Some feedback

[Sylvine]

For context, I've just finished all races with the first car with a gold medal, then tried a couple races with the next car (clearly not inspired by some Italian rally car).

Also it's going to be only negatives, not because I didn't liked the game, but simply because it's more useful (so you can consider I liked everything I didn't talked about).

Let's start first with some technical notes, the game always start with my windows task bar on top, I have to go to windowed mode then back to fullscreen every time.
With V-sync or 60 FPS lock I have some annoying frame drops, I have to play with the framerate unlocked, so my PC rendering 400+ frames per second, which seems a bit wasteful. More options for the framerate lock would be nice.

Now onto gameplay.
Adding turbo start was a mistake, it doesn't have its place in a time attack game. Wasting my time by making me reset every time I miss the turbo start is not making the game better in any way.
Speaking of reseting, I think it should be a bit faster, something like 0.5s, because it can be a bit irritating when you restart a lot in a short amount of time.
Also it shouldn't reset the music, it can become annoying, especially with the songs with lyrics.

I guess it's a recurring feedback, and I suppose it's not really a design choice, but the wonky car physics can really be a pain in the ass. If at least you had more air-control, you could recover from some unlucky jumps.
On the same page, the objects littering the map, that can either barely slow you down, or stop you dead in your track, or worse make you fly away, add unwanted randomness. I think physics objects should only be used to add textures to the tracks, like some stack of card-boxes you can drive trough with little to no effect on your trajectory.

I really don't like the pathetic max speed (without turbo). I guess the idea is to encourage you to use drift as much as possible, but it makes the game feels sluggish, and I don't think having a perfect solution for every problem (here, drifting) is interesting in a game. You would still spend moist of your time drifting with a higher max speed, but from time to time you would have to wonder if it's actually the best option.

Also some of the tracks seem to have a bit of an identity crisis, the game has this bombastic and frantic style, but some tracks like Chicago Marina punish you for going too fast. Having to find the perfect speed to not hit the ceiling can have its place in Trackmania, here it feels out of place. (or again, I wouldn't mind if I had some air control)
Same thing for these stupid barriers that close in front of me. I've beaten the gold medal by a large margin, but I still don't understand how you're supposed to pass this part cleanly on the second lap (and I don't understand why I can't destroy the first barrier, but not the others).

I'm not going to lie, unlocking the second car to then understand I was going to play the exact same handful of tracks again (and I guess again with the third car) felt a bit disappointing.
I think it should at least add some variations of the tracks (reverse version, different moving obstacles...).
Maybe you do unlock more content later (again I haven't finished the game), but in this case I would bring this immediately after unlocking the second car, and make you replay the same tracks later, it would feel less repetitive.

That's it for now, I think the game is cool, but it felt a bit short for being really good.

[andrelol3]

I think the turbo at the start is a must. And I think the max speed is only weak with the first car. The second car always goes fast.

But I agree with the physics for for landing, they need to some work (and maybe the enviroment design for where you land also need some work). Sometimes the game screws you for no reason (sometimes it's your fault, but other times it's 100% the game's fault). Also the reseting needs to be faster and put you where you left off (or very close to it). You might not get silver or gold after screwing up, but at least you should have the chance of getting bronze (and the reseting makes it almost impossible).

And yes, having the same tracks for all 3 classes is a bit lame. I don't mind playing the same tracks again (that's how arcade games are), but they could have added at least one new track for each new class, so we would have something new at the end of each class.

Now, I don't like the idea of reverse tracks. I think that might work for non precision racing games, but these tracks are pretty narrow. Reversing them without taking into consideration the design and layout will probably not work.

Now, for a future update, after beating all 3 classes, you could unlock a secret class with new tracks. Maybe, if the devs don't want to build entire new tracks, they could design a giant track and have 3 different routes, and these 3 different routes would be tracks for the secret class. That would be a simple cost effective yet great way do add some post game content.

[slow]

The airborne physics really are the biggest of the problems that game has in its current state. and by airborne it literally is any moment when any one wheel is off the ground. The inconsistency doesn't help matters either and just makes every run feel like a test of patience rather than driving ability.

Recalling my several-hour trip to set a clean time on the LD54 secret level, all of the slight ramps going either up or down were all a throw of the dice, especially after Lap 1. It took a little bit for me to figure out that to stop the car from being launched on the uphill ones you need to engage a Drift, but in that regard the problem is that on Lap 2+, that isn't enough and you get absolutely sent in the run-up to the hairpin left unless you try to temper your speed going in to that section. And trying to actually slow the car's top end down in a controlled manner without losing *all* your boost is a nightmare when it's way too easy to attempt to slow down, then pin the gas and realise that you've actually not shaved off any top speed at all.

Then you have that downhill back stretch with all the little ramps dotting it. You land on any of those ramps as you hop your way down the slope and you're instantly sent into a tumbling crash. And though I never attempted to do anything to try and keep the car grounded, I imagine that absolutely isn't an option because then you'll lose all your boost before you get to the bottom, and it's way too narrow to try to snake some speed back. It's also where I learned of the very, very little air control that you have which is rotating the car left and right, as turning right as you leave the last ramp gives you the best entry into the corner series afterwards. I still wish there was a lot, and I mean a lot more air control to stop all the tumbles, even if it was something as out-of-your-control as the car automatically rotating whilst airborne to make sure it lands straight (and the title screen demos clearly show that wasn't an option as the car does a barrel roll during one of them).

And just to wrap up this ramble, the random little things like how erratically the car behaves when drifting up the rainbow spiral in Course 8 at ~70MPH and barely clipping the outside edge with a single tire. Or the moments when you bump slightly into a wall while drifting and the car decides it now wants to drive along the side of the wall instead. Or my personal favourite, when doing the drifts upwards in LD54 on Lap 2 and, out of nowhere, the car decides to do a barrel roll while all four wheels are still on flat ground. It's just... I don't have the words for it.

[Sylvine]

Originally posted by andrelol3:

I think the turbo at the start is a must.

If I don't turbo start, I just immediately restart.
It's just tedious, they could force you to complete a captcha before every race, it would be as fun.

Originally posted by andrelol3:

And I think the max speed is only weak with the first car.

It's still needlessly annoying, even if it's just the first car (especially in a game with only 3 cars). And I think the second car suffers from the same problem, it's just less noticeable because it's faster. The problem is the top speed is so low you reach it almost immediately, it's really not fun. A big part of the excitement of driving is slowly gaining momentum, and then trying to keep that momentum. Here's it's totally absent, you immediately reach your top speed, either by accelerating 1 seconds or by slide boosting.

Originally posted by andrelol3:

Now, I don't like the idea of reverse tracks. I think that might work for non precision racing games, but these tracks are pretty narrow. Reversing them without taking into consideration the design and layout will probably not work.

Of course it would need some additional work, but in most cases it would be faster than developing a brand new track. And it would be even faster if all tracks were made while thinking about the reverse version from the beginning.

[DUCK]

if on PC you can set the FPS limit through your GPU tools. from AMD or Nvidia to likely set it for this game. haven't had any Frame issues.

2nd map is very annoying to me, as there are some jumps other can make but sometimes you will just not go high enough. or you have to cut corners. Which makes some of the statements you talk about, the lack of recovering, objects or walls that can send you in a totally different place or nuke your speed. So maintaining speed can sometimes be a big chore, as the game doesn't give always good feedback or why some actions will slow you down to a halt with no ways of getting it back. (which is like maybe how it handles speed boost combo multiplier?).

Same goes for handbrake or drift, with x amount of speed and you will not be attached to the ground and some collisions will trigger the speed? not so sure about how those things work.

So I guess having faster car recovery towards landing area?
Faster recovery from crashes or accidents?
maybe if one used handbrake in air, could be ways to do tricks or anything else if the game works with some air mechanic or towards impact?

[Gamma Ray]

For the physics, I feel like the game would be so much better if the car wasn't allowed to get tilted so much that recovering becomes a problem. See Sega Rally 1995 for Saturn for a game that limits the angle. This game is like playing Sega Rally 1995 with San Francisco Rush physics.

[DUCK]

yeah, the physics can be fine sometimes (mostly not helpful), if only there was much better assists and/or recovery.

[Sylvine]

Ok, so now I have "finished" the game (gold medal on all races, and completed all endurance races, and some decent time on the leaderboard overall).

I'm reviewing some of my initial feedback (for the ones I don't, it just means I have nothing more to add).

Originally posted by Sylvine:

I guess it's a recurring feedback, and I suppose it's not really a design choice, but the wonky car physics can really be a pain in the ass. If at least you had more air-control, you could recover from some unlucky jumps.

This obviously haven't really changed, the car handling still goes against any real world physics, or even video game logic. But with time you end up taming that wonkyness, and it becomes a bit more predictable.
This is maybe the most retro aspect of the game, when some titles just had some quirks and you either adapted and embraced it, or stop playing. A bit like bunny hoping going from a bug to a feature you have to become good at to be competitive.

One thing that still piss me off the most is how your car momentum works a bit like a spring powered toy. When you pile up turbos, the car start accumulating power, and if you brake, the loss of speed will be temporary, and as soon as you release the brakes, the car will lunge and resume releasing all that stored turbo.
When I'm braking, I'm not expecting a temporary slow down, I'm expecting the car to lose its inertia, period.

Originally posted by Sylvine:

On the same page, the objects littering the map, that can either barely slow you down, or stop you dead in your track, or worse make you fly away, add unwanted randomness. I think physics objects should only be used to add textures to the tracks, like some stack of card-boxes you can drive trough with little to no effect on your trajectory.

On this page my mind has changed a bit.
Sure, it's still frustrating when your car barely touch a fence, and God itself rolled a dice and decided that this time your car was going to roll all over the place for no discernable reasons.
But trying to find shortcuts by pushing or destroying things can be fun sometimes.

Originally posted by Sylvine:

Also some of the tracks seem to have a bit of an identity crisis, the game has this bombastic and frantic style, but some tracks like Chicago Marina punish you for going too fast. Having to find the perfect speed to not hit the ceiling can have its place in Trackmania, here it feels out of place. (or again, I wouldn't mind if I had some air control)

For this, let's say I just needed to play more. At least for Chicago Marina in particular, because you don't need to hit those stupid ramps that make you crash into the ceiling, you can just go around them and still maintain a high speed. There are still other circuits forcing you to brake at some points (like that stupid roller coaster ramp on Liberty Island), but it rarely feels like you have to kill all your momentum to progress.

Originally posted by Sylvine:

Same thing for these stupid barriers that close in front of me. I've beaten the gold medal by a large margin, but I still don't understand how you're supposed to pass this part cleanly on the second lap (and I don't understand why I can't destroy the first barrier, but not the others).

Same here, I just learned you need more speed to destroy them, so just release the boost just before hitting them.

Originally posted by Sylvine:

I'm not going to lie, unlocking the second car to then understand I was going to play the exact same handful of tracks again (and I guess again with the third car) felt a bit disappointing.
I think it should at least add some variations of the tracks (reverse version, different moving obstacles...).
Maybe you do unlock more content later (again I haven't finished the game), but in this case I would bring this immediately after unlocking the second car, and make you replay the same tracks later, it would feel less repetitive.

The amount of content is still pathetic.

Also one thing I would add is how similar the 3 cars are. With a roaster so limited I would have expected more differences than just having faster versions of the same thing, like that big pickup you can unlock with a cod (but I understand why you hid it behind a password, it's amplifying the worst aspects of the driving model).

But as soon as I understood how the leaderboard and ghost system worked (this part is not immediately clear, I think the interface need to be tweaked a bit), the whole experienced shifted from a humble "just finish these 8 circuits 3 times and you're done" kind of affair, to a cocaine level of addiction where you always want to do one more try to climb a few more ranks in the leaderboard.

But let's not fool ourself, I'm part of a very niche audience, I'm totally the target audience for that 32 bit nostalgia, I love racing games and I'm addicted to time-attack competition. So I can sink hours into this DESPITE all the flaws I've mentioned earlier.

I still think the game would need a bunch of small and larger improvements so I could confidently recommend it to a wider audience.

[DUCK]

I guess from some things you mentioned that an even more "arcade" like version could do well, different car performances and how one drives. so one can have many variants trying to score in some sort of custom matches or other game modes and to wild cards. might be a bit further out of scope from the title of the game, but might be fun idea if done well.

[NPC_CO8ALT]

Having tried the 3rd unlockable car, I want to add in my opinion that it completely breaks the game with its speed. Its simply TOO fast to handle smaller tracks, making it way too easy to slam into walls or worse, fly off track.

I also agree more tracks would have been nice. Having the 3 cars be nothing more than unofficial difficulty modifiers seems kinda lazy imho.