•When developing Star Wars Galactic Racer, the team at Fuse 游戏 tested its roguelite progression system by building it out in a physical board game. According to creative director Kieran Crimmins: “You can’t know if you can feel the system until you can play the system.
The high-speed arcade racer’s early prototype took this literally, taking the form of Post-its, scribbles and dice rather than in-game code. The approach echoes a similar technique used years ago when Jake Solomon prototyped Firaxis’ XCOM reboot as a simple board game to be played on scrap paper in the office.
“You know, modern engines are so capable that you can do a lot of it in-software,” CEO Matt Webster said, “but there’s still something [about that which is] not as fast as getting a written idea down. From a board game perspective, you sort of decouple yourself from a particular prototype and you’re talking about moment-to-moment.”
The board game specifically simulated Galactic Racer’s progression system. Rewards differ based on the event but typically offer tuning points to spend on one of three random stats, plus parts for your speeder that affect its abilities or grant bonuses tied to specific status effects. After several races players can go shopping and spend earned credits on further upgrades, parts, or entirely new abilities.
This is a progression system drawn from the roguelite genre: new unlocks are added to a pool so they may appear in future runs, while each run hands out tuning points usable for permanent upgrades that carry over between attempts. Such a mechanic is not something typically expected in a racing game, and one that required testing to find its fun.
“There’s a prototyping tool for every kind of system that you want to prototype,” Crimmins said, “and the one that you pick should be the one that gets you there the quickest, and gets you to validate the emotion the quickest. So when it came to upgrades and meta progression, I can do a board game in a day. I mean, I say ‘board game’. A lot of it is Post-its and a scribble and some dice. But we’re trying to validate those feelings as quickly as possible. So you just pick the best tool for the moment.”
2026 games: All the upcoming games
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together
1 comment