Game Concept Doc

Working Title: Modern Grand Prix Racer

 Concept Statement:

A top-down racing game, a la early 90's arcade games, but utilising modern features and advancements in racing (I.E Drag Reduction Systems, Hybrid Powertrains).

Genre: Arcade Racing (Somewhat Self-Explanatory, A game where you race, but nothing like the simulation angle that most racing games take today)

Concept Creation Process: 

The initial inspiration came from a late night browse of a arcade emulator collection, in an attempt to find something to "knock off" for my project. I came to F-1 Grand Prix, a game related to a major interest of mine, and something that I immediately got my idea from. Instead of just attempting a direct recreation of, I would create the game as though it was created in the modern day, with current cars, drivers, and racing features like the aforementioned Drag Reduction System. I am confident the scope of my idea is malleable. I have not committed myself to recreating every single race track, or creating differences between the cars, but these could both be possible, depending on how long I take to create the basic features of the game. As well as this, there are opportunities to expand the scope of the game if warranted, such as introducing different racing categories (I.E: V8 Supercars, Le Mans).

^F-1 Grand Prix (1991) {Screenshot taken by me on an emulated copy}

Audience and Competitive Analysis: 

Racing games are and most likely will always be a popular genre. 2d racing games, however, became significantly less commonplace after the 90s, and I cannot find evidence that a 2d racing game exists that has all of the modern racing features I plan to implement. 

For a target audience, I intend to target fans of Motorsport, of any age, who want a casual experience that is still challenging. I also intend to attempt to replicate familiar race locations and/or teams (to the extent I legally can without infringing on copyright) to let players play as an approximation of their favorite team. 

I want the major hook of my game to be the tonal dissonance between the arcade-style gameplay and graphics, and the modern elements heavily present throughout the game, as mixture would create intrigue for people who understand what these elements are, I.E: my target audience.

Game Treatment:

Once the game is launched, the menu will give you 2 options, Single race, or championship.

^ Very Basic Mockup of a title screen

In single race, you select the track you want to do a race at, and you do 1 race before the game sends you back to the main menu, In championship, you go through all the game's tracks in order, with a points count between you and the ai players being kept.

Once either the track is selected in single race, or championship is selected, you will be brought to a team select screen, this does nothing for gameplay, only changes the look of your car.

Once everything is selected, you will be put to the start/finish straight of the track, and will have to do a timed lap, this lap determines both your starting position on the grid, as well as the difficulty of the AI.

After the single lap, you will be put on your spot on the grid, and starting lights will show up on the screen, when these lights go out, you will gain full control of your car.

The car will have relatively simple controls:

Left, Right, Accelerate, Brake.

The two extra functions for gameplay will be:

DRS: the ability to, within a certain distance, and when in certain "zones" increase top speed. This will have to be manually activated with a button press, and will be shown when available by a green icon showing on the UI.

^A modern F1 car using DRS (Photo by Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images)

Hybrid Power: A system that is activated by holding down a button, when activated, acceleration significantly increases. There is a limited amount of "Battery Power" available per lap, indicated by a meter on the UI. Once a lap is completed, the meter will fully recharge.

A minor amount of physics simulation will be implemented, with the car not being able to rotate as quickly at higher speeds, forcing players to slow down for sharp turns. Alongside this, going off the surfaced track will cause a major speed loss, and hitting walls or other players will not only slow down the car for a short period of time, but will also remove health from the car. Once this health reaches zero, the car will break down and the race will end.

Races will be short, around 3-5 laps depending on the length of the track.

Once all races are completed in championship mode, the full points tallies of the Player and each AI opponent will be shown, with the final points score of the player being recorded, if the player scores one of the 10 highest scores, they will be asked to enter a 3 letter pseudonym and the score will be displayed on the side of the main menu.

Concept Art (Original work will be created during development, all artwork here is NOT my own and are mockups for the general style)

^"Pixel art illustration F1 Car" by Collaborapix Studio on Vecteezy 

^Racing Tilemap Pixel Art by naturesilver5401 on Itch.io (I intend to use this free asset pack in my game)