[MKWii] Turbo Jam Tracks

Timestamps:
0:10 Intro
0:44 Seaside Dash
3:33 Rocky River Frenzy
6:40 Stardust Pathway

After putting more unplanned projects before this one, here’s my first “new” tracks in almost a whole year! 1 to 2 years ago I participated in a few Turbo Jams, a spinoff competition of the Custom Track Jams, where the goal is to make a track in roughly 2-3 hours, with a theme and a restriction or twist. Is it actually possible to make a functional track in such a short time span? You’d be surprised. I know I can’t. xD

I never shared these tracks as they were very unpolished and basically non functional. If they at the least had the starting point put properly that is saying a lot. However as you’ve seen, I’m clearing out my modding backlog by releasing and updating stuff, and these tracks were next on the list. These are extremely simplistic tracks, so they mostly just needed to be a little prettier and actually functional, but I took my time to make sure they’re at least somewhat worthwhile. Read on to know more details of each track!

Seaside Dash: Created for the first ever Turbo Jam (December 2020), with the theme of Tropical + requirement of adding the bouncy mushrooms. It got 10th place out of 11, due to the fact the course was exactly at Y coordinate 0, where the game forces an automatic fall boundary, making the course unplayable. It’s a simple figure-8 with mushrooms throughout. This track lacked basically everything, so I repainted some vertex colors, added some extra modeling to make it feel more complete, and tried to adjust the mushrooms to a more doable layout. Making a turn out of mushrooms is actually a pretty terrible idea. The gameplay thus remains very wonky, but with such a basic idea and layout there wasn’t much else to do about it.

Rocky River Frenzy: The more complete track of the 3 in its original state. Created for the second Turbo Jam (December 2020), with the theme of Rock + twist that your model could not exceed 1000 triangles, where it placed 3rd. The idea was that the jungle section of the course would have rocks falling on the road, however I couldn’t get them working on time. As you may tell, I put some extra care into this one, because I always thought the idea was cool. I added some slight decoration, changed it to sunset, got the rocks working, added the Koopa Cape propellers on the river and a speed modifier to make it even more of a frenzy. I’m pretty proud of this one’s revamp, and it’s actually pretty fun to play. I worked with shaders for a multi layered skybox, and edited the Toad audience to be Yoshis, since I was on a roll with the model edits a few weeks ago. 😛

Stardust Pathway: Created for the 10th Turbo Jam (May 2021) with the theme of Debris + requirement of utilizing custom objects created by Whipinsnapper, the founder of Turbo Jams, where it placed dead last out of 9 entries. This was due to the track being entirely non-functional in both Dolphin AND Wii. How did I achieve such a feat? I presume it was the course model, that was created in BrawlCrate as a version 9 BRRES and not a version 11, which is the only version MKWii accepts. You can tell I was going Turbo on that Jam. :V

Anyway, this course is blatantly inspired by Space Junk Galaxy, utilizing textures from it and the skybox model of said galaxy from MKWii’s Galaxy Colosseum! Nintendo smeared an ugly coat of blue over the original one with shaders, so it’s hard to tell the colors are supposed to be Space Junk. As this track basically had nothing working other than the octoombas, the custom object by Whipin, it was a matter of actually finishing the course. I slapped some vertex colors, made a more detailed collision and voila. The debris theming was perfect for using Space Junk as a setting, something I wanted to do for a long time. Despite the simplicity, I find the track kind of satisfying to play, especially after the long metal road. You can pull off some small cuts here and there.

All of these tracks have intro cameras, but not replay ones, I may add those on future updates. They all also work on hardware just fine. Personally, I’d only play the last two, but they’re a bit fun to drive. There’s something liberating about making a track for the hell of it and not worrying about standards or consistency. That is how CTs started all the way in 2010, after all. In a way, the sloppy visuals and basic gameplay give me that vibe. I don’t see myself participating in future Turbo Jams though, as it can be pretty nervewracking in the moment. Nonetheless, these CTs still hold some of the love I put into all my creative effort, in spite of their contrast to my usual work.

If you actually read all of this, thank you, and I hope you enjoy the tracks!

Downloads:
Seaside Dash: https://wiki.tockdom.com/wiki/Seaside_Dash
Rocky River Frenzy: https://wiki.tockdom.com/wiki/Rocky_River_Frenzy
Stardust Pathway: https://wiki.tockdom.com/wiki/Stardust_Pathway

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