Action Races

Overview

Action Races are timed single-player races released as post-launch content for MindsEye, where the player is chasing the fastest time they can set whilst avoiding the destruction unraveling around them. Chaos is breaking out across the city, with robots and civilians attacking each other, and the race runs straight through the middle of it. Along the route, action events play out around the player: fights breaking out at the roadside, spontaneous explosions, and vehicles swerving into their path that they have to outmaneuver.

Road To Hell

A point-to-point race set in the street and underpasses around the Hyperloop Terminal.

Short Circuiting

A three-lap circuit set in a sandstorm on the edge of the city, each lap throwing something different at you.

My Role

• Oversaw the two level designers who built both races, reviewing their level design and directing a further pass on the content.
• Performance was the biggest issue, so we changed the routes, and removed and reordered some of the action events, keeping the races intense while making them less strenuous on the machine.

What I Built

• Cleaned up the race logic after the level design pass.
• Implemented a clean up system, that improved performance by cleaning up AI, VFX and vehicles that were still active but no longer in use.
• Ran performance passes on both races. Everything was built in Arcadia, with the Unreal profiling tools used to debug performance.

Result

Performance improved from lows of 10fps to a baseline of 30fps throughout both races, delivering an action-packed experience in a single-player environment.