Hometown GP Launched! (a google maps 3D F1 racer)

I'm really pleased to announce that our new game, "Hometown GP", has been launched!



(More Screenshots Below)

It's a browser-based Formula 1 racing game with a unique feature: By using a custom Google Maps interface, you can create your own tracks on real roads - pretty much anywhere in the world - and the game will dynamically generate a 3D racetrack which matches your route.

The idea is to be able to experience Formula 1 coming to your home town - so you could create a route which goes along your street, past your local shops or school, etc. Of course you can also choose to build anywhere else in the world too, if you feel like exploring!

If you're logged in and finish 3 laps of your new track, it gets saved to the database and will show up as a marker pin along with everyone else's tracks around the map of the world. You can share your tracks via facebook and twitter, and challenge your friends to beat your times on any course.

Here's the gratuitous promo video.

Notable features:

* Intuitive custom track designer built on Google's route finding technology.

* Dynamic 3D world created to match your design.[/list]

* Analysis of real satellite & terrain data used to decide placement of trees, buildings and open space.

* Real altitude data used to create track height and surrounding hills.</p>

* Realistic scales and Formula 1 speeds.

* Dynamic driving assistance adapts to your performance - casual gamers and skilled drivers alike should find the game equally enjoyable without the need to fiddle with menus and settings.

* Community features allow you to race other people's tracks, and share your tracks with others.

* Adaptive quality degradation ensures very high visual quality on high-spec machines, while low-spec machines prioritise framerate - without the need for manual settings.



Play the the game here:
http://racing.vodafone.com/hometown

However you might also like to try some of these direct links to tracks which I think show off the game quite well:
(try and beat my times on these!)

Bristol River Run (England)
The Serpentine (Hyde Park, London, England)
Presidio of San Francisco (California, USA)
Happy Valley (Hong Kong, China)
El Grado Dam (Spain)
Banff: Tunnel Mountain (Alberta, Canada)
Circuit Gilles Vielneuve: (Montreal, Canada)


And finally, some stills - for those of you who like that kind of thing!

 

Thanks for all your comments so far guys.

I will have more time to answer questions about the details of the game on Monday!

 

Basically the project is a combination of Flash and Unity. The front-end interface including the map and track editor is Flash, and that's where the direct integration with Google Maps happens, using the Google Maps API. Flash requests route data from Google as you add markers to define your track, (which is basically a series of position vectors) allows you to place custom items, and then requests the altitude data, plus the satellite image terrain image for that area when you're finished building.

Then all this data (the route vectors, road names, images etc) is serialized sent across to the Unity portion of the game, which decodes it and uses it to dynamically build the road, fences terrain mesh, position the scenery items, and set up areas of water, etc.

If you finish your track, your track and all the accompanying data is saved to our database (so the google data isn't re-requested each subsequent play of the same track).

 

Thanks for the comments! Yup we considered all manner of features which didn't make it into the final product - various methods of doing the procedural levels, additions to the gameplay, etc.

Unfortunately things like "adding multiplayer" or "using google earth models" are massively complex additions which probably would have doubled or tripled the development time, which was already very limited. (The game took about 7 months to develop).

In the end practical considerations as to what was achievable by our small team in the time available had to take priority (of course) over our desires as to what could potentially go into the game!

Glad you liked it as it is though

 

Thanks for the input! The video actually shows the gameplay sped up a certain amount (I wanted the video to be short and snappy), so perhaps try the game itself and see what you think. It might not be as unrealistic as the video might suggest.

You do actually have to slow down significantly to get around corners without hitting the walls, and if you do that, the speeds are fairly close to real F1 speeds - although it does err on the side of being a little too fast.

For example, I made a track on one of the real F1 circuits - the Montreal-based "Circuit Gilles Villeneuve" track in Canada. (Here's a direct link to the "Circuit Gilles Villeneuve" track in the game).

The official F1 data for this track states that the average speed for the two sharp corners at each end of the track (turn 2 and turn 10) are 47mph and 34mph. In my game, it's just about possible can go round these corners at about 60mph and 40mph without hitting the walls - so while it's somewhat faster around very sharp corners than real life, it's not unrealistic by a massive factor, and the top speeds and acceleration of the F1 car are pretty much as in real life.

However, because there's no car damage in the game, you also have the option of just throwing it round the track at faster speeds, treating it more like a rally car, and relying on hitting the barriers to keep you on track. I don't think this style of driving actually gets you round the track faster though!

As for the suspension, yes - the car has softer suspension with more travel than a real F1 car, this is mainly because it has to be able to drive over quite hilly or uneven routes - We're using real height data pulled from Google's altitude API, so there can be some pretty hilly terrain generated by the user.

I played with the implementation of the suspension a lot during development, and also with other methods of "artificially" sticking the car to the track without using suspension at all. This was a really difficult part of the game to get right because obviously there's a massive discrepancy between real F1 tracks (which are almost completely flat with very gentle hills) and the kinds of tracks which it's possible to create in this game (potentially very hilly terrain with sudden steep changes in gradient).

So the final result was that the F1 car has fairly soft suspension with more travel than a real F1 car, but it's still very stiff compared with a normal road car.

You basically have to give it a certain amount of artistic license and suspension of disbelief - because you'd probably completely destroy a real F1 car trying to drive it on most of the tracks created in our Hometown GP game!

 

On this subject, did you notice the "Assist" readout, bottom right?



This shows you exactly how much assistance the game is giving you as you drive. At 100%, it's quite difficult to do much wrong, and at 0%, you are in full control of the car.

Whether the assistance is increased or decreased is based on whether you manage to maintain a speed above a certain threshold while driving for a sustained period - although this "speed threshold" varies depending on the current section of track.

The way it works is a little like "blending" what an AI controlled car would be doing at this moment with what you're actually doing. The amount of blend varies depending on whether you're going with or against what the AI would do, or whether you have released control completely.

So, there's no actual adjustment of physics with the assistance - it's not magically making the car stick to the track at higher levels, it's only "correcting" slightly the inputs that you feed to the controls of the car

I have found that it makes for quite an interesting "sub game" to try and make sure my assistance level gets down to zero and stays there the for the whole race!

Is anyone else finding that they can get it down to zero? or having any other issues with the controls? (too difficult to control? - too much assistance?)