art of rally Interview – Art Style, Development, and More

art of rally has been out for over a year at this point, and though it wasn’t exactly the most high profile release when it came out, Funskeletor Labs’ rally racer has amassed quite the fanbase. Since its PC launch, it has also launched for Xbox consoles and Switch, and been made available via Xbox Game Pass, which means the strong word of mouth for the game has been bolstered even further by availability on more platforms. Recently, art of rally became available on PS5 and PS4 as well, and to talk a little bit about the game, its development, and its future, we sent across some of our questions to its developers. Below, you can read our conversation with art of rally developer Dune Casu.

"The plan was to bring it to consoles at the PC launch and we had already partnered with the porting company Do Games, but my team was so small at the start of 2020 that it was a big effort bringing on more developers and producers before launch just to finish the PC version!"

art of rally has a very distinct visual aesthetic- how did you land on this look for the game?

It was meant to be a minimalistic take on nature, like our previous game Absolute Drift which has very clean and start colors similar to Mirror’s Edge. The goal with art of rally was to be an evolution of this and it first followed the low-poly aesthetic that has become more popular in recent years.

But after the game The Witness came out, I was enamoured by its stylized vegetation and colors which was big turning point for the aesthetic of the game. The focus then became lush grass, smooth terrain and flatter coloring and bushy trees, which took years to evolve until launch.

Was it always the plan to bring the game to more platforms following its PC launch or was it something that came about due to demand from players?

The plan was to bring it to consoles at the PC launch and we had already partnered with the porting company Do Games, but my team was so small at the start of 2020 that it was a big effort bringing on more developers and producers before launch just to finish the PC version!

This was a blessing in disguise as the launch would have been much more chaotic and we could focus on making improvements and updates to the PC version from player feedback, so the console version was even better version of the game when it launched this year.

"There are so many parameters of the car handling, and trying to fix one behaviour usually affects other parts of the handling, so you have to keep a high-level view of the handling while making changes."

art of rally strikes a solid balance between being accessible and newcomer-friendly while having the sort of mechanical depth one can pour hours into. How hard was it to find that balance during the game’s development?

From years before release, there have been a lot of players helping test the game and give feedback on the handling. There were more hardcore racing players that are very good at all racing games, so they could give very good feedback about minute details. And there was also feedback from racing developer friends and the public PC demo.

But the process was difficult and there were changes in the handling in the month before launch, so it was very down to the wire! There are so many parameters of the car handling, and trying to fix one behaviour usually affects other parts of the handling, so you have to keep a high-level view of the handling while making changes.

art of rally has a lot in common with your previous game, Absolute Drift. What lessons did you take from that game into art of rally’s development?

A big change was the refined car handling to make it more predictable and we also added many more settings for handling, gameplay and other areas of the game like graphics so players could customize it to their needs.

We did carry over the freeroam mode of Absolute Drift as a relaxing place to practice your skills without consequences and to explore a fun little world finding collectibles along the way.

Another was to keep the game simple and minimalist with a focus on the gameplay.