MX Rivals

2015

Racing Rivals was the bread and butter of Glu Long Beach, well known for their racing franchises. MX Rivals was created in the same vein, this time featuring motocross bike racing on a "straight rhythm," or straight track with hills and valleys. Just as in real life, riders must take care to match the angle of their bikes to the angle of the hills they land on to maximize their speed and flow. Long time motocross champion Travis Pastrana was licensed to be the face of the game, acting as mentor to the player's character.

UI Design

Much of the UX and meta systems stayed the same from Racing Rivals to minimize engineering effort, but I did create a new UI style more in line with Motocross rather than Racing Rivals' sleek street racing theme. I chose a graphic style with gritty elements and pops of green, as well a generally masculine look for fonts and presentation.

Initial boot up splash screen design. I took care to make sure this image would work well on 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 screen ratios.

Loading screen between scenes with an animated bike chain and gears that utilizes only 3 frames.

A quick frame-by-frame animation comp for the beginning of a race made in Photoshop during the concepting phase.

The Race Complete screen, which compares rider performances as well as totals up monetary prizes and losses.

The Bike Showroom, where players can purchase new bikes based on brand, event specifics, or sales.

Mock up of the main map, which features a straight rhythm track with different sections for different types of gameplay.

Help screen explaining how the events and prizes work for Racer Showdown, a PvP mode of racing.

Main Store screen, with sections for hard and soft currency, video ads and offer wall, and the "Shipyard," where players can purchase loot crates.

Mystery crate splash screen, advertising current sales.

Character paintovers of Travis Pastrana, and four other professionally licensed MX riders.

The online Multiplayer lobby, where players can race each other while watching replays of other PvP races.

Player info in the Settings menu was made to look like a rider's license.

Equipment Flow

One flow that did not translate directly from Racing Rivals was in purchasing equipment for your rider. In Racing Rivals, purchased items overwrote your current equipment, and we needed to account for an increasing rather than an overwritten inventory.

Players have a Garage, or main base where they can perform repairs, customize bikes, dress their avatars, etc. Choosing the Customize menu brings up a list of parts to customize on the left.

Choosing a category brings up a subcategory menu at the bottom of the screen, in this case a list of colors and patterns for the bike body design.

Tapping on a new color/pattern causes a preview to show up on the bike itself. A purchase button appears whenever the player does not own the particular item.

Purchase confirmation for body design.

New color applied to the body.

Subcategory menu for helmets for the player avatar. Items that have not been purchased are locked.

Just as in the bike part menu, selecting another item previews it on the avatar.

Purchase confirmation for helmet.

On this page, I defined another key gameplay mechanic known as "gaze". We wanted to try to get away from tapping the screen, and used Gaze Indicators, or 2D art placed diagetically in AR space to let the player know where to look.