Hey! Just jumping in here to say thanks for taking an interest in my project! I've answered some of your concerns over at MotK. I will say that I am running this on literally zero budget, and with practically no team to speak of, so please don't expect AAA quality from it! Still, I'm always one for saying that's no excuse for not improving, so I'm up for any criticism people want to offer!
I'm just happy that what I'm doing can be appreciated by so many other people!
Thanks for that, I'm not really a Redditer, so I hadn't seen this. I'll respond to some of the concerns here.
Scenery and karts are mostly because I don't have a team. I'm doing all the level design myself, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best modeller. Having said that, I am also somewhat restricted by what Unity offers to free developers. There are also certain restrictions on the track layouts, so those have to stay, they take a lot of work and tweaking to make sure they're playable. I think part of the issue with the scenery is not the modelling, but the textures and normal maps. I'm not fantastic with those, and I've been making do with whatever I can make that looks passable.
I think, from the time it's taken to get this far, character specific karts are not an option. The amount of time it would take to add those in and make sure the engine still works is more than I'm willing to do, especially since I'm doing pretty much everything myself.
As for Scarlet Devil Mansion, well... that was pretty much what I had in mind, yeah.
Hehe, of course I'm not expecting AAA level stuff from this, don't worry. I can sympathize with the woes of having no budget.
I think I can see what you mean with the custom karts. Making the new models is one thing, making them work correctly is not. Collision boxes and the like would have to be set again for the new models, and that would need some extensive testing. Getting rid of all the bugs in one model is work enough. I guess we can just say Nitori made all the karts and gave them to the other characters. They're going to have different paint jobs anyway, and I guess small mods that don't really change the overall geometry aren't out of the question.
I'm curious of those restrictions on the track layouts. By the way you worded it, I guess some of the stuff I had in mind for the SDM track when I mentioned it wouldn't possibly be able to be implemented. Umm... Can I talk about it?
After seeing your video of the game in action, with my hyperactive imagination, I started sort of imagining myself playing the game, making up the tracks as I went along. I tend to do that... Anyway, I tried mapping out my idea of the SDM track, starting on the main hall, continuing through some halls, sharp turns because of the square corners, eventually going down to the library. After the library section, the kart goes into a magic circle, which teleports the player into one of the towers, which is then exited to the flat part of the roof around the clock tower, which is entered, and then the karts descend and go to the mansion's second floor, race around there a bit, then go down the stairs into the main hall (because reckless endangerment with karts is the name of the game) and the lap would be complete. While that would be awesome, it's probably too hard to do, and would require an insane ammount of assets.
My image of a Hakugyokurou track was also ambitious, though not to the same extent. Actually doable, I think. Most of it would be in the gardens, but in a small section of it you'd enter the shrine, and there would be a sharp turn around the Saigyou Ayakashi, giving you some time to look at it.
The way I see it, Mario Kart is as much about the scenery as the racing. You aren't just racing through the tracks, you're exploring them. There's plenty of stuff to see, and the tracks are designed so that you get a good look at the major landmarks while racing.
That being said, I took a look at your Facebook page and took a look at your screenshots. While the test track was a bit lacking, as is expected of a test track, your new tracks look much better. While there is some room for improvement, I really like what I'm seeing so far a lot. I'm especially a fan of you Forest of Magic track, great ambience on that one. The textures look good enough, you're selling yourself short with that "looks passable" talk. As you said, we're not expecting AAA value here.
I have been wondering why there wasn't a Touhou version of Mario Kart, and I've been thinking that there should be more western fangames. Your project is an answer to both my musings. I really, really want to see this happen.
As I said, I would love to help you out in any way I can, but I don't really think I have any skills that would be useful to you. I did make
a texture once, but that's about it. I should be acquiring relevant skills in the near future, if my plans go as I hope, so who knows, I might end up giving you a hand somewhere along the line.From the way you talk about this project, it seems like it's still going to be in development for a good while.
And since this is a racing game we are talking about, I went and fished up
this article I saw some time ago. Might be worth a read, if you haven't done that already.
Keep it up! I'm so looking forward to seeing where this can go.
