MEGADRIVE
MEGADRIVE is a top-down driving action delivery game. You play as humanities last hope for on time delivery in a world run by the authoritarian AI, Millennial Prime. As you prove your driving prowess, a deeper reality is revealed, in which, your role is to decide the fate of humanity.
Designed by Gavin Valentine
Best played with a gamepad.
Design Walkthrough
Design Goals
Simple experience that captures the gamification of order delivery.
Modernizes the top down driving experience of GTA2.
Rewards mastery of driving interaction.
Keep players invested as the game changes from a simple delivery game to a more complex driving action experience.
Design Challenges
Driving control on-boarding
Top down driving is not a well known control scheme for most players. This helps to create a novel experience, but requires careful planning to on-board players into the unfamiliar controls.
Solutions
Driver’s Ed:
A tutorial mode that removes the pressure of timed deliveries or hostile engagements.
Car upgrades:
Serving not only as progression, car upgrades chunk the interaction complexity and slowly introduce the more complex driving interactions.
Retaining player investment
As MEGADRIVE changes from a simple delivery driving game to a more complex driving action game players need something familiar to carry them through.
Solution:
The initial navigation system for delivery and car interaction remains the core UX of every mission in MEGADRIVE. Instead of delivering food-like substances you switch to delivering all manner of payloads based on the mission needs. The pressure applied to the player changes from time to enemies trying to stop you. The car boost and drift mechanics become your means of damaging enemies instead of just compelling driving mechanics.
Navigation
Clear communication to the player about where to go next to pick up or drop off an order is paramount to the player experience of MEGADRIVE.
Solution
I designed a pointer system to guide the player to these locations and present meaningful feedback at-a-glace while the player focuses on driving. To retain challenge and allow for a mental map of the level to be built by the player, I chose pointers instead of a map or line directly to the location.
The pointers give visual feedback at a glance or order progress (pick up or drop off), priority (white or purple), and time duration (flashing or not).
Order System
Refunding Time
One of the key moments of excitement in MEGADRIVE is picking up or dropping off just before time runs out. To allow for the opportunity for this feeling to happen frequently I implemented a system of refunding to half the total order time when an order is picked up with less than half its time remaining. This way players are always incentivized to try to pick up an order and players who are faster at order pick ups aren’t refunded any time.
Dollar Calculation
Goal: Reward player’s speed and efficiency in making deliveries.
The math before tuning for a delivery payment is (playerdistancefromorderpickup + pickupdistancetodropoff - timespent).
This way we can reward players for traveling further and faster for making deliveries and incentivize players to pick up multiple orders at a time, mimicking the gamification of food delivery services in the real world.
HUD
The current orders are displayed in the top right of the screen and communicate at a glance what stage the order is in and how much time is left on it. This system works in tandem with the arrow indicators.
Navigation
Direction of Order/Drop off
The arrows point to where the pick up/drop off locations as the crow flies, leaving players to fill in the gaps in navigation with their own mental model of the level.
Not too much, not too little
It was critical to strike a balance of retaining navigation challenge without frustrating players. A pointer system with meaningful at-a-glance information achieved this during playtesting.
Number of Available Orders
One arrow equals one order. The player will always have an arrow during the lifetime of an order, from pick up to drop off.
Priority Order
Only one arrow indicator presents in white, this is the priority order, the order with the least time remaining. When in doubt a player can fall back on following the white arrow avoiding analysis paralysis.
Low Time Remaining
When an order has less than 20 seconds remaining the indicator arrow begins to flash. This number should be tuned per distance the player is from the destination.
Driving
Boost
The boost mechanic increases the acceleration and top speed of the car by 1.5x. For novice players this is best used as a recovery tool after a collision to get back up to speed. While advanced players can use it at opportune moments to get ahead on deliveries. The boost cooldown maintains a risk/reward factor for players to experiment with as they gain driving confidence.
Driving Feel
MEGADRIVE is best played with a controller. Triggers allow for refined input of acceleration and breaking. 2D physics are used to move the car in a more realistic way. Using an upgrade progression system allows the scaling of skill required to operate the car successfully to be chunked and controlled by the player.
To tune the driving feel a players top speed, acceleration, turn factor, and drag factor should be exposed for easy editing.
Drifting
Drifting is an advanced mechanic with great game feel reward when executed properly. An advanced player can maintain a higher than top speed average if drifting properly. When a player holds a drift for a full second a drift boost is engaged doubling acceleration and increasing their possible top speed by one third. This boost can be maintained until the player turns or collides with an obstacle, requiring players to continually drift around corners to make deliveries as efficiently as possible. This system rewards the most fun and dynamic driving style.
Level Design
Fixed Pick Up and Drop Off Locations
It is important that pick up and drop off locations be fixed and placed by level designers instead of procedurally generated. This allows players to create a mental map of where locations might be and make meaningful navigation decisions.
Shortcuts
During playtesting several desired shortcuts emerged and were added to the game. With handmade levels moments of discovery can be created.
Moving Obstacles
NPC vehicles serve as moving obstacles and create variance for the player to navigate.
