Recess Race is a 2D platformer very conscious of its roots. It is a 1P racing game where the non-player racers are bullies the player must avoid. You play as Fitz, and in your elementary school the administration has organised a race event with the ulterior motive of cleaning up the yard: the secondary goal (after placing first in the race) is to pick up as much garbage as you can... but Fitz is the only one who seems to care about that.
Recess Race is about my elementary school experience. I was the kid that everyone made fun of (primarily for my nose-picking habit). It was awful, but I had ways to deal with it. Recess Race is about how I used video games to cope with being socially outcast. Fitz races through the level with mechanics that don't apply to the other racers: he's hurt by bouncing tennis balls, gets COMBO points for collecting garbage quickly, and obtains power-ups that give you Mario-, Kirby-, and Megaman X-based abilities (each of those has an alternate-universe equivalent). Fitz uses video games and his own imagination to create joy where there was none.
I've been working on Recess Race for months, full-time. I have some part-time employment that allows me to keep living (though I do leech from my savings now and then) while still working a lot on the game. Now we're a team of 3 working on it, and development has reached full speed. We will be releasing the first iteration of the game in April, as early as possible.
We will release for web first. The planned websites are: itch.io, Kongregate, Facebook, and any other portal site that allows the Unity web player. The game will also be hosted on the official page of Temp8, the company associated with the game. We hope to accrue some ad revenue/donation money, perhaps even paying a month's rent for each of us (wouldn't that be novel, getting paid for doing work).
After the initial release, we will be adding content based on audience reaction. If the game is dead in the water, we will move on and release a new one. If there is some interest, then we will happily add some new courses, new modes, new stories, new items... there's lots of room for development for the game, and we are excited to explore the possibilities.
Keep posted as we release in early April!
Thanks for reading.
-Travis Martin(mysteriosum, the deranged hermit)
