A racing game is any game where the player interacts with the world through operating a vehicle. “Vehicle” means a car, motorcycle, plane, fighter jet, hover board, or spaceship, for goals as various as beating a personal best time on a track, racing for first place, wrecking other cars, or surviving as long as possible against obstacles. The specific experience therefore varies greatly between games, but players of all racing games experience the illusion of controlling a vehicle skillfully at high speeds.
Learn more about the principles of designing a fun racing game with reactive sound and visuals. The camera work, physics systems, adaptive AI, and a clear UI work toward the reactivity players look for. A game needs to innovate on the core principles to stand out, so see what games buck the trend and what templates are available for elevating the experience.
What are the principles of a racing game design?
The principles of racing game design recreate for the player the thrill of driving a fast car through varied locations. Any game where the core gameplay loop involves driving is a racing game, so the basic principles vary within subcategories. Racing games fall on the spectrum between stylized games and realistic simulators. The gameplay mechanics differ, but the desire to simulate speed and the feeling of driving through diverse environments is common to all racing games.
Sound design and visual feedback are core principles in creating a successful racing game. Most people have driven or heard cars their whole lives, so players are experts at noticing when something’s off. Players expect an accelerating car to rev and shift gears as speed increases, and for tires to leave streaks of rubber when they lose traction. The sound factors into gameplay as well, since the progression from rumbling to screeching tires tells the player when a car loses traction.
There’s no single set of principles for racing games because games range the spectrum from stylized to serious simulator. The aesthetic of driving means one thing to simulation players, who love showing off their racing skills at high speeds, but means another thing to a casual player, who looks forward to the experience of racing without the same level of challenge.
Simulator racing games fulfill the fantasy of driving a real racecar. Simulators don’t have mechanics like boost pads, powerups, or drifting, but rather ask players to master the tricky movement required to pilot a real vehicle. Fans of simulators like Assetto Corsa or simcades like Gran Turismo 7 look for epic victories where they’ve used their track and vehicle knowledge to cleverly outmaneuver their opponents.
Players in a realistic simulation think about a car’s components. Car attributes are present in most racing games, but are usually limited to a few stats like weight, acceleration, top speed, and handling. Simulators ask players to consider how parts affect said stats. The engine, gear size, transmission, suspension, and tires all affect a vehicle’s handling.
Collecting muscle cars is another attraction of the simulator racing game genre. Collectibles encourage completionists to play and replay the game. Some simulator players such as myself are excited to see how different cars drive. I unlocked a car in Forza Horizon 4 which was in another game I worked on and was pretty shocked at its handling. The car moved completely different on the road from what I expected. I felt inspired to see what the other cars in the game felt like and how they’re different from each other.
Other players are motivated to collect the sportscars for their garage. Experienced players build a collection of dozens of cars like a billionaire, and they get to explore a detailed, faithful model of each vehicle in AAA experiences. Gran Turismo 7 hundreds of car for players to add to their garage.
Arcade racers, on the other hand, trade hard-to-master driving for managing other systems. Drifting around corners is a difficult trick in real life that quickly depletes momentum. Arcade racers instead make drifting around corners a core mechanic that preserves speed. Arcade racers add utilities to manage on top of driving and drifting like power-ups, boosts, and weapons. Players show mastery through juggling racing and utility management.
Arcade racers are faster-paced than simulator games. Tracks in arcade racers are more winding and encourage pedal-to-floor speed throughout the entire track. Arcade racer players tend to over- or undershoot turns in simulators because they’re not used to managing speed. Frequent corners with forgiving drifting mechanics allow players to preserve high speeds throughout the whole track. Small openings into corners with large exits help preserve the illusion of skillful cornering in arcade racers. They allow players to feel like they just barely made a tight turn at high speed, without any actual danger.
The classic arcade racing game mode is a race against other cars to the finish but is far from the only one. Time trials where players race themselves for a personal best is common in all racing games. Wreckfest puts players in a demolition derby with the objective to be the last car standing in a combat arena. Need for Speed Unbound drops players into an open world to explore. Burnout’s Crash Mode, lastly, tasks players with causing as much destruction on the streets as possible.
The most stylized arcade games ask players to juggle even fewer mechanics. Games which belong to the arcade genre are games where players compete for high scores. They mean something different from arcade racers, which colloquially refer to experiences with drifting and utilities. The mobile market has numerous endless runners that belong to the arcade game genre. The effect of racing at high speeds is preserved, but in a casual game shell.
Activision’s Enduro for the Atari demonstrates the principles of stylized arcade games. Players control a car’s steering and acceleration alone. The goal is to pass a certain number of cars on the road within a time limit. There’s no fail state for colliding with cars, but the slowdown puts more pressure to rush before it’s too late. The game has one mechanic, driving around obstacles, and its simple gameplay lends to simple motivation: beating a high score.
Racing through beautiful environments is a principle attraction of all racing games. Gran Turismo 7 bases many of its tracks on real courses, giving players the experience of real racecar drivers. WRC 7 is a rally driving game that demonstrates the variety of scenery in racing games. Rally racers drive on ordinary roads through countrysides around the globe. The designers visited locations throughout Europe and the Americas to create a varied track selection catering to rally racing fans.
All racing games follow certain foundational principles, but the physics systems and principles of environment design vary between racing games. Some racing games don’t even put players in control of a car. Level design and gameplay systems change accordingly depending on the type of racer.
What gameplay elements are used in racing game design?
The gameplay elements used in racing game design range between vehicle physics, camera movement, car customization, and car-to-car combat. Racing games begin with simulating speed, which is communicated primarily through the camera work. See the ways popular racing games separate themselves from the pack by layering different objectives and vehicle types on top of the core driving experience.
Players feel speed through many factors other than the actual speed of the vehicle, but none more so than the camera. Wider FOVs make a game feel faster, and camera shake is a necessary effect for simulating racecar speeds. I discovered the importance of the camera when working on Racing Ferocity, which originally felt rather slow with the static camera. Doubling the speed didn’t even make a perceptible difference.
The challenges of adding screenshake shows how being a designer means communicating to the team the value of adding new features. The team wasn’t convinced that camera shake would be a positive addition to the game, since they already added it once before, and it wasn’t well-received. Getting buy-in is especially challenging in a live service project, which is especially sensitive to changes. I animated the game with camera shake to show the design team what the game would look like. The feature went from will-not-ship to ASAP priority.
The car’s effect on the environment communicates speed as well, although it isn’t a replacement for solid camera work. Sparks, particles, kicking up dirt, disturbing gravel all make a car feel fast and powerful. Sounds like wind and engine noise work with the visual effects to contribute a sense of speed.
Racing games use realistic simulations that account for grip, suspension, and the mass of the vehicle to make driving feel right. Games like Assetto Corsa naturally simulate real vehicles to create a complex driving experience, but more casual experiences need physics simulation as well. The physics simulation in a mobile game like Racing Ferocity isn’t to create deep driving mechanics. The movement controls are simple: touching the left arrow moves left, and touching the right arrow moves right. The realistic simulation rather communicates speed and puts a polished sheen over the visual experience.
All racing games, even simulators, grant assists to the player. The assists are a layer between the controller and the vehicle simulation which interprets player intention rather than simple input. Braking controls are a representative example of how assists work. Hitting the brake button ordinarily tells the car to slow down. Designers assume, however, that a player hitting a brake while turning wants to drift. The simulation initiates a drift instead to accommodate the player’s expectations. Even simulators have assists except Assetto Corsa, considered the most hardcore simulation title.
Collisions are another situation where realism damages gameplay. Collisions in real life mean the end of the race for a vehicle, but a game over for every mistake is frustrating. Collisions are often encouraged in racing games: punishing them runs counter to that. Racing games create an artificially quick recovery so players get right back into the action. Coming to a dead stop on impact kept players from fully enjoying Racing Ferocity, and the game benefited from an added assist to the player. Cars bounce away and then disappear on impact, representing only a minor inconvenience.
Simulation games that encourage destruction use (or simulate) soft body physics. Soft-body physics generates deformations in response to collisions. Racing games don’t need to simulate detailed destruction. The deformations which came from the Realistic Car Controller, on the contrary, reduced the weightiness of collisions in Racing Ferocity. Simpler collisions fit the game better. In-game physics simulation is challenging, so some studios animate dented bumpers, shattered headlights, or flapping hoods. Only games focused on destruction simulate vehicle destruction in real-time.
AI in racing games is important for presenting a challenge to the player. Scripted AI tells an opponent exactly what to do for a specific encounter. The designer is able to guarantee exciting moments throughout the race. An opponent in one race starts by speeding ahead before the player overtakes them right at the end, while another opponent lingers behind before taking a surprise lead.
Scripted AI is best only for special opponents, since it creates the opportunity for special abilities or events. Tricky in Diddy Kong Racing is able to squash the player, and Wizpig is able to fly over gaps. The disadvantage is that an AI with a preset path has trouble adjusting to player skill. It’s also unlikely a designer is going to script every AI opponent, hence why only bosses tend to use scripted AI.
Dynamic AI gives computer-controlled opponents a set of rules to apply to any track. Vehicles with dynamic AI have the advantage of being reusable. Another advantage is the potential for adaptive difficulty. Adaptive difficulty means cars respond to player skill to give them a fitting challenge. Dynamic opponents speed ahead when a player is doing well and slow down when they’re struggling.
Rubber-banding occurs when adaptations to player skill are obvious. The term isn’t to be confused with rubber-banding in multiplayer, where networking issues cause actors to stutter back and forth. Rubber-banding tends to happen when opponents use a change in speed as their only adaptive strategy. AI opponents ought to have a variety of ways to adapt to the player. A car that needs to slow down hits an obstacle or gets attacked by another vehicle to fall behind. A car that needs to speed up uses boosts and utilities against the player.
A dynamic rule system is also able to give the impression of a pre-scripted difficulty curve. I designed race beats for AI opponents in Mini Car Racing and Racing Ferocity to guarantee a varied experience for the player. The former has a kart racing mode with prebuilt tracks: AI opponents slow down at the start, linger near the player in the middle, and speed up at the end to vary the challenge for the player. Racing Ferociy is an endless racer with racing encounters included. The opponents use a more general AI system, but are tuned to pull ahead or behind at different points to ensure the race is dynamic even in an endless level.
Mystery boxes are a mechanic common in arcade style racers like Mario Kart or Blur. Boxes give the player a random utility item. Players use utilities to get ahead of, disable, or even attack other vehicles. Mario Kart features examples of several types of utilities with all three purposes. The mushroom boosts player speed, the banana peel acts as a trap, and the red shell seeks and temporarily stops the next player ahead. Better abilities are reserved for players behind first place: this risks creating a boring experience for the most skilled players, but helps create a casual experience.
The utilities act as adaptive difficulty for human players competing in PvP. The star and lightning are catch-up abilities in Mario Kart that are available only to players at the back of the pack. Both give karts the ability to stun other players on the track, giving the chance to speed ahead. The blue shell targets only the player in first place, meaning a player in first is unlikely to stay there for long. Skilled players are still able to expect challenges and disruptions, while unskilled players still have opportunities to move forward in the rankings.
Vehicle combat is another game mode present in arcade racers. Part of the fantasy of racing at high speeds is seeing an accident, just like when watching a NASCAR race. Combat, therefore, needs to sell the impact. Colliding with a car at high speed dramatically knocks the car back and causes a lot of damage. The goal is generally to cause enough damage to deplete a health bar to 0 in basic vehicle combat. Two core factors go into a combat experience: how much damage impacts do, and how much health enemy vehicles have. The speed of the car on impact ought to increase the damage dramatically: the combat feels weak or unsatisfying otherwise.
Cop chases add excitement to races without adding completely new mechanics. A more aggressive driver AI that pulls in front of the player and drives closer to them mimics the effect of combat. They limit the player’s driving skills by boxing in their movement. Chases also add room for special events. Need for Speed: Most Wanted has cops put up roadblocks for the player to plow through, making the chase feel like an action movie. Flashing sirens, police radio chatter, and other dangers like helicopters add to the effect.
Vehicles in several racing games require players to manage combat utilities with navigation. Criterion Games found the combat in Star Wars: Battlefront II to be daunting for players. Pilots had to jerkily adjust movement to keep up with enemy fighters, missing most of their shots. They implemented aim assist strategies from FPS games to make the experience accessible, reducing sensitivity and slightly tracking the reticle to the enemy when an opponent’s in view.
The racing game genre puts players in all manners of vehicle other than cars, even outside edge cases like Battlefront II. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (SASRT) features land, water, and air as traversable environments. Carts change shape to adapt to each environment as races progress.
Each environment in SASRT features new movement styles. Land requires normal cart gameplay with drifting playing a lead role. In boat form, waves slow down a player but are usable as ramps by skilled players. Air transforms carts into an aerial vehicle, which has full 3D movement and barrel rolls.
Free Jack puts players in control of skaters instead of cars. The game borrows controls, UI, and game modes from the racing genre, but differs due to the change in “vehicle”. Players jump over obstacles, climb, and skate along rails. The skill expression changes from effective cornering to timing vaults over obstacles. The ability to jump also makes paths left, right, up, and down available. The tracks have opportunities for side paths and short cuts that aren’t possible in a traditional race.
How to design levels for a racing game?
Design levels for a racing game that fit the game’s genre and aesthetic. Arcade games tend to have endless levels where level design comes from varied environments and procedurally generated obstacles. Simulators and arcade racers have set tracks which emphasize skillful driving or simplify the driving experience to make room for other mechanics.
Endless arcade levels have no finish line or overall track layout, but task players with competing to drive as far as possible. Level design means placing obstacles and objectives along the way. The level shifts environments, from city to countryside to tunnels, which keeps players interested and helps simulate a high-speed journey through the world.
Arcade games vary the gameplay through a unique roster of character abilities and obstacles. Mini Car Rush, for example, includes obstacles that correspond to each action the player’s able to take. The hook in Mini Car Rush is the ability to jump, duck, dash. Encounters contain cars players are able to bust through, other cars which stop the player entirely, and obstacles the player must duck under, among others. Abilities further combine to create new effects, like the ground slam performed by doing a duck in the air. Combining abilities in this way ensures skilled players have ways to express skill.
Arcade games tend to be F2P mobile games, so designers need to avoid game-ending dangers to keep player retention high. Players endless runners don’t always fail on crashing but have a second chance to recover before their pursuer catches up with them. NPC vehicles in Racing Ferocity disappear shortly after a collision, since player data showed the speed loss was frustrating for players.
Designers approach levels in arcade racers and simulation games with a different mindset than mobile arcade games. The track is set in stone, so players have the opportunity to test their skills in a curated environment.
Designers creating a track from scratch start by mapping it out in 2D. Maps transition smoothly between easy and challenging sections. If there’s an easy straightaway and then a hard twisting stretch, there should be a transitional point with smoother curves. Changes in the track, from uphill to downhill, or from winding to straight, make the advantages and disadvantages of different cars more meaningful. A player who built a lighter car has more success on a winding, downhill track than a heavy car, for example.
Camber around corners affects the accessibility of the track much as the layout does. Camber is the track’s tilt left or right. On-camber pulls cars into a turn, so players corner quickly without the threat of overturning and careening off track. Arcade racers prefer corners with an on-camber so players are able to preserve speed around corners. Off-camber, on the other hand, makes it easy for players to underturn and shoot past the far edge. Off-camber provides a frustrating experience for casual players, but presents a challenge for simulator fans.
Track width affects gameplay as well. Wider tracks are naturally easier to handle than narrower ones. Wider tracks encourage players to find the ideal places to corner and slip past other opponents without pressure to collide with other cars. A narrower track creates a more combative race, if the object of the game is to push other players out of the way or crash them.
No single piece of software is dominant in designing levels. Blocking out a level starts with any 2D software. Drawio is a freely available tool used to map track beats. There’s no consistent 3D software used for designing tracks either. General 3D software is used for creating 3D assets before importing into Unreal, Unity, or Assetto Corsa. Blender has splines for quickly laying out a curving road model, and the Loop Tools and A.N.T. environment extensions for building landscapes come pre-packaged.
Designers consider terrain elevation at this stage as well. Changing height in the track affects gameplay and how the player views the environment. Frequent height variations emphasize the differences between car builds. Lighter cars accelerate more on downward slopes, but struggle to keep momentum as well uphill. Elevation also guides the way players see the environment and creates stunning vistas as well. As the player goes uphill, the camera tilts toward the ground, but as they crest the hill, the desired vista crawls into view.
Obstacles on the track vary based on the environment. Driving in a city like in Need for Speed Unbound makes other cars the obstacles, while bumpy country roads challenge players with staying out of the path of trees and rocks. Obstacles are at the same time an opportunity to tell players about the environment. Benoit Gomes, a level designer for WRC 7, starts his designs by talking to artists about the countries levels were set in. Some countries have lots of dirt roads, while others have roundabouts or paved mountain roads. Forests and mountains and icy tundras have their own challenges.
A game like Burnout and its sequels make obstacles a core part of gameplay. The original game has players build up a boost meter by driving in the wrong lane and narrowly avoiding obstacles. The boost meter encourages risky play, and the crashes resulting from the risk are themselves a reward. Players want to see cars crash! Nudging into cars and causing a wreck becomes the primary goal in Crash Mode, so players balance the risk of crashing with the need to gain boost and destroy opponents.
Don’t test a track until art and obstacles are in place. Play experience depends heavily on what is next to the track. A narrow track with an unobstructed environment feels very different from a lane enclosed between two semis. The latter feels more cramped and dangerous, even if both scenarios give the player the same track width to play with.
Simulation games create tracks from scratch or base them off real-world tracks. Real tracks are either modelled manually based on references or begin with 3D scanning. LiDAR is a common method at AAA studios, whereby a laser is fired at the ground and the length of time it takes to bounce back measures the distance. Laser scanning gets a set of 3D coordinates that are accurate within an inch. The points are imported to 3D editing software and turned into a mesh for the game.
Simulators have tracks with more variation in their layout than arcade racers. Tracks mix tight cornering with extended straightaways, the latter of which is uncommon in arcade racers. Straightaways appear in realistic sims because speed control is more important. The most effective racer speeds up as fast as they can on straightaways but knows when to start slowing down before a curve. Someone who doesn’t know the track as well forgets to slow down and overshoots the turn.
Levels look very different depending on the type of racing game and racing mechanics. Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed has different requirements because carts switch from boats to cars to air vehicles. FurBalls Racing puts players in control of a rolling, ball-shaped animal that corners at high speeds and glides along walls. The level, in response, presents scenarios where furballs are able to move forward, sideways, up, and down.
You Suck at Parking flips the idea of a race track on its head by making stopping, not going, the goal. The game is more of a puzzle game but uses cars and car physics to create a silly take on racing. Levels include ramps, exploding barriers, extendo boxing gloves, portals, and jump pads. Parking spaces are placed around the map, and players must stop their car exactly on the space. The tension comes from the fact the car doesn’t reverse, so players have to get it right the first time even though obstacles threaten to knock the car out of control.
The type of level depends on the type of racing game. An endless runner has simple controls and tracks populated with procedurally generated encounters. The obstacles are the main component of level design in those games. Tracks in arcade racers and simulators mimic real tracks, with turns, dips, hills, and camber variation. Inventive racing games with different movement systems and goals operate off entirely different design principles. There’s a lot of room for creativity in this genre.
How to design UI for a racing game?
Design UI for a racing game that best matches the complexity of the experience. Certain UI elements are standard in most racing games. Timers, notifications, and leaderboards aren’t required but are useful, especially for games with time trials and competitive social features. Casual racing games are able to get away with more complex UI since the player has few decisions to make and is less overwhelmed.
HUDs mimic the dials and meters of an actual car, which gives them good readability. The speedometer is clear because it looks like a car’s speedometer, with a needle and tick marks, or a seven segment digital display. Other pieces of a car’s interface are mimicked to make speed feel more real: an RPM meter revving up, for example, gives further visual feedback on acceleration.
The two elements of the HUD virtually no racing game leaves out are the speed and race position. Minimaps are another common feature, and they are simplified for readability in most racing games. The exception is in open world games, where they are important for navigation and marking the boundaries of a race within the world.
Arcade games are allowed to have more cluttered HUDs since players manage relatively few mechanics. Detailed minimaps showing the position of each car, for example, are overwhelming in an arcade racer. Players already juggle driving and utility items. An arcade game, on the other hand, presents the player with few mechanics to juggle, so the game is able to present more tactical options without overwhelming the player.
Arcade racers and simulators signal upcoming turns without overwhelming the player. WRC 7 has a symbol at the top of the screen which gives the distance and shape of the upcoming curve. Burnout has street-sign type symbols that tell you the type of curve/obstacle coming up.
Each race ends with a summary screen showing how well a player did, summarizing the feedback given during a race. Players get a summary of every player’s performance together. This makes it easier to compare times with other players, and see how high it’s possible to get on the leaderboard. The player name, car, and time are the minimum listed for each racer.
Simulator and arcade racing games often have interfaces for viewing collected cars. The “garage” is a way to see car stats and view the number of cars. Beautiful AAA titles allow players to look over the vehicle inside and out through the garage menu, taking in the faithfully rendered interior and exterior. Blanked out slots in the garage create anticipation for what the player has to collect next.
Where to find a racing game design template?
Find a racing game design template in Unity and Unreal engine’s toolset. Both engines feature vehicle physics systems by default. The asset stores also contain more detailed templates to play with. Designing a racing game, however, only begins with the default physics systems. Tweaking the physics to create a unique experience is the foundation for building a game that stands apart.
Racing games start by oversimulating car physics. Simulating the car’s suspension, gear shifts, and tire friction make the car feel like a real car. The simplest arcade games add so many assists that players only have a few options: steer left, steer right, and leave the rest to the computer.
The Unity vehicle physics tools are useful for simulator and arcade games. Unity wheel colliders create much of the basic functionality required to mimic a realistic vehicle. The wheel collider allows a designer to set the speed at which the tires stop rotating, simulate the amount of grip at different speeds, how the forward and sideways friction change, and other fine-grain details.
Creating the physics system is about feel. Designing how the controls guide the physics system happens iteratively, as designers guide it toward an experience that is fun, intuitive, and appropriate for the target game. There isn’t a template to just fill in. The physics system changes radically from basic vehicle colliders, as seen in Rocket League and Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed. The former allows aerial movement tech, and the latter simulates boat and plane physics.
Unity has several other tools which assist in developing tracks. Unity’s audio tools set audio sources in 3D space and implement the Doppler effect, which makes cars feel a lot faster as they pass sound sources. Unity’s tools for porting to other platforms and multiplayer helps racing games reach a larger audience as well. The Racing Game Starter Kit on the Unity Store requires no coding, as it implements the tech for the designer: tracking laps, wrong way warnings, AI, UI, replays, input, and menuing.
Unity doesn’t have a built in soft-body physics system, so simulator games where realistic collision is important must rely on external solutions. A prebuilt solution such as the Realistic Car Controller is one option for implementing deformations. Another option is to find or create animations that simulate dented bumpers, flapping hoods, and smashed doors.
Unreal has desirable graphical tools for racing games. Post-processing effects come packaged out of the gate, making for a quick way to implement reflections and bloom. The Chaos physics engine also allows for detailed cloth and destruction physics, which Unity just isn’t capable of. The vehicle colliders and controllers in Unreal lose some advantages that are desirable for many developers, though. Unity has a larger asset store with prefabricated vehicle solutions, and the wheel collider system is less complex.
The templates are a start but not the end. Racing games follow many different gameplay loops. Criterion Games, traditionally a racing game studio, developed the starfighter combat in the most recent Battlefront games. Starfighters come with shooting and aerial combat that isn’t possible on the ground. Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity on the other hand is a cart racer which makes 3D space a part of its tracks. The game puts players on hoverboards instead of cars with different physics and gameplay properties. The ability to switch the direction of gravity gives the player agency over their path through the race.
What is an example of a racing game design document?
No examples of game design documents for recent racing games are published, but a specific racing game GDD template isn’t required. Racing games begin at the foundation with a solid physics and vehicle control system, whose parameters lie outside the scope of a GDD. Larger teams who require syncing on the game’s vision demand a document outlining the mechanics, features, and aspects of the simulation that relate to level design. A general GDD template is suitable for this task.
One reason a GDD template isn’t necessary is that so many systems begin from the physics simulation. Features and levels emerge from the vehicle’s properties. The original Super Mario Kart team knew they wanted drifting, but the physics system isn’t what was important for designing fun levels around it. The final drifting system was nearly cut until they realized the shoulder buttons were more intuitive than the original version, where players counter-steer into turns. The fun emerged from the drifting simulation, but only as a foundation for the designers to build on.
The general sections of a GDD that apply to a racing game apply to all games. The beginning has a quick summary to see at a glance what the game is about. A game design document includes core pillars, descriptions of the objectives, gameplay, features, art style, and story.
A wiki is another option, as it’s a good way for developers to have a quick reference. The main purpose is to collaborate with teams, with just enough details to keep track of the full design. I drafted all the different components of the game in short, easy-to-read bullet points. Staying this concise meant that it was hard to comprehend the documentation by itself. However, with a workflow involving frequent feature brief meetings, the details made sense afterwards and kept the team aligned on the design.
Feature documents describe individual mechanics and systems to be added to the game. As new features are added to the main GDD, new sub feature documents get linked describing them. Feature docs include the intention of the feature, how it affects the player experience, and what is necessary to make it happen. Clearly documented features help orient the whole team to completing the project’s goals.
Have you worked on racing games and have something to add? What advice have you found helpful as a designer of racing games? Please tell us in the comments. We look forward to hearing your feedback!
