Physics, Vehicle Handling Model and the changes they bring
As you can see from the colour scheme, the game takes a very heavy cue from the ridge racer series (particularly its fourth iteration, Type 4). I, myself as a person and the game by extension, make little secret of this. As per the usual standard with the development of any application, creative or not, it went through many iterations and changes, and it evolved quite a lot. It didn’t even have it’s current name until the last two months, for example.
Compare these two
With many changes, comes evolution. Simply put, the game handles completely different to how it did before, and the change wasn’t very gradual, unlike most projects it was actually incredibly sudden, much like how the borderlands cel shading change was a last minute decision. To fully understand what caused this, first have to explain two things; the general handling of the car, and the cars handling when it drifts in the older iteration.
The car, while not drifting, was actually fairly nimble and responsive. I consider this an important fact for the following reason; When I make design decisions towards anything, I look to how other games have A. done it successfully, and B. failed at it. This is so I can not only take what is good about an idea, but also improve upon it in my own way, offering my own contribution in the process. This particular facet of my decision making comes from my UX experience (user experience, experience?) This will become useful to remember, for when I speak on a particular games handling model. With this particular situation this wasn’t the case, the nimble light handling was simply a creative trait that I have, since I tend to favour more twitchy, reactive style vehicle models due to my time playing games such as wipEout and F-zero. My creative bias influenced decisions towards the game less and less as time went on, simply opting for what would be best for the product, as opposed to what I would like the most.
The drifting itself worked in a far different manner, was much more “on-rails” like and controllable. (On-rails is a term referring to when the game controls the path you take) This was necessary, because this was the primary method of cornering in the game. This is in stark contrast to how it works presently, where its more an oversteer/powerslide type mechanic that has to be kept in check. This one change, re-focuses the entire pivot of the gameplay and feedback loop itself. Before it was now “hit the brake, and steer to go side ways around the corner”. This would make your car spin forty five to ninety degrees at high speed, and effectively carry you around a corner. It is now much more varied in its use case. Your goal now is to keep the car as straight as possible whilst going as fast as possible. However, you can now initiate a drift to either stop your car from hitting a barrier to actually gain more grip into a corner (F1 Driver Aryton Senna famously did this with his car) OR an oversteer can be initiated as a consequence for not keeping your steering and throttle under control. The goal is now effectively “go around the corner whilst keeping your car in check, as fast as possible”. With such a radical change in the vehicle handling model, and by large a huge change in the game feel, (almost to a 180 degree) you’d be forgiven for asking “why?”
Need for speed 2015
Need for speed 2015 is one of the most peculiar experiences I’ve ever been through, gaming or otherwise. It’s easily my favourite game to look at visually, echoing everything that I love not just about gaming, but about the racing genre when done right. It has a look, and feeling that encapsulates it, and calls it to mind. Every time I am on the M1 (highway in united Kingdom for those overseas) and the lamppost shines a dim yellow over the road, I get visions of this game. That’s a powerful art direction right there.
But then, it all comes to a brutal, horrible crashing halt every time I boot the game up. Why? The handling. The game is amazing to look at, until you play the cars and they feel like they are on rails. This isn’t a personal issue either, it was a very commonly cited problem in the community. Don’t believe me?
This is quite a significant part of the game’s development. Not only was this a cited problem with NFS 2015, it actually caused a bit of a rift from the Criterion era to now. The main one being “brake to drift”. This is at heart, what many players of old didn’t like about the current crop of need for speed titles, citing it to be a more burnout based handling model (and it is). This particular gripe, the handling of NFS2015 as a game single-handedly caused me to rethink my approach to the way I made my game. No longer was the game to be a ridge racer lite, but I wanted the user to have more control over their car, and also be required to keep their car under control as a show of skill. I wanted to make the player not just feel like some random driver, but a professional racing car driver. I wanted them to feel like Aryton Senna in 1991 brazil GP, because that’s what games are right? Escapism, Encouraging, Inviting.
The second part of this came with the NFS 2015 Mod that I installed. This is a handling mod that “fixes” (modifies) the physics of the game. You know you have messed up your handling when the player base actively changes it. Also note the title of the video.
For a less memetic video see here
This is where the bizarreness of the experience really kicked in. With this mod, Need for Speed 2015 is probably my favourite racer not named Ridge Racer Type 4, and that game just slightly edges it. In this mod, cars handle a lot more responsively and to get around corners you simply brake and steer, as opposed to drifting sideways at high speeds. It felt a lot better to play, and it was effectively the final push that I needed to change the current handling model of my game.
Whilst the game hasn’t been released yet (it will be, very very soon) if you want an idea of what the older handling the game felt like, you can check it out right here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J2fZBjD0TSyGPRFYSsLYI85fOfZ5p1Xi/view?usp=sharing
I hope you enjoyed this look into my insight towards the game, next up will be the visual design.
To note, the alpha build very much has some odd collisions issues that were smoothed out later on. The controls are as follows
Keyboard
W/S — Accelerate/Brake
A/D — Left/Right
Right Shift — Boost
Controller
Right Trigger — Accelerate
Left Trigger — Brake
Left stick — Steering
A — Boost
