As well as an Arcade mode, a Custom Event mode is a necessity so I can not only test the game with every potential setting, but the player can too! I want to allow the player the freedom to create their own whacky events with as many settings as possible. This version was about creating a framework to make this possible.
Custom Event Menus
It's safe to say I under estimated this feature. So much so it became it's own entire version. I had big plans for this as I wanted a number of 'very well designed' feature rich sub menus to help players select their ideal events. I used Mario Kart as a bit of a base but I wanted in terms of features:
- Basic settings like laps and difficulty easy to change and up front
- Modifiers or advanced settings a bit more out of the way
- A really cool pilot select screen with a revolving model of the vehicle you drive like in lots of PSX and N64 titles
- Track select that can be easily expanded on as more tracks are added
- Favourite system to add track to your favourite for easy pickings (will be especially useful with the Track Builder)
- Playlist feature so you can add as many tracks as you like with the same settings quickly without having to dip into the menu all the time
Third Party Integrations
This version I added some third party integrations that I found invaluable on Phaseshift and FCOM. These were the Steamworks API (for Steam integration, profile getting etc) and Backtrace. Backtrace is one of the best services I've used and has helped me countless times when a player reported a bug that I struggled to reproduce on my own machine. It essentially collates any errors into one place - you can even set up webhooks for things like Slack and Discord so you get notified when something's gone wrong.
