The VRS "Car Wash Challenge" game
VRS wanted a game for their website that would attract visitors by not only being fun to play, but with the chance of winning a prize for anyone who could top the highscore table.
This portfolio article demonstrates our ability to develop a broader range of software projects than you might have expected!
Getme liased with Severn Communications to provide a range of game concepts to the client.
Ideas included:
- Car Parking Challenge:
- Park as many cars as possible in a variety of spaces within 3 minutes.
- Destruction Derby:
- Be the last car running in successive rounds of vehicle-based carnage!
- Forecourt Rush:
- In which the player would have to run between sets of customers on a forecourt and answer questions in order to sell as many cars as possible.
However, the idea which was most popular with the client was:
- Car Wash Challenge:
- With the background of a car sales forecourt, the player would have to clean patches of mud from various cars, as they drive past! In addition, a customer would be wandering around in the foreground, inadvertently hampering the car-cleaning efforts and losing the player valuable points if the customer is cleaned rather than the cars!
On your marks...
The chosen game concept gave good potential for an attractive game because the required setting and play area would allow for large, bold graphics and plenty of visible detail in the background.VRS also wanted the game to be playable by anyone visiting their site, but for registered users to be able to log-in and have their score saved to a highscore table, with a prize for the highest score when the competition closed at the end of the year.
The game was therefore needed as soon as possible, and so a development time of just one week was set aside. This may sound sufficient for producing a quite simple game, but when almost every element has to be created from scratch, it proves to be quite an ambitious timeframe.
A style to raise a smile
All of the graphics were produced via a combination of hand-drawing with a graphics tablet, and Photoshop tools.A colourful cartoon style was chosen, not only to suit the cheerful, pick-up-and-play nature of the game, but also to prevent the cars from having to look too realistic, which could have lead to licensing issues if any vehicles too closely resembled real-life models.
The static background was produced first, so that the look of the game could be signed-off by the client.
Next, the customer was drawn, not only standing still but with several frames of animation for his walking, blinking, and of course his reaction to being sponged, whether by accident or not!
Finally, the cars that would drive across the screen were produced; three types (saloon, 4x4 and hot-hatch), each able to drive across from the left or right, and each able to appear in one of three bright colours.
Details that make a game
They may not even be noticed at first glance, but several subtle effects were programmed in order to provide the little touches that add charm and character:
- Bubbles in a bucket:
- The title and introductory screens were designed to resemble the contents of a bucket of soapy water, and so many bubbles of various sizes move around at various rates against the blue background.
- Clouds drifting by
- The clouds in the sky above the car forecourt are actually randomly generated, and slowly drift across the screen. You may not notice this while frantically scrubbing cars, but the effect is there!
- Soap suds
- During gameplay, while the mouse button is held down (to clean cars) a bubbling 'soap sud' effect follows the mouse pointer (sponge). This reinforces to the player the importance of holding the mouse button in order to effectively wash the cars.
- Points rising
- When any mud is washed off a car, when a car has been fully cleaned or if the wandering customer is caught with the sponge, a points value (positive or negative) drifts upwards from where it was earned, showing the player exactly how their score is being achieved.
Making fun
Once all the game elements were in place, we were able to assess how Car Wash Challenge played. Unfortunately, at first, it wasn't much of a challenge!The sponge was quite large, and by holding down the mouse button, whenever a car passed by it would be cleaned perfectly with no effort. Great in the real world perhaps, but not the basis of a particularly fun game!
In addition to the ease of car cleaning, the customer would stand for quite some time in one spot, which meant that his contribution to the challenge was minimal at best!
Luckily the game had been programmed to include a 'config' file which contained almost every variable relating to an element of the game. By adjusting specific variables in the config file, the gameplay could be altered quite significantly.
It was decided that the best way to increase the challenge (and therefore the enjoyment and sense of achievement from getting a highscore) was to make the patches of mud more difficult to remove, so that the player must follow a car across the screen, rubbing with the sponge. This would also result in the wanderings of the customer becoming immediately more of a problem for the player, as there would be a longer period in which he could potentially cause trouble!
The time the sponge would have to be held over a patch of mud was increased, and some extra code introduced to ensure that the sponge must be moving in order for mud patches to be cleaned.
It was decided that the best way to increase the challenge (and therefore the enjoyment and sense of achievement from getting a highscore) was to make the patches of mud more difficult to remove, so that the player must follow a car across the screen, rubbing with the sponge. This would also result in the wanderings of the customer becoming immediately more of a problem for the player, as there would be a longer period in which he could potentially cause trouble!
The time the sponge would have to be held over a patch of mud was increased, and some extra code introduced to ensure that the sponge must be moving in order for mud patches to be cleaned.
Also, the customer was made a little more active by reducing the length of time he could spend standing in one spot, and increasing the distance he could possibly choose to walk when he did decide to move. In the same way, the top speeds of each of the cars were increased slightly, along with their cruising (minimum possible) speeds.
Finally, the sponge itself was made around a third smaller, in order to require greater focus from the player when targetting mud patches and therefore increase the challenge further.
Finally, the sponge itself was made around a third smaller, in order to require greater focus from the player when targetting mud patches and therefore increase the challenge further.
Finishing touches
The result of the play-testing described above was a much more entertaining game.
Anything too easy is little fun, so it was beneficial to increase the challenge, while being sure to tame any occurances that felt unfairly difficult, so as not to annoy the player.
The perfect balance produces a game where the player feels that their skill has allowed them to do well, but there were just enough tricky moments to prompt the desire to play again in order to do that little bit better!
Enough random elements have been placed in the game to produce a slightly different experience every time, encouraging repeated play:
- The customer
- The movement of the customer is governed by a set of rules, but he will essentially decide for himself what he wants to do at any one time, by selecting from the possibilities set out for him.
- The cars
- When one car has driven off screen, any type and colour of car may appear next, from the left or right. The speed of each car could be anything between the minimum and maximum specified for that car type. Lots of slow moving cars may seem easier to clean, but they take longer to cross the screen, so less cars would pass within the set game time.
- The mud
- Each car has a random number of mud patches, with each positioned in a random location. Each mud patch can be either small, medium or large.
Once happy with the game-play, it just remained to add some suitable sound effects, and implement the highscore table.
The sound effects had to be clear and distinctive, but without the possibility of becoming grating when heard repeatedly.
A subtle 'scrubbing' sound plays when a mud patch is being cleaned. This sound is most important to the player because it signifies that points are being earnt.
Conversely, the wail of the dampened customer is not what the player wants to hear because it means that points are being deducted!
There is also a steady engine noise as a car passes, a 'ping' sound to show when a car has been perfectly cleaned, and a horn 'beep' before a car appears.
It actually pays to play the game with sound enabled, because the beep of a car comes from the left or right stereo speaker depending on where the car is about to appear from. This audible warning definately provides an advantage when preparing to clean a possibly fast-moving car!
The sound effects had to be clear and distinctive, but without the possibility of becoming grating when heard repeatedly.
A subtle 'scrubbing' sound plays when a mud patch is being cleaned. This sound is most important to the player because it signifies that points are being earnt.
Conversely, the wail of the dampened customer is not what the player wants to hear because it means that points are being deducted!
There is also a steady engine noise as a car passes, a 'ping' sound to show when a car has been perfectly cleaned, and a horn 'beep' before a car appears.
It actually pays to play the game with sound enabled, because the beep of a car comes from the left or right stereo speaker depending on where the car is about to appear from. This audible warning definately provides an advantage when preparing to clean a possibly fast-moving car!
Conclusion
As you can see, a lot more goes into producing even a simple game than you might first realise. However, the result is hopefully something truly appealing to all, whether you usually enjoy playing games or not.The busy highscore table gives an idea of the amount of people who are having fun with the game, attempting to beat each others score.
Can you match the highest?!
In these days of games with production budgets rivalling Hollywood films, it's good to see a reminder that something on a smaller scale can still be a whole lot of fun.
