i LOVE the way this game looks, the aesthetic is so nice!

I think the mechanics are really interesting, and getting sleepy while driving really is exciting, but I think the game needs a better tutorial. The only real explanation of the mechanics that I recall, listed under the "tips," is worded a bit confusingly. It might help if a character explained the rules directly to you. Like, "There's nothing like crashing your car to wake you up! But be careful - if your car takes too much damage, you're out of the race!" I think maybe calling the racer's sleepiness their stamina is what's throwing me off, but that might just be a me thing.

I also think the second race is a bit confusing in the way it functions. It seems like the main gimmick of the game is the sleepiness mechanic, so the fact that the second race almost entirely ignores that mechanic feels a bit odd. It's definitely not bad, but it kind of just felt like I was playing a more straightforward racer. 

I'd be curious to see if there'd be more things to buy with money in a full game. Between each race, I DID top up my stamina and my car health, but it would be exciting if there were things like upgrades or car modifications.

Overall, though, I REALLY liked this game, and I think a full release would definitely be something special. The mechanics are really fun, and I LOVE the way it looks overall.

I played the game here on stream around 4:00

This is a very interesting art style!  The game itself is pretty interesting, and plays well.  Some general comments:

1. The SFX slider could use a sound effect as the player adjusts it so they're informed as to what the levels are being set to
2. The dialog feels a little stiff / formal due most of the words being spelled out rather than being contracted in a casual way
3. The scrolling checkboard behind the text makes it hard to focus on the words on the screen.  Consider giving the text a background to help separate it from the background
4. while blacked out, I was able to hit the wall hard enough to exit the track
5. Managing the stamina on the last track seemed rather difficult for me.  The player may need more practice managing it / learning its mechanics before attempting that race

The VOD for the review is linked below, and will be available for 60 days from the date of broadcast:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2875399165?t=0h9m27s

Hi, first disclaimer: I don't play many racing games. 

I do like your racing game, it's relatively easy for me to learn and also the colour choices I think helped my motion sickness. :)

Here's the VOD on Youtube 

UI Controls: I think it is my poor sense of direction, I kept turning around at cornering by not understanding the Point. (T . T) Afterwards, I understood more on how the Endurance and Durability work but didn't get to finish my first race. Personally 8 laps in a first race seems quite much, would prefer 5 laps at first.

Overall, great racing game that is still in the beginning stage, looking forward to seeing it being developed further.

Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!

So admittedly, my time with this was pretty short. While it's a fun idea, there was something I immediately felt needed to be fixed when it came to the gameplay that prompted me to stop early (that and, for some reason, when I went to retry the second race the game decided to start over). Before I get to that though, there are other things to cover.

First, I wasn't able to play the game by downloading. I would get to the screen where I enter a name but nothing would happen. Of course, the real question is why I need to enter a name at all? I wonder if perhaps it was loading, as the first time I went to load a race on browser I found it seemed to freeze as well. Perhaps some loading screens would help?

Next, while this obviously isn't the focus of the game, I feel like the cutscenes could use cleaning up. There are a lot of words that can be contracted to read more naturally, and I was thrown off when characters had their names given in narration instead of being introduced properly. For example, Ryan's name shouldn't be known until Danny says who he is. That way, it all feels more natural and names are given to the player at the same time their character, Mike, is learning them. It's also weird how Danny describes how to repair your car and get coffee.

Last thing before I get into gameplay: let WASD work as well. Some people will prefer to use those instead of arrow keys because they're used to using their left hand for movement instead of their right hand, but to use arrow keys with their left hand means shifting their keyboard around.

Alright, now for gameplay. Honestly, I was surprised how smooth it controlled. It was really responsive and did a great job. I felt like any mistakes I made with steering were my own fault. I did notice that if you come to a stop and reverse a little, the turning gets mixed up until you move forward again. This makes sense if you're still moving backwards, but not if you're stationary.

One thing I found annoying, though, was how other cars would just beat the crap out of me during the race. I couldn't even get through half of the laps without losing all of of my durability from other cars smacking me around. This was especially true if I managed to get into first, which brings up another issue.

Having a racer who automatically gets to go faster than you is incredibly unfair. First off, it means they'll be running into your backside if you get into first and will drain your durability. This happened to me. Second, it makes it impossible to catch up to them if you fall behind. Even when they're bumping into things, not being in first yourself means that the other cars are smacking you around and keeping you back. This is some Mario Kart shenanigans here, but at least Mario Kart cheats only when you're in first and otherwise slows down so you can catch up.

Another issue I think exists is how wide the tracks are. Normally, racing games give very wide tracks relative to the size of one's car. Doing this gives players plenty of room to navigate around other drivers while also navigating the track. However, here the track's width feels small compared to the size of the cars. Given that crashing into other vehicles also causes durability loss, this basically guarantees you'll crash into other cars. This then puts the player at a huge disadvantage, because it's not like computer racers are going to run out of durability or stamina. These things only affect the player. The only ways to fix this would be to widen the track to perhaps double what it is or to make it that colliding with other cars doesn't touch durability. I would personally go with widening the track, but doing so exposes another issue...

The tracks are also very small. The way this is compensated is that drivers have to do more laps. However, if you widen the tracks then this'll cause some serious issues. I think making longer tracks with less laps would be better than what you have and would work better with making courses wider. Of course, I would say keep the first track you have as is, 8 laps and all. It works really well as a test course to get used to the game, but that's all it should be: a test course. Once you get into the proper races, though, there should be new tracks that are made for multiple drivers.

I hope this helps out! Good luck with the game, and feel free to let me know if you update it with some of my suggestions!

• Youtube Link / Twitch Link
• Graphics : Fine , although I did expect for the racing segments to keep a bit more with the stylization of the cutscenes.
• GUI : Fine , although the elements could probably be sized down a bit.
• Performance : Flawless
• Music / Sfx : 
  • Music : Mostly fine, but needing adjustments in race , it's particularly difficult to hear over SCREECH SCREECH REV SCREECH. [I know I turned it down in stream, but I played again post-stream]
  • SFX : Maybe some tweaking
• Gameplay :  
  • Very basic racer with cars that seem to basically be glued to the ground. 
  • Visual Novel with a veneer of racing game?
• Misc Issues : 
  • Name entry seems to have some weird bug where if text box loses focus at any point, you can never type anything, I needed to reboot to fix this.
  • If you try to just use 'guest' it won't permit you.
• Notes : 
  • Controller support was unexpected and seemed to might have only been half-implemented or just there by default (unity?) but was a pleasant surprise as my keyboard is truly a POS.
  • Thank you for getting me a downloadable version.
  • Maybe a slight stamina regain for being fast and doing maneuvers , surely getting whiplash would wake you up a bit.
    • Could emphasize risky driving with punishing driving in the long straights 'safely' by causing stamina drain to increase during them. (I'm a big fan of Burnout and similar games like wreckfest. Half the point of those is to be hyperaggressive.)
  • Taking damage and restoring stamina seems like guesswork or inconsistent, sometimes I take 0% damage, but gain 10% ~ stamina, other times I get rammed or slam into a wall where the values are now inversed?
  • Upgrades would be nice, as it is only spending money for just starting off each new race at 100% feels a bit moot.
  • As a person with lifelong insomnia, I'm not sure how to feel about this or my driving ability.
  • The last race feels a bit obtuse, I don't know if the game is using rubberbanding for the NPC drivers, or if they're simply cheating or what, but it feels a bit aggravating when even if you race perfectly with no flaws you still end up in 2nd place.
• Final Thoughts : While the gameplay is pretty basic, if there's a story to tell here with the characters, the latter could do the heavy lifting. Overall I think it's fine but could definitely use some more additions like upgrades, more tracks (obviously) , different vehicles , or maybe even dialogue choices even if it's trying to go for more of a story / character thing like Ace Ventura?