Bang Bang Racing is a top down, family friendly game that is coming to PSN, XBLA, and PC in the coming months.  I had the opportunity to interview the Hungary based Studio, Digital Reality about the game.

A large thank you goes to Andrea Bolyki, Marketing Manager with Digital Reality for answering the questions. If anyone would like me to ask a follow up question, please feel free to leave it in the comments below, and we will get those answers for you!

Xeserox: I always like to start off with what I call the “under a rock question” for those that might not have heard anything about the game, what is Bang Bang Racing and what can we look forward to in this title? 

Andrea Bolyki: Bang Bang Racing is a high speed, family-friendly, arcade style racing game. The main features include:

  • Nine challenging and reversible circuits from all around the world varied with unique shortcuts.
  • 20 unique vehicles and eight colourful skins, all spread across four distinct car classes; muscle cars, stock car series, world endurance championship and formula one [style] open wheeled cars.
  • Local split-screen multiplayer for up to four players.
  • Dynamic, interactive objects like cones or exploding barrels that make every race unpredictable.
  • Variable surface conditions that will affect how your car performs, like snow, sand, water and oil.

 

2. Digital Reality is known for putting out some really good games, Hegemonia being one of my absolute favorites to this day. How did you decide to do a racing title? Has the success of Skydrift had an influence on doing this title? 

The development of Bang Bang Racing started independently of SkyDrift, and it is a co-development with Playbox. The people at Playbox have a lot of history with amazing racing games so it was a natural decision. The development team at Digital Reality pushed the game even further by adding our own talent to the mix, creating something truly fun and lovable.

 3. Where does the inspiration for Bang Bang Racing come from? 

 Both teams love classic top-down racers, and we believed there was room for a racer that keeps the fun of the gameplay but adds the personality of [each development] team.

 4. Why did you choose to go with a top down view for Bang Bang Racing? 

This game is a family-friendly game and the top-down view fits perfectly to the friendly cars and environment. At the same time, this view distances Bang Bang Racing from [other] heavy car racing games, [like Forza, Need for Speed].

5. What makes each style of car have their own unique feel, and how do you accomplish this? 

The individual car designs are based on real brands, but have been adapted to Bang Bang Racing’s family-friendly graphic style in a playful way. The real life categories (Muscle cars, Tuning cars, Le Mans, Formula 1) are recognizable, but these cars are smaller, and they look like friendly caricatures or cartoons of their ‘big brothers’. Their features are exaggerated as well; they speed up in seconds, breaks are very strong, nitro boosts shoot fire and drifting is spectacular. The features of the four car classes are also easily recognizable, but they are playfully overdone as well.

6. When you see people playing Bang Bang Racing, what features that make you smile the most, that the players are enjoying?  

One of our biggest observations is that drifting is great fun and people love it. It’s easy to learn, very spectacular and using it well at the right moment leads to a big advantage. Some players prefer to take the steep curves to avoid oil stains or slipped out competitors.

7. What are some hardships you’ve encountered when designing the game? 

The biggest hardship was to keep real life physics while creating easy-to-play arcade style controls. It was challenging to nail down the mistakes players make during driving  so it doesn’t cause a large disadvantage that would cause the player to lose the race. At the expense of countless race experience and parameter refinement, we feel we’ve succeeded.

 8. Is there is something you can tell us that you haven’t told anyone else about Bang Bang Racing? 

Here is a secret about the winning technique: You can go full throttle, but if you want to achieve better times, race against better AIs or even other skilled players, you need to watch your technique. Choosing the right turning curves and speeds, being smart with your nitro boosting ability, avoiding pollution and water, pushing others at the right moment are all important tactical aspects of the game. Use the breaks and don’t play with the fire!