PlayStation5 Racecar Crashers
Due to an academic disclosure agreement (ADA), I cannot share access to the GitHub repository or code snippets for this project.
Announcement trailer for Racecar Crashers (PS5)
This project was started as a 12 week university module but has since grown to be so much more. Our team, now defined as Trajectile Interactive has established a small but strong online presence. All social media links and other relevant material can be found on our linktree.
Overview:
For my Master's year at university, my cohort were tasked in creating a full game prototype using our previously developed PlayStation5 game engine. We must follow the SDLC and consider sales projections, marketing, plan out a budget and timeline, and pitch our prototype to a publisher that the university invites for us. This project has since become a much bigger deal than a simple university submission.
After finding ourselves wanting to play this game in our spare time, we knew we were doing something right and wanted to see how far we could take this project. With more and more people playtesting, we have had many opportunities to continue the success of Racecar Crashers, including attending several exclusive games events.
This project is still in active development with confirmed support by Steel Minions to publish Racecar Crashers as a PS5 exclusive. The timeline plans for a Q4 2025 release date.
The team started out with myself and 3 other programmers, all contributing to the low-level development of additional systems to our previous engine, a handful of documentation, and a pitch deck. Recently, we have brought on 1 lead artist and 7 junior artists, expanding our team to 12, to help in visually overhauling the game before its release.
Our pitch deck:
The programmers presented our pitch deck to Simon Byron, the Director of Publishing for Yogscast Games who, during feedback, said:
"Many years ago, I worked on a game called Mashed on the original PlayStation, which this gives me Mashed vibes and I had a lot of fun with that."
"Really nice content. The idea about the rounds ending in different ways I think is super smart."
"It does feel like a decent genre to tackle and plus you've got old men like me that used to play this sort of stuff and being able to play it with their kids so I think you've identified something really neat there as well."
We have also presented our pitch deck to Isaac Haslehurst from Yogscast Games, Adam Clewes-Boyne from BetaJester, Andrew Stewart from Triplevision Games, and Alex Amsel at the first-ever Game Republic Careers Conference.
High-level overview:
Racecar Crashers is a high-octane, couch multiplayer and competitive racing experience where up to 4 friends (or enemies) compete to be the last car standing, or the first to complete 3 laps. The fun driving aspects and gameplay loop of the Micro Machines series meet the skilful item-based competitive spirit of Speedrunners. While you need to be cautious of your competition's nefarious tactics, the biggest threat is being eliminated by failing to stay on the screen, which is always following the driver in pole position. Luckily, you have an arsenal of items at your disposal to sabotage your opponents and tip the odds in your favour.
Our vision:
"Our main focus has always been to capture comradery through competition, rivalry, and excitement. We want players to enjoy fighting with their friends to try to be the last car and win every time. We want them to feel the same kind of experience that the team all experienced as kids when playing couch multiplayer with our friends and family."
My contributions:
Throughout this project, I have worked on several core gameplay features to shape the game into our vision. There are a handful of features that I was fully responsible for:
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Local multiplayer (up to 4 players).
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Front & backend for PS5 trophy integration.
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Setting the controller light bars and vibrations.
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Checkpoint system for race progression.
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Camera system for interpolation along the track, including eliminating off-screen players and several animations.
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Podium game over to display the winner from all 3 races in the track collection.
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Arena mode to fight to the death instead of racing grand prix.
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Options menu to control volume and controller vibrations.
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Marketing as our social media manager, defining a company, networking, and creating posts to gain attraction.
As well as heavy contributions to the following features:
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Leaderboard system sorted by points per-race.
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Main menu and controls screen.
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Building the PlayStation5 package for debug distribution and showcasing at events on the test kit.
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Producing the Racecar Crashers trailers.
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Creating the pitch deck, sales projection, marketing overview, and game design document.
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Overseeing the management and hiring of lead and junior artists.
State of the Game - July 2025:
As of July 2025, the game currently features:
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Our wishlist page on the PS Store
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3 tracks
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Crash Academy
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Crash City
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Bounceback Beach
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6 items
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Wall
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Boost
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Shield
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Confetti
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Homing Rocket
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Forward Rocket
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7 trophies
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7 vehicle selections
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Modular track selection
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Arena mode
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Fun and slippery vehicle physics
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Audio system
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Lighting & shadows
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Stencil buffering for occluded car geometry
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Responsive water splash & ripple shader
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Animated splash screen
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Options menu
Currently in-development:
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Main menu & credits
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Deathmatch tiebreak
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Visual overhaul
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More tracks
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General polish, bug fixing, and QA
Events:
Our team, Trajectile Interactive, currently has many gears turning with preparations for our launch as a PlayStation5 exclusive game. We have 5 confirmed events to showcase and demo our project to 10,000s of guests and 1,000s of developers, including games industry experts, publishers, and investors.
As of writing, we have attended:
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End of Year Show (SHU) - won 1st place Best in Level 7 award
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GaMaYo - a huge developer networking event
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Barclay's Game Frenzy - postponed
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Game Republic Student Showcase - won 3rd place in both Best Game Technology and Best Team awards
Now in our sights, MegaCon Live x Game Republic, with a huge 20,000 guest projection in attendance.
On top of this, Racecar Crashers has been nominated for the Best Student Game at the
TIGA UK Games Education Awards 2025.
And finally, the team behind Trajectile Interactive was interviewed by the BBC to talk
about our game and the games industry across the north.