The Trimble Always On Track trade show booth game used a custom arcade control to put players in the shoes of a construction company building a NASCAR track.  Our client, Trimble, sells GPS equipment that enables engineers to plot the grade of a surface in the computer and transmit that data to automated equipment. This game was intended to showcase how much simpler it is to let the GPS handle grading. The closer they are to the desired grade, the more their auto-drive meter fills up. When full, the auto-drive system takes over for a few seconds giving them perfect results.

In the first round, players try to match the slope of the track’s grade desired by the engineer. Proper grade keeps the cars from slipping sideways as they race around the track.

In the second, the player must align as closely as possible to the line of uncompressed asphalt. Going over compressed asphalt or missing uncompressed asphalt would result in dips and peaks that could throw a car off the track.

If the player did well, the car would race around the track a full speed.

If the player didn’t do so well, the car would spin, fishtail, its tires would smoke, and sparks would fly!

Initial Mockups for the game

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In-progress shot of the track.

Here is the target video I created in After Effects.

Shots of the trade show setup with custom-built control stand.

I created target videos and designed the basis of the gameplay, wrote design documentation for approval by the client, gray boxed and built the track, rigged the car, set up and lit the scene, laid out the UI to be, imported and setup all the assets, and created the shader that allowed the players to see how they did. Created in the Shader Forge plugin, the track blends finished and unfinished layers with a mask that shows previous work on the track and a mask that the programmer created based on the player’s position during play. We went with an on-rails system to minimize the reliance on physics and reduce the number of controls the player would have to manage.