Racing Games; Questions

As a part of a Contextual studies assignment we were asked to answer some questions on a game in a genre given to us, ours was Racing games. We chose fuel because it takes a slightly different approach in terms of freedom given to the player.

How is the game structured?
The game uses a "free-ride" mode to allow the players to ride around and find challenges on a very large map. You can do these challenges in any order you choose to but must earn stars and fuel from each race in order to unlock more map with more challenges to earn yet more stars and fuel. Despite this, the game has not strayed too far from what most other racing games do and still puts a lot of emphasis on the menu system. e.g. When you discover a challenge, you don't have to travel all the way to the challenges location to trigger it. You can just select it from the menu, provided you have already discovered the challenge. This saves the player time in traveling from place to place. 

Do you have to follow a set path in the game?
As previously stated in the last question, the player can choose to complete the challenges available to him/her in whatever order they choose. However this, like most games, creates more of the illusion of freedom than any actual freedom. This is because the game is set up to allow the player to choose from a selection of unlocked challenges but is specifically designed to make sure they can only afford to go on to challenges that are doable at their current skill level. This is a sensible stance to take as a game designer as it prevents players from getting too frustrated. This does offer an interesting solution to the usually completely linear progression of racing games. In the races themselves, there is a definite increase in the amount of freedom given to the player compared to other racing games. The visual clues given (see below) as to where the end goal is allows the player to discover their own routes to that goal. This adds a lot more satisfaction when the player finishes first in a race or beats their best time, simply because they did it their own way.

What does the game look like?
 The game uses a variety of terrains and weather conditions to make an extreme American landscape in a realistic, if slightly exaggerated in detail, style. This, mixed with metal and mechanics of the cars, bikes, buggies and quads racing around, gives, perhaps, the feeling of mans dominance over nature. Above all though, this gives the player the feeling that they're prevailing in the face of the extreme. A variety of other visual elements are used, such as the arrows, which give a optimal direction for the player to go, and shafts of light, indicating goal locations. These are all in place to allow the player to clearly see their end goal without having to follow a predetermined route.