There are two multiplayer experiences that we were keen to deliver in ModNation Racers. First, there was the online race experience (up to 12 players), while the second was the couch racing experience. It is hard to beat the multiplayer experience on the couch against friends – I think we can all remember this experience from other games we have enjoyed, and we were keen to make sure we delivered the same frantic experience for ModNation Racers.

We wanted to make sure we delivered two-player split-screen. From the start, we wanted our two-player split-screen to work online. ModNation Racers enables you and a friend to go online and play the game together. This makes for intense competition and a lot of fun! Do you play together, helping each other out or do you take your friend out at every available opportunity? You can play action races and pure races together. More importantly, two players can play together on any tracks developed by United Front Games or anyone online. It makes for an almost endless experience that two players can enjoy together.

Finally, we decided to deliver the four-player couch experience. This was a lot of work, but we have managed to create a great experience where four friends can settle down for some great kart racing. What we have delivered is a fantastic local multiplayer experience reminiscent of some of our best local multiplayer play sessions from years gone by. Sit down with friends and family and battle each other to see who the best is! Again, you can play action or pure race, as well as race on any tracks in the game created by United Front Games or other players.

Overall, our multiplayer experience has been created to cater to all different players, and we feel that when people play the game they will be able to get the experience they desire. Here in the office, we all play it on a daily basis with each other, whether it be online or at someone’s desk in split-screen. The game is so much fun to play and with us nearing completion of the title, we can’t wait for all our fans to join the ModNation in May! And be sure to head over to GameTrailers to catch the first four official behind-the-scenes videos! See you all then!

Mat from UFG here to end your week on a high note with our latest trailer and a peek into some of the thought behind the sweet racing action we’ve built into ModNation Racers!

First and foremost when developing a racer, the key thing to outline is what the experience needs to be. As I have mentioned in my previous blog post, we worked through how we wanted the core driving experience to feel. Many development team members here at United Front Games have worked on several different racing games. Our focus is quite simple –- we wanted the handling to be tight and fun but allow the power of the PS3 to take kart handling to the next level with a more physical driving model. While we appreciate the simple arcade handling, we soon understood that if we were going to deliver the best race experience with our Track Studio tools, then we had to give the player a deeper handling model.

Drive Well & Get BOOST
While we developed our core handling model we also realized we needed to offer other race mechanics that were familiar with all types of racing fans, but offered something deeper than what we had seen previously in the genre. We decided to go with a player controlled boost meter, which in turn is filled by driving well.

Drifting
The major skill the player needs to perfect is the ability to drift – a staple for most kart racers. Our mechanic is simple in the sense that the better the drift, the more the player is rewarded with boost. We also added a few nuances, such as the longer you drift, the player will actually slowly speed up over time, which rewards the user with an overall better speed but comes with consequences too.

At higher speeds, it is hard to avoid objects so maintaining the drift becomes a game in itself. The other key element with our drift is the ability to still steer and influence the direction of the drift. The player can do this with the basic steering controls, giving them full control over the drift. Finally, one of the coolest features with our drift is the ability to maintain the same drift even when the player jumps into the air. If the player drifts off a ramp, as long as they continue to hold the drift button, they will continue the drift when landing. This makes for some amazingly satisfying race moments on even the most challenging race tracks!

Some other race skills implemented in the game include drafting and air play. Drafting opponents is incredibly easy – simply drive in behind an opponent and try to maintain your position behind them. In addition to gaining a speed increase, the longer the player stays there, the more points they will accumulate. When a draft ends, those points are tallied and converted into boost. When in the air, the player will be rewarded in two ways. Firstly, the longer the player stays in the air, they will automatically be rewarded points and the larger jumps such as drops from launchers will give the player points. When the user lands, these points are tallied and then converted to boost.

When in the air, the player can also attempt spins. Using the right stick, the player can spin their vehicle. Every successful rotation will be rewarded with additional boost on the landing. The key thing to note however is that in order to be rewarded the player has to land the spin and face in the direction of travel. It is always fun to try and squeeze in one last spin to bag more points! What does the player do with all this boost when they have it? Well, obviously the player can simply press the L1 button and start boosting. The system is fully analogue meaning that the player can tap the boost for small bursts or hold it for long periods of sustained boosting. For some really hard advanced driving, players can try drifting and boosting at the same time!

We have created what I consider a racing experience that can appeal to everyone. You can pick up the game and enjoy the frantic gameplay but if you spend time with ModNation Racers you will become an expert by using all the strategies the systems bring. We feel very proud of the ModNation race experience and look forward to our fans playing it!

When we started working on ModNation Racers we knew we couldn’t simply create a basic physics system to deliver our core race experience. We were also weary of the fact that unlike many racers, the player in ModNation Racers will also be focused on weapon play. Very early on in development we experimented with extremely tight handling (akin to driving on rails) and a much more physical race experience. What we soon realized is that when the handling model is tight, there is not much fun in the race experience, it was essentially too easy and likewise when the user is spending a lot of time concentrating on just keeping the vehicle on the track with a more complex handling model then this doesn’t leave any mental power to experiment and use weapons. So as you may expect we ended up with something in the middle which offered us the physicality and emergent feel that for us makes this feel like a true next generation karting title. What we found is that this made the handling very much pick up and play, and easy to understand but at the same time offering depth you’d expect in other racers.

The other key component to a kart racing title is the drift, and we focused very hard on this to make it fun. Our drift is simple to use; the player simply presses and holds the X button to engage the drift. The key thing is that while drifting the user can still steer, influencing the turn and the counter-drift. Holding the drift as long as you can and disengaging at the right time can become quite an art. This is made more fun by the endless number of track designs we expect from Track Studio. Successful drifts are rewarded in our other key component: the boost meter.

We decided very early on in development that in order to make sure the race experience is fun at all times, the player should have a lot of different abilities even when they were unarmed. All of these abilities are then tied back into our boost system – we encourage the user to earn boost by doing a variety of abilities. These include drafting, spinning, hopping, hitting enemies and of course drifting. The better the player is at this then the more boost they will accumulate. This accumulated boost can be spent in several ways: the player can obviously boost, but also the player can use their shield to defend against weapons, or spend boost on delivering a tough ramming attack on a nearby opponent in the form of a sideswipe. The result is that even without weapons the player can combine all these skills to have a great race experience.

In terms of weapons, no kart racing game can go without them! Again, we set out early to try and add depth to the weapons system. You can play ModNation Racers by collecting weapons and firing them but the key is what we have called the ladder system. In a nutshell, the more item pods you collect the better the weapon you will get. In all, we have four classes of weapons with three levels to each. Also you can convert all weapons to secondary weapons that can be dropped behind the player. The depth this adds is great; it gives the player the option to either save up weapons to get to the more devastating weapons or simply fire as you please. Saving up can be risky however, as the player will lose item pods if hit by other racers. This really helps build up different strategies, and we have found playing the game here at UFG that people approach the weapons in very different ways. Personally, I am big fan of constantly firing so I don’t tend to upgrade all the time but then again, I don’t win all the time!

Finally I will touch on the artificial intelligence (AI) and how we approached this. Fundamentally, approaching the AI has been a very complex process but the goal has been clear – the AI has to be competitive, the AI has to be fun to play against and it needs to feel fair. Also layer on top our biggest challenge: how do you develop AI when anyone can create a track that contains anything?

Traditional racing games rely on the fact that the tracks never change, and good racing lines can be recorded or generated during development. Since we did not have this luxury, our development team followed a river analogy for the AI. A river flows along its path, around any obstacles such as rocks, forming rapids through tight spaces, and slowing down in wide open areas. Similarly, we have created a flowfield that is interrupted by avoidable objects, and flows towards the apex of corners or special objects such as boostpads. The AI racers then “flow” along this “river”. Everything is computed in real time, which would not have been possible without the incredible power of the PS3’s cell processor.

The result is AI that feels very smart, can react to anything thrown at it, and can make key decisions at the right time. Give it a go in the public beta in Track Studio; build any track and go to test race to see how the AI deals with your designs!

Anyway, that is it for now. Stay tuned for future posts where we will go into more detail on the racing, and we look forward to hearing from you all.