OK, let's get one thing cleared up straight away. This game is not inspired by, affiliated with or anything at all to do with the 2008 film Death Racers starring Jason Statham. It is also nothing to do with the other film called Death Racers also released in 2008 starring the Insane Clown Posse. Not because I am above taking inspiration from a film, oh no. It's because both those films are rubbish. Our game was inspired by Roger Cormans classic Death Race 2000, starring Sly Stallone no less. That might not be completely obvious when you play the game!.
Playing the game, a lot of the other influences are very obvious though. It's a lot like 'Super Skidmarks' on the Commodore Amiga. It's also quite similar to 'Mashed-Drive to Survive" on the PS2, which is in turn similar to MarioKart. It's also comparible to 'Micro Machines','Rock and Roll Racing' and 'Death Rally'. This is all good and you realise why as soon as you drive around your first lap...
When you take your first corner, instinctively taking a perfect drift, you realise why. It's like you've been playing the game for years. The 'difficulty curve' is usually a barrier to overcome when designing a game. By having the game feel so familiar we have removed all that. The player can hit the ground running and get straight into the game on a proper level of difficulty.
That's not to say the game is completely without originality though. With 4 racing events including a Crossfire mode where the cars go in opposite directions, the game is original enough to stand out from it's ancestry. It also has a lovely iconic Russian Constructivism look that really should feature in more games.
Obviously the game has an old school console feel. The menu's and bitmap character portraits just scream "Mega-Drive" at you. Once you get into the race though, it all feels a little bit more modern. The 3D rendered graphics keep it more on a par with the proper console games modern players are familiar with. Games that are completely retro tend to be a bit too niche- we wanted Deathracers to be more popular than that.
The aim from the start was to create the best racing engine there is in Flash. It is flexible enough to make a dozen spin-offs and it has the nicest level editor I've ever used. When we've made a dozen spin-offs maybe we could release a version with the editor included.
Development of Deathracers was really as smooth as it gets. Everything in the game worked perfectly first time. This is down to the talent of Vadim Ledaev. We've been working together a long time now but this is the best game we've made. Usually when you look back at the end of a project there's at least something you wish you'd done differently but not this time. OK, technical limitations stopped us having four unique vehicles but it doesn't affect the gameplay, plus it's good to have something to include in the sequel...
Yeah. Why not? We have to have characters so why not give them a story? MarioKart et al don't have an extensive plot but they are multi-player games. When you play a game on your own it's good to have a goal. When you have four different character you can have four different goals. They all have their own reasons for competing and their own resolutions when they win. This is all just text, which as far as memory goes, is free. So why not go to town on it? Also, the setting is enhanced by government propoganda 'ads' that appear between levels, giving the whole thing a real '1984' kind of style. It also gives the player something to read while the level is being rendered.
Players don't like ads though and many don't even like cut-scenes, text boxes or even progress updates. So they are all skippable. I realise it's all a bit self-indulgent for some people who just want to race so I'm not going to force them to read them.
I recommend you do though, at least the first time you play. It's not quite 'Brave New World' but it is quite entertaining.
Deathracers is finished and you can play it here. Good luck.