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Moving towards the arcade mode with more effects and action

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Towards arcade mode
Towards arcade mode

I'm introducing a new game mode in Spirit of Eternal Racer. It's the arcade mode, called Story Mode in the game. It was actually planned from the very beginning — I mean including the arcade experience of classic 80s and 90s racing games: fast cars, exotic locations, changing weather and that fun feeling of driving. That's the idea, and it's already starting to take shape.

Here's what I'm adding to make it happen...

New track types

Story Mode introduces a new category of tracks. These are open roads, very different from the circuit racing available until now. Roads that stretch for kilometres, with traffic, checkpoints, themed scenery and sudden surprises. For now I'm working on two as a test. The first is a desert track, with its own roadside objects (mainly bushes) that immerse you in a long, lonely highway in the middle of nowhere.

Each track type can have its own visual identity. Mountain scenery is customisable, which means each stage can look completely different — from golden desert dusk to cool alpine tones.

Weather, water and wet roads

This is something I wasn't planning to include yet, but rain is now in the game, and it changes everything.

When it rains, the car behaves differently, grip is reduced and driving becomes harder. Several things can happen. Sometimes puddles appear on the road and the car reacts when it hits them. There can also be actual rain, which affects handling while it lasts. The third option is simply water on the road — same effect on driving as rain, but visually different, simulating crossing a flooded area, for example.

When any of this happens, the water spray kicked up by the cars is rendered using overlapping sprites. The effect is based on noise generated with GIMP and looks pretty good, though I might try to improve it further.

Brake lights and visual effects

There's another effect I'm really happy with: brake lights. It's the kind of detail you might not consciously notice, but you'd miss it if it wasn't there.

Brake lights are now properly animated on every car the player can drive. When a rival brakes ahead of you, you can see it. It's not just cosmetic: in racing modes, knowing where your rivals are braking is genuinely useful information.

Traffic cars with simplified AI

Story Mode wouldn't be a classic arcade racer without traffic. Slower cars sharing the road with you, forcing you to find gaps, brake late and take risks. Well, they're now in the game.

The traffic cars use a simplified AI. They don't race — they just drive at a set speed and change lanes occasionally. But they do it frequently enough to become real obstacles and add excitement to the game. Overtaking a line of traffic at full speed in the rain can be quite a challenge, and it's already one of the most fun things you can do in the game right now.

Tunnels

Tunnels are another new addition. They work as proper road sections with entry and exit transitions, and the geometry of a mountain around the tunnel mouth is shown to make the approach look appealing. I'm still not totally happy with the mountain shapes at the entrance — I might give them another pass at some point — but for now they work well.

Refactoring and fixes

On the technical side, the codebase has been significantly restructured. As the game grows, keeping everything organised becomes critical — especially when developing for both Linux and Amiga at the same time. Several files that had grown too large have been split into smaller, focused modules covering scene logic, road rendering, AI behaviour, garage state, and so on.

There's no demo yet showing all these new features — there's still a lot to polish. But the free demo of the previous version is available on itch.io.

And that's it for now — not bad at all. All that's left is to invite you to follow the project there or on YouTube, X and Bluesky to stay up to date.