New Flash Online Racing Game Inspired by Amiga Supercars 2

After spending a few weeks developing USC Racer drag racing game for Santa Pod Raceway I got playing some classic racing games on the Commodore Amiga (for those that remember those), including one of my old favourites Super Cars 2. For those that haven’t played it, it’s a top view racing game that borrows a lot of elements from the Super Sprint arcade game that came before it. Considering the lack of any decent top view web based Flash racing games I thought it’s about time to develop one.

The game’s currently in the early stages of development (with just the concept and a small amount of artwork done so far), expected to take around a month to put together. Some of the features we’re hoping to include are:

Large, scrolling art based tracks – I toyed with the idea of making it tile based, then ended up dismissing the idea, just because after trying it out on paper I realised it’s too restricting, and the play area won’t be more than 4 screens big. So the massive number of tiles needed would just make it more complicated to put together with no memory saving or speed increase.

Around 12 tracks to play – I wanted to make it more like the old style arcade games, rather than the tendency for Flash games to make each level independent and unlock them as you go. So it’s going to have around 12 tracks that you play through from start to finish, each game being different depending on what choices you make (upgrades etc.)

Garage – As well as racing the other cars, you’ll need to collect cash that appears on the track along the way. At the end of each race you’ll be able to spend the money in the garage. This is where you can have some fun upgrading your car. Planned upgrades so far are engine tuning (acceleration), engine tuning (top speed), tyres (give better traction for cornering), brakes (enable you to slow down faster to take corners).

There are a few things yet to decided, for instance:

Do we include weapons or just focus on the racing?

Should we include cumulative damage to be repaired in the garage? (Although this implies that the game will be over if you wreck your car).

Do we include jumps, gates, trains and possibly other hazards from the Super Cars 2 game?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on these. Feel free to post them in the comments and I’ll keep checking back. Anyway, that’s about it for now, there’s artwork to be done!