The Iterative Process of Game Dev

As a startup indie studio, I think it is really important to do something unexpected in your games to make people take notice and help you get ahead.

It could be a specific gameplay idea, unique tech, or a very specific art style that will give the extra flavor to your game to help it stand out from the crowd.

Games offer limitless creative possibilities and that is why they are so exciting to make.

One example I would like to talk about in this respect is the driving physics of Assoluto Racing.

It was an iterative approach and overall a very long process.

If you are a player of Assoluto Racing, you surely have noticed that AR handles car physics in a fairly realistic manner, reproducing understeer and oversteer situations.

Realistic car physics are very challenging to simulate in a game and require a deep understanding of what is going on under the hood and how to translate that to the game engine.

The first thing I did was to get a stripped down driving model working inside the game engine with very simple controls. This was already very fun, but of course I could not wait to bring that to the next level.

The next step was deep research into the real life mechanics and physics of a car and in particular tire physics. This research helped me add more accurate data to the models and allowed me to test many different behaviors.

This started to give great results and I was pretty happy with how responsive and lively the physics became.

However, there was still something lacking. The last piece of the puzzle was to actually drive sports cars myself on the track using both grip and drift driving styles.

After a long day of driving, I would come back home and modify the physics engine to reflect the things that I had learned that day and improve the driving feel of the game.

This was a true game changer, and after 5 years of driving on tracks and updating my physics engine, I finally got the results I was looking for!

The physics of AR are by no means perfect, but I think they are what give it such a specific flavor and make our players so enthusiastic and supportive of the game.

I hope this little post will help you understand the iterative process of game making and provide some help for you on your own game!