THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO PLAYED AND RATED OUR GAME!

We really appreciate this community and how enthusiastic you all are. There were so many amazing games made during this jam, it's a real honor to be amongst you all. Great job on all the hard work, and thanks for making the last two weeks a blast!

We have released a post-jam quality-of-life update for Rick Flannel's Stunt Coordinator Coordinator, you can play it on the itch page.

FIXES AND ADDITIONS

• Restarting tutorial missions will no longer make the dialogue repeat
• Animated dialogue portraits in the tutorial
• Level order has been changed so easier levels are sooner
• Out-of-bounds boundaries have been expanded slightly to make navigating the tracks a bit easier
• Donut levels are have lap objectives which will complete the level - no more infinite donuts
• Enhanced scoreboard with the ability to enter your initials, made it so best times are saved across the session. Fixed various issues with the scoreboard

As for the future of Rick Flannel, we do plan to continue to work on this game with the goal of releasing it on Steam. More updates soon!

In honor of Rick's big win, here are some fun facts about the creation and development of Stunt Coordinator Coordinator.

RICK FLANNEL - A LOOK AT THE MAN BEHIND THE GLASSES

We had a lot of ideas at the brainstorming stage, from John Wick inspired games where the player controls the mobs of dying henchmen to a game where you play as a bouncer at a show keeping crowdsurfers off the stage (we came very close to going with this idea). Our previous games are more story-driven, so we set a goal early to focus on gameplay that was both achievable (for us) and fun. This ultimately led us to pursue a little idea known simply as STUNT COORDINATOR COORDINATOR.

As far as the artistic and stylistic direction of the game, we began to establish that almost immediately. While we were still brainstorming, I doodled a little stunt guy and a legend was born. The name came immediately: Rick Flannel. We asked ourselves if this was a hero the people could rally behind. You all let us know emphatically that he was. But even in the early stages, we sorta felt Rick was special. "Rick's gonna change our lives," I thought.

Once we had Rick Flannel and his famous mustache, the rest of the late 80's vibe came naturally. Probably our biggest inspiration for art, music and gameplay came from Hotline: Miami, from the bangin' beats to the quick, replayable levels. We knew going in this direction would require some bangin' beats of our own, but frequency.data jumped at the chance to make some old school synthwave tracks that really helped make all the elements of the game feel cohesive.

Our first gameplay concept was simple: make a bowling alley lane but with a car instead of a bowling ball. The original idea was that levels would be based around launching the stuntcar into a bunch of destructible objects and tally a score, we'd keep it simple and let the physics engine make it fun and unpredictable. The game was like this for a few days as we wrestled with the physics engine. It was not always pretty. To all you who managed to get good working explosions into your game, my hat is off to you. I failed miserably and at one point thought the entire project was DOOMED! 

Eventually some communal brainstorming gave birth to a key mechanic: powersliding. This was a gamechanger for sure. Once that was implemented and we saw how fun it was, the direction and objective of the game changed into what you all played!

Our other big breakthrough was the treadmarks. I estimate that 30% of our development time was spent on getting the tire treads to look right. After some early rotational issues, we finally got a working prototype. This is when I think we started to feel like the game might have some legs.

Going in a gameplay-centric direction, we knew story would take a backseat. Instead we focused on making a cast of memorable characters who players could choose from. We are big fans of fighting games and hero/champion shooters so we wanted to mimic the feeling of finding a cool character you vibe with. We unfortunately did not have time to develop individual kits/driving styles for each driver but it's something we will look at for the future. Building the character select screen felt like a waste of work in the last days of the jam, but it paid off for sure. We all instantly became fans of particular drivers and we hoped the players would as well.

Stuntdriver MVP Poll - Roughnight Crowned Fan-Favorite

Speaking of characters and fans, we ran a poll to find out who everyone's favorite stuntdriver was. Our two leading ladies took 50% of the vote, with PNW native Blance Roughnight barely beating out teen-star Rutabaga Flam!

Thanks to everyone who voted! Here's some trivia about a few of our characters:

Character Trivia

Omicron Nickelback

Omicron is based on the late, great Carl Weathers. We are huge Arrested Development fans and Carl was such a huge part of the era the game takes place in. We slipped a few references from Arrested Development into his bio as well as a pretty overt one in his name (Omicron Nickelback vs. Apollo Creed). Mr. Weathers taught us not to throw anything away, that with a few simple ingredients you can get a stew going. I think we succeeded in getting a stew going here. RIP Carl!

Blance Roughnight

MVP winner Blance Roughnight was designed based on Geena Davis's look in Thelma & Louise. Geena Davis actually sorta makes a second cameo during the Oscar scene after beating the game. The image in the background is taken from the 1989 Academy Awards, and the two pictured presenters are about to read Geena Davis's name as the winner of the Best Supporting Actress for The Accidental Tourist! I am (obviously) a big fan of hers, and of Roughnight. The first name Blance was inspired by another gem of the 80's, Blanche from The Golden Girls.

Rick Flannel

I didn't intend it but Brock Samson must have subconsciously inspired Rick's updated design.

Secret Playable Character

There is a secret playable character in the game, accessible from the Character Select screen. Here is the clue to find them: We are fans of a particular 1990's thriller starring one Sandra Bullock, and it is not Speed.

THANK YOU

Thank you again for your support and feedback over the last week. This community is amazing, we really had a great time playing your games, chatting with you on stream and in Discord. Congrats to everyone who participated!