If you’ve played a karting game on the Xbox, there is a very good chance that Alex De Nittis (and 3DClouds, the company he works for) designed it. From Race with Ryan to PAW Patrol Grand Prix, he’s donned his racing gloves and helped to create an absolute boot-load.
This month, 3DClouds and Outright Games have added Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart to that list, and we took the opportunity to green shell Alex De Nittis long enough to chat.
Hi, could you please introduce yourself and your role on Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart?
My name is Alex De Nittis and I am the Game Designer for Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart.
Could you give us a quick rundown of the game?
This is the first ever kart racing game based on Gigantosaurus, one of the most popular kids’ dinosaur series. We have 15 tracks across three different locations fans are going to recognise, the Savannah, Jungle, and Mount Oblivion. We wanted to give plenty of ways for everyone to play so there are 3 different race modes including “Adventure” and “Play with Friends’ ‘ which allows up to 4 players to play on the same couch.
There are up to 8 playable characters including the core-4, Rocky, Bill, Tiny, and Mazu and different skills that you can use to slow down your opponents to win races, different natural obstacles such as geysers or falling stones, shortcuts to discover. The big guy himself, Giganto also makes appearances on the tracks to knock you off your course!
There are so many karting games in 3DCloud’s past, almost all aimed at younger players – PAW Patrol Grand Prix, Fast & Furious Racers: Rise of Sh1ft3r, Race with Ryan. How have you approached each one? What do you aim to bring that the last one did not?
With Outright Games, we’ve been able to work on a number of unique, global leading brands and we always look to find elements within the IP that would translate well to the genre.
The world of Gigantosaurus is especially well suited for a video game adaptation, as the characters already have their own unique and incredible vehicles within the show. We were also given the challenge of animating these pre-historic locations that are very different to our previous games and create different kart designs for the different characters.
Over these past few years our collaborations with Outright Games have become a lot more ambitious and offer room for new functions in gameplay, design and accessibility features to make sure each game improves and evolves from the last.
What is the secret to making a good karting game for a young player?
It’s a mixture of a few different elements; on the one hand it needs to be visually appealing for a younger player; both in terms of the art direction and character designs. It also needs a careful balance of being enough of a challenge to be rewarding to play, but not so challenging that they become frustrated.
We also have found that young children enjoy playing games with their families and elder siblings as equals, which is why we always include different difficulty levels and co-op in our games.
What motivates you when it comes to making karting games? Moving from one to the other could easily get stale. Is there a north star in particular that the team chases?
As a studio, our background is in creating kart racers and we have lots of experience making them for different ages that are tied to licensed and original IPs. It helps that our team really love the genre and when working on any new project, we always try to find something from the outset that will make the game unique.
For us, having dinosaurs in race karts was a very fun twist on the genre that we loved working on.
How much does the team know about a series like Gigantosaurus before they take it on? Do you all sit down for team Gigantosaurus marathons together?
We were familiar with the brand prior to starting the project and especially with Outright Games previous game, Gigantosaurus: The Game. However we did our own research into the franchise, including watching key episodes like “Racing Giganto” from season 1, which was a big inspiration for the concept.
We were also lucky enough to directly work with Cyber Group Studios, the creators of the animated series; they provided us with a lot of raw assets to create characters, vehicles and soundtracks and were very supportive of the vision for the game throughout.
One of the most noticeable differences in Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart is the use of height in the tracks. It adds so much to the racing. Is that something you really wanted to aim for?
Adding different levels of verticality along the tracks was something we definitely wanted to do for this game to really capture the epic adventure feel of the show. It was a natural fit given the series features towering dinosaurs and fans would be eager to see Giganto himself in all his glory. We can really show off the scale of Giganto and Spinosaurus – two huge dinosaurs that appear in specific points of tracks to wreak havoc on the race – at different angles. But equally it added a new dimension to the gameplay that makes it more fun to play.
Do you get the chance to see younger players enjoying your games? How much does watching how they play inform your decisions?
Arranging play tests with kids is one of the most crucial parts of our creative process and is something we do before we start fully developing the games.
The biggest challenge of the project has always been to be able to adapt certain gameplay mechanics to make them accessible to a very young target audience, so play-testing with children allows us to monitor things like, how they hold and use controllers, how quickly they react to obstacles and how they go about steering and adapt the game accordingly.
Accessibility is clearly so important to the team, with the inclusion of the auto-drive mode in particular. Our four-year old couldn’t play without it. How did it come about? Are there more accessibility improvements you aim to bring in?
Autopilot functions were actually something that came about thanks to playtesting with children in the target age group. We noticed that some of the functions needed to drive around the tracks, like accelerating the karts and turning in time can be quite a challenge for young players, especially those still getting used to holding controllers and taking in the game information. Autopilot is great because it allows players to further simplify the driving phase and children to get to know the game at their own pace without missing out on the fun of the race.
Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart has other accessibility features included, such as instant race mode and tips both written on screen and read aloud by Mazu, for children who are still learning to read.
Four-player split-screen is something that we take for granted in your games. How hard is it to get it right?
In our opinion, split-screen is the best option for kids games, be it two player to game alongside a parent, or four player to bring in more of the family. It allows everyone to see what the other players are doing and younger players, who are getting to grips with the gameplay, can learn how to play the game in new ways. This will improve their overall skill level, help them level up their gameplay and stop them getting frustrated or bored.
There are of course technical challenges in making sure everything runs well and is stable, but it’s a priority that we ensure this is smooth and fully functional when we get it in the hands of our players.
It’s notable that there are no character-specific powers in Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart – something you have done in other games. What made it the wrong fit?
The game features 8 different skills that players can use regardless of the characters they’re playing as. Our personal favourite is the Giganto Roar, which, as the name suggests, consists of a roar capable of slowing down all opponents in a certain distance range. We also have a jetpack mode that activates on certain sections of the tracks. From our perspective it allows everyone a chance to use these really fun powers and not have any youngsters feel like they’re missing out on the best power-ups.
What’s the secret to creating a great karting weapon?
We would say a mixture of simplicity and creativity can be an asset, like the Giganto Roar; it’s a simple skill that can cause a lot of disruption to players, but keeps the game fun and not frustrating for players.
What are the obstacles to bringing games like Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart online? We would imagine it’s been discussed a lot.
Online games and modes for playing seems to be a very quite standard in gaming nowadays.
Talking about obstacles, the main ones are of course related to the technical support. The game itself should be crafted keeping this feature in mind all along the production – risky, if you think that it might let us lose the focus on the “family-centred” approach to games. In fact, ignoring all technological limits that we handled well in titles like Fast & Furious Racers: Rise of Sh1ft3r, we focused on the offline modes because there is one place where family can really stay together: the couch at home, in front of the TV.
If you think about Party games or even board games, that feeling of sitting together, sharing the experience, the connecting relationships brought in the room is something that works greatly by playing kart games. So the aim was clear: instead of having headphones and microphones, you can laugh, talk or even yell at your opponent’s right beside you, something that you cannot achieve playing online.
And finally, outside of your own games (obviously), what’s the greatest kart game of all time?
AT 3DClouds we’ve always been huge fans of the genre – Mario Kart it’s always been an example to take a look at (I’m still in love with Double Dash!! and Super Circuit).
Recently I’ve been racing again in the CTR championships, another great example, but also the new take for KartRider – Drift is another great example that takes classical kart mechanics and puts them back in the present times. It’s too hard to pick just one!
Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart is out now on Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. The Xbox Store is the best place to grab a download.
If you have a racer who is in the venn diagram of ‘likes Gigantosaurus’ and ‘likes karting’ then you should absolutely pick it up. We gave it a 3.5/5 in review, so feel comfortable with picking it up.
Huge thanks go out to Alex and 3DClouds for giving us some of his time.
