Dirt Garden - Modded map for Descenders.
Project Summary
Descenders is a downhill mountain biking game where players race through challenging tracks, perform daring stunts, and compete for the best times and scores. With a focus on skillful riding.
This was my first-ever project. I started working on it because I had hurt my shoulder and had to stay home. I saw that people had made their own custom modded maps for descenders, and I wanted to try making one too. I was trying to recreate a trail that my friends and I had built in my friend’s backyard.
Before diving into this analysis, I encourage you to watch the video below, which shows my project from a player’s perspective.
Creation Process
After instaling Unity 2017 and importing assets from descenders modding documentation page, I’ve starded building my map. I’ve had couple problems at the beginning, I didn’t know why my object don’t have collision, why the terrain is white, even though I’ve put texture on it. I’ve had many beginner problems like this ones.
After a few weeks and watching some tutorials, I started to understand how things worked. I began creating trails and testing them out. I grasped the key components and learned how to use Unity’s terrain editor. It turned out to be quite enjoyable to create all of this.
I wasn’t familiar with 3D modeling, and using Blender seemed really hard to me. So, instead of making shapes from scratch, I put together different objects to achieve the desired result.
While working on one trail, I constantly considered where to position the next one and how to make it blend well with the surroundings. What really came to my aid was the ‘RandomSpawn.cs‘ script, which was created by a member of the Descenders modding community.
This script allowed me to scatter multiple spawn points across the map, ensuring that players would spawn randomly at one of these points. This was especially helpful for a map with numerous independent trails.
In a short span of time, I completed Version 1.0 of the map. It wasn’t anywhere close to being perfect or finished, it had its fair share of bugs and imperfections. Some issues included texture resolutions not matching well and oddly colored trees that appeared more blue than green.
Despite these shortcomings, it marked a solid beginning and served as an excellent foundation for future updates.
After that, I continued to focus on enhancing my skills in level designing. I made several updates to Dirt Garden, addressing various bugs and enhancing both the gameplay experience and visual appeal of the map.
With each update, I took a moment to compare it to the previous versions of the project, amazed at how much progress I had made each time.
Project Features
The map includes 13 trails with various levels of difficulty and riding styles. Players will come across large jumps, a huge jump over a crashed UFO, a skatepark inspired by a real place, and a small section designed to help players learn the game technique known as the ‘moon jump’.
What sets this map apart is that whether you’re a beginner or a pro, you’ll discover trails that match your riding level and style. Beginners can improve their skills by progressing from easier trails to more challenging ones.
This guide below displays the different trails on the map along with their respective difficulty levels.
Value Of The Project
I was surprised by the positive reception from the community for this map right from the beginning, even though when I look at it now, it’s clear that it had its flaws. This was during the peak of Descenders’ popularity.
Link to the project page: Dirt Garden
The map was released over three years ago, and it’s impressive to note that it currently holds the 9th place among the most downloaded maps, boasting a significant 40,000 downloads and a solid rating of 84%.
The map is accessible on both Windows and Mac/OSX platforms, ensuring that it provides an inclusive experience for a wider range of players.
Several videos were created featuring my map, with one particularly popular video showcased at the beginning having garnered over 5 million views. I’ve also included a few more videos below for you to check out.
If you have any questions I will be glad to answer them.
I’m always open to talk about new projects, creative opportunities and how I can help you.