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Overview
Concept
Automotive Engineering
Anti-crumple zone
The idea for Bubono’s Bumperland started as my friend and I’s desire to mimic the fun she experienced in Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip, in which you play as an unemployed creature who is inexplicably given permission to drive a car around town to “make money”. We wanted to create the fun of being able to drive around, bump off of things, and knock things over in a less-GTA style fashion, and more of a lighthearted tone.
Thus, the idea of driving around in a bumper car to wreak havoc in a theme park was born. I pitched my idea to a crew of peers I was hoping would be interested, and four of them accepted. I now had a team with a visual effects artist, a programmer, a 3D modeler specializing in box modeling, and a 3D/2D artist who specialized in character art and more organic shapes.
My initial pitch was to create a rogue-like run-and gun where as you smash through enemies with your car in an attempt to escape the park, you can gain different special moves to attach to your car, and by the time you reach the end of the level, the special ability you get will correlate with the specific enemy type you killed the most of.
That being said, when we came together as a team to discuss the game’s core concepts, my programmer and I decided out of caution that we may not be able to create an elaborate generative rogue-like system like we wanted within the time we were allowing ourselves. Thus, we instead decided to create the game with static levels, and your goal is simply to tear through enemies in your car in an attempt to escape each branch of the park.
The first and most important step in bringing this concept to life was making sure we could create a bumper car that was fun to drive. One of the main mechanics I knew we wanted to include was that of bumping, and influencing the momentum of the car dramatically based on what you bumped into. There were several factors to take into account here, as I spent the next several weeks repeatedly adjusting the car’s initial speed, maximum speed, acceleration, friction, and others until the control of the car had just the right amount of push and pull.
The main idea here was to actually make the car more volatile to control, as if you were a child putting themselves behind the wheel of a big rig. This was done to lean into one of the game’s core facets, which is that you must allow the car to be in a state of chaos in order to make progress. The car was no fun when you were able to perfectly position the car with every step, it was important for you to really be able to feel the weight of the car swing around, as if you’re just barely able to keep control of it. The player really needs to take into account how wide the car swings when making turns, and taking intentional time and space to slam on the car’s brakes in order to slow it down.