if you want to read this thread as a blog post, go here:

https://joon.be/blog/?post=2024.06.10+Phantom+Spark+-+What%27s+weird+about+this+one.md

2/

Confused, the other person asks me what the twist is on this game, and I say the twist is...

... the ship goes very fast
... it's just very good.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

3/

Phantom Spark (the racing game I'm working on) is much more of a traditional Videogame than NUTS is, or many of my older projects. The same goes for @torfi, if you look at his itch.io page. https://torfi.itch.io

So what is it that drew us both into it?

4/

I've been trying to figure out how to answer that question beyond it's very good. I feel that if I can convey to you what pulled me into the game, what made me want to make it, that would be better than any marketing copy or store description...

5/

Maybe I can find some sort of answer by talking about how we got started, and why we decided to spend 3 years making a (very good, trust me) racing game. Near the end of NUTS development, Torfi started going down the rabbit hole on vehicle physics...

6/

He prototyped many different car controllers, on a wide spectrum between deep simulation, and simple arcade controls, but by the time I joined by far the most promising one was this amazing feeling lowpoly ship sliding through skate-ramp like parcours.

7/

(It wasn't meant to look like a penguin, but after an early tester mentioned it we couldn't unsee it)

8/

@jalict it was definitely a big inspiration, and it's a formula that's hard to break out of once you start going in that direction, but I do think we set ourselves apart.

If anything it's like an indie game focused only on full-speed-tracks of Trackmania, trying to find an audience that would not normally go looking for that experience because they bounce off of TM's aesthetics or intensity.