Trackmania Nations Forever is a free racing game made by Nadeo that had 10 million players in 2007. The game differs from other racing games by allowing players to build their own tracks out of blocks. Players race against each other online across user-created tracks in modes like time attack or laps races. The game was innovative in its simple controls, easy track building tools, and optimized online multiplayer that allows players of all connection speeds to compete.

1. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
Game Analysis:
TRACKMANIA NATIONS FOREVER
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2. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
1. Introduction
Trackmania Nations Forever is a free racing game made by Nadeo it had in 2007 10 milion
players. The game isn’t just like all the other racing games out there, in this game you can
drive in loops, corkscrews, big jumps in a series of game modes like tries, laps, time attack.
I’ve chosen to write about Trackmania because it’s a game that I usually play with my friends.
In this analysis I am going to try describing the game so it might interest you and also I will
look up on how they made the game.
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3. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
2. Trackmania Nations Forever
Trackmania Nations Forever is one of the latest games in the trackmania series made by
Nadeo. Trackmania is free to download from their homepage and offers great graphics. The
game itself differs from many other racing games because the players are allowed to build
their own tracks using “blocks” which they then can race friends on.
You control your vehicle using the standard arrow buttons on the keyboard, and have one
button for respawning at a checkpoint and one for respawning at the start of the track. You
can also use a control pad or a game steering wheel if that suits you better. The car is really
easy to control because you don’t have to shift gears only steer the car and break which gives
the game a low learning curve.
When you are going to race you are going to try to make it from point A to point B, though
this is not as easy as it sounds because you will have to complete many smaller challenges
before you reach the goal. While you are trying to complete these challenges you must go
through all the checkpoints on the track to get your time registered and to prevent people
from cheating. Any time at the track you can choose to respawn your vehicle if you crash and
then spawn at one of the checkpoints you have gone through. Also as I said above you can
alsorespawn at the beginning of the track.
In trackmania there is only one type of car and that’s a formula 1 car. You cannot tweak it,
tune it or something like that. This is because everyone is going to play at the same
conditions and it also makes the game play simple and easy and there are many other games
that has this so the creators had this left out.
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4. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
Trackmania is a game where you can play either solo or LAN/Online. In the solo mode you
compete against one of the four types of computers that exist, these are bronze, silver, gold
and author. The bigger medal you are trying to compete against the better they drive where
the author medal is the hardest. The more of these medals you are receiving the better
ranking you get. There are two different rankings, first one registers how many medals you
have received and compares this in your country and in the world so you can see how well
you are compared to those. The second one is determined on how good you drive in online
games. The better position you end up in the more points you score. This score is also
compared to other competitors in your country and also in the world.
The online mode is almost like the solo mode but without the computers and medals. The
online section is built up by different servers where they mostly have player built tracks that
you can compete on. Some servers can have a ranking requirement to enter.
In the online section you can race against more than a hundreds of players at the same time
so I should point out that you cannot ram or crash into other players to try to ruin their time.
These servers that you enter either have a mode called time attack or laps.
Time attack is probably the most popular mode in the game. In this mode you have a set
time where you get to try as many times as you want in that time period. The player with the
best time is placed highest on the ranking meter for that session. The player with the best
time at the end wins. So you cannot have the best time in the beginning and expect to win in
the end, one player can beat your time when there is five seconds left and beat your time
and win that session. In the end of each session the results are shown and the one with
highest position wins and receives most score usually (this varies depending on other players
rankings).
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5. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
In the laps version you get about one minute in the start to try out the track and also
memorize it so you know how to drive it to it in the fastest possible way. Then when the time
is over you have one try to get to the finish on the best time. When you reach the goal you
will receive some points depending on position on that lap. The game will continue on that
track and you will continue to gather points until one player has received as much points that
are needed by that server to win. When the player wins he receives ladder points that will
get him lower in the ranking system and the next map begins.
A major difference from time attack is that if you would crash you cannot push the respawn
button that you are used to do, this will only enter the spectator mode so you can see how
the other players are driving.
So in laps mode it’s first to the goal that matters and in time attack it’s the best time that
matters.
The thing that made trackmania as popular is because of the trackmania building tool.
The editing track program is built up like a Lego building game. You set up your starting
location somewhere on the big arena which is your playfield and then you start selecting the
pieces that you want to connect with the starting point. You can whenever you want also
enter the game and see how the track is like when you drive your vehicle whether the track
complete or not to see if there are things you need to correct. When the track is complete
you can start racing on it yourself or with your friends.
In Trackmania it is also possible to join a clan. A clan Is a team of players that train together
on maps to try to get better and then finally competes with other clans on different tracks.
This is something that has been very popular in the trackmania series. Almost everyone
online has a clan tag that says which clan they are in.
In trackmania clan matches you are usually playing five persons on each team that compete
on trying to get the first position. They are usually playing time attack mode but were you get
points for the position as a team based on the positions. Then on a set number of tracks by
both clans, the clan with most points wins. You can also play the laps mode on clan matches
where they as in time attack mode take points based on the positions.
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6. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
3. Trackmania Nations Forever’s innovation and creativity
Nadeo have before developed building tools for other games so they started in that direction
and built a pure racing prototype game with a simple user interface. They then came up with
the idea of puzzle and then started to merge the puzzle with the driving part.
When they first made trackmania they wanted a game that could be simple to play but also
fun at the same time. They for instance only have the arrow buttons and two other buttons
that is used in game, also they don’t have any gears or hand breaks. The editing tool is also
very easy to control since you only have a small panel at the bottom of the screen were you
choose the blocks you want to use in the track in a roll list. When you got your block you can
rotate it and then put it in place.
The multiplayer mode was one of the parts which the creators liked most since they did it so
well and it was a challenge itself just making it. Players from all over the world are able to
compete on Trackmanias dedicated server on either Trackmania library tracks or player
custom built tracks. Even the most detailed and longest map is just a couple of kilobytes
since the tracks only store the coordinates on where the blocks should be. This makes it very
simple to email them to your friends or to someone who can upload it on their trackmania
server. The most successful part in the multiplayer section is that even if your internet speed
isn’t the best it doesn’t make any difference since the code in the software has been
optimized so that both high and low bandwidth users are able to take part in the game.
Trackmania has also one edition where the game was especially made for the big Electronic
Sport World Cup (ESWC). This was the first game that had been made for an ESWC
tournament. The game was free and 53 countries could participate in the qualifications to
the grand finale in Paris 2006. On the finale there was 10.000 persons in the audience and a
total price money of 400 000 dollars.
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7. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
4. My own experience
I think you can play this game in two different ways. The first way is to play the game just
because it’s fun and challenging. If you play it just cause its fun you won’t make the best
times and won’t beat a lot of their players. The second way which I’m playing is the more
hard one were you play to win and as I said earlier it’s a game that is built to be easy but
there is another way were you can make it harder and this way also gives good results and a
good chance of making it to the first position every match if you master the moves.
At this writing point I’m on ranking 20 000 in the world online and about 100 in Sweden. I’ve
had a better ranking before when I played this game a lot and that was about ranking 5 000
in the world. I also have 254 medals of 260 in single player mode, here I’m about position 70
in Sweden and about 4000 in the world.
If you want to play the hard way it’s almost only about the breaks and how you cut the
corners. If you break too early you will lose speed but take the curve good, if you go to fast
you will end up in the wall or turn upside down. There is a way where you can power
slide/drifting through a corner to take it almost as fast as if you would when you hit the walls
when you dove to fast. I’m going to try to explain how to do this so you can get a better
understanding on how it works.
Power slides/drifts
There are many ways of doing power slides and I don’t know them all. The basics of power
sliding first to get some speed otherwise it won’t work that well and then release the gas and
aim for the inner wall where the corner is that you want to take, then as you are pressing the
left key you are going to press the back key and forward key at the same time this will make
the car slide sideways and “lick” the walls cause you are going so close to them. When you
feel that you don’t need to slide anymore and that you can start driving normal you release
the break and gas forward. The hardest part of this is to do them at the perfect time and
release it as soon as you can. There are also different kinds of slides where you double tap
the breaks so you slide a bit first and then more later on which is good depending on how the
curve is shaped.
This suddenly makes the game very hard and is now all about the perfect slides to gain as
much time as possible. This is also why the game was especially made for the ESWC because
it’s not only about luck it’s mostly skills that take part in the game if you want to go far.
This is a game that I think is really fun because you can play it on easy levels which how the
game was build or you could play it the hard way and try to master the power slides. One
think I like about this game is when you enter a server there is one track that is played and
the next one won’t be anything like the first because there are so many ways to build easy or
complex tracks.
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8. Jonas Nilsson Introduction to game design
Jonas@afab.org
5. Conclusion
I think trackmania is a great game which also has a lot of thought behind it to make it
something new that we haven’t seen before. I like the idea of mixing puzzle and racing so it
isn’t just to follow the road signs like it is in other racing games. Here they are making the
players complete different obstacles before they reach the finish. Its not just about making a
good turn or having the right speed. Every obstacle itself is a big challenge and must be well
handled to complete it with a good time.
I really like the graphics and the design in the game. They have rendered the game so it looks
sharp and very colorful which makes it seems like it’s just a big huge toy track with speeding
cars on. The graphics engine is also something that they have really done well. I have played
this on my old computer and it ran really smooth but didn’t have that good and detailed
graphics but now on my new computer it’s almost like it’s a new game cause the details and
the really smooth graphics just looks amazing for a free game. So the graphic engine is really
well coded and optimized so it can run on both old and new computers. One other thing that
they have done well is the physics engine part in game. The cars get an almost natural feeling
when they fly in the air from one jump to another while doing crazy corkscrews. The best
thing with this game is that it’s free. It’s not any other games that I know of that have such a
good gameplay and great graphics as this game has.
I really like this game because it almost makes think I’m a kid again when playing with the
small toy cars in a homebuilt track. This game does the same thing, it has those abilities and
it does the driving, puzzle and building part very well. I think this is a game everyone should
try at least cause they might be stuck in the fun like I am. You don’t have to like racing game
cause this game doesn’t have to be about speeding to the goal on the fastest time, you can
do it in your own speed and try to manage all the obstacles. This is also a game that doesn’t
quite end because there are always more tracks to play thanks to the track building tool.
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