all for now, take care of yourselves!
2 Likes
Courage l’ami ! F* les rénovictions et autres turpitudes du marché immobilier montréalais!
Looking good, hopefully we get to drive and crash them soon enough!
My sympathies on your quest for the next “castle” chez Defomort! 
Cheers!
1 Like
@OleNic Merci! It’s weird, when I walk down my alley past all the apartments that have been converted to fancy single family homes it doesn’t feel like I belong anymore. Bastards!
I gave the paintshop some more treatment. It’s one of those scenes I hadn’t really touched since the first few prototype passes so it needed a lot of work.
There is now a main menu like the Garage and Bar where you can choose between painting your kart and, eventually, customizing your helmets.
I saw a lot of posts on karting/racing forums and reddit about getting helmets painted and thought giving players a similar experience would add a nice level of detail.
I’ll also be making a unique character model for Fume. Initially I wanted her to be based off of artists like Coop or Von Dutch but that seemed obvious, and was a bit too close to another prominent character in the game.
Fume will be a minor character but she’ll have a quest or two, and some dialogue.
Otherwise I’m working in “Service Time” for cups and tournaments, and eventually pit-stops. In multi-race events you’ll have limited time to swap parts and repairs inspired by rally racing. Nothing to show of that yet but it’s the last major race mechanic to include and something I’ve been trying to solve for a long time.
1 Like
@defomort I know the feeling all too well… I can barely afford to live in the city whose frontlines I work in (intervenant au communautaire, réduction des méfaits, etc.)
Looking good, now stop teasing and let’s drive those karts ! 
1 Like
Woof, I gotta admit, the longer I work on this the harder it is to dive back into coding and creating new mechanics. Features are creeping…
Before a race you have the chance to quickly swap parts, a mechanic I setup almost a year ago now (!!!). This was meant to be a placeholder for a more complex system but as it turns out it works quite well.
This past couple of weeks I’ve expanded the quick-swap menu to allow for repairs. Between races you’ll have a 2 hour bank of time for both part swapping and repairs. These repairs will also consume your scrap.
If you exceed your time you’ll need to adjust accordingly before you can continue with the event.
The best part about this is it allows me to create events with more than 5 races, and makes qualifying and practice stints more viable.
That’s all for this week. If anyone’s interested I’ve been posting different art on BlueSky every day this month for #ArtAdventCaldendar: @charlietwitch.bsky.social on Bluesky
Otherwise I’m keeping my head up and trying to get life sorted without interrupting my work too much. Be well!
1 Like
ooooo mario kart clone
looking forward to play this
1 Like
Hey gang, tiny weekly update time.
I’ve mostly been cleaning up the features I just added. Swapping parts in the pre-race menu was a bit confusing so I added in icons to let you know what’s been changed.
You can also finally drink and do drugs! They are a simple way to get a stat boost, or help you understand how the different abilities affect your character early on.
Effects will last for 1 race and you can see if you’ve recently imbibed on the ability page in the player profile. Stats affected by substances will get a little bottle icon. You’ll mostly be buying drinks at the bar but there are a few other opportunities to partake.
Between the levelling system, driver gear, and temporary bonuses you’ll have a lot of ways to shape your character outside of working on your kart.
I’m still working on the demo for February’s Steam Next Fest. The plan now is to have two of the tracks ready and a “quick-race” mode with a couple of preset karts. Part of me wants to delay to the summer for a demo but I also feel like it’s time to get something into people’s hands…
Thanks for reading and be well.
3 Likes
Merry xmas to those who celebrate!
We didn’t have room in our apartment so I added christmas trees to Miracle Karts.
The lights can come on sequentially or on one by one (drag race staging) using a simple UV mask. The shader material is connected to the HUD via signals.
I cheated a little bit with how the emission works by adding some emission to the inside of the bulb housing so it looks like the light is being reflected. There is also an added particle effect so they can be seen from a distance.
A few of the tracks have gotten some love. Nechy Boondocks is a short track that starts off in front of a big lodge with fat light posts cut from the giant trees that surround the track.
The track briefly cuts through the wooded marsh with the last few turns taking you along a scenic river bank as you whiz by the exposed roots of trees.
I’ll be making some more shacks and vehicles as well as some unique trees and plants to sell the sleepy swampy feel.
Nechy Boondocks is one of 2 tracks that I’m planning to have in the demo, the other being a traditional open-air race track. Only a few days left to submit to Steam, I’d better get to it…
I hope you’re all enjoying a bit of time off with friends or family or to work on that dream project for a few extra hours. xx
4 Likes
Miracle Karts won’t be in the February Steam Next fest. I didn’t do any press and at the last minute decided not to risk rushing a demo with no promo. I’m still planning to release this year, but the demo will be this summer. You’ll have to put up with the trickle of updates a little longer.
Here are some screenshots to show off the fruits of my recent toil.
Stands got a touch-up and some better geometry.
Now golden and blue hour variants of morning and dusk are used based on surrounding forecast (making me think I need a proper photo mode). I also improved performance on the bokeh effects for distant lights so they can run on my ancient PC.
Which all together can lead to moments like this:
rrh on bluesky made a Godot 4+ shader you can use if you’re interested in a similar lens flare effect in your games:
Behind the scenes I’ve been restructuring my development plans. I cut a lot of the dynamic story elements because they are, to be completely honest, way out of my writing and coding abilities. They also weren’t as interesting as the regular character dialogue and storylines. Maybe next time!
I’ll be cutting and restructuring more over the week so that’s enough for today. Wishing you all well in this strange new year.
3 Likes
Very cool, i am loving this project so far
1 Like
The user interface and graphics design is insanely good! I really like those intense colors combined with the texture of the pen.
1 Like
@Altair1 Thanks very much!
@lomz Thank you! I’m glad the different styles work together.
Life continues to increase in difficulty. My most beloved cat Bargeld is dying. I saw something today saying mourning a pet is as bad as mourning a human and it may just be true. We’ve at least got a plan for our housing situation now so that is a massive relief. It unfortunately involves leaving Montreal and Quebec altogether. 
So you know what puts me in a good mood these days?
Penalties!
Some events will be sanctioned making it possible to incur penalties. I’m using a 3 strike system so it’s easy to avoid them altogether and they affect NPCs as well. It adds a nice layer of tension to races.
NPC’s have logic to slow down or swerve when they encounter obstacles, and I have to assume the player is doing the same…
I usually hate how restrictive penalties are in sports games but using warnings and taking away points instead of adding lap-time helps balance the level of frustration for me.
There is a lot going on during a race that will affect your kart’s speed and grip so I added a few more status effect icons. This also led to me finding out that some of the engine script was broken so now engines actually heat up in stages like they’re supposed to!
The only icon I’m not happy with is the dead brake icon (right). How the hell do you show a broken brake to someone who might not know what a brake looks like?
The calendar got some new pixelart as well.
I added icons for time-of-day and used the tyre-type icons to clearly show what track surfaces will be in cup events. Already this small change made a huge impact on the readability of the menu. I also have the game check all your previous seasons to show your highest achieved position in the event.
The most important change is you now get a very clear reason why you can’t enter events. Before you’d just get an error *honk and need to guess.
Doing UI/UX for RPG mechanics in a racing game was much more challenging than I expected. Even arcade racers have tons of text on the screen, so adding stat systems to that in a way that players will understand has been a struggle.
It would be fun to do a video on the different references and influences in the game’s menus when I’m done.
Thanks for reading and be well!
3 Likes
Désolé pour ton chat l’ami, j’ai perdu le mien en mai 2018, après presque 18 ans de vie commune.
Hâte de conduire un de tes karts!
Quel hiver de malade on se tape, hein?
Prends soin de toi, a+
1 Like
@OleNic Sorry about your cat, 18 years is a long time to get to know someone. My guy is 16. At this point I’m treating this year like my mid-life crisis and assuming the bullshit isn’t over!
It’s been a fairly quiet week in terms of development. I introduced a bunch of frustrating bugs and errors so, as usual, this led to me procrastin’adding to the game.
In your second year you’ll start to see some of the weirder kart setups, especially once you meet the Smokin’ Rivets. Their aesthetic is based on mid-century athletic gear so I wanted to give their club leader, Arnaud, an exhaust that stood out.
In my head I thought “Olympic torch” but after doing some research, I was actually thinking about ancient Roman style torches. There are some very exhaust appropriate Olympic torches (Seoul and Montreal for example) so I’ll have to revisit those for another character.
Master mechano Zeke is responsible for some of the more outlandish parts so I worked his crude metal-work into the design. In the end the look is a mix of my favourite bits from the concept art.
Here it is next to Zeke’s personal exhaust.
For the majority of the kart and part designs I’ve aimed to replicate very common and traditional kart styles, but as you delve deeper and take part in more duels you’ll find the fun stuff.
It’s freaking cold over here, hope yall are staying warm!
2 Likes
Just posted a clip of racing in the rain with new dynamic raindrop effects!
It might be hard to tell with the compression but the on-screen droplets push out from the center the faster you go. I was thinking of making them more complex with trails and dynamic shapes but I’m pushing up against the limits of performance on my old PC…
3 Likes
This looks really promising, actually! Keep it up!
1 Like