Welcome back to my devblog for RCRacer VR, I finally got the ‘coming-soon’ Steam Store page up and thought that’s the perfect time to talk a little bit about the planned Roadmap.

As mentioned last time I want to get a first version out as soon as possible to get early feedback and develop a game that is fun for more people than just me.

So, what to expect from the very first version?

You jump into the game, pick up the remote (or in reality probably your gamepad although the vive controller as well as keyboard is supported just fine too) and start driving your car around.

You can freely drive around the track and you should probably complete a few laps in practice to get a feel for the handling and such but once you are ready just stop at the start finish line and 4 more AI controlled cars will drop in to start a race over 3 laps.

I believe that’s a good start that is fun, challenging and keeps you entertained for a while but clearly lacking some content so here is what’s planned next:

There are 4 major milestones planned to reach the full release version, they are all fairly vague to make sure there is enough flexibility and I can adjust what to do based on feedback from you.

Milestone 1: Content and basic multiplayer

This one is a no-brainer I think, this game needs multiplayer.

For Milestone 1 the aim is to have an open lobby system to race in real time against strangers or friends.

Add 3–4 more tracks and another car or two and we have Milestone 1.

Milestone 2: Full Multiplayer support

When I first came up with the Milestones I thought Milestones 1 should just be a content update and then I’ll focus on Multiplayer as a second Milestone but I thought I’d rather push out some content and get some form of Multiplayer earlier so here we go. Nonetheless Milestone 2 is purely focused on Multiplayer, here comes all the fun stuff.

I don’t want to overpromise here but at the very least it will have some sort of ranked multiplayer so we can race against people that are similar to our skill level instead of just random matches.

Milestone 3: Cooooonnntteeeeenntt

More tracks, more cars. Much needed content, I think it’s quite clear too.

There is certainly some flexibility here and we could do some other stuff as well so just let me know if you are missing something that you feel is more important.

Milestone 4: Single player

To be honest this one is more of a wildcard and the one that is the most open to suggestions so for now I plan to add some more fun for the single player modes but if nobody wants that anyway and we have other cool ideas then we’ll go with that instead.

Again, just let me know what you are looking for and we’ll go with that.

So, that is the Roadmap. Please do let me know your thoughts on that, just leave a comment here.

Alright, back to dev: One of the bigger design challenges I have is the User Interface.

I personally like in VR to have UI within the game world, it just makes sense and feels more immersive so that is what I did here so far as well.

You have the jumbotron at the track to show the current standings and a personal screen in front of you to show information related to you such as your position and lap time and to start a race you just stop with your car at the start/finish line instead of hitting a button in a menu.

Overlay menu

But as your interactions grow in size and complexlity this approach gets quite difficult. If we think about changing the track, selecting your car, setting the options for the race such as laps or joining a multiplayer lobby it gets a bit more complicated.

You might be able to add a menu on the in-world screen as a compromise but that is small and quite limitating so I decided to implement a more traditional menu for some of those functions that are immersion breaking anyway (quit game, change track, ..) while at the same time keeping everything on in-game UI elements.

Looking forward to hear your thoughts on this topic!