Fastival
Level / Track Designer // 47 Devs // Unreal Engine 5
PC & Steam Deck // 12 Weeks / 180 Hours
Game Synopsis
Fastival is an arcade racing game where players speed through different attractions in a vibrant and cartoony carnival across three unique tracks! Knock down targets as you race to trigger unique effects to your advantage! Collect wacky items that can be used to mess with other racers or enhance your driving capabilities! Master all four unique bumper cars to speed your way to victory!
Responsibilities
Track Design
Helped design third track in Grand Prix, “Big Top Bonanza”
Project-Wide Strike Teams
Asked to be part of several strike teams for speciality tasks that affected project as a whole
QA
Shifted to QA & bug fixing in final weeks of development
Design Iteration
Due to a particularly tight production timeline - only about 12 weeks/180 team hours - we did not have much of a chance for a pre-production period. Once the concept of a cute, 1950s carnival with a unique ball-throwing mechanic was chosen, we immediately got to work.
We quickly broke out into sub-teams, where I was one of four designers working on the third track of the Grand Prix: “Big Top Bonanza”. We wanted to play into all the flash and fun of a carnival, which naturally led us to the idea of a circus where the player zips through mainstage acts behind a ring of fire, flies through cannons and fireworks, and hears the cheering of the crowds!
A particular challenge with this, however, was how to create a satisfying and fun flow constrained to a circle. We ultimately decided to lean into exterior sections of the circus, allowing for more applications of our unique “target mechanic” for the player to dynamically reveal shortcuts and attack other players. We also expanded the circus vertically into a “rafters” section - primarily my responsibility. It again was difficult to fit an engaging section of the track in a tight circle, but through iteration, we ended up with a fun and memorable section to close out the Grand Prix.
One of the best moments throughout development came from watching a young playtester - about 7 years old (our target audience!) - fly through the cannon and fireworks and be so awed and excited. Isn’t that why we make games?
The initial conception of the circus
The final maps for the LDD
In addition to my track design duties, I also worked in various strike teams across the project, allowing me to be a bit more interdisciplinary in our team of 47 talented devs.
One such instance was supporting our lead team in holding a “track consistency meeting” where we defined rules for all three tracks. Some of these were relatively minor - such as deciding if our “pickup strings” were in groups of 3 or 4 - while others helped define how we approached our track designs, such as rules for boost pads & conveyances leading into turns.
Getting specific with all of our design pieces across all tracks!
Post-Mortem
What Went Well
Being a Good Teammate
At the beginning of the project, I was approached about being a lead. After discussing with my mentors, I opted to decline this offer - partially because I wanted to lead on a later project, but also because I wanted to make sure I could be a good teammate. So much of my work across the music & theatre industries has been in leadership roles, akin to a games producer; I wanted to make sure that I could contribute meaningfully to teams at a base level. Being a good teammate is a skill that everyone can sharpen!
What Went Wrong
Playtesting
Particularly in our Alpha milestone, the iteration process for track designers began to slow (you can only adjust turns so many times!). While we were pretty good about playtesting within our small teams, we didn’t always take initiative to playtest each others’ levels. This could have helped us find more bugs quicker, and to rely on each other to get fresh eyes on our designs.
What I Learned
Remember the Target Audience
While it wasn’t something I necessarily had to think about on a day-to-day basis, one of the most impactful parts of developing this game came from our target audience - young children - getting to playtest and express their enjoyment. This has been a vital lesson I have tried to hold onto as I move into a Game Director role for our Capstone projects, where it is my job to be the player’s biggest advocate.
Trailer
Gallery
A full list of credits can be found here.