The core idea behind this game came from thoughts I had when I was very little about needing to water grass in order for it to grow. I always imagined that if we could somehow create “better water” we could watch the grass grow in an instant, rather than needing to wait days or weeks for results.
During the conception of this mechanic I also formulated a story which I considered to be a unique vessel for this idea. A conversation between me and a friend led to one of her family members, who despite getting late into his 60’s still worked as a volunteer forest firefighter. I was also told that even career firefighters were regularly paid middling amounts. I thought: with that kind of career, if you’re not fulfilled, you must have nothing. What must it be like to have that life, but to regret your choices? Perhaps your family wanted you to have a more prestigious career, like a lawyer or a doctor. How would these feelings manifest when this imaginary could-have-been “dream” version of you begins to become more and more prominent in your mind?
In this game you play as the unnamed firefighter, and
In my case, I found it was actually the grass that needed to be better, rather than the water. I first went to work creating this “better grass” which I wanted to respond accordingly when contacted by a projectile. I quickly created what was essentially a simple gun which fired a projectile about 10 times a second. I then made a cube whose z scale grew by a very small amount every time it is contacted by my projectile.
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.