Art of Mike Marra: January 2014

The time is finally here! For my Game Design II class we sophomores were tasked with creating a racing level concept based upon a theme that was voted upon in class. My class section chose a Space Station theme and immediately all sorts of ideas began to flood my brain. It was actually extremely difficult to narrow it down to one single concept.

"Glory Awaits Those Who Succeed."

The idea I narrowed it down to was a futuristic Space Arena based racing level. I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan so I thought it would be really neat to take inspiration from the entertainment districts of Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa. This means you can expect extensive use of neon lights and holograms.

Here are a few examples:

I thought it would be interesting to play with the idea of a race track taking place in these massive arenas and being this huge spectator sport, even bigger then today. A particular game that came to mind was Monday Night Combat. MNC centers around team based arena combat. The environments are very stylized and the general aesthetic is what I hope to achieve with my level.

Here are a few examples:

Part of coming up with a concept was researching and developing stunts that could possibly be in our particular levels. Since I'm using the Star Wars inspired theme I thought it would be fun to mess around with the use of force-fields. Not only would it adhere to my theme but the force-fields could offer some pretty interesting visuals to the player.

Here are a few examples:

I researched a few stunts from Star Wars Attack of the Clones. Here is one of the video I found to be quite useful. I found the scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin fly through the lightning to be pretty interesting. I wouldn't mind trying to incorporate that mechanic into my level somehow.

Another great reference video is from Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn't a racing game but the mechanics are something similar to what I want to achieve with my level. What I mean by this is that in SWTOR players can partake in an arena based combat system known as Huttball. The arena in which this takes place has a few different sorts of obstacles that players must watch out for. These include periodic fire traps and acidic pits.

Finally I came up with a rough isometric layout of what I hope to achieve. Keep in mind that this is all still a very early WIP, lots can change throughout the process. I wanted to keep the level generally small because each lap should take roughly a minute to complete. Try to imagine this race track being in the center of a massive arena with thousands of spectators all around.

Here are a few color ideas I've been playing around with. I would like to stick to a pretty vibrant color palette because of the holograms. The track would probably end up mostly dull greys to balance out the vibrant colors I want to achieve.