Making Fun Games

Destroy More Cars

So, more cars then? Well, obviously yeah. Twice as many in fact. There were a few cars I wanted in the first game that never made it, so this was a chance to get them in. In the first game the 5 locations kinda ruled out some cars, especially because we never went to Italy. So we have a Porsche, a Ferrari and even a Lancia.

As well as the new cars, all the cars from the original are still in there- it would have been silly to waste them. However, they have all had a bit of a facelift. Also, instead of just going a bit wobbly looking when they crash this time they are a lot more damaged.

So, add some more cars and then it's finished, right? Well, that would have been too easy. Instead, we decided to write the whole game again from scratch. Going from feedback given in reviews of the original, we've made the collisions much more accurate. This works a treat with the new crashed cars, especially when you end up with a wheel rolling along the top of a wrecked car.

Rather than just add more stuff, we've just concentrated on streamlining the whole experience- people did complain that all the menu flow took too long when all they wanted to do was smash stuff up. Now the player can get into the action much quicker- setting up the ramp, choosing a car and previewing the stack now happens on the same screen. As for the graphics, I've drawn everything properly this time. Instead of 5 locations, we now just have one- The DMC arena. However, as the game progresses, the crowd gets bigger, the stadium gets expanded and also the weather changes. It all looks much better.

Development

There were a couple of big things in the original design that never made it into the first game. The most important was the score. Sponsors like having a score so they can have high score tables. The score is tied into not just how many cars you smash up, but also how stylish you are. To encourage the player to use all the lovely new cars, they all have a style rating. The rare and expensive cars get a much better score- especially the silly ones that are harder to use. So, it's easy to smash a transit van into a stack but you'll get double the points if you use the Aston Martin.

Another addition that I'm very happy with is the speedo. In this version, every car has it's own speedo/rev counter. It gives the player a bit more of a reason to collect the cars, just to see what the speedo looks like. To make this work, the speedo's are all lovely looking and there's a decent amount of variation between them.

Big improvements have been made with the sound. It was always a bit empty in the original. Now, to create the stadium atmosphere we have layers of crowd noise and a cheesy American announcer coming across on a tannoy (well, actually it's me!). It all adds up to immerse the player much more than before.

Building the levels was better this time too. With a proper level editor created for me I was able to test and tweak the levels rather than just throw them together and hope for the best. Each level is much more of a puzzle this time, usually easily solved by using the new cars as you earn them. As before, to get 100% on every level it's a good idea to go back over previous levels with a better car.

Conclusion

We have high hopes for the success of Destroy More Cars. We plan on adding more features, including achievements and Facebook integration. We have left a few things for the next version though- you still can't design your own levels for instance. Also, there are still even more cars that I haven't got in yet. Caravans would be cool too. Maybe buses and motorbikes too....Watch this space!