Technical Overview

Mini Car Rush was originally intended to be a sequel to Mini Car Racing. However, it eventually transformed into a distinct game of its own. The primary objective was to create a scalable and modifiable architecture that focused on the communication between components without creating dependency chains. To achieve this, a Scriptable Architecture was implemented, which utilized Game Events and Channels to reduce coupling and enhance cohesion.

My initial role was to ensure that the entire team of around four developers had a clear understanding of the architecture. To demonstrate the power of the architecture, I created various small components that served as examples and could be utilized in multiple games. For player controls, we employed a Finite State Machine, which proved to be an excellent choice as it minimized the potential for state-related bugs and simplified the development process.

One unique feature of the swipe controls in Mini Car Rush was the ability for the user to play the game without lifting their finger. Unlike most other endless runners, the player could change the direction right from where the previous action ended on the screen.

A notable aspect of Mini Car Rush was its procedural generation of obstacles and coins, combined with carefully crafted custom encounters. The coins were procedurally generated in a way that guided the player to avoid obstacles and created a realistic placement of coins within reach.

Performance was a significant concern for us, considering the fast-paced nature of the action game. Even minor stutters or frame drops could result in input misses and cause the player to crash. To maximize performance, we implemented various techniques, such as obstacle and environment pooling, shaders prewarming, instancing, and creating skeletons for larger objects like custom encounters. These optimizations were set up at runtime to minimize stutters. We also conducted thorough profiling of the game to minimize resource consumption, allowing it to run at a high frame rate of up to 120 fps.

Another crucial aspect of the game was the inclusion of a competitive element. To achieve this, I developed three different variations of custom leaderboards using the FireStore database and FireBase authentication. Additionally, a NodeJS server was deployed to support these features.