Designing for a fast-paced, large-scale environment introduced challenges in readability, flow, and player experience.
We want to emulate the feeling of speed while keeping gameplay smooth and epic.

🏎️ Readability at High Speed
Players move at high speeds, making it difficult to:
• Read terrain and obstacles
• Anticipate upcoming turns and changes
• React in time

→ During playtests, we observed that players struggled to react to terrain changes when visual cues were not clear enough, leading to missed turns or loss of control.

🧭 Navigation in Large Environments
• The open world scale can lead to:
• Players losing direction
• Difficulty understanding where to go next

🔁 Flow & Movement
Maintaining momentum is essential for fun. Poor track design can result in:
• Sudden stops
• Loss of flow
• Frustrating interruptions

🎮 Conveying the Action Sports Fantasy
A key challenge was making players feel like skilled athletes while maintaining control and clarity at high speed.

💥 Core Challenge
How might we design large-scale environments that remain readable at high speed, guide players naturally, and maintain a strong sense of flow and action sports fantasy?

• Ensure readability at high speed
• Guide players through large environments without restricting freedom
• Maintain smooth and continuous movement flow
• Create engaging and memorable events that reinforce the action sports fantasy

I worked in an iterative process, collaborating closely with designers, artists, and technical teams.
• Prototyped and tested track layouts and terrain
• Conducted playtests to observe player behavior at speed
• Iterated on flow, readability, and composition
• Refined terrain and track design based on feedback

To support high-speed gameplay, I designed environments and tracks that prioritize clarity, flow, and intuitive guidance.

🏎️ Designing for Speed
• Shaped terrain and track layouts to ensure players could read and react quickly
• Avoided unclear transitions and sudden obstacles
→ Players could anticipate what’s ahead even at high speeds. For example: Players should be able to anticipate a corner, don't put visual blockers in the inner corner. Make use of contrast in color and shape to guide players.

🧭 Visual Guidance
• Used terrain, composition, and landmarks to guide players naturally
• Structured tracks to lead players without forcing a single path
→ Guidance was embedded in the environment rather than explicitly shown

🔁 Continuous Flow
• Designed tracks to maintain momentum and uninterrupted movement
• Avoided dead ends and unnecessary stops
→ Movement felt smooth and engaging throughout the experience

🌍 Balancing Realism and Gameplay
• Built terrain using real-world data while adapting it for gameplay
• Adjusted terrain to support flow, readability, and player experience
→ Environments felt believable without compromising fun, it is an arcade game afterall, fun should come first. It ain't a simulation.

🛠️ Tooling & Workflow
• Contributed to procedural terrain workflows using Houdini and WorldMachine
• Developed methods to efficiently edit and iterate terrain
→ Enabled faster iteration and consistent world-building, not only for me but for the entire team.

• Players were able to navigate large environments while maintaining high speed
• Improved readability allowed players to stay in control and react quickly
• Smooth track flow resulted in more engaging and less frustrating gameplay
• Iteration and playtesting led to continuous improvements in player experience

💡 Design Insight
A key part of the action sports fantasy is being able to own and customize your gear.

In Riders Republic, players unlock pre-configured bikes, which limits personalization. Allowing players to build and customize their own bike could strengthen this connection, as players become more invested in experimenting and improving their setup.

It also shifts responsibility. When players fail with a self-built setup, they are more likely to reflect and adjust. With pre-made bikes, frustration is more often directed at the game itself.