Game Summary

Turbo Turbine is a multiplayer arcade racing game, designed around an idea of a mad scientist doing tests for a new wind powered car. The players are controlling one of the four new wind powered cars inside a wind tunnel. The players need to race each other to the end of the tunnel while avoiding obstacles along the way.

Role

Length

Tool

System Designer

Programmer

Car and Turbine

Traps

Level Generation

Car AI

UI Design / Engineer

5 Months

Unity

Team Size

Arcade racing

Being an arcade racing game, the movement of the car is designed to feel fast and agile. Since the players are in a wind tunnel they can only move forward, instead of performing real car-like movement. This game allows the player to rotate fast and allows them to move from left to right at a much faster rate than how cars usually do. The player can also control the speed of the car by aligning the turbine to the wind direction. When the turbine is aligned perfectly with the wind the car will create a barrier that prevents trap type obstacles.

Controls

turbinE

Control: While the game doesn’t give players the ability to stop or go reverse, players have the ability to control the speed of the car. Players are given the control of the turbines on the car, which will provide speed boosts based on the alignment of the turbine and the direction of the wind. Players have the ability to make minor adjustments to the turbine when needed.

Alignment: As the turbine is more aligned with the wind direction a bar above the car will be filled up to provides more boost. Another indication is the arrows above the boost bar, there is a black transparent arrow and a white arrow. The black arrow indicates the direction of which the wind is blowing, while the white arrow indicates the direction the turbine is pointing at. The more overlapped they are the more boost the player will get. Besides these obvious indications there are also some subtle visual effects indications.

Perfect Alignment: When the turbine is perfectly aligned with the wind the player will receive a shield that protects the player against certain obstacles.

Level Generation

The level in this game is procedurally generated each time. Obstacles are placed based on predetermined logic. Each obstacle is generated randomly and some will be affected by previous obstacles while some will affect the next obstacles. There is also a limit to the amount of obstacles that can be placed one after another. Lastly as the players get closer to the finish line obstacles will start to be closer from each other. All these in combination can keep the game interesting throughout the entire level, and give the player a good challenge.

Car AI

This is a four player multiplayer game however it can’t just be playable with other people, therefore having AI for cars that aren’t being controlled by a player is important. The goal of this AI is to give a challenge for the player to strive for, while making an AI that can always do a perfect run is easy designing it so it’s consistently challenging yet beatable is difficult. In an arcade racing game like this it’s even harder given how there are only two simple tasks, align the turbine and avoid obstacles. The AI in this game is designed to not always align perfectly to get the full boost. This will give players who haven’t mastered the game a chance against the AI, and also make the players wanting to beat the AI more knowing that they have a chance. Other than that the closer to the finish line the AI will have a lowered obstacles detection range, which will help players as that increases the chance of the AI getting interfered by obstacles.