Kart Krew™ has a
very special video for you today.
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But believe it or not that's not what I'm here to talk about today! I felt like scooting in-front of Chromatian for a sec to talk about a "new" mechanic.
Waterskipping! I say "new" in quotations because waterskipping's been done plenty of times and ways in SRB2 and kart in particular, so here's our take on it (because quite honestly the other times like years and years ago were jank as fuck).
ALRIGHT SO... first of all! The reason this mechanic was even re-introduced was thanks to a certain map that got ported in:
NOW... I know what you're thinking, you must be all like "ohhh my god, more Mario". Well, the ENTIRE GAME was cleaned out, there's actually very few ports in it at this point, and they're quite hidden away. Kart also has so many maps at this point that it way way outweighs them, believe me when I say there's more than enough original content to go around this time. The team is incredibly careful and faithful with ports right down to the pixel too, so they feel really fresh and authentic, almost surreal to see in SRB2 when you think about their old D00DKart counterparts from like half a decade ago.
Not all ports end up playing so well in this engine. This is mostly because our physics engine is so different than the source material, especially this dev build. It's such a momentum based game now, not at all the sticky ghetto-footrace feeling from ages ago. It's basically completely different...if not already pretty obvious from the videos, but you slide quite a bit, your momentum doesn't snap, slopes affect things drastically, and you slow down when drifting tightly. It leads to very dynamic, high committal gameplay that's pretty fun and unique to Kart. It's not what you might be expecting going into it assuming you're a Mario Kart pro (I've heard this a thousand times only for the person who joins Krew saying it to fall on their face at the difference for about a month), but when you drop what you know and get the hang of it, boy is it fun. It's actually quite...Sonic-y??
Anyway, this is important because when porting something in you have to be quite careful, a map like this plays entirely different and even GOOFIER than it's doppelganger. In Super Mario Kart you spend most of the time doing this if you're skilled at the course:
This doesn't work anymore for the reasons above, things like low friction sectors behaving completely different than in 2.1, but mainly because hopping was removed from the game for a CATHOLIC BIBLE amount of reasons. But Vanilla Lake is meant to be skipped and hopped around, and intentionally bumbly and clumsy toward the outer edges when you're moving slow... so now waterskipping is how that trend continues. I mean who on earth wants to challenge
this?
Do you KNOW what happens when EVERYONE wants to challenge THIS??
To perform it is simple. You can only waterskip if your horizontal momentum is overpowering your vertical momentum on a surface of liquid, giving you a solid bounce. This bounce cuts your momentum severely, but at least you're saved. You can only earn 2 bounces per time, the second one has to be under the same conditions as the first too...or you'll be swimming with the fishes.
It's that simple, and not even that broken. We haven't taken full advantage of it in the maps we have for this release, but it'll probably be used to it's full potential in the future considering its very easy to relegate this to boost items. For now it's a good save for mistakes and cutting tool for time trail pros... considering you can skip checkpoints this time around, jank is reduced and freedom's at an all time high.
I think that's about it on this one... I'm wordy. Oh and ignore stuff you see like rings. They serve no purpose... they're there because Sal was a little TOO faithful making this one.