RAT RACE
INTRODUCTION
Rat Race is an adventure and storytelling game that reflects the intense pressures of a highly competitive society, particularly focusing on the heavy academic burdens faced by many children, including the game's creator. Using an exaggerated and satirical approach, this game offers a unique lens into the realities of growing up in an environment where academic excellence is not just expected, but demanded.
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Inspiration & Backstory
The motivation for creating this game comes from my personal experiences. As I stood at the end of my 25th year and looked back on what I had been through, I faintly realized that it seemed I had never lived for my own desires. Despite having gotten into a decent university and entered a Fortune 500 company, I was not happy. My unhappiness was not because I couldn't seek happiness, but rather it seemed I had forgotten what happiness meant to me.
Top Left and Middle: Asian Dad meme which reflects the high pressure and demand from many Asian parents
Top Right: Chinese Gaokao, possibly one of the most dreadful exams in the world, determines the future lives of many participants
Buttom Left: The SAT exam held in Hongkong Asia Expo Center, I was one of the participants
Buttom Right: The SAT exam take place Inside of Hongkong Asia Expo Center, one of the largest exam in the world
Based on my observations, I am not the only one; many of my friends have found themselves in similar situations. We often follow similar paths, losing ourselves in a series of exams and interviews, forgetting the meaning of our lives. Our lives have become what society and our families expect, but do we know what do we ourselves want? Reflecting on my past life, especially before college, grades were almost the only focus of my life. Both my parents and I gave up a lot for the sake of a number. After college, the situation improved somewhat, but a good major, good grades, and good job opportunities still remain the simplest terms defining me.
I don't want to blame my parents or the education system; they are products of a set of values shaped by a highly competitive environment. These values are closely linked to the societal context they exist. It's impossible for me to summarize this vast topic in a simple description. Therefore, I thought maybe I could create a game, expressing my experiences through a dramatized gaming experience, allowing those who haven't gone through it to understand our experiences, and prompting those who have to resonate and reflect.
GAME DESIGN
The mechanics of the game are similar to many of those of third-person adventure or 3D platformer games. In the game, players use the WASD keys to control movement of the main character. Players can also sprint using the Shift key, and jump using the Space bar. In the game, players must navigate through a series of challenges, including bullying, academic pressure, difficult exams, pressure from parents, as well as the stresses of further education and employment.
1. Core Mechanics
The mechanics of the game are similar to many of those of third-person adventure or 3D platformer games. In this game, players use the WASD keys to control the movement of the main character. Players can also sprint using the Shift key, and jump using the Space bar. In the game, players must navigate through a series of challenges, including bullying, academic pressure, difficult exams, pressure from parents, as well as the stresses of further education and employment. Most of the challenges are in the form of traps. There are deadly pistons falling from the ceiling and dreadful rotating rods full of spikes. Players will have to get over those traps by moving carefully.
In-game screenshot from a player’s view, similar to many third-person adventure games
In addition to the third-person perspective, the game also switches gameplay and viewpoint in some levels to enrich the gaming experience. In the university level, the player's perspective will shift to one similar to a 2D platformer. The level design also becomes similar to that of a 2D platformer. In this section, players need to complete the level with a different perspective and control than before.
The 2d-platformer level in the game
2. Game Settings
To balance the game's portrayal of reality and its playability, many of the difficulties in the game are not exactly as they are in real life. Much of the pressure and challenges are expressed through mechanisms in third-person adventure and platform-jumping scenarios. Taking academic pressure as an example, the game doesn't feature content of players studying at a desk. However, in the second chapter, the school turns into a factory, and exams and academic pressures are represented as deadly machines on an assembly line. Players need to dodge these machines in the game, symbolizing the overcoming of academic and examination pressures in real life.
Apart from the factory example, the environments in the game are also exaggerated compared to reality. For instance, when the protagonist faces unemployment in the game, the familiar office setting becomes fragmented and broken. This reflects the difficulties faced by the protagonist, and players can experience the hardships of unemployment by navigating through this shattered area in the game, especially when one has lived in an environment where unemployment is deemed unacceptable.
Similarly, the characters in the game are not direct representations of real people. The game uses rats as a metaphor for real-life individuals, because groups of rats often exhibit behaviors similar to highly competitive human crowds in reality. This aligns with the name of the game, "Rat Race."
Sketches I drew during the brainstorming to come up with ideas on the environment and gameplay
Left: 1. Start scene, not used 2. The metro scene in the middle school chapter
3. classroom, replaced by a more conventional design
4. School as an assembly line, with books falling from above to kill the player, not used
5. College scene, not used
6. College scene gameplay, used and evolved to the current college level
To come up with environments that both reflect reality and are fun to play in the game, I drew many sketches to aid in conceptualizing and selecting good scenes. Here are some of the drafts I drew, which include many of the scenes I envisioned. Although some of these scenes were not ultimately used, many of the game's settings were designed based on these drafts.
To create the levels for this game, I referenced many third-person adventure games and third-person platform jumping games. I blended my own ideas with these games and drafted some level designs. Through continuous modifications and iterations of these drafts, I finalized the levels that were implemented in the game.
3. Level Design
Sketches I drew for the metro level which was not used in the game
Left: 1: The metro station and the metro Start scene, not used
2. Classroom full of cages
3. The assembly line with books falling from above
4. The early college level design, top view
Right: The top view for the elementary school level
GAME DEVELOPMENT
Programming
In this game, the programming approach similar to that of "Maze of Gravity" was used, adopting suitable design patterns as much as possible to enhance the code's usability and readability. Also, the arrangement of class inheritance was done reasonably while utilizing interfaces, ensuring high cohesion and low coupling in the code. Additionally, the game employs a time system developed similarly to "Maze of Gravity", which allows the game to avoid writing separate scripts for individual levels as much as possible.
Art
In this game, I employed a low-poly art style. This style is suitable for the fantastical yet bizarre adventure journey that the game aims to convey, ensuring that players do not find the experience jarring. Additionally, this art style is relatively easier to create, which makes the game development process much more convenient for me, as someone who does not have a formal background in art.
Left: Office scene in chapter 3 with the low-poly style
Right: Alley scene in chapter 1 with low-poly street and external building assets