Firemint Real Racing Followup Questions (no April release)

I don't mind waiting a while longer for a game to come out if it means that the gamer is better and more polished. The game only seems to take a long time to be releases because Firemint gave the news that it would come out quite a while ago. There are probably games currently being developed now that we don't know anything about and they will give, say a weeks or a couple days notification before they come out.
Waiting longer for a more polished, better game is certianly better than getting a crappy, bug-infested, 'tech demo', which some developers release anyway, mentioning no names

 

@Firemint

thanks for the update! no worries here, I will still be buying the game as soon as it comes out! It is kind of hard to wait, but if we are only waiting so you guys can make sure that you are satisfied with your product and think we will too than we can't really complain.

 

Thanks for the update Rob.
Although development costs are high and increasing, I hope that doesn't mean the game will be released at really high price point...

 

Here is an example: We don't have an overlayed heads-up-display on Real Racing (I think HUD is a bit like adding voice-over to a movie to explain what the actor is thinking, so we want to minimize it)

On the in-car view, the information that you might want is shown on the car's dash itself. However we realized that it was a little too zoomed out to read easily, so a combination of adding another in car readout and zooming in a little on the dash have addressed that. It sounds simple, but then you have to test that nothing material has changed in response. For example, if the way the in-car view rolls in relationship to the camera changes, then that can change the 'feel'. If the feel changes, then the entire game has to be re-tested.

Another thing that changed was the AI behaviour. They were too aggressive, and their overtaking behaviour was a bit erratic so we have re-worked a good deal of that. Whenever we touch this we need to re-balance a lot of other things to compensate. Once everything is re-balanced we have to sit down and play the game again. Often you fix one thing, but that introduces something else.

The tricky thing with Real Racing is that we can't just patch over everything with some rubber banding or catch up mechanics. We can't just give you extra nitro or a better car to patch over AI problems. It is the fact that it needs to capture *real* racing that makes every change a bit trickier. You are racing against other drivers, not against other cars. That is you can't excuse unfair AI behaviour by saying that they have a different car to you.

Again, to relate it to movie making, the most difficult special FX are the ones you don't notice. If people don't see any weird behaviour in Real Racing, then we have really achieved something.

Rob

 

Thanks for answering!

Do you guys have head to head multiplayer? Does the graphics take a hit as a result?

Are there any night courses?

Is your focus on the game still a hardcore sim? Are us Need For Speed and Asphalt 4 fans gonna be tearing our hair out sliding out into the grass every turn ala Gran Turismo? A lot of us are wary of sim racers on phones.

Speaking of which, will you ever consider making an arcadey racer with this graphics engine (or perhaps an optional mode in a future update)?

 

We are more interested in social and online gaming than head to head multiplayer. Head to head multiplayer actually works in the game right now in an un-polished form...but it wont be included in the first release.

There are no night tracks.

The graphics dont take a hit from multiplayer, but poor network latency can make weird things happen and make the opponents move less smoothly.

I am so glad you asked the Hardcore sim question, though I can get a bit passionate about this from a game design perspective so bear with me if I write too much.


I have a question in response...Do you have any trouble driving a real car? Have you raced in reasonably fast go-carts and did you find the experience too complicated?

My father in law loves driving, real driving. He likes to go fast, and he has little problem controlling the car when he does. However if I gave him some of these 'simulations' to play with a console controller, I wonder how he would go? I imagine that he couldn't play them.

Can we really call these games simulations, when good drivers cannot play them?

IMO, some games use 'simulation' as an excuse for poor controls and poor design. You can't engineer a great simulation by just matching the physics, because there are a lot of different senses involved in a real car. For example, I can't feel anything, and I can't turn my head to look wherever I want on an iPhone. So you have to compensate for that. However, if you don't understand any of the physics at all, how can you know what you need to simplify or compensate for?

There are two types of errors in car racing design IMO. One is to simulate too much, the other is to simulate too little. Almost every car racer I have seen on mobile simulates too little. That is why you end up with games that feel digital, they literally started that way. They started with a piece of code that said "If player is pressing left, then rotate the car to the left", "then move forward". Then they add some more stuff to make the game more natural, like "If the car has been turning for a few seconds, animate it rolling a little". Anyway it goes on and on like this in response to feedback, and it will never feel right. That is under-simulation. Over simulation is where one of your engineers forms an opinion that they know everything and their physics never lies. Then everyone else starts to apologize for the bad handling as 'realistic' because they aren't smart enough to question their engineer who sounds so right. Most likely their simulation has a mix of bugs and poor design that is never addressed.

If you don't simulate enough you end up with a totally bland game, so the designer then has to jazz it up with overlayed features and game mechanics which can still make for an excellent game. However the car will never properly rise and fall over a ripple strip, the body roll will never feel natural, and you will never quite feel like you are driving.

On the simulation side, if you want to make your player have to deal with the volatility of low profile slicks and hard suspension then you had better give them all the feedback that they get in real life. If you can't give them all that feedback, then you shouldn't make them deal with it. You should *design* an experience that re-interprets the car model for the platform so that it feels good.

There are a fair few things simulated in Real Racing, but it doesn't necessarily make the game hard. For example, each gear change sees your 'hands' reach down and move the gear stick, you hear the engine back off, the clunk of the gear change and as it catches, and the high pitch whine of the gearbox picks up again as the revs rise again. You didn't change gears at all yourself, in fact in auto-accelerate mode you did nothing, but you feel like you are driving a race car.

Picking up and playing Real Racing is easy. Winning some championships with the hatchbacks is easy enough. However it doesn't take long for a new player to notice that there is a named AI car that may ride in front of them. You then notice that you are losing speed on the corners...why? The game is giving you all the braking you need (unless you have turned it off) so it must be your line. So you improve that a bit the next time and you notice that you are getting better.

As the tracks get more difficult you will encounter a new challenge that is typical in *real* racing.... A tough corner....You can breeze around the track except for a sharp 180 degree corner. You don't feel like you are a hopeless driver because you are pretty smooth on the rest of the track, you just have to approach that corner differently.

So there are challenges, but the problem IMO with most sims that the challenges are all packed into impossible control systems. The challenge here is to chase down that front runner by running a smooth line and not messing up too much.

The big difference with Real Racing and street racing games is that Real Racing focuses on racing again in a very pure form. It actually gets back to basics in that sense.

This captures some of our design goals. You can judge how far we have gone towards acheiving them when the game releases.

Rob

 

Thanks for all the indepth answers. Pretty interesting.

 

i understand totally, i know you guys actually care and will release as soon as possible, unlike EA with nfs.

 

Extending my praise to Firemint for the attention to detail and passion to ensure Real Racing hits as much of their wishlist as possible.

If I could ask for one feature perhaps in a sequel (it is unlikely this could be done in an update) that would be for a bonnet cam viewpoint.

I am not a huge fan of the third person, behind the car camera because as a purist for 'edge of the seat' speed, there is always a slight performance hit, rendering the external view point (not a loss of frame rate, but more the speed sensation, if that makes sense) and whilst the 'in car view' looks spectacular again, this takes a little edge off the speed sensation)

Bonnet cam, still gives the player a sense of being in the car, less objects to render and should give the game the essential three gameplay viewpoints that should be in all racing games. IMHO

 

So Real Racing gets pushed back and people are fine with it but EA get blasted for doing the exact same thing, to make the game better before release!

I'm happyto wait, and will be getting both games

 

there is a difference!! EA pushed it back a whole year and its still not out!! it just seams firemint cares more..

 

Thank you, arn. This is exactly the reason. This is also why Pocket God has been do wildly popular with TA.

 

Hi! Can we change the engine, parts, and can we customize it? Because if not then it will take a back seat for my remain 10 dollars for NFS unfortunately

 

Yeah if it's one thing NFS has cool customizations and it uses
Touch! Swipe up to raise car body, etc

 

I know and also welcome to TA

 

Huh? I don't really catch this. I understand that the multiplayer isn't ready yet but this statement confuses me. Head to head multiplayer is the heart and soul of online multiplayer and social gaming in just about every circle. What exactly is your company's idea "a focus on social and online gaming" if it isn't the accepted standard of playing online?

 

Thank you Rob and firemint for answering our questions! I know I was one who was really wanting to know about the release of the game since we didn't hear much the last month.

So thank you so much, its cool if you feel its not quite ready thats all I really wanted to hear and have faith its all for good reasons and its great you dont wanna release a game thats not ready even if it could mean a few lost sales but I'm sure it will rise to the top anyway.

Thanks again for the communication its awesome to hear!