2:00 PM
Brighton, England
Reflex Outsourcing Vehicle Art Studio Selection
As other devs and artists gather in the break room, Mark and Bryce each grab a controller, and the final stretch of testing kicks off with a split-screen race between two Hurricanes.
Bryce may not have as good of an understanding of the car’s handling as Mark, but what he does have is a half-full power bar and an opponent to use it on. Trusting his gut, he triggers a line of three vans to sweep across the track in the blink of an eye, catching Mark by surprise and stopping him dead in his tracks.
As Bryce takes first place, he keeps his eyes peeled for anything Mark might use to reclaim the lead… which includes the highway itself.
“Don’t you dare…” Bryce chuckles. Mark only responds with a devious giggle before triggering the alternate route and burying Bryce’s car under several tons of asphalt. Oh, well. He saw it coming from a mile away.
Following an expected victory for Mark, Bryce is impressed by the Hurricane’s proportions and aero, but less so by the exhaust and “wilty” taillights. They’re not dealbreakers for him, though.
“So, uh… who’s next?”
Bryce’s question is answered by programmer Cat Duchamp, and Mark hands his own controller over to Tobias Franks, another programmer. This time, the two duke it out in an Elimination event, with six drones added to the grid so the race doesn’t end after just one elimination.
As the race starts and the timer begins to count down from 60, Toby feels slightly cheated as Cat’s bright blue racer begins to inch away from his Italian GT, but any such thoughts are cast aside after Mark beckons him to stomp the brake and floor the gas into the first corner.
A jarring, reverberating crash sound effect is heard as Toby, having not even thought about countersteering, crashes into a building. A smile creeps across Cat’s face, but at least from Mark’s point of view, she isn’t doing that much better, relying on slipstreaming to gain power.
“Shit…” Toby mutters as he hears the timer count down from 10. Just as he steels himself for an embarrassing last-place finish, he drives by a wrecked drone. A dramatic chime is heard as the words “DI FIUMI HAS BEEN ELIMINATED” appear in the middle of the screen.
Wanting to fill up her power bar like Toby does, Cat tries to drift too, barely pulling it off on her first time with plenty of countersteer and bumping into a wall. That wall tap leads to last place for her, but not for long, as she quickly finds an opponent to use her power on. “ZHENG HAS BEEN ELIMINATED” signals Cat’s own close call as the last of the six drones bites the dust.
Of the two remaining human players, it’s a toss-up as to who will come out on top, and in which car. Will it be the nostalgic track toy, or the tail-happy prima donna?
Unfortunately for Toby, he was too busy drifting and wrecking drones to notice that drifting reduces a car’s speed, and Cat just happened to be taking the same corner in a decidedly less drifty way, giving her the upper hand—and the victory.
Both cars strike Cat and Toby as rather unassuming (the Kaiser’s ground-hugging taillights aside), but the two agree that they each have their own driving quirks, making them useful for either predominant play style.
Mark decides to switch things up a bit by having artist Calvin Dominguez go it alone in a round of Salvo mode, which has the usual rigged set pieces take a backseat in favour of a missile-laden attack helicopter. It’s a small blessing that the missiles are aimed at the road ahead of the player’s car, instead of directly at it.
A cluster of blue markers hovers over the road before turning an ominous red, which Calvin interprets as his cue to make the most of the Velocita’s agility. Lke clockwork, the missiles touch down on each of the markers in sequence, and the screen shakes as Calvin grazes one.
As the missiles rain down upon the track, they grow in numbers, with each successive wave beginning to lay a minefield of markers on the asphalt. Eventually, one too many close calls leads to a shockwave nudging the already-battered Velocita directly into a marker, resulting in its destruction.
The good news is that Calvin has two lives left. The bad news is that his wave survival streak is gone, and with it, his 4x score multiplier. As the missiles continue their barrage at the current intensity, Calvin quickly realizes the importance of preserving the initial streak.
Having to chart a route through each saturation strike on the fly, Calvin finds his heart race rising and his concentration falling. Before long, the message “ONE LIFE LEFT” puts everybody in the break room on edge as the soundtrack’s relentless drumbeats are now accompanied by the dissonant wail of what sounds like an air raid siren.
Eventually, the crash sound effect and the words “OUT OF LIVES” signal the end of the run, with Calvin having reached a score of 67,900 points.
“If it’s okay with you, Mark, I think I’ll step out for a few minutes.”
While Calvin leaves the break room to take a breather, Mark ponders the results of the round before confirming that in spite of their fragility, cars like the Velocita have a place in Salvo mode after all.
With the help of QA tester Jan Bergman, Mark is about to answer the question “What happens when you bring a truck to a supercar fight featuring the most skilled NPC opponents in the game?”
Plenty, at least according to Mark.
Since the car lineup hasn’t been finalized, the specific rival characters have yet to be fleshed out, so for this race, Jan is “merely” up against a grid of Elite-difficulty drones with regular contestant names.
Having only driven the drone car before, Jan is, like Mark, impressed with the Reaver’s acceleration. He gathers enough power through slipstreaming alone to wreck an opponent with a tour bus, before trying to speed the process up by drifting.
To Jan’s mild disappointment, it takes a bit more effort to swing the rear out, and when the wheels start spinning, the SUV’s speed drops off quite a bit. Luckily, he knows his way around some of the alternate routes, and decides to show the devs the fruits of their labour by sandwiching a few drones between a ship and a hard place.
As a pair of roof-mounted HVAC units explodes only metres away from the Reaver, Jan instinctively braces for the shockwave by countersteering, but finds that the truck has hardly budged, in contrast to a nearby drone that gets smashed apart against a trackside barrier. It’s now apparent to everyone that being weighed down works to the Reaver’s advantage, as the only traps that can touch it are those that do so in a literal sense.
Jan finishes in a respectable second place. The Reaver isn’t for everyone, but using it in a race is quite the experience nevertheless.
The most drifty car yet versus a game mode where time is of the essence, as is keeping the tail under control. What could go wrong?
Taking the reins yet again, Mark finds himself fighting not only the car’s natural urge to drift, but his own as well. With no power bar to fill, he finds it frustrating that even though the car slides so naturally, the only thing that’ll do is hurt its laptime.
To compound the problem, explosions try to shower the Hush in debris and push it off course, as the track itself seemingly tries to put an end to the lone car’s hotlap. It may seem frustrating on paper, but what good would a plain old time trial be in Reflex?
Heading into the sharp right-hander where the alternate route lies, Mark decides to drift just this once as the familiar under-construction building crumbles and blocks the regular route. The turn is tight enough that he’s genuinely unsure if not drifting would actually be slower. The others in the room are utterly unaware of such thoughts, only witnessing Mark gracefully burning rubber to preserve speed around a corner.
After crossing the finish line several seconds earlier than the target time, it’s evident to Mark that drifting isn’t the Hush’s only strength.
And with that, the testing session is over, and everyone begins to leave the break room, satisfied with today’s results. Mark in particular heads back to his cubicle, and begins typing up an email:
“After reviewing your submission for our in-development racing game, we are pleased to announce that you have been selected to model the remainder of the playable car lineup.”
Before the winner is revealed:
Post-race BGM (timestamped)
⬣ FINAL RESULTS
11th: @Ludvig
Not quite sure what the point of this entry was. (Please don’t be a shitpost, please don’t be a shitpost…)
10th: @UnderlovedGhost
As solid as the general idea is, its execution was… where do I begin? Actually, nowhere.
9th: @stayin_sus
Hypercars are supposed to turn heads, but not in the sense of one’s face tilting down to meet their open palm.
8th: @Rise_Comics
A rally car would’ve been interesting, but this one is rougher around the edges than the Kaiser.
7th: @DrDoomD1scord
The Zeron X is another intriguing concept whose execution is lacking.
6th: @Danicoptero
Ditto for the Kaiser, but to a lesser degree on both fronts.
5th: @Xepy
Stylistically misses the mark somewhat, but still makes an impression and sets an example.
4th: @DinnerKingDedede
A unique package with a few unconventional design decisions, some of which work to its benefit.
3rd: @Riley
The Velocita doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table, but nevertheless occupies its existing niche quite well.
2nd: @the-chowi
Although I’m a little disappointed that only one heavy vehicle was entered, the vehicle in question makes up for it.
1st: @azkaalfafa
The Hush is just the kind of vehicle I wanted to see in this challenge, with lots of detail to boot.
⬣ SPREADSHEET
⬣ AFTERWORD
Thanks to all who participated! I’ve been wanting to do something like this since I first participated in AGC 14 over two years ago, so when the opportunity came, I knew I had to seize it. Although there are a few things that I would’ve done differently in retrospect, I hope I was able to effectively convey the spirit of the one-of-a-kind arcade racer that is Split/Second in the format of an Automation challenge.
Oh, by the way, the game’s DLC cars and tracks are free on PC. Quarry in particular is an absolute blast (in more ways than one)!