INTERVIEW: VooFoo Studios discuss their upcoming top-down game Mantis Burn Racing

Mantis Burn Racing is currently in early access on Steam. During my time at EGX 2016 I got to play quite a few games, from AAA to indie, and one of those games was Mantis Burn Racing. Known mostly for Pure Hold ‘Em and Pure Pool, VooFoo’s next game is Mantis Burn Racing, a top-down, Micro Machines-esque racer powered by VooFoo’s fantastic physics engine, Mantis.

One of the most striking elements of Mantis Burn Racing is its visuals. As someone who has played a multitude of ID@Xbox top-down racers, such as Super Toy Cars and Grand Prix Rock N’ Racing, seeing a top-down racer for Xbox One with a decent team and budget behind it was a godsend. Mantis Burn Racing sports high-quality textures, lighting and physics destruction on objects such as fences as well as delivering solid, realistic feeling driving.

Each car also handles uniquely with the stats of various cars actually making a difference in how you play *cough* unlike a lot of other games *cough*. Each car does, however, feel fun to drive which is probably the most important feature in a game about, well, driving. Drifting around corners is fast and responsive and each car leaves large clouds of dust in their wake and tyres dig into the track, leaving deep tyre marks in the dirt as you race past your competitors.

Mantis Burn Racing also offers an RPG-style unlock system with each car having different amount of upgrade slots. By racing in these cars you can fill their upgrade slots and tweak the individual aspects of each vehicle to suit your play style and create your own unique variation of that vehicle. VooFoo claims that across the twenty-hour campaign mode (as well as local four-player co-op and online multiplayer) you will be able to create hundreds of thousands of variations to create your perfect ride.

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During my time at EGX, I also talked to a developer from VooFoo about the console version of Mantis Burn Racing. We’ve already covered some details of the interview such as VooFoo’s experience in developing cross-platform content between Xbox One and PS4 as well as Mantis Burn Racing being the only confirmed *native* 4K for PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio. Find out more information below.

Q: First of all, can you tell us what makes Mantis Burn Racing a bit different from the other top-down racers on Xbox One?

A: VooFoo, I don’t know if you know a lot about VooFoo, but our previous games have been kinda renowned for their graphical fidelity. So we were wondering about, I mean, when we started the project there was eight of us what kinda genre of game could we do with eight people, we’ve expanded since then, and make it look like a VooFoo game and, I love top-down racers. . . I was a big Micro Machines fan, Rock and Roll Racing, Skid Mark, Smash, all those games. There aren’t that many around and we wanted to make a really pretty top-down racer.

It uses our own physics engine that we use in the Pool game, so Pool games physics engines tend to have to be pretty rock solid. A lot of people look at it thinking it’s an arcade racer, which it is, but it’s based in real-world physics. Some people get on with it immediately but there’s also a learning curve.

Q: Is there customization in the vehicles or are there just standard, set cars for you to drive?

A: Yeah, there’s a huge level of customization. We’re calling it like an RPG style level of customization. So every vehicle in the game has got an amount of upgrade slots, there’s five different areas you can upgrade: engine, gearbox, suspension, tyres and boost and each vehicle has a different amount of slots. So, upgrades are actually infinite . . . you go down an XP line and they constantly come down the line. You in a slot and when you’ve filled in your slots it gives you the option to level up the vehicle which changes the appearance. The top vehicle’s got eighteen slots so we worked it out that you’ll be looking at three hundred thousand different upgrades.

Q: Can you go back to previous races with your upgrades unlocked and destroy your opponents?

A: Yep. So if you’re really struggling with one event—we’ve got a twenty-hour career mode so you can go back, upgrade your vehicle and just muller people. That was always the idea.

Q: What’s the target framerate and resolution for Xbox One?

A: For Xbox One, well, sixty frames per second, four-player split-screen, sixty frames, 1080p. I wouldn’t accept anything less. We’re also one of the three games in the world that’s currently spouting *native* 4K on PlayStation 4 Pro and, yeah, we’ll be supporting Xbox Scorpio as well.

Q: Why Mantis Burn Racing, is there something I’m missing?

A: Oh no, there’s actually a story here. So Mantis Burn, Mantis is built in our own engine, so Mantis Burn was the project name that we would replace when we thought of something better but close to the end of the project we thought “oh, we should probably think of a better name” and after two months we’ve added racing to the end. We couldn’t think of anything else we liked better.

Q: I overheard you talking to someone earlier about VooFoo actually getting working cross-platform play between Xbox One and PS4, is it okay if we can get a quote from you about that?

A: It’s actually easier to do than it is not. If we were ever told that we could make Xbox and PlayStation play with each other, technology-wise it’s not an issue.

Q: How easy was it, because you’re quite experienced developers, for even a really small indie, was it that easy to make PS4 and Xbox One play together?

A: Let’s just say we had to write code to make cross-play between platforms not work .We had to write code to make them not talk to each. It’s that easy.

Mantis Burn Racing is currently available on Steam Early Access right now for those who are interested with the 1080p/60fps console version coming later this year.