This diary entry is about spicing up the gameplay of Mad Skills Motocross, and also about an often overlooked part of games: the menus.

Spices

So. As you all know, since you take my word for it, the core gameplay of Mad Skills Motocross is brilliantly fun. And chicken tikka masala is brilliantly tasty, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit from some more chilli. The equivalent to chilli in the world of games is periferal game mechanics. For example, how fun would Mario be without his mushroom? Still fun, but the power-ups make it even more fun.

The core mechanic of Mad Skills Motocross is skillful handling of the bike, whether it's for making the best time or the most impressive back-flip. The spices, or periferal game mechanics, should not stray too far away from the core mechanic in my humble opinion. The whole game could be ruined by forcing the player to play a game of solitaire before every race in Mad Skills Motocross. Solitaire is fun, and motocross riding is fun, but together they make a mess.

Nitro 

That is why I have decided to take nitro out of the careful and fragile mix that will soon become a tasty motocross dish. Ok, enough with the food analogies. Nitro gives you a nice speed boost for a couple of seconds, and every racing game during the golden days had it. I tried it out in Mad Skills Motocross and it was quite fun, for a while. I noticed it didn't bring anything to the core mechanic, though, so it's out. No nitro.

Slow-motion

After the nitro experiment, I implemented slow-motion. You press space or whatever and the game slows down for about 5 seconds. Nitro is out, but slow-mo is most certainly in. It's great for getting past those really tricky parts in high speeds, or for making that perfect landing that will conserve your speed. This is an example of a periferal mechanic that really plays well with the core mechanic. With slow-motion you can handle the bike even more skillfully.

Now, I need more of these mechanics. Please, you readers, if you can think of some new mechanic to add let me know in the forums.

Challenges

I am also currently implementing challenges. There are a long list of challenges in the game, like 2 second wheelie, 3 second wheelie, 2 backflips in 2 seconds, frontflip, 2 second stoppie, Big Air, Double backflip... and so on. If one of these are accomplished while you race, a text will appear to indicate it, and if you crash the accomplishment fades away. If you don't crash within a fixed amount of seconds, the accomplishment is collected and you have a new medal for that challenge on your profile page. If you have done the 2 second wheelie, it will not appear again.

After a while of playing the accomplishments will be far inbetween because only the hard ones are left, like 4 backflips in 4 seconds. I think this will provide additional replay-value. Even though you have beaten the career game, you can still try to collect those really, really hard challenges.

I think challenges ties in nicely with the core mechanic, because it encourages you to improve your skills. What do you think? Unnecessary coating or good fun?

Check out this video to see how it looks right now, and for some nice maneuvers. (Note: this video was not recorded while using the slow-mo ability, I have just slowed it down so you can study everything that is going on.) Enjoy:

The challenges are currently in the experimentation phase, and it will probably not look like that when they are finished.

Menus

I happen to think that nice menus are very important for a game. I can't stand sluggish, unclear or plain boring menus, and therefore I set out to make responsive and pleasant menus for Mad Skills Motocross. One of jMonkeyEngine's weaknesses is the lack of proper GUI (menu) support. One of jMonkeyEngine's strengths is the fact that coding new stuff is a breeze. Take a look at this video for a sneak-peek at my home-grown menu system:

The background will be changed of course. I was thinking that just having two AI's competing in the background could be cool. This is a mockup that my artist produced: 

In closing

That's all for now, please discuss and ask questions in the forums, and I will try to answer them as best I can. Also, if you have any ideas that might improve the game, don't hesitate to bring it up in the forums.

Take care
// Tobias
Turborilla Entertainment

These diary entries are here for you, the readers. So I would like to know what you think, what you would like to see in the future, and any ideas and questions you might have really.

I have created a forum topic just for this diary entry: discuss here

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