Documentation + User Guide

Implementation Review

The final implementation of Smacks Vetstappen’s Childhood is closely comparable to the vision outlined in the original concept documentation. The main goal was to create a chaotic, satirical arcade racing game, and I feel that the final game achieves this fairly well. The racing feels messy in the way I intended, with unpredictable AI, heavy drifting, shortcuts, hazards, and boosts all adding to the overall chaos.

The theme of pressure from an unimpressible dad is also conveyed through the dialogue scenes between races. While I think this works adequately, I would have liked to include this idea more directly within the levels themselves. For example, stronger in-race reactions, visual reminders, or more gameplay-based consequences could have helped make the father-son pressure feel more present during racing, rather than mainly appearing between levels.

There were several differences between the original concept and the final game. The biggest reason for these changes was time debt, as some features became too large to implement properly alongside the required racing systems, AI, tracks, hazards, dialogue, and polish.

One change was the boost system. In the concept document, abilities were planned to be randomly selected through question-mark-style pickups. In the final game, this was changed to static boost objects that visually match their UI elements. This made the boosts clearer for the player and easier to implement within the available time.

Multiplayer racing was also removed from the final version. The concept originally included local multiplayer, but this was scrapped so the project could focus on becoming a stronger single-player experience. This allowed more time to be spent on AI opponents, track hazards, race progression, and dialogue scenes.

Difficulty settings were another feature that had to be cut. The original concept included multiple difficulty modes, but balancing the game was already difficult with one mode. Adding four separate difficulty settings would have required much more testing and tuning than the project timeline allowed.

The petrol station exploration idea was also removed. In the concept, this would have allowed the player to explore between races. However, this was replaced with dialogue scenes featuring visible character sprites instead of a top-down exploration view. This made the story sections easier to understand and helped present the characters more clearly.

Overall, the final game still follows the main vision from the concept document. Some features were simplified or removed, but the core idea of a chaotic, funny, top-down arcade racer with an over-the-top motorsport parody theme is still present in the final version.

Week 11 Feedback Summary

Tracks

One of the main pieces of feedback was that cars could roadblock on smaller stretches of the track. Players also noted that the wider track sections were more fun than the thinner ones. In response to this, I widened several parts of the tracks to reduce congestion and make the racing feel less frustrating.

UI

Feedback was given that the AI was not always behaving well. Due to time limitations, I continued using the existing AI system rather than fully rebuilding it, but I made track adjustments to reduce some of the situations where the AI would get stuck or cause problems.

Another piece of feedback was that the game needed visible lap counts. This was added, although it took way longer than expected to get working properly with the race manager and UI.

There was also a suggestion to take inspiration from the F1TV overlay or HUD. I did not have enough time to fully rework the racing UI style, but I did use this idea in the dialogue scenes by creating F1-style message boxes. This helped connect the presentation more clearly to the motorsport theme.

Boosts

The third boost received useful feedback. Players said it felt like a half-lap advantage, which made it too powerful. In response, I adjusted the pit lane speed because the AI cars were being slowed down too much. Speeding up the pit lane made the boost less overpowered.

Players also said they rarely saw what the boost actually did. This was because the boost timer was too short, so I increased the active time to make the effect more noticeable during gameplay.

Overall, the Week 11 feedback helped improve the readability, balance, and playability of the game. The main changes focused on widening the tracks, making race information clearer, and tuning the third boost so it was still useful without feeling completely unfair.

Asset List

User Guide (Available on Main Game Page aswell)

Step into the chaotic early racing years of Shmacks Vetstappen as you dodge absurd pressure from his unhinged racing-dad coach, who thinks yelling counts as “professional training.”

Control your car with the WASD keys, your car is circled in red at the start of each race.

Control your car and try to finish in first place

Pickup boosts placed randomly around the track and use them with keys 1-3.

Boosts to dramatically sway races

Boost 1 / Simply Lovely: Speed boost

Boost 2 / The Stroll Effect: Nerf enemies

Boost 3 / Ferrari Team Principle: Sends AI through pitlane

Hate your dad after every race

After race dialogue