Well, we need an official list and musing on how they would work right? For now Iāll suck in the ones from the notebook that seem immediately fun to do, so this is a curation pass.
Racer
This is the default. Itās still a bit under construction but is essentially a three-lane racer with opponents coming down the screen (because youāre faster than them technically) and you have to avoid them with a time-based scoring system.
(Question: do I want lane changes to be tweened? I should try it out. Even a very fast tween might look nice. What about changing lanes mid-tween - get it? Changing horses mid stream? You donāt. I mean you donāt do it.)
Very late but obviously I have a decent working version up.
Just fill the entire field with cars that donāt move. The player is in there in the usual place but if they move left or right they die (kind of weird to move while stopped? But maybe itās funny to have that little agency?)
Basic thing works. I need to think about whether to have lane changes and how they might work if I did (since they can only reasonably occur while the traffic is actually moving which creates some annoyances? Like what happens if youāre partway through a lane change when the traffic stops again for instance.)
More complex thing works. Lane changing at very low speed can happen. If youāre partway through the change you just stop and have to keep trying. You can crash. In writing this commit I realized it would be funny to have horns. We need horns.
The standard game with a clock counting down the distance. A building on screen somewhere, and a house at the end. Very Desert Bus I suppose. A little animation of a little person getting into the car from the building? An intertistial/ācut-sceneāā¦ maybe thatās funnier in a weird way? And then it just cuts to the exact usual gameā¦ kind of like that.
Thereās only one lane. Unclear how to handle opponents in this case? I guess they could drift back and match your speed and drift back up again? Just for visual interest? Or just one person in front of you really drifting back and forth but never actually hitting you. No steering involved (can you crash into the side?)
Got the basics going here and itās pretty nice. Solved the questions above with a drifty other car that never hits you + you can move in the lane but never hit the sides.
Just need to work on the visuals a bit, maybe trees along the sides.
Three police cars across the lanes behind you (or six?) and just open road in front of you. Do you eventually run out of gas? It counts down and eventually the whole thing just stops and you get arrested.
The more there are these endings (see two hour commute) the more Iāll need a consistent design approach to them. Cut scenes versus texts versus in-game results. I do quite like the idea of really low resolution animations as I havenāt done anything like that for ages? Even just like a two frame bouncing thing?
Got the basic version of this working andā¦ well itās visually satisfying at the very least (suddenly thinking I need to change the lane-change tween speed as the player slows down? hhhhhh)
This is one that will kind of need the context of cinematics. Ah yes. Cinematics. Low low res cinematics.
Youād need a specific input to āgoā which could be āupā (swipe up) so that would work (opens up questions about changing speed in general? Whichā¦ I just donāt know how I feel about it tbh). But anyway you need to hit āgoā at the right moment and thatās it you either win or you donātā¦ or maybe itās worse than that and thereās just a huge chance element?
Parachute comes out, someone is declared a winner. Parachute could be in the ending animation if Iām going all in on that. I can sense it becoming part of the vision.
Basic version is in place and already quite satisfying. As noted in the commit, things to think about adding are
Repeatedly hit āupā to keep your speed up? Otherwise you grind to a halt? What about the problem of the cars behind you? Maybe they zip past you but never into your butt unless you change lanes in front of them at a low speed? Maybe theyāre ā¦ well it sounds complex, but kind of fun.
No cars? Just pickups in the three lanes that play a song. We might want eight lanes for an octave? Whatās a great one octave song?
Same game but the cars come pointing at you and fast, you inevitably will crash I suppose?
This one basically works. Feels like maybe the opponents should be delayed a bit for it to be funnier? I made the score go down rather than up which I think is a nice touch personally.
Well Iāve already built the first version of that. Open question on making it single pixel scale thoughā¦ I think itās worth trying.
Late here too, but I do have a working version of this, although I intend to pursue the single-pixel version.
Youāre a ghost car, canāt crash, har har. Oh and thereās the idea you can switch lanes to left and right andā¦ see something else, some ghostly world outside the game, that would be really neat right? I quite love itā¦ could come into view in a fun way tooā¦ actually especially with tweeningā¦ hmmm, this is a better one than Iād thought. Reminders obviously of Ghost Pong but also of Jostle Parent.
I see I wrote āget to heavenā as a potential secret objectiveā¦ heh.
Implementation going well here, but need to make a decision on that question of what there is outside the three lanes. Initial ideas:
Sub in āawesome graphicsā for everythingā¦ is that interesting or just stupid though? I canāt quite tell if itās worth it, so I should probably prototype it and see.
Sounds too complex to me right now, but the idea is crashing starts a ādateā where you have conversational options and can maybe pickup and give gifts andā¦ what? Get married at some point? Itās sort of funny but currently seems pretty awkwardā¦
Trolley Problem version with a succession of trolley problem situations. Funny if itās continuous driving so you run people over and keep going. Some stuff you wouldnāt be able to easily do like the loop track.
Ran into a ton of trouble with the implementation of this whichā¦ sucks. Itās not a complex idea but running into difficulties around linking a text to the rest of the stuff. May need to use a container.
Moment later: I used a container and now thereās a āgood enoughā prototype.
Dumb name but the idea of things like stop signs and crossings so you have to obey the law. This would mandate speed control unless itās automated (which wouldnāt be very interesting unless it would)
Dark except for headlights up the road. In this context theyād need to overlap the other tracks a little so that you can have a chance of changing lanes. I suppose the other cars would also have lights. I wonder if it gets nightmarish or not? Cars driving with their lights off? I dunno. Odd how confused this sounds given the basic clarify of the ideaā¦
Who is impaired, you or the others? Everyone? Controls flip or delay or trigger without you. This is another one where tweening would make it more expressive so I suppose Iām talking myself into that idea arenāt I. You could even manipulate the car to drift around and fix it with lane changing.
The whole thing takes care of its self, getting arbitrarily fast like Zorba. Actual āAIā to do this? Only impressive if it never ever crashes? Or funny if it doesā¦ hm
The same game but just the extra bits to be able to sing as you drive. MIDI plus the words plus the bouncing ball (which implies timing which is scary). Funny if itās not a well known song? Funny if itās My Way or some other classic bombastic karaoke song? How to synchronize?
(Good joke, Pips.) You have to maintain a specific speed or the car explodes. Except that requires the idea of speed and maintaining it. Felix was part of this idea as it notes in the notebook. Oddly for a game called Racers thereās not actually that much attention to speed hereā¦ thereās a speed and you dodge at that speed and it increased?
I can add an acceleration idea with āupā and ādownā to change it butā¦ I dunno how to represent that almost? How it will feel etc.? I can do it but my brain doesnāt instantly say āyeah definitely do thatā?
Is there a way of saving the idea then? Not really to the extent the stress was about driving at a speed and not slowing down which is already the case. And blowing up is not significantly different to just crashing which is the only way you change speed in the game right now? Soā¦
Whatā¦ just a cinematic recasting of the way the game already is? Thatās not unfunny?
This fits in with this whole question of positioning and I note that Iām continuing to imagine some sort of opening and closing cinematic, so that could work as a sort of intensification of play and an explanation of why you have no speed controls in the first place - Judo! (As in I flipped the concept using its own momentum.)
As in āRussian Rouletteā where you have some time limit (I suppose) to choose a lane, and then it fires a car down at you way too fast to dodge. Such that the race kind of becomes almost turn based? A bit unclear how scoring/progress works? Presumably you just die at some point andā¦ is that interesting? Or best not to overthink itā¦ prototype the basic structure and then see where the feels lead.
The idea of racing in different locations. Another cinematics opportunity to just establish āoh, now youāre in Moroccoā ānow youāre in Slovakia.ā Included the idea that you go past national borders literally on the track.
But again thereās the cinematics opportunity/option here where it sets up that youāre racing in a different location (each time you load the game?)? This is again sort of trading on that same Speed idea above of setting contexts to the same actual play (ala SNAKISMS 2).
I canāt make that ājokeā too many times but itās worth it a couple of times, itās always worth it, that idea is never āsolvedā right? The idea that context and setup matters?
Youāre mowingā¦? Kinda weak, no?
The car is a skateboard and you can do kickflips and other tricks. So you can kind of jump up and then spin the car/board in the two directions before you land. Landing tricks, landing tricks over cars, ā¦ sounds kiiind of fun? Up to jump and left/right/up/down to trigger tricks?
Tricks would be announced in some way on screen, sound effect, points, etc. But still also racing. Could end up landing on another car and wiping out.
Rail slides? Stair sets? Sounds kind of funā¦ ? A totally linear top down skating experience.
Canāt quite visualize this being good.
You have some sort of specific objective to pull off a stunt. Race past the two cars then crash into the bus, say. Procedural students? I wonder what range of expressivity of stunts we can get into this base game? Do I say āexpressivityā too much?
I like the idea of a structured and repeatable sequence though I think thereās something there. Weaving through traffic in a specific way, crashing into a particular thing, etc. Maybe even just triggering a big explosion.
Because there has to be one. But also as I noted in the notebook I donāt know how to do it really. The issue of shit permanence because youāre moving forward in the world. It could build up on the front of your car? Cars shit and if you hit the shit it builds up and on you and becomes part of your car?
I mean I can just wrestle shit into the game, right, and itās just there because it has to be? Most obviously the other cars shit and it causes trouble. The trouble would either be you spin out on it, or it accumulates on your car and maybe changes your hitbox?
A sort of āstraightforwardā serious game about climate change/pollution through the lens of the racer (cars cause pollution yāknow). āJustā various effects that accumulate over time? A pollution fog, a rising water level encroaching on the track, ā¦ something something heat and extreme weather, ā¦ somethingā¦
Clearly I donāt really understand this. Smog makes the most sense and is easy to think about, the fog of war. Deserves through as I do think itās a fun idea. Water levels are more interesting and make me think of that game (via Robert?) where you could go to the future and see how everything is covered in water.
Maybe stages at different times where itās smoggy, then hurricanes all the time, then just covered in water, ā¦? Cars visible sunken beneath the water in the apocalypse?
Well thatās just a continuation of the aboveā¦ could be distinguished or notā¦ maybe not that interesting because it doesnāt really go anywhere?
This was the idea of playing out all possibilities, but without acceleration I donāt think thereās enough information to bothā¦ it would just be ghost cars in each lane andā¦ nothing much else? Can rethink a bit but doesnāt sound like it works.
I like the idea of this, kind of a model-view-controller thing where I figure out how to represent the same idea in perspective? But it also sounds really stupidly hard and maybe in the end not very rewarding? Unless I play with āfirst personā a bit more and itās about leaning into the āIā-ness of the first person?
Mostly the idea of grainy black and white, a vignette, and interstitial texts that say funny/stupid things mostly drawn aesthetically from, say, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin films? I think I like the idea of itā¦ recasting the game as a sequence from a slapstick comedy?
Turn it into a music thing. Move on a grid/sequence and pick up instruments/drum sounds that accumulate into the music? How would this interact with the other cars? They could contribute sounds too actually, drones maybe, according to lane or just car type.
Thereās probably something to this.
When you crash the other car goes flies off the screen dramatically, spinning and exploding. Fun and havoc.
Initial version is in place. Works pretty well.
When you go off the left you come on the right etc. And thatās it. Perfectly fine.
Sheep cross and you have to stop for them. Without speed controls this would have to happen automatically and that isā¦ maybe funnier? Then you CANNOT hit the sheep, you should screech to a halt, they go by, and then you take off again. Pretty good.
No other cars. Har.
Maybe one of those kind of lo-fi āvibeā things where itās more a sensory experience with rain and sound? Or you could have mechanical stuff like sliding out etc. Or both obviously.
Similar/related to rainy but youāre gradually catching up with a tornado or something whichā¦ what, eventually spins you away into the sky? Not so clear
Picking people up and dropping them off? Would the the ability to stop at the right place be a part of it? Linear crazy taxi?
Interpolating Orgeon Trail stuff. Get dysentery, break your leg, going slower etc. Randomly dying, having to ford a river, etc. etc. Just enough to add a different flavour to the racing. The gravestone would be fun to have in there, which could follow into replays where you see the tombstone.
Maybe dialog that plays over the journey, chatting to friends, listening to music, podcasts, audiobooks, heheā¦
As in Desert bus. Pushes you to the right unless you keep switching the other way? Other cars? Palette switch. Mostly just boring? Got to be careful with the boring ones?
The music, the trees, the gradual going up into the mountains, ending at the house. Slower? Or at a race speed with fast music? Thatās funnyā¦
Starting on this by looking at my previous version of The Shining and I think just taking its tree asset and colours and even the actual path and sequencing. And then I can take the hotel at the end for my ācut sceneā as well. So basically just racing past that stuff, no turning, fast, fast music, hey presto? Yeah. Yeah I think so hey presto. Basically itās:
Doable. Maybe make the car yellow as well. Whee.
Two paddles playing Pong across the screen that can bounce off your car? Or a paddle up high and youāre (trying to) bounce back a ball?
Both options sound pretty flawedā¦
Same thing with BREAKOUT. Doesnāt inherently feel like a good idea.
Running into pins at the end of the lane? But what more than that really? Just because thereās lanesā¦
Same game but everything is broken down into shapes, only the information needed to play the game. (Itās already pretty abstract so unsure if this works)
Cars are labelled with a colour and youāre trying to avoid the wrongly labelled ones? Or maybe lanes get labels and you have to make sure youāre in the right lane based on the stroop before crazy fast cars come down and crash with you?
Hilariously break out into a simple parser where you can type change lane left etc. and look and so on as turns pass and cars get closer
Needing to navigate based on landmarks like windmills or something? But that would require turning corners whichā¦ does that even make sense in the context I have?
Day/night cycle and you have a solar panel so you can only move sometimes? Comic timing? Sounds like it may suffer from being boring.
Driver distraction, most obviously ads, for Atari Games? Distracting. Pop-ups could be in HTML, moveableā¦ countdowns, etc.
Bank robbery, then fleeing the police through traffic, make the police collide with each other and or other cars?
The Mavis Beacon version of things. Maybe a bit tricky on mobile but also I think fun and funny to bring up the keyboard if I can. Words to change lanes? Words to animate the game itself? That would lead to AI driving stuff. But in principle pretty fun and worth doing right?
Scheduled races (and even some kind of Grand Prix thing? Accumulating scores?) where you have to show up on time (and maybe in the right place if I want to be a massive dick) in order to race the race.
Create a trail of the car doing its lane changes. Could even have some sort of surprise like rendering it out to a loop track or something, some sort of spatial revelation? Crashes as some other notation. Other cars. Racer as Paint.
Some kind of guided meditation. Racer-specific meditation. Either specifically about the videogame representation we have, or even like a self-help tape in the car thatās referring to stuff you canāt actually see or feelā¦ the vibration of the engine, the smell of the leather seats, ā¦
Religious symbols or names at the top of the lanes, you race and end up with one of the options. Most obviously when you crash you get the religious outcome of that lane, rather than actually racing to that religious outcome which makes less sense. The tension between trying to live and choosing the death experience is nice I think. And then thereās the idea of declaring whether or not you were ārightā in the endā¦
Racer with Bullet Time. Slow motion triggered as you approach cars for perfect steeringā¦ as I write about this it sounds crushingly boring.
You have a shopping list and the things are on the road and you drive over them to pick them up?? And try not to get things not on the list? Iā¦ donāt know.
When you crash part of your car (the part that crashed/contacted) is replaced (new colour) until you no longer have any pieces that are the same. And then the game ends by asserting itās the same car or something? Or asks the question?
Thereās another race inside the carā¦ somehow. Not really very clearly motivated but always a bit of a classic idea. Zooming out could be interesting too, though in what way I wonder. I suddenly have the kind of despelote image of zooming out from the race to find a car playing the game on its tv whichā¦ makes no sense I suppose.
Crypt of the NecroRacer essentially. Unclear this makes sense, or at least that it would be worth the potential implementation trouble (music, timing, etc.)
When you crash it enters a classic JRPG combat screen? And then if you win/lose you go back to the race with that resultā¦ (writing this is making me think of how much we need more juice around the crash just in the default gameā¦ going red and flashing is pretty tepid, be nice if thereās a message, maybe spinning, screenshake, ā¦ should I be juicing the base game?)
Youāre not driving, youāre selecting conversation options to recommend things. āSlow downā, āI think we should be in the left laneā etc. How would this interact with the pace of the game though? Does the driver listen to you?
Katamari Racery; when you hit another car is sticks to you and you become a mega-car over time andā¦ aaaaandā¦ what?
Kind of the same as Directions, but maybe simpler/better - this was Felixās actual idea. A GPS voice telling you what to do. What about timing? Does it actually help you navigate the race? Given that there are no turns? No acceleration or deceleration? Just lane changesā¦
Drive off a cliff. Notably this is odd without acceleration? Maybe not, could be like Drag with just a starting moment. Maybe screenplay instructions on what to say before you go. Play with someone else, hold hands, say the things, hit the button together.
A car coming toward you, decide whether to swerve or not, shame? Guilt? The issue of the amount of visibility down the track may not work?
Trapped at a tollbooth and shot up?
Felix so itās surreal. You drive through guillotines and sometimes they chop your car and you drive on with part of a car, slower, until you have nothing left? Just pieces of car? Thereās something compelling there. A bit like Theseus but different.
At this moment in the notebook I started wondering about acceleration controls. And menu systems for large numbers (if I hit 50 say, which is not looking at all likely). Also was thinking about an unlocking structure for accessing games in the set, opening out as you complete more games.
Asset swap. people sitting on office chairs. Dollars going down? Or salary going up? Maybe office-related obstacles?
Some sort of candy crush movement - actually quite like Titanium Courtās movement mechanics. Swapping with bits of road instead of steering. Other cars come swapping down. But then what counts as a crash? I guess swapping with a car?
Sweeping the track in front of the racer so it can go faster or slower. Maybe the AI is shouting at you like in curling competitions? GO GO GO GO
Creatures/stuff from Crossy Road is crossing the road, you might or might not kill them?
Death race thing of killing pedestrians. Incisive and powerful commentary on videogame violenceā¦
Some way to drive really slowly. Life in the Slow Lane. Lanes of different speeds is actually kind of interesting too. But just a reall slow version would be kind of interesting. Might combo with meditation.
Pickups that are promotions. Money, marriage, all the Game of Life stuff feverishly collected. And at the endā¦ You Lived or something. Racer of Life.
Typing in letters or collecting letters that tell a story over time. Missing them fucks up the story?
Ludonarrative dissonance racer. Pickups with classic Bioshock-esque cassettes.
Dear Esther recast into this game. Cutscenes for different bits of that game. Same text?
Narrates lane changes that you do or donāt obey, leads to different outcomes?
Move by scrolling the road, kinda cool, though breaks away from the normal input mechanics (and opens up the idea that I donāt have to use them). Would scrolling secretly just be cool in general.
Oh I guess I this idea separately from Rat Racer above. Alan Watts reference.
Same but down
Blah. Canāt see your car, who cares.
Pass out of the game. But this is Ghost Racer.
As with Pongs. A photo of my computer or similar with the game on the screen playing.
Falling into a pit and pit minigame. Finding randon shit. Pursued by scientists.
The game but 1 FPS
Hmmm, just confused versions of this in the notebook. Unclear what this would be.
Trying to find a park. Really stupid idea of being able to parallel park by lane changing into it is funny. Maybe you get rated on how far from your destination you are. I actually like this one. Quite Poppy.
1 pixel lanes. Already worked on this.
The different lanes play different radio stations (maybe have a dial represented too) and you might prefer lanes based on that. Archival audio?
Already did this. Unclear that the game is not already super abstract?
Just a display of numbers associated with the game and you have to read the numbers to steer and avoid stuff. Quite a good one.
Trippy visuals? LSD? Har har?
Making money, spending it onā¦ what? A shop that sells disadvantages? A shop with nothing in stock?
I probably canāt make this, but it would be interesting to think in terms of disability and accessibility for the car.
Backing a truck, itās beeping, itās quite slow, other trucks are also slowly backing up. Reverse the controls.