TLDR; paude.racing
So a couple weeks ago, around September 28th, 2026, while out for a walk and thinking about an upcoming game release, I had an idea.
The idea was racing a vehicle that consisted of nothing more than two jet engines joined by a magnetic coupler, and then strapping a pilot to them with two tethers. The whole things uses anti-gravity technology to avoid friction, and pure thrust to move. I saw something like it in a movie once.
And there was a big AAA Star Wars Galactic Racing coming out that I was impatient to play. So I wanted to do something similar, with a twist.
The hook here is that each jet engine would have independent vectors for thrust control, allowing for a wide variety of control combinations. It’s something different that what folks are used to, but ultimately it works pretty well (IMHO).
So with the basic idea in mind, and my social media feed filled with what folks were able to do with Claude 5.5, I got to writing….
And we were off.
The first tests went fairly well, and after about 15-20 minutes of fiddling, it started to feel a lot better actually driving the thing. Performance was solid, and I could get an actual feeling from the racing. The playtest prototype felt right, so it was time to go.
You can see in the changelog the pace of development. By the end of the first day, we had our Split-screen working, results/standings and a few basic fun features. LAN and Internet multiplayer (the latter largely still not battle tested), came quickly after.
We’d also settled on what a “paude” is…a person sitting in a computer gaming chair holding a controller, with a headset, strapped to two floating jet engines.
We didn’t get our snorricam close-up until much later, but here’s the general idea….
Next we started adding new tracks and AI opponents (three skills level, I’ll let you play the game to see the self-referential rankings Claude came up with).
I was very bothered by the default font, so we designed a new one called “Aeonic”.
We were going for the retro-futuristic feel of a highly advanced but stagnating society, consumed by entertainment, corruption and psuedo-death sports (eventually we realized that “Paude Racing” was so dangerous, pilots had to clone themselves to participate. This happened right around the design of “Betelgeuse Run” which takes plane of the surface of red giant star.)
As the script that created it indicates…
That removed one of the most annoying things about the early versions for me, the bland font.
Next we added a few more levels. One inspired by the movie “Interstellar” and another one modeled on the actual Moon. My son had the idea about the sharks. Very fun. Don’t let them eat you.
We added our settings screen and kept at it with the QOL improvement. Current version:
Next up we added some mobile controls. I’d still recommend that one use a controller via bluetooth, but in a pinch they work on both iPad and mobile phone.
I went with the oblong shape, because one needs to go full left and right much more often than up and down. We simulated the trigger pulling with time spent holding the button (longer, higher thrust), so you lose quite a bit in touch feel, but it “works”.
Then we did some more level reworks and really honed in on controller support for all the menus. All settings (and there’s a bunch) really should work quite intuitively with a controller.
About a week in we added the records for time, jumps, speed, and ejections. We are using “blobs” to store it all (i.e. text files on a server), localStorage is used for user name/tunings. We’ll probably do accounts and auth soon, but probably after there’s *some* interest (if that happens).
Did our first performance pass about a week in. We’d added the speed effects and lots of UI tweaks, so it was time to see if we could find some efficiencies, and we did.
Next we finally revisited the sound engine, which hadn’t been touched since 0.1. Added more sound effects (later updated again) and announcers.
Announcers have been fun, but need some work. I’ve just been flying the “writing” is weak. Reached out to someone, so we’ll see if they can punch it up a bit. There’s some giggles there, but it’s pretty hit or miss. Yes, that’s my voice for one of them. I used ElevenLabs voice cloning tech for my voice, and some other ones I’ve been using (for haikuthenews.ai). Everything was done with v4 while they were doing a free API promo, so I went a bit nuts there. There’s some variety, but I want more.
Then we added “ghosts”. These are recordings of other runs. The AI racers aren’t *bad* but they aren’t good, either (note: will be doing another pass to improve them soon, so this might change). So for solo play, ghosts are where you will find a challenge (at least until I make a “game” out of this…we’re getting closer in my design headspace, as it were). You can race up to four ghosts at one, the Track Record, the Custom Track Record, your Personal Best and your Custom Personal Best. The ‘custom’ label is for custom tunings, which can be used to do all sorts of stuff.
I made it so I can filter the results for only “stock” runs, although what that means has changed a bit as I’ve tweaked a few default settings. HIGHLY recommend you turn down the thrust to about 30 when learning the controls.
We added a VR mode.
It works. It’s not amazing. Fun fact: your phone is probably a passable VR device once strapped into one of those headset thingies.
I may spend more time tuning the VR, but I was able to complete some laps and races with it, which was enough for now.
Then I read some of the stuff in the settings, and did a quick search online to realize that the speed of sound might actually be in reach for the paude racers. I created the Hella Drome (nee: velodrome), cranked up the default thrust and cut the default air resistance. Then, with a tweak to Dive Gap Cut (i.e the % of air resistance you can avoid by pushing forward on the stick to lower the height of your engines) one could then go faster than the speed of sound in the game. So we created a visual and sound effect for when that happens.
Next we added some more finish line flair, and then it was on to the textures.
Up until…three days ago (feels like a month), we were only using shaders. So we whipped up a quick texture skill and applied that to a number of tracks. This introduced some performance questions, but provided an unquestionable visual upgrade. I’m not saying the desert is “photorealistic” but damn, a couple textures and some light do wonders.
Then we added soundtracks. I’m quite happy with them. A few are bumping fun. I’ll get an OST page put together before too long. They are all good “driving/running” songs. We should have music for every track except the Hella Drome. I kind a want one, but have to add the “fade out” for it…we’ll see.
Then we added the start-up minigame (get the right fuel mix and get a boost to start at the race) and our “Snorricam” finish shot. This is a fun one, and is a great set-up for customizable avatars and high-level clones (coming at some point, part of the “game” in ye olde headspace).
Finally, we added the Benchmark Tool. It’s just about exactly what I wanted, a way to document if we start screwing up performance, a way to showcase the game, and for folks to get a sense of how it work on their own machine.
Also, we made this tutorial video:
We are going to do an updated version before putting it live, but this one was nice enough for this blog post.
A few other tweaks and fixes…but overall…just an absolutely insane two weeks. Last year I started a game with Gemini that grew into roguevibe.app, which has also been a blast…but I hit an agentic wall with that one, fairly quickly (like two days in).
This time? There’s no wall. At least I haven’t found it yet. Let me give you an example. My level designer is a text box.
Here’s “The Mobius Strip” prompt:
Ok, now we need to get back to level design. This one is going to be a challenge. Please review the available information , skills, and assets we have for level design. This track is going to be called “The Mobius Strip”. And the idea is, well, a mobius strip, floating in space. The background should be interstellar and spectacular, bordering on the sublime. The racers will race around one side of the surface of the track, then they gradually flip around, then race around the other side of the surface, and kind of flip around again, and then come back to the beginning. That’ll be one lap. I’ll assume you are familiar with the topography here.
So, here’s the twists. This is going to be like our “Rainbow Road”, in the sense that it’s the “finale” track (at least for our MVP). It’s going to be mobius strip shaped, but it’s going to be rainbow colored. As it’s floating in space, it will be much wider that the other tracks. Each of the “lanes” will be one color of the rainbow, each with a different theme.
We want the whole thing to be quite “wavy”. So it will be like a small hill on one side, and then a dip on the other (as both sides of the surface will be used for racing*). We want fun jumps, but need to be mindful of how we are applying gravity (always towards the surface of the mobius strip).
The Red lane, on the far left, will be our “fire” lane. We can use elements from Betelgeuse Run. I would like it to have the wavy plasma texture of that track, and also spawn fire tornados that wander across the entire track.
The Orange lane, next from the left, will be our “Megacity” lane. It will have some boosts and a jump (like before the wavy “dips”). Mostly it will be a flat “safe” lane (wth the Megacity neon color scheme).
The Yellow lane will be more like rolling sand dunes, soft, but with some bounce, more like the land above the canyon on Red Rock Canyon than the road in the canyon. Include some rocks.
The Green lane will be like “Canopy Run”, with our dirt path and some vines across it. Also, some Mushrooms scattered about (little ones for decoration, and then two of the Dancing ones that the “Paudes” can bounce off of).
The Blue lane will be like ‘Thalassa Run”, waves that increase in size, although I think here we’ll have to do a start at 5m and top off at 10m (and again, they will be “troughs” on the other “side” of The Mobius Strip). The water will be the texture. The wave the moving surface shape of the lane.
The Indigo lane will be like the “Spindle City” track. Swooping generally, with a large gap to jump over. Just one this time. Large enough to fall though if the player misses the jump before it.
Finally, the Violet lane. This will be like the surface of the Moon. Just the craters and a few bumps. This one might need volume on both sides. *This is our exception.
Ok…let’s see if we can put that together. Please let me know if you have any questions. I know it’s a lot.
You can play in my imagination now too.
BTW, guess how long ago I learned that “racing” was a TLD? Yeah…two weeks.
One sprint.
