What course maker should've been comes to life in RaceCraft.

[SimTourist]

Looks like a small italian developer Vae Victis 1up'd mr. Yamauchi and Polyphony in their new game RaceCraft.
See for yourself:

 

[eran0004]

Isn't that pretty much what the course maker was in GT5? Randomized, procedural tracks.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

If you want to be pedantic, Modnation Racers released a course maker before GT5 (yes, I know it's an arcade game).

V-Rally 2 way back on the PS1 also had an excellent track editor (for its time anyway).

 

[Famine]

While Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge on the Amiga A500 had a course generator in 1991. Combo Racer - a motorbike sidecar racing game - had a course creator where you could make up a course from individual blocks of a single size and adjust each for corner angle or elevation. Scalextric on the ZX Spectum had one in 1986 - made from Scalextric track pieces.

Course makers aren't new and the fact a different game has one isn't really related to Gran Turismo's course makers.

 

[Liquid]

To be fair, though, the track maker in V-Rally was awesome.

 

[Famine]

To be fair, though, the track maker in V-Rally was awesome.

The track maker in Combo Racer was amazing.

 

[JR98]

I remember an old PC game, it might have been Crashday, had a cool top down track editor where you could add individual track pieces, straights, corners, tunnels, jumps etc. and then add scenery to it as well.

 

[Liquid]

The track maker in Combo Racer was amazing.

Can't say I've ever played that one. What was it like?

 

[Famine]

Can't say I've ever played that one. What was it like?

Imagine that you had an infinite set of proper LEGO Bricks - the normal height 2x4. Only each brick could be angled to make a left or right turn (I think there were 3 angles - might have been 30, 45, 60) or climb or fall (with three angles) - or just shove a plain block in to maintain the straight and elevation.

Of course at the end of it you'd be about half a block from aligning it all up, but the game would fudge it. And the track was always the same width - but it could be made into a figure eight (or any number of alternate height crossovers).

 

[TRL_Andromeda]

Trackmania anyone?

 

[C45H]

Stunts, anyone?

 

[sesselpupser]

Micro Machines...3? One of them, anyway, had a track creator. It was great.

Also these people (Racecraft devs) made Victory: Age of Racing so my hopes for Racecraft could barely be any lower.

 

[pokemonfan58]

To be fair, though, the track maker in V-Rally was awesome.

I remember spending so much time with the track maker in that game. I own V-Rally 2 but i've never played the first one so I don't know if the first one had the track maker.

 

[TrevorPhilips]

"All tracks feature weather and set your own time of day".... Oooo that's a kick in the teeth to Mr Greenawalt and Turn 10, no?

Joke thread?

 

[another_jakhole]

Interesting racer nonetheless.

Thanks, Tourist!

 

[gt4viper]

Im pretty sure Excitebike from the NES had a course creator as well...

lol, games sure have come a long way. From 8 bit motocross, to complaining that our puddles aren't as deep as forza's.

 

[bremics]

Micro Machines...3? One of them, anyway, had a track creator. It was great.

Also these people (Racecraft devs) made Victory: Age of Racing so my hopes for Racecraft could barely be any lower.

A quick glance on wiki says 2 & 4 had track creators, though for 2 only on the DOS version and 4 didn't have it on portables.

Which of the DS games had it? It was one of the Race Driver games.

 

[MeanElf]

Hate to keep banging on about FUEL but that game had the very best (for me) course creator. Okay, checkpoints needed to be placed on roads or tracks but you could build some absolutely epic 99 mile P2P races right across that massive map - or you could make 99 mile laps. It's only shortcoming was that you could only store a maximum of ten tracks to challenge other players on...oh, and you could set all the weather and time of day parameters you wanted.

 

[bluemoon_19]

Hate to keep banging on about FUEL but that game had the very best (for me) course creator. Okay, checkpoints needed to be placed on roads or tracks but you could build some absolutely epic 99 mile P2P races right across that massive map - or you could make 99 mile laps. It's only shortcoming was that you could only store a maximum of ten tracks to challenge other players on...oh, and you could set all the weather and time of day parameters you wanted.

The poor physics ruined that game for it had so much potential.

Also anyone who owns victory age of racing will get a free steam key for racecraft when it comes out later this year.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Hate to keep banging on about FUEL but that game had the very best (for me) course creator. Okay, checkpoints needed to be placed on roads or tracks but you could build some absolutely epic 99 mile P2P races right across that massive map - or you could make 99 mile laps. It's only shortcoming was that you could only store a maximum of ten tracks to challenge other players on...oh, and you could set all the weather and time of day parameters you wanted.

Ah yes I forgot about FUEL. To be fair though it's more of a track editor than a track creator as the roads are already there and you are just laying down checkpoints. I think the Asobo's procedural generator used to create the map would be an awesome course maker though

 

[MeanElf]

Ah yes I forgot about FUEL. To be fair though it's more of a track editor than a track creator as the roads are already there and you are just laying down checkpoints. I think the Asobo's procedural generator used to create the map would be an awesome course maker though

That's a good point - I sort of had my fingers crossed behind my back when I wrote that

 

[bremics]

Bit of a bump, so it was released on steam early access in March and has been updated every few weeks since.

They just added a paint shop: http://playracecraft.com/racecraft-alpha-0-4-1/

Currently on sale for $16.50. Think it's worth it?

 

[LeGeNd-1]

I'd say wait until it's out of early access. You never know with these small developers.

I was initially quite excited about this game last year, but after spending some time with GT6 Course Maker I realize most tracks just start to feel similar after a while And GT's CM had 4 themes and full layout control to boot. This only has 1 theme as far as I can see, and it's procedurally generated. I think the novelty will wear off really quick.

 

[bluemoon_19]

I think this game has little chance of getting a full release as the steam playing charts are awful. Total peak players anytime was 13 and currently they average under 1 a month!
http://steamcharts.com/app/346610

 

[JohnBM01]

The concept of procedural realms has surely been the big element in a lot of games in today's gaming culture. Looking at this deal here, I don't think people who play this game will care too much about having certain real world courses or actually licensed courses. So I'd say this game is going to come down to what kinds of vehicles and vehicle physics this game will have. It does have a great amount of promise, I'll say that much.