Evan Edwards - Rat Rage

Rat Rage

Rat Rage is a multiplayer "Bumper-Cars Arena" game made for the Capital City Films Festival Fortnight Games Contest. I worked in a team of 5 people, and we were given 6 weeks to develop a game given the theme "Mutation", a choice of genres, and some elements that needed to be included in the game. I had a lot of input on the design of the game, and my primary focus was on the game's visual polish.

For the contest, we decided to shoot for a game that felt familiar, simple, polished, and inherently fun. The controls of Rat Rage are very simple, and can resonate with anyone who has ever played a driving game (or even driven a car for that matter). The primary mechanic is just to hit other cars, which is one of the most satisfying things you can have in a video game. We wanted to just capture the feeling and joy of ramming into stuff with your car and build on that primal urge to break things.

Although I did do a bit of programming on the game manager, I was mostly involved in the visual design. I worked closely with our Vehicle Artist to develop a cohesive art style, and then worked on the visual polish to emphasize the game feel.

My Tasks

-A reusable system that managed controller inputs. It would calculate the maximum number of players you could have based on the number of controllers plugged in, appropriately assign and map inputs based on the controllers being used and the operating system, and even detect when a controller is unplugged and act accordingly. The system worked so well that I ended up using it again in a later project, "Trailblazers".

-An audio manager that played appropriate dialogue options at appropriate times. It drew from a pool of a bunch of dialogue options and played them when certain events took place. It also handled audio like crashing and accelerating, and managed the pitch/volume based on the intensity of the collision and the speed of the car.

-A visual effect manager that handled effects like sparks, glass-shrapnel, car exhaust, and skid marks and displayed them at appropriate times. I also created the particle systems and trail renderers for all of these effects.

-Look Development for the environment and lighting. I created the materials for some of the cars, materials for the stages and for the walls of the levels, and the shader for the water. I also handled the lighting and fog for the game, using a basic particle system for the fog over the water and a grate cookie for the lighting.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy Rat Rage!