racer RPG

In this interview about Borderlands, Randy Pitchford talks about the importance of the "feedback loop" in games like Diablo 2. He muses that the game was so enjoyable largely "because of the compelling, compulsive feedback loop of growing my character and becoming a bad ass".

More and more, shooter gameplay is being mixed with RPG-style character progression and customization. Borderlands, Mass Effect 2, Alpha Protocol, The Agency and many others have done this in their own ways.

How might racing and RPG gameplay be mixed?

There are already similarities. Vehicle customization is like gear customization in that the player operates most vehicles in basically the same way while vehicle stats (grip, acceleration, speed, etc) affect style and performance. There's also progression in that the player acquires new vehicles and options for those vehicles.

But some of those similarities are only skin-deep. Customizations cannot be carried from car to car. The same may be said of items in RPGs, but new gear is acquired much more frequently in RPGs. Customizations are more personal in RPGs. Almost every car can be customized in the same ways, and most of those are purely graded (worse to better): exhaust, tires, engine, etc.


Anyway, here are some ideas of how I might design a racer-RPG hybrid.

Create a growth experience with only one or a few cars, instead of encouraging the player to swap out cars or buy new ones. Imagine selecting your vehicle at the beginning of the game and experiencing a whole adventure with just that vehicle. The car is like a companion. It's adorned inside and out with reminders of events. It might even bear scars (until repaired). As the driver improves, it is improved. The player's character talks to the car while driving.

Competitors are not faceless. They are seen. They are heard. And they, too, stick to one vehicle each... vehicles with their own reminders.

Realism isn't ignored entirely, but it takes a back seat to making customization truly personal. If five players all choose to play through the game in Car A, they're customization choices should be different. This personalization of vehicles is in addition to the dynamically-achieved trophies and other reminders of experiences acquired during each player's unique adventure.

The game isn't just racing. Like in an RPG, there are a variety of activities, and not all are sought by the player. For example, the player might be casually driving down a highway or through a city when one or more vehicles start to chase, perhaps even try to ram him off the road. Events like these would be dynamic and not strictly scripted. So what vehicles the player is being chased by might vary, as would where the player happens to be when the chase begins and how the chase ends (perhaps the player or enemy is run off the road, involved in a traffic accident, or police get involved).

What I'm basically proposing is a vehicle-based adventure as opposed to typical driving games.


P.S. Yes, there's more than one pun in this article. And, no, they were not intentional. =P

Also, two games to keep an eye on for how they might mix driving with RPG elements are Rage and Borderlands.

vehicles as playgrounds

Combat involving vehicles doesn't have to mean the player is driving or controlling turrets. It can also mean players and enemies climbing around or on top of a vehicle, or fighting for control of the cabin/cockpit.

I thought of this in connection with The Saboteur, so let me just copy my post from those forums:

One of the influences for Sean Devlin is Indiana Jones, right? So how about some combat on and around vehicles, rather than in them.

In the first Indiana Jones movie, there's a scene where Indiana stole a German truck and Nazis are chasing him. Some Nazis are in the truck he stole, and they start to climb around the side of the truck and on top of it. Jones shakes some off, brushes some up against environmental objects, and fights someone battling for control of the vehicle inside the cabin.

In The Last Crusade, Jones is the guy on the outside. He rides up to a tank on a horse and jumps on the tank. At one point, he's squirming around as the driver is trying to crush him against the environment. He also makes it onto the top of the tank, where he battles many soldiers while the tank keeps moving. Earlier in the movie, Jones jumped from one speeding boat to another to battle in that.

John McClane, another influence for Devlin, did this as well. He fought on a plane wing while the plane was moving in Die Hard 2.

If it's not too late to add, this would be fun in The Saboteur. Perhaps only as one level, in which the game controls the vehicles while the player moves around and between them.

If, at least, enemies were able to jump on the side or back of a vehicle, then that would add a new layer of fun as players try to shake or squish the enemies. If the player could jump on a vehicle, then the enemies could try the same thing.

Anyway, the point is: if you're going to have vehicles in your game, consider that vehicles don't have to be objects in a playground -- they can be playgrounds themselves.