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Mad Dash Racing – Perfect Xbox Pandemonium!
A GZ Interview|
by The Badger
Ladies and Gentlemen….
**ahem, wait a minute here**
Attention all you pixel vixens, speed simulation scoundrels, and the rest of you rowdy ruffians! We’ve got something here to tell you about that’s going to run over all those cutsey-wootsy, racing adventure games you’ve seen in the past and will leave tire tracks sizzling inside your soon-to-be-owned Xbox console! Dazzling (and devious) graphics, a dastardly cast of characters, a kick-ass soundtrack, and all the power of the highly anticipated Microsoft console are coming together to bring one of the most exciting and original games ever created for any console: Mad Dash Racing, published by Eidos Interactive and developed by Crystal Dynamics.
In all seriousness, if you haven’t been tuning in to our regular updates on this upcoming title – it’s time to catch up. This combination high-speed combat racing/3D adventure title looks great, and it has been backing up its amazing visuals with a wide range of original and irreverently irresistible characters who will make Mad Dash a cut apart from the rest. Not only does it look good, but the designers are making this game with the intent of appealing to a wide range of avid gamers, from the pick-up-n-play crowd to the persnickety perfectionist. Add to that a star studded soundtrack with popular bands like Moby, The Crystal Method, and Fatboy Slim and hear it all with the Dolby Digital Technology that Mad Dash Racing was the very first to land!
The good team over at Eidos has not only given us plenty of goodies, info, and exclusive screens for you greedy little game gurus, but to top it all off, we got a chance to catch up with Noah Hughes, the Lead Designer for the title, and fire off a few questions.
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Mad Dash is reminiscent of a fairy tale gone bad. Those normally oh so cute characters have not only developed quite the penchant for mayhem, they're beating the stuffing out of everybody - good or bad. Was there a particular influence that led to the creation of the imaginatively-twisted Mad Dash, or was it just a sneaky little idea that leapt upon someone out of nowhere?
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Games are getting faster and faster all the time – and with a name like Mad Dash, there’s no doubt gamers will have to master the art of moving, maneuvering, attacking, and maybe more as the scenery passes by them in a blur. Will there be any control/configuration settings to allow players to adjust the complexity of gameplay?
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Level design is often a tough area to bring new and exciting elements to. What kinds of things did the level designers focus on to bring uniqueness and variety to the tracks in Mad Dash?
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When it comes to multi-player action, will any modes be available for co-operative efforts against Hex’s minions, or will multi-player be strictly "every man/creature for himself?"
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There are three "classes" of combat racers in Mad Dash for the nine different characters. Will there be different weapons/power-ups for each of the classes as well as special items for each of the racers?
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How much of the gameplay will focus on the boss fights? Will the bosses or boss fights change depending on the character that is being played?
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How much more of the personalities of these characters do we get to learn about as the game progresses? Will more character details be revealed as you master more tracks?
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It must be a great deal of fun working on games with such "characters," do you ever see little elements and eccentricities of the development team's own personalities slip into the games you are working on?
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Xbox has quite a different controller design compared to previous consoles. How challenging has this been in creating a control scheme for Mad Dash?
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Developing games for a new system is probably a good mixture of hard work (building experience with the system and learning new quirks), and also a great deal of fun (like taking a new car for its first drive). Do you think it’s getting any easier (or harder) to work on new systems as technology progresses?
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If you had to choose one or two of the top qualities you feel best distinguishes Mad Dash from other combat racing titles, what would you say it/they are?
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Will there be an official web site in the future for gamers to keep up with what’s happening in the Mad Dash world?
In some ways, this started with the desire to make a game with general appeal on a platform who’s initial demographic was bound to be a slightly older audience. As far as influences, I think Warner Brothers is an example of a style of cartoon that successfully appeals on several levels. I just mean in the sense that it can have a level of personality to hit the grown-ups in the audience, on top of the physical cartoon comedy that keeps it’s appeal broad. In some ways a lot of the decision became much clearer after focus testing our characters. People were almost invariably drawn to the "quirky" and anti-hero aspects of the characters that we presented.
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The game will be light on configuration settings. In many ways this is a
reflection of one of the underlying goals of the game. To make an accessible
console experience on the Xbox. In other words, just running and jumping is
about all you need to get through most levels. Don’t, however, confuse
accessibility with a lack of depth. Mad Dash will have Bashing, Dashing,
Gliding, Swimming, Sliding, Stunts, Powerslides, Footslides, Ziplines,
Ladders, Catapults, Combat, and more. All to master at your own pace. You will
make it through any level on your first try, but your controller might be worn
out before you’ve broken every record, and found everything that there is to
find in each of them. It’s less about enabling or disabling features, but
rather it’s just a matter of incorporating them into your race when you are
able to execute them comfortably.
Believe it or not, platform style character abilities in a multi-player racing
context, was inherently fertile ground for fresh level design. Even age-old
mechanics take on new personality in the racing environments. For example, we’ve
all seen crumbling platforms before, "move quickly or fall." Well in
a race, these are now elements of the environment that allow one racer to
affect the route for another racer. This is just one example of how you will
see some old gameplay in a whole new light, as well as some completely new
stuff.
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As far as the adventure mode, co-operation will be limited to the
old-fashioned tag-team approach. As the core of the concept was a multi-player
"kart" style experience, we were sort of betting on the fact that
once you had two controllers in two pairs of hands that your best bet would be
to ... um, throw down. Having said this, we do plan to allow you to gang up in
multi-player mode for team racing against each other or the AI racers.
We were selective about how much we differentiated the character types. Our
goal was to achieve a balanced multi-player experience. We wanted to make sure
not to introduce differences that would cause frustrating inequalities between
the characters. As it is, I think that Mad Dash provides enough character
variation to encourage different play-styles, while still maintaining a level
playing field for competition.
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There are two bosses in the game that you face regardless of which character
that you are playing as. Two of the nine levels are boss levels, and play a
typical role in the game progression. That is, they will provide a change in
difficulty and pacing, and act as tests of the players various skills.
Although they are similar to the other levels, they will present a little
twist on the racing theme in order to keep the one-player game interesting.
The Tremlord is the muscle to Hex’s Mania, and acts as the guardian to the
hard tier of levels. The maniacal little wizard himself and his latest
implement of destruction, the dreaded "Encephalotron" is your
ultimate target. The hope is that the player comes out of the one-player
experience a better multi-player racer. Not to mention the reward of unlocking
all kinds of good stuff for the multi-player modes.
The majority of character personalities that the player is exposed to have to
do with reactions to a heated competition. Each character has a different way
of dealing with it, but not many get the "plays well with others"
award. One thing that adds a little bit of depth to the characters is that
each one has a rival within the ranks. These little interpersonal
"issues" are something that the player will only pick up on over
time.
One of our characters was inspired by, and retains some of the more colorful
phraseology, of the game’s director Glen Schofield…who knew there were so
many uses for the word "fugeddaboudit." Also, Alex Ness, who did a
lot of the writing for the characters, was so much of an influence that I
sometimes have a hard time remembering that he’s not a cartoon character
himself. Once we started recording the characters, it was inevitable that they
would take on a whole new dementia (dimension?) when being read by Ren and
Stimpy’s Billy West and others. Mix all these influences together, and you
can see how the characters start to take on a personality all their own, even
if it does warrant counseling in some cases.
Of all the things you may have heard about the Xbox controller, only one
really presented us with much of a design dilemma. We wanted to really use the
two analog sticks for some innovative gameplay. Unfortunately, when you have a
thumb on each stick, you really only have access to the two trigger buttons. I
guess I just missed the four shoulder buttons I had become accustomed to with
a dual-analog input device. In reality, there was no need to compromise since
our goal was one of a simple, accessible interface, and ultimately everything
ended up finding a happy home on the controller.
Absolutely. Making a game is a process of making choices as to what elements
you will throw into the mix. As technology progresses, I find that it takes
more of a back seat in some of those choices. To me this is an important part
of making better games, since choices can be made based on their effect on the
desired experience rather than the technical feasibility of those choices. I
think one of the flipsides to this is that production expectations for a game
have increased to the point that, although much more is technically
achievable, much more is expected in terms of production size and quality. I
guess what I’m trying to say is: "yes" games are funner, easier,
and harder to make than ever before.
I think Mad Dash’s secret formula can be described in one word;
"Character". This refers to the appealing graphic design and quirky
personalities of the characters as well as the gameplay depth that stems from
the characters’ many ways of interacting with the environment. Character is
something that is always paramount to me in a game, and often drives the
design on many levels. If you assume that your character is your way of
interacting with the game environment, then you can see how the whole game is
influenced by the choices in character mechanics and design. Now if you
picture the limited character depth of a vehicular combat racer, you can see
how this is ultimately what drives the differences between Mad Dash and the
rest of the games of this type.
www.maddashracing.com is now
in full effect. Future Dashers will find a steady stream of updates and
goodies there.
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Here’s some more information for all you Mad Dash Racing fiends out there:
Meet the characters:
http://xbox.gamezone.com/news/07_24_01_08_19PM.htm
Look at this Soundtrack – It absolutely
ROCKS:
http://xbox.gamezone.com/news/08_22_01_06_01PM.htm
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The Badger would like to thank Noah and the Eidos team for taking time out of their undoubtedly busy schedules to give us the goods on this exciting title!
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