Multiplayer Races

Overview

Six Multiplayer Races were the headline feature of the MindsEye multiplayer launch in July 2026: QuickSilva, Rattlesnake, Factory Loop, Area S, Summer Circuit and The Strip. Each one puts up to 12 players on the grid with boost enabled.

I led the team of technical level designers that delivered all six in four months, keeping delivery on track through a change of team member part-way through. We built the race game mode as a single shared template, broken into sections with one owner each. Every designer also owned two races, so an improvement made to any section of the template flowed straight into every race, and the whole team could work in parallel. I led the races in parallel with Grenade Football, each with its own team.

What I Built

The race gameplay splits into five sections.

• Track Design
  • Each track was implemented by its race owner and refined through multiple rounds of feedback. Where we could not achieve what we wanted with what we had, we pulled in the Art team and requested additional assets to get the desired feel. Gates were placed deliberately, either to prevent corner cutting or to allow shortcuts where we wanted them.
• Vehicle Balancing & Boost Mechanics
  • I balanced the rubber-banding settings of the engines, giving more performance to cars further back so that players who fell behind through an accident or lack of skill could catch back up.
  • I balanced how much boost a player gets from a boost block using a formula. Players inside the competitive zone receive the minimum amount, and beyond it, a logarithmic curve increases the boost the further behind they are. As an example, the competitive zone might be 7% of the total track length behind the leader; the values were tuned for each race to suit its track length.
• Gate, Player and Boundary Management
  • Designed and implemented a simple out-of-bounds system that keeps players on the track without the need for walls. A player who leaves the track is reset to the last gate they passed.
  • Designed and implemented a wrong-way system that combines vector maths with distance checks and timers, giving the player accurate but non-invasive feedback through a "Wrong Way" warning at the top of the screen.
• Final Fanfare & Podium Placement
  • Directed the finish sequence and its final camera pan, including how the players and vehicles that missed the podium are moved out of shot.
  • The sequence is a rewrite of a script I originally implemented for Everywhere a few years earlier.
  • Worked with the Art team to find the podium location for each race.
• Vehicle Selection & Race Countdown
  • Helped with vehicle selection, including the design of the scripting tool that implements it and how it became part of the Multiplayer Race template.

Lessons

The key to this project was a good template. Because each team member could update their own part of it seamlessly, we were able to work in parallel and keep all six races moving forward together.